Hello, and welcome to this weeks episode of SpyxFamily! This is an interesting week, as it introduces a whole new character to act as Yuri’s counterpart, just for Loid. Is she any good? Do the jokes land? Did something happen? Lets dive in and find out!
So starting off, overall I think this was a decent week for SpyxFamily. For the first time in a while we got an entire episode dedicated to a singular storyline, and I think it paid off. Sure, there was that extra bit after the ED, but that’s more like a cute excerpt to me, its fine. As for the storyline in question? The introduction of Fiona Frost! As far as introductions go, we’ve had a lot worse. Considering her character archetype, Yuri immediately comes to mind, as they share so much in common. She’s not perfect, and we will talk about why, but I think she has far more potential than Yuri did. Partly because this one isn’t incestuous, but also because she has more going on than just this love obsession. Or at least it feels like it.
So, Fiona. What has she got, why do I think she’s not only similar to Yuri, but better? Well the first bit is obvious: She has an obsession with her respective lead and wants the other one out of the plot. To put it simply, she’s an obsessive Yandere who went out of her way to try and sabotage their “marriage” and convince Yor to get out of the house, even going so far as to lie about what Loid says at the hospital. To say my initial impression of her was poor would be an understatement, I thought she would be Yuri 2.0. Lucky for us however, Fiona is much more subdued in her emotions. We don’t get nearly as many annoying reactions, and there’s actually a bit more levity in the difference between her thoughts and her public face. In that alone, she’s better.
More than that though, as the episode progressed and we got to see more and more into Fiona’s head, she began to break out of that Yuri stereotype. Yes, she’s obsessive and loves him and wants to take over as his “wife”. But she also respects the mission and is determined to get him through those confines. On top of that, she loves Twilight, not Loid. This is a very important distinction to make. Fiona has this image in her head of the perfect spy, never showing emotions, thinking she knows him like no one else could. And it is through this lens we come to see that… she doesn’t. At all. Twilight is just as much as mask as anything else, while Loid (with Yor) is the real him. And she seems to sort of figure that out as she sees his smile, his real smile, with the family.
It’s because of this dynamic, this odd sort of introspection where Fiona is learning more about Loid while at the same time knowing more about how he feels regarding this family than he does, that I think she can be absolutely fantastic. If SpyxFamily can nail this relationship, can cut down on the yandere side and play up the respect and professional spy angle, I think Fiona can be an absolutely stellar addition to the cast. Loid is a largely stoic character, he doesn’t show much (real) emotion nor does he talk to anyone but himself and the audience about how he is feeling. So Fiona could act as a catalyst to pull a lot of those emotions out of him in really interesting ways. Will SpyxFamily do that? Probably not. But I can dream.
Aside from that, I really only have one big complaint with the episode and this is more with Japanese culture in general: Submissive wives. That’s a weird lead in, but hear me out. I found Fiona’s whole “Yor isn’t doing enough around the house, Loid works to much, I could cover all the duties and child rearing and motherly duties myself” shtick to be really off putting. And the way SpyxFamily doubled down on it with Yor was just… I don’t know. Maybe I’m just pushing Western sensibilities into a perfectly fine show? Maybe it’s not as bad as it came across? Feel free to let me know in the comments below, because I’m really struggling to figure out if this is just a personal issue with the show or if it’s something other people picked up on as well.
Other than that though, yeah, all in all this was a good episode. I like Fiona a lot more than Yuri, I think she can be really interesting, and the little bond mini-sode after the credits was way cuter than half the mini-arcs we’ve gotten in the past few weeks. Maybe with this new joint mission Fiona mentioned, SpyxFamily can finally get back to actually doing something. And none to soon either, as we only have 4 episodes left in the season. I don’t know what SpyxFamily has up it’s sleeve for its big finale, but I hope it’s something actually… climactic, and not just Slice of Life doldrums. I suppose we will find out starting next week though, won’t we?
