Vanitas no Carte may not have had extended flashes of brilliance so far, but in retrospect it’s been one of the most consistent shows of the season.  And consistently good, too – not a masterpiece but just solidly entertaining, week after week.  While for me there’s just that little spark of genius missing from the production so far, in essence it’s a story by a really solid grown-up writer in the hands of a really solid studio.  In hindsight it’s hardly a shock that it’s consistently good.

This week was another impeccable all-rounder episode.  Some action, some comedy, some exposition, a couple of major twists – not much wrong with it by any means.  The early part of the ep is dominated by Dr. Moreau, who as expected turns out to be a serious nutburger.  Vanitas has a plan – ply his old associate (and tormentor) with flattery in order to get him to blurt out everything he knows.  To that ends he sells Noe and the chasseurs (their first album was their best) as Moreau’s new acolytes.  It’s a nice switch for Vanitas to try verbal delicacy rather than just insulting everyone in sight, but this plan would have come off a lot more smoothly if he’d let the others in on it.

One thing that’s clear from their interaction is that Vanitas was subject to some pretty terrible torture at the hands of Moreau, who comes off as a classic narcissistic scientist who cannot conceive the notion that he’s ever in the wrong.  There’s talk of another child – #71 (Vanitas is 69) who Vanitas was close to, both of whom were liberated by the vampire Vanitas.   The memories triggered by all this are obviously traumatic for Vanitas but he manages to keep his cool – it’s Noe who loses his and blows the act.  Totally in-character, I might add.

There’s obviously much more fleshing out to happen with Vanitas’ backstory – his time with his vampire namesake for starters, and it’s also clear that memories of #71 are painful for him.  But once Noe goes on tilt things go ass over teakettle quickly, much to Vanitas’ frustration.  The Spider (we saw him as one of Charlatan’s lackeys at the vampire’s ball) shows up to lift Moreau out of har’s way, and one of the doctor’s creatures escapes from a locked room – a shadow which devours every living thing it can find, with a cursed vampire at its core.

The headline from the following battle is that Vanitas counsels retreat, writing off the cursed vampire, but Noe refuses to accede.  Ever the idealist, this one, pushing Vanitas to be better at his job than he’d otherwise be (though he could easily have gotten him killed this time).  The Yin-Yang dynamic continues to flourish, with each man shoring up the others’ weaknesses.  And somehow they do manage to defeat the shadow from within, saving the cursed vampire child within for now at least.  Roland appears to be won over and promises to hand the child and one of Moreau’s other victims over to Count Orlock, though his newfound fondness for vampires is a great irritant to his colleague Olivier (Maeno Tomoaki).

The episode’s big twist comes in a very brief post-credits scene where we see who the patron Dr. Moreau referred to earlier was.  It’s Ruthven, no less, which has not inconsiderable implications for the larger story.  Presumably Luca is not aware of this – and if Ruthven is in league with Charlatan, does that mean he was also complicit in Luca being targeted at the ball?  We still don’t know the status of the Vampire of the Blue Moon or The Teacher, but Ruthven is one of the biggest fishes in the pond and for him to be on the dark side is a pretty big deal at this point in the story.