Spy×Family

Episode 9

There are many things to admire about this show: its humor, its heartwarming family moments, and its references to 1990s shoujo are all wonderful elements that contribute to making SPY x FAMILY so good. But one we don't always talk about is its relatability. Sure, most of us aren't secret spies or assassins with an adopted psychic child, but that doesn't stop the characters from having wonderful moments of plain old down-to-earth humanity. One of those was Loid commenting, “Hello anxiety, my old friend” a few weeks ago, and another comes in this episode, when Anya hears the commotion in the living room, wakes up, asks, “Izzit the end of the world?”, and promptly goes right back to sleep. Seriously, how many of us have been so tired that sleeping through the apocalypse seems not only feasible, but also like a really good idea?

There's actually a second piece of relatability in this episode that takes a backseat to Anya's glorious sleepy-time scene, one that's buried under the over-the-top humor of the moment: Yuri's upset at his sister being married and ostensibly in love with her husband. While it's hard to argue that Yuri's attachment to Yor is anything resembling healthy and normal, it isn't difficult to see that she fills all roles for him, and has done so since he was little. With the deaths of their parents, Yor and Yuri were all the family the other had, and in Yor's case, that meant working hard to make sure that her little brother felt safe and secure, and that he had everything he needed to grow up well. Sure, deciding to become an assassin may not have been the best choice she ever made, but her heart was in the right place, and the anxiety she felt over making sure her brother turned out fine can now be seen as having transferred to her relationship with Loid. Without speculating too much about whether or not the couple is developing feelings for each other, Yor's fear that she's not living up to Loid's expectations of what a good mid-twentieth century wife should be is a vestige of her fears that she wouldn't be enough for Yuri. She emphatically was good enough to her brother (some may argue too good, because look at him now), but she still can't quite see that.

For his part, Yuri's obsession with his sister may at least in part stem from a need to repay her for all that she did for him. He hasn't said as much, but he must know how much she sacrificed for him, even if she never thought of it that way. Yuri had a normal(ish) childhood because of Yor, and he's desperately afraid that some man has come and taken away his chance to pay her back by taking care of her. While a piece of him may recognize that Yor marrying and having a child is technically the Mid-Century Dream, he's still emotionally very young, more like Damien than Loid in terms of how he views people and his role in their lives.

Not that Loid is fully on top of things either, at this point. Operation Strix is taxing him in ways he never could have imagined, from the pains and joys of parenthood to those pesky emotions he may be starting to feel for the woman he fake-married. Anya knows what's going on, but she's the only one who knows what's going on, and her greatest interest is in not losing her fabulous new life. To that end, she needs Loid and Yor to get along, and Loid's suspicions about Yor hurt his daughter in ways he can't fathom. But they seem to hurt Loid, too, and the moment when he crushes the bug and throws it in the trash is a statement of that fact: from now on, he's going to trust Yor. He's not just tossing aside a piece of equipment; he's disposing of thoughts he's decided he doesn't need to have, and that's major. He may not have fully comprehended the way Operation Strix is reforming him as a person, but that journey is going to be just as satisfying to watch as the funnier aspects of the show. “Espionage romance” isn't a subgenre of both contemporary and historical romance fiction for nothing, after all.

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Spy×Family is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.