Spy×Family

Episode 24

Take a deep breath everyone, this is not the final episode. In some ways it could have been; it adapts two of the cutest chapters of the manga thus far. They're both adorable and important in different ways, and the first half of the episode is likely to make people who have been rooting for Loid and Yor to get together in a more official capacity very happy. Not that they make any firm progress on that front; Loid is still very much caught up with the idea that this is a fake family, and until he fully recognizes that it is not, he won't really be able to open his heart to Yor. But he is faced with the horrible, uncomfortable, and important realization that Yor is not just a tool in his kit. She is a real human being with emotions of her own, and the thing about people's emotions is that they aren't always easy to guess or assume. Loid knows that the whole Fiona debacle upset Yor. What he can't figure out is why.

In no small part this is because he still sees himself as playing a role. In the drama that is Operation Strix, he is the hero, using the people available to him to reach the desired outcome. He assumes that this is to a degree true for both Yor and Anya as well, even if he doesn't fully realize this. When he sees that Yor is upset, he has a difficult time realizing that it is because of emotions that are uniquely hers rather than a variation of those he has seen in other women he has used in his missions. It's true that he perhaps can't truly understand Yor while she is still hiding her sideline as an assassin from him, but he's also never really tried to get to know her as a person. When she kicks him into oblivion after he tries his smoothest moves on her, he is struck not just with her foot, but also with the realization that there's a lot more to this whole thing than he ever considered. Loid is doing a very good job at becoming a stellar father; it's just occurred to him that he has to work a little harder to be an exemplary husband too.

Anya is as out of her depth in her shopping trip with Becky as Loid is in trying to figure out his wife. In all fairness, I, too, often feel overwhelmed and horrified when presented with a clothing store; unless it's book shopping, I find going to stores incredibly stressful. Anya is not only faced with that, but also with the fact that Becky still suffers from the delusion that she's in love with Damian, and can't quite figure out how to get her to understand the truth. Not that Anya is all that worried about it, and she does renew her determination to go with Plan B (befriend second son) this episode. But as she points out to Becky towards the end of their expedition, she's not even sure how new clothes will benefit her in this case considering that they wear uniforms at school, her only place of interaction with the boy in question.

But that's hardly the point of this storyline; instead it's about what Becky gets from the relationship with Anya. Anya definitely enjoys spending time with her friend, and I would say that she values Becky's friendship even if it doesn't always shine through. But when we see through Becky's attendant Martha's eyes, we see that what Anya provides is something that Becky has never really had before: a friend who likes her for who she is and won't let Becky bully her, however accidentally Becky may have done so in the past. Becky, we see, has had her father's ideas of status crammed into her head from the beginning, and being too young to really make sense of them has led to her acting like a spoiled brat, something which has not endeared her to other children in the past. But Anya's been through enough and has enough going on in her own life that this is hardly a deal breaker for her, and this episode makes it clear that their friendship is something that is sustaining Becky while still being important to Anya as well.

These two vignettes work together better than most of the others that we've seen before in this season of SPY x FAMILY. That's because they share a common theme: the realization of how much other people, and this life in general, mean to the characters. They still have a long way to go, but they're all heading in the absolute right direction, whether or not Loid will be aware of that next week when he should finally come face to face with his target.

Rating:

Spy×Family is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.