You’re fighting for your life inside a killer thriller tonight!

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Emma reveals her continued hope about escaping these past couple months, having used her seeming despair over Norman’s death as a cover to help coordinate with the other kids about the plan. But they still need to worry about getting to the main bridge and the security there, so Ray has a plan for that: burn the house down with lighter fluid and escape under the cover of an evacuation. And they’ll be able to get away quicker in the dark, so instead of going tomorrow when Ray’s shipped out, they’ll be leaving tonight. Except they can’t be sure that Isabella won’t just abandon the place, so they need to keep her inside while it burns, at least until the kids escape. And the only way to do that…

…is by setting the merchandise up in smoke along with the building. Ray then douses himself in lighter fluid, claiming that killing himself will be the ultimate proof that he’s not cattle, but human, just to stick it to Isabella and the demons. At the stroke of midnight, when he officially becomes twelve years old, he flicks a lit match to Emma’s shock and horror. In her office, Isabella smugly waits for shipment day, only to hear Emma’s screams and running to the church that has become engulfed in flame. She then tells the children to evacuate and tries to save Ray (or at least his brain), only to find Emma has disappeared, but her tracker AND her left ear have been left behind.

With that, Emma runs into the forest to rendezvous with the other kids, including an unburned Ray who she stopped from cooking himself by revealing her and Norman’s previously set plans to inform everyone of the escape and get them all away. Norman even knew Ray would try to flambé himself and got her to stop it. So the burning was entirely within their plans the entire time. The kids then all break for the wall and begin their climb.

Isabella manages to retrieve her radio to headquarters, but has to abandon the house. Still, she vows to keep Emma and Ray from leaving. And to her surprise, Phil has stayed behind.

OUR TAKE

After the slow, plodding, overwhelming despair of last week, the only remedy was a head on sprint to the climax, which is exactly what we got here. This show’s best quality has been its ability to induce suspense into even the most mundane moments, much like its spiritual predecessor Death Note, did over a decade ago (god I feel old). But with everything on the line and only hours on the clock, the time has passed for the mundane and now come for burning down the house. Both figuratively in the sense of throwing a massive party but also goddamn literally. With one episode left in the season, they are blowing off almost every firework they have for the big finale.

A major component of this is how much the audience has been privy to. It was pretty much expected that the remaining kids wouldn’t just give up with two episodes to go, since that would be rather boring, but what WASN’T expected was simply how much had been set in motion prior to Norman’s death. Where before they thought of telling the other kids about the truth of their orphanage could only cause panic, it turns out that just about all of them have known about this for at least the past few episodes after overhearing Emma and Norman’s talk with Krone. So, this news and the escape plan have been steadily working through the grapevine under Norman’s supervision. And it’s through this big twist reveal that I really got vibes from the ending of Death Note, back when a similarly seemingly big victory for the villain turned out to be just a diversion for the heroes to turn the tide.

This is also where the series truly doubles down on its more horrific elements, with Ray trying to light himself on fire and Emma going all Pablo Picasso, though both of those only add to the thrills and chills taking place. But as amazing as this climax has been, there’s still one more episode and quite a bit left to resolve. The kids still need to escape and one of them has been left behind while a ton of security is likely headed their way. With another season said to be on the way and plenty of the manga left to cover, this is likely only setting up for bigger things to come, but a resolution of some sort is definitely on the horizon.

Score 10/10