English Dub Review: Ameku M.D.: Doctor Detective “Drowning in a Dry Room [Part 2]”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Ameku and Yu race against the clock to get enough evidence to clear Seiji’s name before he’s arrested.

OUR TAKE

We’re at the middle part of the three-parter, so we can’t have any resolution until next week, but we definitely got some decent progression of the mystery and even revealed a few more previously unseen wrinkles. Seiji, the candidate to take over Yu’s old hospital, is still the main suspect in this murder case against his half brother, even as we learn more things about said brother like his many assault and drug charges. Seiji of course doesn’t seem like that bad a dude, but he was the only one whose activities can’t be accounted for AND we learn this week that he lied about his alibi, as it turns out that he was having an affair with Dr Yuko from last episode (like father like son I guess), so while this kinda confirms he didn’t kill anyone, it also makes him untrustworthy AND the alibi not useable since it would be with a person who was personally connected to him. But from a narrative perspective, it’s pretty clear that he didn’t kill his brother, though that won’t stop him from being arrested at the moment. And if he’s arrested, this whole effort to stop it and make sure he stays in charge of the hospital goes up in smoke and Yu basically has to go back. Or at least I think that’s the stakes here?

Outside of the standard case stuff, this episode, and arc as a whole, pretty much has Yu and Ameku’s relationship front and center. We already saw how enraged she was at even the possibility he might be leaving, and now she’s working basically overtime to make sure they can clear this case and remove any need for him to leave. This of course leads to the scene in this episode where she embraces him as a supposed tactic to throw off cops who may be observing them, but you can make the judgement for yourself it that was really the case. A romance between the Sherlock character and their respective Watson is not exactly unprecedented in modern day adaptations, especially when it’s a hetero pairing, but even then, I doubt we’ll be getting a confirmation one way or another this season, even if Yu’s coworker is very clearly a shipper on deck. That just leaves us with one more episode in the arc and season where this case will be solved and we put down our detective caps for the time being.