Parasyte -the maxim-

Episode 20

Well, at least we had the end of the Tamiya Ryouko arc.

This was not a good episode. It might have been a reasonable finale to a much dumber show, but stuck near the end of Parasyte, it really just signals the end of what dignity the show still maintained. It was “fun,” on one level - there were a lot of action-packed moments, things went from bad to worse, etc. But it wasn't subtle, or enlightening, or clever, or gracefully constructed. It was low-grade shounen popcorn, and this story deserved better.

I can understand what the episode was doing, of course, or at least the pieces of what it was doing that pertained to what the show has been about all along. The plot of this episode concerned the breakdown of Yamagishi (or Gritty Cop, as my internal labels go)'s plan to wipe out the parasites. Gritty Cop's plan is ludicrous from the start, which is the first chink in this episode's suspension-of-disbelief armor - he hopes to ferry the hostages out one by one, somehow separate each of the parasites from the pack without fuss, and then shoot them all down with shotguns without any of the remaining hostages or parasites becoming alarmed by this. The plan falls apart basically as soon as it begins - the parasites see what's up after a single parasite is killed, they create a disturbance within the sorting process, and soon there's blood everywhere and humans are getting shot and the serial killer is dryly questioning whether humans aren't the real monsters after all.

That's the point here - that in order to eradicate the inhuman monsters, the police are forced to become animals themselves. The rest of the episode is essentially a slow-burning riff on that point, as more hostages die, more parasites use humans as shields, and Uragami continues to chuckle at the tragic nature of humanity. I'd say of this material, there were essentially two successfully understated moments - one was when Gritty Cop said he didn't need the serial killer's help because he was “starting to be able to tell them apart” (a line that spoke both to how discarding humanity sharpens his “animal instincts” and his ultimate plan to just murder all of the survivors), and the other was when Shinichi in the police caravan was highlighted against the sound of distant gunfire and Tamiya Ryouko's parting words. These moments spoke to a finale that might have tied the show's points together in a way that didn't simultaneously bash the audience's head in with its message while reveling in the trashy action style of the execution.

The other twenty-one minutes were not that finale. All of the serial killer's moments were wincingly on-the-nose declarations of theme, the cops' plans was so poorly constructed that each new failure seemed less like a tragic turn of events than the only way this would have ever turned out, and the show even drifted into territory like a parasite declaring “follow me. We'll have more room this way” followed by a police squad actually following him. There was also an “in situations like this, does one say ‘insolent fool’?”, which frankly seemed a little out of line, considering the unlikelihood of anyone suspecting a parasite would develop machine gun arms in the first place. Yes, one parasite develops machine gun arms. The episode ended in kind, with the parasite mayor standing at his podium, welcoming all of the police for the final, dramatic showdown.

Suffice it to say, this was not the show I signed up for. I've enjoyed Parasyte earnestly enough that I get little pleasure out of seeing it fly off the rails - I wasn't just being glib in that first line, I'm happy that arc ended with relative grace. This one's looking like it's pretty much beyond salvaging.

Rating: C-

Parasyte -the maxim- is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Nick writes about anime, storytelling, and the meaning of life at Wrong Every Time.