English Dub Review: In/Spectre “Uninvited Judge”

Overview (Spoilers Below):
Rion talks to her father and, realizing something important about her grandmother, proposes an answer to the president’s assignment to her relatives.

Our Take:
We’re one step closer to finding the truth behind the president’s attempt to murder Sumi, and it looks like it came sooner than we expected. At least, that’s what we thought it was until the end. Beforehand, the episode sees one of the heirs providing a possible scenario behind Sumi’s death. During their break to figure out the answer, Rion speaks to her father about the situation to learn more about her grandmother. She discovered that the reason for Sumi’s ungrateful personality was that she received orders from her father, Denjiro, to provide a suitable family to run their business.
Taking inspiration from what Kotoko said about success leading to destruction, Rion provides the possible cause of the president’s murderous intent. Rion believes that Sumi was the one who ended her own life instead of her grandfather when he and the other heirs were receiving their alibis. Sumi was pressured by the responsibilities given to her by her father and worried about disobeying him and damaging the brand. What drove her further over the edge was discovering that her own children were planning to kill her. So Sumi decided to make her suicide look like a murder by stabbing herself with a knife.
However, even though Koichiro approves of Rion’s assumption, that doesn’t mean this case is all wrapped up. While Rion’s reason seemed a bit more sense, Kotoko butts in as usual to point out the plot holes in the assumption, including the lack of a police investigation, and offers to share her own. Unfortunately, we won’t hear it until next week because the series loves to leave us hanging.
Regardless, with only one of the contestants providing their own truth in “Uninvited Judge”, it prevents this mini-arc from overstaying its welcome by having all of them discuss their beliefs in each episode. The exposition felt less cluttered than the previous episode since it only focused on Rion’s answer instead of her and everyone else’s. Compared to the remaining episodes in season one, I would consider that another win for the show’s sophomore season. Now the remaining question is how Kotoko’s answer fares compared to Rion’s.