Great Pretender – 06 [Singapore Sky, Part 1]

After concluding its first case on such an odd and intriguing note, my big fear for Great Pretender was that Edamura’s character reboot would alter the show’s DNA somehow. “Main character attempts genuine reform by turning himself in to the cops” isn’t a common path for heist stories, after all. A two year time skip is one thing, but using that time to rehabilitate a con man before throwing him back into a den of crooks? I can only speculate as to the purpose of such a decision – but hey, the show pulled it off with only a hiccup or two. From finding comfort in his prison routine to the somber mood surrounding his release, Great Pretender molded Edamura into a man looking for peace. And he found it, for a while, before getting dragged into the world of high stakes thievery once again.

“Laurent, I’m sorry. Please forget about me. I don’t think we’ll ever meet again.” Those words were never going to hold up, but the show played them straight for longer than I expected. In fact, Edamura doesn’t agree to be a pawn in Laurent’s new game until the end of this episode, and even then, he doesn’t have much of a choice. This is something I missed on the first watch, but the path he traveled to reach that agreement began when he was still in the can. It was a prison guard who referred him for the apprenticeship with grumpy old Nakanoshima, who in turn persuaded Edamura to accept a mechanic position he knew nothing about. The kid can cast blame wherever he likes, but ending up on Cynthia’s private island again is partially his own fault – he should have stuck with his senpai as he originally planned.

Ultimately, I’m glad that he’s part of the gang again, because it means we’re in for another stylish caper story, but the cherries on top are the months where Edamura succeeded at living an honest life. Sinking into the tub after a greasy day of auto repairs covered the baptism metaphor, and I admired that he paid his landlord for the two years’ rent he missed while incarcerated. Speaking of metaphors, the capsule toy he got from the machine outside his apartment was a clever one. In the first episode, the machine granted him a figure of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a former peasant who rose to power in feudal Japan. At the start of this new arc, it gave him an actual peasant. The message is clear: he’s lost everything but the chance at an honest life. Still, there’s a part of him that wants the finer things – his disgust at the idea of drinking instant coffee in episode 5 was a big tell there.

Enough about Edamura, though. There’s an entire heist happening in Los Vegas during his mechanic training, featuring Abby as a fighter in a underground boxing ring and Laurent as the event’s promoter. (Cutting back and forth between these stories was a smart way to space them out, since the series covered a decent chunk of time with this episode.) As we move into case number two, it’s becoming apparent that something is up with Abby. She’s not merely the acid-tongued acrobat that we met in the Los Angeles arc; instead, she’s purposely putting herself in harm’s way. Refusing to take a fall during a fixed boxing match, kicking at other motorcyclists during a dirt bike race, pushing a sabotaged plane to its limits with an unhinged look on her face… At this point in “Singapore Sky” we don’t know the reason for her behavior, but it’s clear that she has no regard for her own safety.

Though Abby is the one getting her hands dirty in the ring, it’s Cynthia who drives the Vegas plot – a revenge job against a scummy businessman who fires her friend Chris for rejecting his advances. It’s not the world’s most original motivation, and Laurent’s participation paints him as a bigger Robin Hood than he really is, but the story is fine. What really makes the revenge element feel good are the patsy’s rat-like features and smartass dialogue (“I’m deducting the time we spent talking about this from your final paycheck”). This is a great example of a well-rounded production’s various elements covering for one another during moments of mediocrity. Cynthia’s little blue dress during her seduction of Mr. Scumbag didn’t hurt, either. Plus, there’s a possibility Chris will recur in some capacity, since her connection with Cynthia has to do with London, and “Snow of London” is the name of the third arc.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. This was going to be a post covering episodes 6 and 7, but I’ve already written a bunch about the former, so I’ll just cut things off here for now. The next writeup will dive into the actual Singapore case, the Ibrahim brothers, and where Great Pretender is taking Abby’s character. Many of you have probably burned through all 14 episodes and are just waiting for the next two cases, but if you clicked through anyway, thanks for reading. And if you still haven’t started watching this series, forget your ethical consumerism for a moment and pirate this shit. It’s worth every megabyte.