Climax, we’re coming to and ending and it shows in both of these episodes. We end Reiko’s arc and start up a new arc with a fairly interesting character. So we left off last episode with Shinichi meeting up with Reiko in the park and the cops trailing her as well. Reiko starts talking to Shinichi and Migi when the cops arrive at the scene. Reiko tries to deny she is who they think she is, however, this is a gamble the police aren’t willing to take. They pull their guns regardless.
Then proceed to test Shinichi by screwing up his name and using his confusion to prove that he is human. Clever, not even gonna lie I never would’ve thought of doing something like that. So they shoot Reiko and big surprise, it’s her. She’s a parasite, we knew that. So they open fire, however, she doesn’t try to fight back or too flee. She protects her baby instead.
She protects the baby, walks it over to Shinichi. Appeals to his human side by turning into the likeness of his mother from the pictures she was looking at on his computer when she’d broken into his house. Leaves the baby with him and dies….
FFFUUUUU- Guys, this show. Without giving away too much about what’s going to happen later. In these two episodes has successfully made us step back and ask ourselves a million and one questions about morality. Hard questions that don’t have clear cut answers and they’re beautiful.
Speaking of the part where she made herself look like Shinichi’s mother for a second, we flash back to that fortune teller from many episodes ago that said he would have to see the person who had created the hole in his heart to close up the whole in his heart. For the first time in this series since Shinichi’s mother was turned into a parasite and he was stabbed through the chest, we see Shinichi cry.
To quote Murano, Shinichi came back.
However, it’s never so simple in the life of Izumi Shinichi and he ends up being run through a series of tests by the police and government. Including talking to this guy, who is this guy you ask? Well i’m glad you asked, for you see….
He’s a Serial Killer with the ability to tell humans from parasites, but it’s nothing like Kana’s weird psychic power. He can tell them apart because he’s killed so many humans that he can tell by instinct the ones that are inhuman. He noticed them on the street and got interested but was too smart to approach them directly. Good animal instinct there. So his curiosity led him to one of their feeding grounds where he found a dismembered body and got himself arrested…so you’re telling me, that he killed God knows how many people on his own but it was him stumbling aside a parasite feeding ground that got him arrested? Well…Why not I guess.
Stop the series, back up here for a second….
So, the police are using a serial killer to find the parasites and Reiko learned enough of what it was like to be a human to grow compassion. When she says they are two parts of the same whole, it really rings true. We can be ruthless killers and they can be compassionate beings. She may of been a rarity among her kind but it’s still a thing that can happen.
So, at first the serial killer senses something inhuman off of Shinichi but decides that it was his imagination since he can’t seem to see it again for one reason or another. Anyway, a lot of stuff happens with the school and Murano but honestly it’s a lot of touchy feely stuff that I think is best seen and not told. The police officer, he has a name I haven’t cared to remember but I really should’ve….-one goggle search and accidental spoiler later- Well damn, uh, that was a thing. So his name is Hirama.
So Hirama asks Shinichi to help them and brings him in on a huge coupe on the government building where they are going to flush out a bunch of parasites using the Serial Killer, Shinichi and a sensor that can see what’s human and what’s not. Well uh, I feel like people are going to die.
Anyway, as the episode ends the first person they flag as a parasite is a woman. How will they handle this? Hell if I know but i’m excited.
Somehow this review ended up being a lot shorter then I thought, despite talking about all the things that I thought were really important in these two episodes. Yes, there were other moments like the time at school. Talking about how hectic their high school lives had been. Shinichi questioning what would happen to Reiko’s baby after they confirmed that it was a totally normal human. The other people that the Serial Killer checked out before Shinichi….yeah, that scene was um. Something else. [I don’t know if you’d believe me if I told you.]
Various feelings and flashbacks and emotions surging as the series comes to it’s conclusion. Are they going to beat the parasites? What is the original purpose of the parasites? Is this going to tie into the dialogue we had about mankind destroying the earth at the beginning of the series? Will Murano ever learn everything that is going on? What’s going to happen to Migi once all of this is over?
I expect tears and lots of them. Tissues, ready.
~Midnight