Parasyte -the maxim-

Episode 18

All sorts of narrative and thematic threads came to a head this week, as the confrontation between Tamiya, Shinichi, and Detective Hirama resolved in bloody fashion. Bullets were fired, babies were saved, and humanity was claimed, exalted, and regained. Parasyte's somewhat lukewarm execution may not have given this sequence quite the dramatic punch it deserved, but the base narrative ingredients were stellar - the resolution to this arc gracefully tied together almost every single element of the story so far, leaving the narrative on stable ground for its final act.

The full extent of Tamiya's character transformation was the first major beat here, with her private conversation with Shinichi revealing that she's come to see the parasites and humans as members of the same family. Her specific phrasing, calling parasites the “children of the human race,” could not be more charged - in the context of this show, framing the parasites and humans in a parent-child relationship brings to mind all the struggles Shinichi has already gone through. Children act out and harm their parents, but they are dependent on them just the same. A parent's love and guidance is necessary for a child to grow, and it's clear from both this speech and Tamiya's earlier statements to her would-be killers that she sees her own species as a growing child, matching the collective identity she earlier assigned to humanity. If humanity is one out of many, so are the parasites, a younger race that requires compassion to come into its own. As one of the few people forced to accept and engage with the parasites, Tamiya hopes that Shinichi can be one of the first sources of that compassion.

Hirama's arrival ends this heart-to-heart, as he's unsurprisingly wary of all of Tamiya's actions. Announcing he is taking all responsibility for the consequences upon himself, he shoots at Tamiya, demonstrating she's a parasite to his officers. Then all of his subordinates fire as well, while Tamiya shields her child and makes a slow, silent walk towards Shinichi.

Hirama orders his forces to hold fire as Tamiya approaches Shinichi, who is urged to run by the uncomprehending Migi. While Migi still thinks in terms of battle strategy, Tamiya thinks “how can I speak to his humanity?”, and picks the obvious choice of taking his mother's form. Shinichi hesitates, and Tamiya hands over her child, stating that the question of why she was born has finally been answered. Born of a human, her life of pure survival and self-preservation lacked meaning. But now, bringing another human into the world, she finds purpose. Her philosophy of humans and parasites being connected is proven through the circle that gives her own life value, a circle the show is quick to demonstrate has been apparent all throughout this series.

As Tamiya falls to the ground, Shinichi flashes back across the series, remembering that he must “find the one who made the hole in his heart” as he comes to see Tamiya as a reflection of his mother both physically and emotionally. There's nothing that separates his mother's actions from Tamiya's defense of her child, and nothing that sharply divides the cycle Tamiya has created from the many terrible but inevitable cycles of death and regrowth that he himself has witnessed. Shinichi has long been haunted by the death of his mother and the fear that he is becoming less human, but in her final actions, Tamiya demonstrates both that his mother acted out of an inevitable humanity and that she herself is “worthy” of being considered a human. Shinichi is human, Shinichi was loved. And Shinichi cries.

Almost every beat this story has established, almost every plot thread, theme, and character moment, all came to bear some significance in this episode. This is storytelling done right - when a well-constructed story comes together, all the prior pieces feel like inevitable fragments of a unified whole. There were issues, as there always are - the show's aesthetic execution lagged far behind its narrative cohesiveness, Kana remains a questionable narrative outlier, and not every connected element fell with total grace (Murano asking if he'd “come back” felt particularly awkward). But overall, this was a tremendously cohesive resolution of all Parasyte has established, tying together firm points about parental sacrifice and life cycles while offering closure to both Tamiya and Shinichi's arcs.

The story honestly could have ended there, but it's looking like the last arc will be a fun one. I'm hoping the scale of conflict will be raised this time, with Shinichi finally forced to work together with the authorities, but the show's demonstrated a remarkable unwillingness to raise the stakes of conflict so far, so we'll have to see. Either way, I can't complain about an episode that pulls together so many dramatic pieces as well as this. Welcome back, Shinichi.

Rating: A