The return of In/Spectre has been a wild ride so far. After a premiere episode that was largely a recap episode, the second episode surprised fans by reducing our main protagonists to a pointless cameo and shining the spotlight on two new characters: a businessman who almost dies in the snow and a Yuki-Onna who saves him (in exchange for money). The two reconnected years later and ended up living together and forming a relationship of sorts, however, the party comes crashing down when the police show up at their door and inform the man that his ex-wife has been murdered.
It has been a very interesting season in that it is setting up an intriguing conflict, yet so far the characters that fans are tuning in to the show to see are largely unimportant to what is going on. Will the third episode change this?
A Police Investigation?
The police inform the man that they are fully aware of the fact that his ex-wife tried to kill him at one point. The man reveals that she did attempt to kill him by slipping a sleeping pill into his drink, hoping that it would kick in while he was driving on the freeway. The plan failed though and he was able to ask for a divorce. The police are confused as to why he didn’t press charges, but he tells them that “attempted murder” isn’t much of a charge (this must be a difference between the Japanese legal system and the American one).
The reason the police are visiting him is that his ex-wife wrote a letter confessing her sins and expressing fear that her ex-husband would try to kill her at some point. Her body was also found with writing on her hand that could suggest that the ex-husband is the killer. While he does have an alibi, he can’t exactly say that he was having dinner and drinks with a Yuki-Onna as his defense, which means the likelihood of the police eventually arresting him seems like more of an inevitability. Thankfully the Yuki-Onna has a secret weapon: the Goddess of Wisdom herself, Kotoko!
Things Start to Come Together
Watching this episode and the last one, it’s even stranger that the second season of In/Spectre bothered to have a first episode that is so detached from everything else. Though it’s hard to tell exactly how much of the season this storyline about the framed businessman is going to take up, by all accounts, this is the main storyline we’re going to be following for the next several episodes. It’s going to be interesting to see how fans respond to it.
While it is nice to see Kotoko finally starting to play a major role in the season, it is bizarre to think that our protagonists have so far been reduced to supporting roles in their own series. For that matter, after the epic conclusion of the first season, some may consider it a step-down in terms of stakes. Considering the first season ended with an epic battle, behind-the-scenes betrayal, and a council of high spirits, the fact that the follow-up season is focusing on a mere murder mystery has the potential to really rub some fans of the series the wrong way.
That being said, the scaled-back storytelling is also working to the season’s advantage, as the previous season threw so many things at the audience that the characters were normally describing the plot while the action sequences were taking place. It got to be a bit confusing for many viewers, and there was likely a desire to uncomplicate the franchise a bit. With this episode we have a simplified conflict, however, it is one that viewers can easily come to care about. By setting it around characters that the audiences can relate to the stakes feel higher even though the events are of a lower scale.
The new characters are so interesting that some people might not even mind the fact that Kotoko and Kuro have had very little to do since the show started (and Kuro has especially been sidelined the last couple of episodes, not appearing in this one at all). What’s more, this murder mystery may actually be a better story for this series than the large-scale story the previous season tried to tell. In/Spectre is based on a series of novels, and as such, the series is heavily dependent on the dialog to move things along.
Considering the current storyline will require lots of exposition, this may be the ideal setup for this series. Course, there’s still the problem that many of the previous season’s unresolved plot threads have not been returned to, and it’s difficult to say when (or if) they will be this season. Still, so far, the second season of In/Spectre has been very interesting to watch, so most fans should be happy with it.