Summary
With a murder mystery, the reveal of the killer can mean everything, and it is often what is remembered most of all, but what’s often glossed over is how much has been lost in the pursuit of that killer.Undead Murder Farce’s third story arc about similar murders in two separate villages has racked up a heavy body count, begging to question what lesson there is to take away from it all.
Last time, in the penultimate episode,Victor helped Rindo and Shinuchi escapefrom the Royce agents, helping them reunite with Shizuku, albeit for a small price. Upon finding her, they put their final plans in place to unmask the killer, gathering all the clues from Shizuku’s account and their own research under pursuit by the werewolves, just as the humans launched an attack on Wolphinhel.
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A Passable Opening Act
It’s funny that Shinuchi refers to himself merely as the “opening act” later in this same episode because his contributions were far more impressive than the actual opening act. Most of the standoffs that were promised in the previous episode didn’t quite last long enough or carry enough punch to warrant the buildup.
Oh, the Royce agents - they died as they lived:far too present yet still somehow underutilized. The best thing to come from the fights against them was Victor offering a helping hand - literally - to Shinuchi, truly proving himself to be the best of the baddies. If there’s ever a sequel, and that sure would be lovely, it will be a delight to see more of him.
Alice is poisoned and while the audience never sees her die, Crowley certainly acts like it’s an inevitability. Of all the fights, the most anticipated was Shizuku’s rematch with Carmilla, and even if it ended in another stalemate, there was definitely a lot more substance this time around. The way thatCarmilla’s seductive powers prey on Shizuku’s inner sensuality- something subdued and personal to her - makes their rivalry as thematically compelling as it is erotic.
It helps that the fight animation really steps up its game for this long-awaited showdown. As always, director Mamoru Hatakeyama’s visual direction adds a lot of little details that can truly carry a scene. From the way the reds of Carmilla’s lips and Shizuku’s wound pop out to the use of visual metaphor at the end of the fight, it’s a scene that’s more than the sum of its parts.
The Girl Who Lived
This case has been a lot to take in over the past several weeks.Between the sheer quantity of clues in Heulendorfto the doubling of clues upon the reveal of Wolphinhel, figuring out the solution as a viewer has been a tall order. But that’s part of the fun of these kinds of mysteries; if the audience can’t solve it, at least they can look forward to figuring out what they missed. And in all honesty, this solution might be the best all season.
Something was always strange about Louise back in Episode 9, even when the viewer only learned about her through the accounts of others. Everything about the crime scene was strange, and the few details that the audience was privileged to know, such as Gustav’s glimpse of a girl turning into a werewolf, seemed to imply that Louise was a werewolf herself.
As it turned out, that was technically right, but only through the guise of another lie - that being that Louise was really another girl playing a role.It was the clue right in front of people’s faces, and even with plenty of flashbacks, it was a detail hidden ever so subtly by the choice of color, cloaking her distinctive qualities.
The best part of this twist is how Jutte’s survival didn’t come out of nowhere because she’d been around for an entire episode as her other persona: Nora. Beyond this, Rindo’s address to the residents of both villages answers practically every lingering question, save perhaps for how Nora was able to create her identity without anyone questioning where she came from.
In the end, the real Louise wasn’t just another victim, but a willingparticipant in an elaborate revenge plot, in a complicated relationship with her kidnapper, to whom she felt indebted. It was a bond close enough that she likely allowed herself to be killed in the end to conclude the plan. And she got exactly what she wanted, a chaotic slaughter that saw two villages at each other’s throats.
The Real Cost
After the truth has been revealed, Shinuchi awaits Jutte in the caves where she made her lair and where perhaps one of the most visually interesting fights takes place. It’s a battle in the dark in which all the viewer sees are the pencil-drawn, sketchy silhouettes of the two combatants as the noises they emit practically light up the scene. It’s a short but extremely clever fight and the visual high-point of the episode if notone of the best of the season.
After this fight, Jutte accepts her punishment, but Rindo decides to let her go instead, and that’s where the moral ambiguity really tests the narrative. It’s revealed that Jutte didn’t actually kill any werewolf girls, but instead faked their deaths using similar-looking girls from Heulendorf. It was all to save the girls from their fate as breeding stock per the village’s traditions. However, this means that several humans - many of them very young - still died to make it happen.
Undead Murder Farcenever pretends that everything is black and white. It presents such farcical tales of the supernatural to explore the equally farcical nature of people. Jutte committed an act of revenge forreasons that the audience can understandbut with an execution that involved a lot of suffering. It just feels like the dead bodies of children should have weighed on Rindo’s conscience a bit more before she let her go.
There’s even a shot of Alma’s corpse in the water that feels downright ghoulish. Worst of all, when Shinuchi asks Rindo what will happen to the villages, she cynically states that nothing will change. It’s as though Jutte has freed three girls, but left many more in a village that will continue to subject them to life as priestesses. Meanwhile, the humans will mourn their dead and - judging by Rindo’s assessment - learn nothing from the affair. It makes one ask what the point of it all was.
It’s hard not to feel some satisfaction while watching as the credits roll, but it doesn’t take long to feel somewhat conflicted about the episode. It was only last week that the humans seemed detestable, but that was only because of their past sins - it wasn’t to suggest the victims deserved what they got. The final episodeUndead Murder Farceends cynically, but it doesn’t act like it, and perhaps the final mystery isdeciding whether the ending was good or not.
