This is the year of Great Pretender. The first 14 episodes were recently made available worldwide on Netflix, and the back 9 will be released in Japan next month, at which point fansubbers can do their thing. The only downside to the whole thing airing in 2020 is that it can’t be AOTY twice in a row – but I’m getting ahead of myself. We’ve got to investigate its third case, Snow of London, to see whether the show is still on track to compete for that title. After two episodes, this arc is off to a strong start, so hit the jump for some unqualified praise for once.
Something that I caught on my second viewing of episode 11 was the series’ foreshadowing of character relationships through dialogue. Its opening scene, which sees Laurent sketching Cynthia on a beach in Nice, sneaks in a line from Cynthia about hating men who are artists. Given their conversation’s flirtatious nature, it’s easy to assume this is just banter, but we learn in episode 12 that her ex-boyfriend was a painter. Likewise, when the art appraiser James Coleman is being introduced as the show’s newest villain, we hear a snippet of his phone call: “I can’t sleep at night without your lap to rest my head on.” In the next episode, we see him in that exact pose with his lover and personal piggy bank, Farrah Brown. These links aren’t terribly subtle, but they’re still fun to spot upon rewatch, and they demonstrate that Great Pretender’s staff (particularly its writers’ room) are on the same page.
Another thing I greatly appreciated about this pair of episodes was Makoto’s role in the initial sting on Coleman. The show has been wishy-washy on Makoto’s criminality in the past, so to watch him hatch a con from scratch was a blast. He only did it to keep his landlord in business, and he massively undervalued the painting he flipped – but then, he’s a screwup by nature, so we can’t have him being too successful. I consider it a win that he strayed from that ‘live an honest life’ shtick on his own, rather than being hoodwinked by Laurent. As a matter of fact, Makoto specifically requested that the “dodgy blond cad” be kept out of the operation, even as he brought in Cynthia and Abby to play art gallery employees. I guess I don’t blame him, since Laurent left him for dead at the end of the previous case, and it was only due to Makoto’s quick thinking that he and Abby weren’t turned to Swiss cheese.
Speaking of Abby, how cute was her little date with Makoto after she arrived in France? I could hardly believe how well his attraction to her was handled in that sequence, especially after the abject misfire of episode 8’s Ferris wheel scene. Makoto will never be the guy who knows just what to say, but when Abby revealed that her parents died during the Iraq War, his brief stab at empathy and subsequent offer to grab dessert did just fine. Abby’s confession felt kind of muted after the high emotions of Singapore Sky, but her unblinking stare afterwards told the real story, so I’m happy she had someone to guide her through that moment, and to share the ones that came afterwards. My favorite shot during their outing was of both characters sitting on the edge of a fountain, snacking on roasted chestnuts and commiserating over the frigid weather. That’s Date Talk 101 right there: find something you both hate and complain about it.
Perhaps I’m exaggerating the amorous aspect of Makoto and Abby’s street food adventure, but even if that’s the case, there are two major romances in Snow of London, those being between Cynthia/Thomas and Coleman/Farrah. The former is presented in a series of flashbacks during episode 12, which aren’t immediately recognizable as such. Great Pretender doesn’t lean on sound effects or a dimmed color palette to signal when it’s taking a trip down memory lane – it lets the audience fend for themselves, which I generally like. I will admit to some confusion during the cold open, when Thomas (appearing for the first time) strolled to a nearby coffee shop and encountered a younger-looking Cynthia. Was she trying to pass as a waitress in order to get close to him, I wondered, at which point she’d convince him to forge the painting she needed to con James Coleman?
As it turned out, I had it exactly backwards. Once upon a time, Cynthia really was a waitress (and aspiring actress, naturally) at a quiet London cafe. She met Thomas, they fell in love, and his talent for mimicking the styles of great artists was eventually exploited by Coleman. Before reaching that last phase of their relationship, though, the show did a nice job of advancing their romance via montage, accompanied by a wistful insert song that celebrated their love even as it hinted at its eventual demise. There were clichés, of course: Cynthia served as a model for several of his paintings, and they frequently ate from tins, being a couple of struggling artists. But there were also small details that I loved, like the paint marks that frequently decorated Thomas’s forehead and fingers, or the way Cynthia left work in a hurry when he waited outside the cafe. Might she still carry a torch for the guy in the present? She claims to hate artists, but as they say, there’s a thin line between those two feelings.
I’ve put off talking about Coleman until the end of the post, since he’ll get a lot more focus in the next two episodes, but as the gang’s latest mark, he deserves a mention. He deserves a lot more than that, actually, starting with an education in human decency – Coleman is a weasel who loves nothing more than to flaunt his knowledge and influence, all under the pretense of observing social niceties. His biggest flaws are tied to his relationship with Farrah Brown, a wealthy fashion executive who he’s managed to wrap around his fat fingers. She snatches up any works of art Coleman wants to keep out of the hands of dirty plebeians, all in exchange for his companionship. Although it’s clear that Coleman has no great love for her, their dynamic is highly watchable; as Laurent postulates at one point, Farrah knows she’s being taken advantage of, but convinces herself otherwise for the sake of her relationship.
There aren’t a lot of anime capable of pairing two unmarried characters in their 40s or 50s and wringing good drama from it, which is a testament to Great Pretender’s versatility. This is a globe-hopping, language-juggling, non-school-setting anime of a high caliber, and it must be said that it’s even more enjoyable the second time through. The conclusion of this arc isn’t quite as strong as its character-centric origins, but that’s only based on my memory – I may find Coleman’s eventual bankruptcy twice as satisfying after another viewing. That’ll probably be in a couple weeks, so if you’ve read this far, thanks for sticking with me and I’ll see you then.
