Interesting episode. Satoko being the looper is confirmed. I didn't want her to be because I love her character (I love the whole club), but there was too much stacked against her. If she truly faked her abuse, breakdown and Hinamizawa Syndrome (which is likely), I'm going to hate Gou so much :(
I would have liked them to explain the reasons Takano had to regret what she did and turn around. Some people have been suspecting she is getting flashbacks, but it could also be her finding out what Nomura intended for her, or plain and simple regret. There's also the chance that Lambdadelta manipulated Takano into repenting as soon as she got her new piece Satoko.
As the Banken arrest Okonogi and the Yamainu on the grounds of unlawful execution of Emergency Manual 34, it means that people still believe that Rika's death will cause the village to go mad en masse. I'm wondering if this means that it was executed in the loops when Rika died before Takano had fled, i.e., Akasaka, Akane and Keiichi worlds.
Now we know that the sus men saying the clinic was remodeling were the Banken, not the Yamainu. This means that the ones we saw tailing Mion and Keiichi were probably the Banken as well. Killing Mion and Satoko is something I could see the Yamainu doing to cover up HS, but it seems too extreme for the Banken who seem more about maintaining the facade, e.g. not killing Satoshi but taking him for treatment instead. I wish we would get a little more clarifiaction on that front before the end.
I'm guessing that in the first arc, Satoko tried to convince Rika not to leave Hinamizawa, but Rika resisted and she ended up killing her with the knife and then herself to restart the loop. Either that, or Rika committed suicide and then Satoko did too. Stabbing another person in the neck with a knife seems pretty specific, in fact we only saw Akasaka do it because he thought that was where the parasites were. So that's why I don't rule out Rika committing suicide just yet.
I found interesting that Satoko mentioned Oyashiro-sama again when talking to Rika at the viewing platform. As we have mentioned in the discussion for episode 16, Satoko has never been an Oyashiro-sama fanatic. I wonder if that's because she knows of Rika's special connection with Hanyuu or because she's being controlled and looped either by Hanyuu herself or by someone pretending to be Hanyuu. More on that later.
Tbh, I found Satoko blowing her cover really stupid. As someone said above, it's not like that KO punch seemed extremely painful to warrant that reaction. And even if it did, Satoko could have brushed it all off and been like "I peeked into that box yesterday and it punched me real bad. You didn't see it because I went to wash my face off immediately". Sure, it would still have been damning evidence, but she didn't have to go and pull a gun on Rika. Why end everything like that when she has already achieved her endgame and she could still brush off the mistake? Speaking of which, it's the same gun that was found between Mion and Satoko in Watadamashi, so Satoko brought her gun confirmed.
What I'm really curious about is: how involved is Satoko in everything? And who is controlling her loop?
As for the first question, the glowy eyes got me thinking. Is she possessed by some being like Lambdadelta, or are those just looper eyes? As both Satoko and Rika's eyes are red, does that mean they are being possessed by the same being? If not, what are exactly the eyes supposed to mean? Both Rika and Satoko have had moments when they talk with the knowledge of the past and their eyes don't glow. So it can't be simply to express that the older conscience is speaking. I hope we get an answer to this.
Linked to this question is: how much does Satoko know? I don't think she knows that Rika is looping because, otherwise, revealing herself would have been even more stupid. If she doesn't know Rika is looping, is she going to act all normal when waking up in the next timeline? That would be extremely weid, but it's the only way I see for her to be taken down by surprise. How much does she know of the other fragments? Because people affected by HS in Nekodamashi have been talking about parasites and about toxic gas consuming the village, and the latter is specifically something they could have known from a failed world.
As for second question, Satoko has mentioned Oyashiro-sama, including talking to her, so maybe this means she's being controlled by Hanyuu. Of course, that would mean that Hanyuu was lying to Rika about being gone and what not. The fact that Hanyuu knows each failed fragment and the people who are the most important to Rika gives weight to Hanyuu's involvement, but... if she were looping Satoko too, why would she tell Rika about Onigari-no-ryou? Unless this is a super machiavellian plan where she uses Satoko to accomplish her means and then has her killed, but that doesn't seem like Hanyuu. But then, Satoko killing her best friend/orchestrating her death all because she left Hinamizawa with Satoko, if the flashbacks mean anything, doesn't seem like her either, so who knows at this point.
Besides Hanyuu, the loop controllers could be either Lambdadelta or Featherine. But unlike OG, if they're going to be behind the loops, they need be introduced somehow into the story, maybe with a Hanyuu-like avatar. Their motive is probably to have fun because they're bored, and they manipulated Satoko into doing the muscle work by playing into her feelings of abandonment... which, again, seems weird since Satoko appeared to be with Rika during a high school flashback. This further begs the question of how much does Satoko know.
Overall, this episode was much better than the previous two, but not better than 14, which is still my favourite Gou episode. Now I'm going to go and feel heartbroken about Satoko being a villain.
Edit: is there a possibility that Irie is complicit with Satoko? I think the suitcase with the H173 syringes is implicating that Satoko was injecting people to go insta-L5, but I don't think it's possible for her to get that suitcase on her own...
I would doubly hate them for ruining Irie :( |