Migi & Dali

Episodes 10-11

Migi and Dali (as Hitori) are on the run after Reiko framed them for Micchan's murder. They hole up (and come out to) Akiyama and Maruta as the four boys try to imagine how to clear the twins' good name. Their goal is to use Eiji as a hostage to pull a confession out of Reiko on camera, thus revealing the Ichijo family secret and absolving themselves of murder. They decide to appeal to Karen, who is currently locked in her room, and gain access to the Ichijō household where Eiji is undergoing "re-education" after his heroic stint at the Halloween Festival.

After a few hurdles (and a startling romantic reveal featuring Maruta and Karen), it's time for the series' denouement as Reiko finally fills in the hazy parts of Reiko, Metry, and the boys' past. It was already revealed that Reiko has a psychological obsession with perfection. It's evident in every aspect of her home and family life. This unreasonable expectation dates back to her time in school, and her entire existence revolves around this concept. Her value was intrinsically tied to her perfection. In the midst of this, Reiko still had room for "imperfect" people like Metry. Although Metry was hired as the family maid, she appeared to have no qualifications. Still, the two women grew very close to the point of having a sisterly-like relationship.

I talked about Reiko's infertility and how it plays with a rather old fiction trope about the relationship between women's sanity and their fertility. Media like soap operas, films like The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, and even folklore have played in this pool. While it makes for convenient shorthand when you need motivation for a female villain, it taps into a plethora of stereotypes, from the root word for "hysteria" to women's role and value in society (child-rearing). However, Migi & Dali succeeds at adding some depth in how it engages with this trope.

Reiko was in shock when she discovered she could not easily become pregnant, but her world went sideways when she preyed on her relationship with Metry to coerce the woman into having sex with her husband. This was the part I found truly wild. I had suspected that Metry and Akira Ichijō had an affair that, once discovered, motivated Reiko to murder. I wasn't sure if this was a relationship based on love or, given how darkly dysfunctional the Ichijo household is, if Akira had assaulted Metry. It did not at any point occur to me that Reiko was trying to use Metry as a surrogate without her husband finding out. Not just once, either. And she watched.

Reiko does not fully process her infertility; there's a point in episode 10 where she distances herself from her place in the story by speaking in the third person and says that "Reiko" became pregnant with Eiji. The scene when Reiko visits Metry post-birth clarifies why this is: she had faked a pregnancy, possibly for 30+ weeks, to present Eiji as her own son. I had suspected this much within the first five episodes of the show. Frankly, Migi, Dali, and Eiji all look alike, especially in their eyes.

This isn't enough for Dali, though, who still holds Eiji responsible for pushing their mother to her death on Christmas Eve. The last question, why Metry was in his window in the first place, is finally answered. She meant to run away with all three of her sons and had never stopped thinking of Eiji since Reiko took him from her.

Dali's denial is misguided; there's still a discrepancy between what Metry's body looked like when she fell and when she was later found. We probably don't have the whole picture yet, but it could be too late for Eiji. He's grown up in a claustrophobic environment where perfection was expected at all times. Both he and his sister were taken from their parents. His father is, at best, a philandering enabler who disregards his wife's abusive and strange behavior. He may be responsible for his birth mother's death. His brothers have rejected him. Eiji has nothing now and decides to put a stop to the family's growing list of crimes by stabbing his mother and burning down the house.

The only problem is our twins, their new (shitty) dad, Maruta, and Karen are all locked down in the "nursery." I'm sure five people could power their way through a door, but we'll have to wait until next week to find out everyone's fate. What a ride, though! We're heading into the finale, and it's nowhere near what I expected. What I thought would be a mystery-tinged comedy has gone full speed ahead into one of the strangest popcorn-crunching plots I've seen since Malignant.

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Migi & Dali is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.