English Dub Review: The Dinner Table Detective “Please don’t drown in this river File 2”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Reiko suspects the husband of the actor is the suspect, but so does Kyoichiro, so she has second thoughts.

OUR TAKE

Once again, an episode ending in a multiple of three is an episode that focuses entirely on finishing the case that started halfway through the previous one. At this point, I don’t even have much to get angry about it, but pointing it out does help with filling in the word count, so that’s a big help in my book. What I am particularly miffed by is the fact that Reiko keeps needing Kageyama to solve these cases for her. This story basically establishes that she’s on the same deductive level as Kyoichiro, someone she sees as beneath her intellectually, but if she’s supposed to be the smarter of the two who often gets overlooked because of her bookishness or just plain sexism, then why can we never see figure this shit out on her own?! Is this supposed to be the big joke of the series, that Reiko is just an idiot and that the real “Dinner Table Detective” is Kageyama all along? If we had any inkling about Kageyama’s background or motives for wanting to work for Reiko, that might help in understanding why he is the real brains of the operation here while Reiko, the ostensible protagonist, is ultimately just a middle woman for the case details to the one who can actually read them.

This is even more egregious in this episode in particular, since Kageyama comes to his conclusion through evidence neither he nor Reiko could possibly know, like the amount of cherry blossom petals on the cars of the suspects and just sort of back flipping into the right conclusion. After nine episodes, and only three to go, I can’t help but wonder why we’re even following Reiko at all. It’s not like she’s learning anything or changing at all. Which is just even more frustrating when this episode kinda gives her a bit of development by having the eventually revealed culprit being someone she used to idolize when she was younger (and apparently watching that that show is “why she’s still here” but we never learn what the hell THAT means), which would have then made it more meaningful if she was the one to figure things out ON HER OWN. But nope, we end the episode just as in the dark about Reiko and the strange things she does or says as we were from the very beginning. And the dubbing continues to be SHIT as always. Three more of these to go, thank god.