Whereas last episode jumped around a lot, this one focuses almost entirely on the Vanica/Loropechika confrontation – as it should. All throughout this episode, I kept wondering, “if this is the big confrontation against a Dark Triad member, where the hell is Nero?” Looks like the final scene of the episode answered that question.
That does not even involve the episode s truly big twist, however, which comes up before the opener even plays: Clover Kingdom has a spy in Spade Kingdom, and that spy is apparently a previously-unknown Black Bull! Whoever it is has some nasty shadow-jumping abilities and a tad more of a ruthless streak than the other Black Bulls, but presumably that is why this person is doing what he/she (I get the impression of a “he,” but that s not clear) is doing. Waaaay back in episode 6, Yami did say that there were other Black Bulls that were “on some mission,” but that has never been expanded upon since, so this must be who Yami was referring to.
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In fairness to the new opener, I gave it a second try this week. While there are parts of it that I like, it s just not growing on me that much, and thus will likely be relegated to the “regular skip” realm starting next episode.
There are bigger matters to talk about here anyway – or one much bigger point, really. While most of the episode is time-killing fluff, the first and last couple of minutes deal with Ralph, who was found by Sister Lily last episode. Unsurprisingly, Lily and the priest call for Yuno, as Ralph has a whopper to tell: Yuno is the Prince of the Spade Kingdom, whose Royal Family was exiled when the Dark Triad came to power. This is not a hugely surprising revelation after seeing how much Ciel looked like Yuno last episode and what Ralph said as he went unconscious. However, it does raise a lot of interesting questions, especially how recently the Dark Triad came to power. Megicula s curse dates to before Noelle was born, and she s about the same age as Ast