Saki (Yuki Saito) is heartbroken after having learned she might be her
arch-enemy Mizuchi's daughter (see last
episode), so she pays a visit to her mother in prison - where mom
awaits her executrion for the murder of the man Saki thought to be her
fathr -, but mother evades all her questions. Saki's boss, the dark
director though, has some answers he has previously kept from her, like
the fact that her father was an investigative reporter trying to expose
the Mizuchi-organisation, and that he might have been killed for that by
someone other than Saki's dad, and Saki might actually have been a witness
to the crime - but she can only remember the events from back then, 12
years ago, in fractions. Still looking for answers, Saki decides to
confront Mizuchi directly, and even gets into his office, even though his
daughters (Hitomi Takahashi, Yasuko Endo, Natsumi Asano) do their best to
prevent her. Once facing Saki, whom he considers his daughter, Mizuchi
confesses everything - though boasting about it would be more accurate -,
including the fact that he has actually raped her mother and later told
her father about it to break him. While he's telling his story, Saki's
memories to the fateful night when her father died return, and she is
suddenly able to identify Mizuchi as her dad's murder. This changes a few
things of course, and Mizuchi, who only just wanted to welcome Saki into
his family, now threatens to kill her - but alas it's too late, because
Saki has not only recorded his confession on tape, her partner in
crime(-fighting) has also seen to it that it was transmitted live during a
press conference in which Mizuchi's daughter Reimi (Hitomi Takahashi)
wanted to announce taking over the eductation of the Japanese elite (the
Mizuchi clan's first step in taking over Japan). Mizuchi's daughters are
soon arrested, Mizuchi shoots himself seeing the odds turn against him,
and only Reimi escapes, faking her own death. Saki is reunited with her
mother, who is finally released after 12 years, but there's still Reimi
wakling in the wings, hell-bent on avengeing herself on Saki ... This
double episode that ties up all the loose ends of the previous episodes is
satisfying inasmuch as it actually brings the storyarc to a satisfying
conclusion without leaving any subplots hanging in the air - but it's also
not one of the better episodes because it goes for high drama quite a few
times too often, something the series just isn't too good at (though there
are way worse series around) while by and large lacking yo-yo action,
something the series is really good at. Still a must-see for anyone into
the series because as mentioned it does a good job tieing up a truckload
of narrative threads.
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