It was all a dream…

Overview (spoilers below)

Things are heating up for our favorite thief. This episode starts out with a bang as Rebecca is kidnapped by Mi6 BEFORE THE TITLE OF THE EPISODE IS DISPLAYED. It’s up to Lupin to rescue his wife from the clutches of Mi6. Needless to say, this episode promises to be action-packed – awesome. This also marks the first part of episodes centered around the mysterious “Dream of Italy”, which has been a reoccurring topic brought up for the last few episodes. To make things even more interesting, Rebecca’s past love, her only love, was apparently obsessed with the Dream of Italy himself and left all of his research and findings behind in a very heavy looking book, filled with strange riddles and clues. Now in the episode, they say that he killed himself, but just from what I’ve seen about how serious Mi6 is about keeping The Dream of Italy secret, I have to speculate that his suicide was actually a murder.

As I mentioned earlier, this episode is action packed – arguably one of the most action packed episodes of the season so far. Suprisingly, most of the action comes directly from the hands of Mi6. On one hand, Mi6 shows no mercy in trying to extract information from Rebecca. They actually torture her  (offscreen) in order to make her talk, and plan to kill her after giving them the information she knows. Damn… all of this in the name of keeping the country safe? This confirms my suspicions that the Dream of Italy must be something HUGE. The action really amps up when Lupin’s brilliant plan to recuse Rebecca from Mi6 sets into action. Agent Nyx is the main contributor of the action here, and boy, I have got to say that he is one badass character. He is clearly in a league of his own, above every other agent working for Mi6. I definitely wouldn’t want to be on his bad side. He really makes for a great antagonist. There is something about him that intrigues me and this episode really shows you what happens when he is pushed to his limits. It makes me and Jigen question “Is this guy even human?”. Seriously. He could already discover people through echolocation but on top of that this guy is just amazing. Agent Nyx does some superhuman stuff this episode. Trust me, you don’t want to miss it. Not only does Lupin’s plan work flawlessly, but it also shows you how far ahead of the competition Lupin thinks. Unfortunately, even though this episode’s focus was the Dream of Italy, there was very little information given as to what the Dream of Italy actually is. This is a little frustrating but I’ll admit, these guys really have me hooked and wanting to know what happens next. Just when I thought we were going to get some answers regarding the mysterious dream, Lupin dangles it in front of us like a prize, only to yank it away at the last minute. I did think it was interesting to learn a little bit more about Rebecca’s past, specifically her lover. Solving the riddle of The Dream seems to have turned in to an obsession for her, driven by her love for this man – who still remains nameless at this point. How much longer can they keep us in the dark? I WANT ANSWERS! I also have to wonder… Lupin did refer to Rebecca as his wife more than once this episode, which she is, but just a few episodes he was seeking a divorce. Now he can be quoted as saying “it’s the job of a loving and dutiful husband to make the dream of his wifes come true” with a wink and a smile. Is that divorce going to happen, or is Lupin actually growing more attached to Rebecca and taking the marriage seriously?

Our Take

Once again, Lupin the III delivers. This episode seemed to fly by in the blink of an eye. The action here was great and watching Lupin manipulate Mi6 just made the whole thing even better. The thing that amazes me about Lupin, is that the main characters don’t even have to be in every scene of the episode, and that does not have an impact on the enjoyability of the show at all. This particular episode is great. Sure, it doesn’t have an extreme amount of thought put into the plot and there are no wacky disguises or comical mischief here. It IS driven mostly, if not purely by action, but it works here. Agent Nyx really is something special. This episode really sets up whatever comes next quite excellently and really makes me wish that I could skip forward in time to next weekend, just to watch the next episode. The action of the episode sucks you in, but the underlying plot of what is really going on leaves you begging for more. I strongly suggest you check it out.

SCORE

8.5/10