Durarara Season 2 ~ Episode 2 [The Orihara family is scary!]

The best and worst thing about covering a show like Durarara is that so much happens in each and every episode. It’s a series that does not screw around, miss and episode and you will be totally lost for the rest of the damn series. How many plot points did we cover this episode? about 7 or eight.

We kick up the episode with the Dollars chat room. It took me a minute to remember who everyone was in the chat room. Kanra [Izaya] seeing Celty enter the chat room sends a link to a video. With a video, offering a VERY LARGE REWARD for the identity of the headless rider. We’re told that reveling the identity is impossible and we cut to Shinra stuck in a ball of blackness. Very obviously made by Celty, then he TURNS TO THE AUDIENCE AND BEGINS EXPLAINING HOW HE ENDED UP IN THAT SITUATION.

The fourth wall breaking is strong with this one.

So along with not only explaining that, we get a lot of the rest of the on going events shown to us at well. First though, Shinra. He gets sucked into a ball with Celty and has her money problems explained to him. They talk it out and she gets out of the ball with him. Then he makes some perverted comments and gets stuck in the ball we saw him in, in the first place. She leaves on a job and in the ball.

Meanwhile, it’s Raira academy’s first day back at school. New students include, Izaya Orihara’s sisters. Oh dear lord my prayers are with this school. Maybe it stay standing through having two Orihara’s attending. Also, this guy. Aoba who seems to know a little more about everything then he lets on. He knows Mikado and suspects that he’s one of the ‘higher up’s’ in the Dollars. I’ve got my eye on him, he seems like a rather interesting kind of guy. Mikado buys his silence about being a member of the Dollars by giving him a tour of Ikebukuro.

GOOD thing he has experts Erika and Walker to tell him and show him all the hot places to go. Anri and him ask Erika and Walker for help over karaoke. However, because this is Durarara and if there weren’t a 100 plot points going on a second i’d be upset. Also at the karaoke bar is Shinra’s dad Shingen talking to this suspicious looking guy.
We also learn that Saika, the sword that lives inside of Anri has started vocalizing it’s thoughts from time to time to her.

You think this is a lot going on already? Wait, there’s more! Later in the episode, or is it earlier. Time skips around so much in this show we see the guy that was talking to Shingen fighting what looks like a zombie in the park where Shizuo and Tom are taking a smoke break. The blonde guy grabs the case of money that Tom and Shizuo had probably just collected off some poor guy and uses it to hit the zombie. Shizuo, doing that thing that he does picks up the bench that Tom was sitting on and sends both the blonde guy and the zombie flying through the air.

Now lets double back to the Orihara sisters. Before we get to them at school we see a scene of Izaya talking about them with Namine [aka, his slave.] and telling her about their twisted personalities. Namine comments that she hopes that they don’t get bullied. Izaya says he doubts it, but he feels bad for anyone that does bully them.

Speaking of bullying, we cut to the younger sisters[Mairu’s] desk with a bunch of graffiti written on it. She looks around the room, locates the person that smiles. Back flips onto them, and threatens to pour tacks in their mouth until they say who the ring leader is. Naturally, the girl spills who it is to her and she takes the girl out of the classroom to the girls bathroom.

At a slightly later time, we see the same graffiti on the other sisters [Kururi’s] desk. Aoba rats out the people who did it probably much to Kururi’s surprise.

The girls that did the bullying approach Aoba later and ask him why he ratted them out. He says that between siding with the hot, busty, shy, mysterious girl and a bunch of vapid idiots writing on a girls desk was a no choice at all. Then one of the girls bags sets on fire. He’s talked to by the teachers and goes to leave the school.
The Orihara siblings approach him and thank him for what he said and did, they thank him…with a kiss, both of them do. [Maybe…if I bribe them with Shizuo’s brother, they could get me a kiss from their brother] He also questions if they planted some…things in the girls bags. They say it’s a secret, but come on. Let’s be honest with ourselves here they Orihara’s. Of course they did.

So, later in the time line. The sisters are out searching for Celty from last episode. GOD ordering the time line here is a pain but I’ll see if I can try at the end of this review. They find the money that she lost, then, the guy that Shizuo just threw. Not the zombie, but the blonde one comes crashing down half dead. The sisters ask if they can do anything to help and he tells them to go to Russia Sushi.

Back at Shinra’s house, he thinks that Celty has come home and greets her and asks her to let him out of the black bubble. However, that’s not Celty. That’s not Celty at all….

The episode ends.

Alright, now my attempt to work out the events by time line.

first: School, meeting the Orihara twins and Aoba
second: Karaoke with Erika and Walker, Anri talks to Shigen and the blonde guy
third: Celty gets chased by cops, looses money and goes home
fourth: Kanra sends link about Celty’s bounty and Celty and Shinra talk.
fifth: Shizuo fights the zombie and the blonde man, sends them flying
sixth: Orihara sisters find money and dying blonde man, Shinra gets kidnapped.

I would say that’s the rough timeline of the order the events happened in. This episode was amazing, but that’s almost without saying. I said it earlier, one of the best and worst things about this show is that you can never miss an episode without being lost. My only gripe with this season so far are the opening and ending. The opening is alright, I get the sense they were trying to re-create the opening from last season but change it up a bit. THE ENDING.

WHAT THE HELL? Like, I get it. You created a REALLY popular meme with those ending credits in season one, but just to bring the same style back for season 2 is just lazy. I mean, maybe if it had the same song but it just…doesn’t work with these new ending credits. It’s going to drive me batty until it changes later in the season.

~Midnight