My sister and I were anxiously awaiting the arrival of the second half of Spy Family dub on Hulu. But the second half of the first season took a turn for the worse. Spy Family may have left the gate strong…but then it went and fell flat on its face. Let’s go through a breakdown of how part 2 failed to please, but not to completely disappoint.
Overview:
As my sister pointed out in her article of Spy Family Part 1, this show is on a completely different level compared to other Anime. It can’t be expected to measure up in action, storytelling, or to bring high tension consistently. However, it should continue with what it started and give viewers what they came for. We were hoping to see the characters grow and our knowledge of them, as well as of the world, for it to expand and perhaps some progress to be made on the part of the plot. We weren’t expecting the world building of FMAB or the redemption arcs of Naruto, but the first half of the show left us with a thousand questions regarding Yor’s assassination job, Twilight’s position as a Spy in a fake family and how his mission had been overlapping with his personal feelings and attachment to Anya. Everyone in the Forger family has a different level of knowledge and the secrets only keep running deeper so the pay off was supposed to be seeing certain subdued buried facts come to light or manifest in conflict between the characters whether comical or otherwise. We didn’t get this.
Credit where credit is due:
The first three episodes continued the same story arc and balanced the comedy element well with the threat similar to the first half of the show. A terrorist group (whose leader is voiced by Kachan from My hero Academia) intends to use trained dogs to assassinate a foreign minister. Of course one of the dogs has the ability to see the future and ends up getting adopted by the Forger family. This little sub plot was good and stuck with the vibe from the first half of the series giving both Loid and Anya something to do—it utilized her mind reading and his espionage skills. Yor spent this arc somewhat sidelined but for the first few episodes that didn’t bother us too much, not every character can shine in every arc. Though she did get to whack some terrorists and save Anya using her skills towards the end of this subplot so that was appreciated.
Where they went wrong:
NO progress is made in the original mission Twilight was signed on for.
Every episode after the first plot was a random filler. We had an episode about Yor learning to cook, which could have taken a completely different turn as the only episode in which she was the main focus. When the episode opened and Yor comes back looking like she left a fight, my sister and I were hoping that it would focus on her maintaining her life as an assassin while remaining in the Forger family. This would have been a great excuse for comical conflict between her and Loid, but instead the whole thing is her cooking and the other two main characters don’t even play a role. I appreciated getting more of Yuri but the material merited a joke not a 20 minute episode.
We get an episode of Yuri tutoring Anya, a boy who looked like he belonged in the Addams Family getting a send off from his classmates because he thought his family’s company went out of business, and then it turns out it didn’t (this episode was the first major sign the show was going downhill). It had nothing to do with the plot and was never mentioned again. We even get Yor returning Anya’s gym clothes and a wannabe spy named Daybreak. In a show like Naruto, with 700+ episodes and 26 seasons, fillers are to be expected, but for Spy Family, in its first season, to already go astray in the plot, is disappointing. When you have less time you need to make the most of it with content and the second half doesn’t.
No one even comes close to a solution regarding the whole fake family situation.
In episode three, I believe, Twilight ruminates on his unfortunate circumstances and how he will be forced to abandon the false identity of family man and leave both Yor and Anya. This is the only time any weight is given to the situation of the Forger family.
Yor gets jealous of another spy named Nightfall because she doesn’t want to lose her family, or possibly even Loid, but when Twilight tries to suggest making their fake relationship real, she responds by front kicking him. Yes, he was doing this simply because he felt it would benefit his mission by making Yor more attached to him, but she didn’t know that. Why have Yor be nervous about losing Loid unless she had real feelings for him? But, instead of addressing the fact that she might have real feelings for him, we brush it off with comedy and her claiming her cover will be blown (though no one has made any mention of police arresting suspicious single women anymore so it’s flimsy to think she’s worried about her safety).
The character Nightfall is brought in as well for a three part episode about playing killer tennis that basically belonged in Get Smart or Space Jam. These episodes were over the top silly and were another unnecessary vacation from the real plot. Nightfall wasn’t a bad character, but I always find it annoying when shows have one woman who’s madly in love with the male protagonist sidelined and rejected when the female protagonist can’t even sort their feelings out. Yor is threatened by Nightfall but she can’t admit it’s because she likes Loid, even though we, the viewers, know it. We can hear her thoughts but none of them reveal her true feelings. This seems like a way to cheat Yor just coming out and saying it. If Yor really had feelings for Loid it would be less annoying to see a rival like Nightfall humiliated and rejected because we know the guy is spoken for and that makes the rival the bad girl. But Yor and Loid’s relationship is fake, and Nightfall is in earnest (crazy but earnest) about her affections for him. So it’s hard to root for Yor when her relationship to the main protagonist is forcibly platonic. Again, this could have been played for actual tension and character growth but it’s not.
In conclusion:
The second half was not as strong as the first. Too many silly ridiculous fillers and not enough driving the plot or characters forward. It’s not that the show can’t keep its comical friendly charm, but it has to stay somewhat on task in order to maintain the viewers interest. We signed on for a family/spy/action/comedy that centers around a fake marriage between a Spy, an assassin and a little girl who can read minds amidst two halves of a country on the brink of war. There should have been more of that and less silly family plots of cooking, tennis, Anya’s school, and Yor forgetting Anya’s gym clothes. You only need to watch some of the episodes, but if you want to laugh at standalone comedic events, feel free to check it out.