There have been some very weak episodes of Spy x Family, that’s for sure. But none, I think, quite so disheartening as the last couple have been. While technically fine and occasionally superb, they’ve been truly awful in material terms. It’s hard to overstate how much writing like this undercuts one’s respect for the material. One can choose to ignore all that, and that’s a valid choice. This is entertainment, after all. But a structure that hollow can’t support itself for very long.
I know there’s not a lot to be gained by ranting about everything I found wrong with all this. But it really is just so wrong. After having been basically wasted space for 30+ episodes, it looked like the opportunity was there for some actual substantive development with Yor. But what we got makes me look back on that wasted space era as the salad days for the character. Any opportunity for introspection about her fucked up life was pissed away in the most vapid, asinine fashion. And there were times when what we got these past two eps was genuinely offensive.
There can be no question, almost all of what’s serious wrong with SpyFam (aside from the times when it’s just not that good) relates to the Briar siblings. Which of course means that when they’re not in focus, the show has a chance to work just fine. But it’s harder to ignore Yor now after this debacle. Yuri, he was already a bag of raw sewage in an elevator every time he appeared (which thankfully was not every week). I can’t look at Yor now without thinking of how utterly stupid the denouement of her “self-reflection” was. And the stuff with the soaring music and the hugs and the baby – I threw up up in my mouth a little. In a way it was worse than that hideous fight-fireworks set piece last week.
This is a real problem for me, because in asking an audience to accept stuff like that, Endo is absolutely insulting their intelligence. The stuff with Loid and the bombs and Anya was OK but really, how much difference does that make? We’ve now been asked to believe that the Stasi and a bunch of mob hitmen are basically good guys. And then there’s the preposterous disconnect between Yor’s literally superhuman combat skills and how utterly stupid Endo has her act most of the time. Screw that, truly.
At this point all I can do, I think, is give up on SxF in substantive terms and just hope it can prove intermittently entertaining. I don’t see a road back from the kind of intellectual and narrative Death Valley the Briars have dragged the series into. One can only turn off their brain so much, and Endo’s attempts to have it both ways are transparently pathetic. This arc is truly a low point for the series, and it’s hard to see any way it can fully recover. At best, maybe, it can make me forget for a while (but the reminders will always be forthcoming before too long). This really sucks.
BenDTU
December 3, 2023 at 9:46 pmAm I the only one who was super distracted by how badly they animated the baby was this arc? He looks so weird in most shots.
This arc makes me think Yor is legit stupid instead of just being not terribly well adjusted as she was when she was introduced.
Also Anya legit killed two dudes this episode, let that sink in.
Guardian Enzo
December 3, 2023 at 10:15 pmWell, in Anya’s defense she didn’t do it directly. And they may be knocked out rather than dead.
Simone
December 4, 2023 at 7:21 pmRe: the Anya situation, this made me think of how in One Piece, during the Skypiea arc, there’s a little girl called Aisa who has mild empathic/telepathic powers (she can sort of feel “the voices” of people though not make out their precise thoughts) and as the battle on that island rages she seem to get pretty traumatised by hearing all the voices turn off one by one as people die or are knocked unconscious.
Meanwhile Anya HAS to have heard multiple’s people dying thoughts very clearly and distinctly, in some cases having contributed to their deaths rather directly, and her reaction is to be cool as a cucumber and go “just as planned”.
She’s a little psychopath in the making, mark my words. She’ll grow up to rival the likes of Light Yagami and Kevin McCallister.
WindatDusk
December 3, 2023 at 10:04 pmI’m going to be perfectly honest, the author’s portrayal of Ostania as a “hey-not-so-bad dictatorship” is indeed disturbing and something that gives me Isayama flashbacks but I’m going to play the devil advocate and say that the author most likely doesn’t really support dictatorships and this whole “authoritarian state with redeeming qualities” is done to create a form of superficial depth to the setting, instead of doing the morally righterous thing of portraying Ostania, its agents and its ideology in a truly henious light. In a nutshell, Endou doesn’t have screwed views on reality, he just doesn’t consider the long term implications of the moral of his story.
Simone
December 4, 2023 at 7:25 pmI’m fairly sure that’s what happening, yeah, but it still makes the story annoying as it doesn’t stand to the barest amount of scrutiny. It just both tries to be edgy and have the actual depth of a Bondman cartoon. Honestly people keep harping on Isayama but I think that by the end of AoT he’s shown far more negative sides to fascism and he’s made a much stronger case against it than Endo is doing here. Isayama’s work doesn’t spell out its morals but it has them. Endo’s is just meaningless fluff.
sonicsenryaku
December 5, 2023 at 10:08 amAgreed
Derrick
December 4, 2023 at 7:00 pmSiscon Yuri and klutzy Yor is just so overplayed and tiresome
Ditto
December 12, 2023 at 1:10 amI am so grateful for your reviews, because I often feel very isolated with my thoughts on this series. The cruise arc is one of the most (if not _the_ most) beloved arcs among the S x F fandom, and I have frankly never understood why.
It is just… Yor killing off some random assassins. That’s it. There is zero tension involved because it is clear from the start that nothing bad will happen to any of the MCs, and Yor is basically the One Punch Man of the S x F universe.
It also did not contribute to any significant character development on her part. I hoped for her to actually quit her job as an assassin in favor of caring for her new family, but alas.
This arc has no tension, no depth, no character development… I simply don’t get why it is so beloved.
The only parts I enjoyed were the interactions between Loid and Anya, as they make for a charming and funny duo.
And just like you, I don’t like Endo’s approach of trying to make Yor come off as a 100% good and kind person that does nothing wrong TM while simultaneously having her kill people on order for money. She is my least favourite character in the series for that reason (I also dislike Yuri and Fiona, but these are side characters and not depicted as unambiguously good, so I have an easier time stomaching them).
I absolutely do not understand the hype surrounding her character. The writing on her is simply awful.
I am holding on to this series for Damian and Anya and their charming dynamic, and for more lore surrounding the Desmond family, but the action-centered arcs are really not that great.
DP
December 28, 2023 at 12:18 pmJust to go against the grain a bit, the Damian stuff I find utterly tedious, while the dark comedy involving Yor and her brother is the highlight of the series for me. On the other hand, the poorly written Finoa arc was stupid. Yor and most others (including Damian) are two-dimensional characters, but Fiona is utterly one-dimensional and a total waste of space. On the whole, the cruise arc went on for more episodes than it should have, but it didn’t bother me as much as some episodes, and at least it wasn’t as out-of-character and illogical as the “Twilight spends a massive budget on creating a fantasy rpg experience for Anya” last season,, where I feared the show had entirely jumped the shark…