Episode 3
After the explosions and suspense of the last two episodes, this one is a bit of a breather. The production values are still all there, and its introspective moments and cross-cutting montages are as thrilling as ever.
The question going forward is how they intend to fit all the series' elements together. Lisa's side of the story in particular feels pointless at this stage. I've been impressed so far at how effectively the show has presented her isolation and social pressure, but it remains unclear what relationship her story has, if any, with the cat-and-mouse game being played between the police and the terrorists. Surely she's going to play a role in the investigation at some point, but when?
The mirror reflects Lisa's social status at school.
This episode spends a bunch of time on its riddle, but the core is about exploring Shibasaki as a character. He's the first person in the show whose inner life has really been shown, and it's really about time. Particularly in the final few scenes, the showrunners do a good job breathing some real urgency into a fairly familiar type of character. He's someone I want to watch, though I hope he spends less time solving riddles in the future.
I liked this moment a lot. The immediate contradiction between his reason for requesting the chair and his actions says a lot about his character.
It seems like everyone has a different little peeve that bothers them in this episode, and for me it was the flashback reminiscence Shibasaki has about summertime. It was a really boilerplate way to tie him to current events, with the head of the department underlining the point at the end for anyone who couldn't make the connection. If I'm going to get hit over the head with something, I'd rather that happen visually.
This is only an 11 episode series. As much as I enjoy it so far, I hope they have enough time to properly develop the main actors by the end. Every second counts, and they've spent a lot of time on pretty fluffy police work so far.
Ep 3
The next thing I'm looking forward to is seeing how Lisa finds her way back into their company. She doesn't have a way to contact them and it doesn't seem like they were planning to seek her out any more than they already have. At best she could provide a description of them and the police already have that, so she isn't that much of a threat anyway. It should be interesting to see how that unfolds.
She has a phone number they used to contact her. She tried calling them in this episode.
She could certainly make the police's life a lot easier by telling them that they're particular students at her school.