91 Days

Episode 9

So Corteo made it out of Fango's mansion after all. I'm surprised nobody stopped him. Maybe they just let him go because "there's no way he could have done anything to Fango, ha ha ha." Either way, Corteo makes it out of the lion's maw, but he can't quite skip town before the Vanettis get hold of him. He may have killed their top rival, but his initial betrayal is a big deal, and there's no way they can let him live after that. Corteo is about to cook, and Avilio will have to watch.

Unfortunately for Avilio, he takes this moment to realize that he'd feel kind of bad if Corteo died. They've been best friends forever, and the guy's jeopardized his future, life, and soul for him, so y'know, maybe give Corteo his due. Realizing that he's been a subpar friend, Avilio starts trying to bust Corteo out of Vanetti custody. However, he arrives to discover that Corteo has escaped. In the process, he shoots that omnipresent Vanetti uncle, Ganzo, in the arm. Avilio looks for him all over town to no avail, before receiving a mysterious phone call. It's Corteo. He's been captured by someone who claims that they'll let Corteo go if Avilio kills Nero. The time limit is 24 hours.

The trouble is that Avilio still needs Nero alive to get at Don Vincent and suss out the fourth man's identity. During that timespan, Avilio has several opportunities to take out both Nero and the Don, but passes on them both times. The reason why is ambiguous, and Avilio is dawdling an awful lot at this stage of his revenge for reasons that are getting hard to justify. It's presented obliquely, but I think the implication at this point is supposed to be that, on some level, Avilio doesn't want to move forward, having discovered that he likes this sort of life. It turns out that building his life around a violent trauma has made him comfortable within the type of cold, violent life led by gangsters. In spite of this, it's clear that he's torn over who to save, Nero or Corteo.

Fortunately, he catches a lucky break by finally discerning the fourth man's identity: Uncle Ganzo. My money was on Balbero, who's hung around all this time without contributing much to the narrative, but Ganzo was the other guy who kept doing that, so I consider myself close. If you were following the episode closely, you probably figured it out right before Avilio did. The implication is that an imprisoned Corteo was kidnapped by Uncle Ganzo, who made it look like an escape in order to cover his tracks. He's also the guy ransoming Corteo, since how else would he have found out who wrote the letter? It becomes obvious when Nero mentions that Ganzo is placing an unusual amount of trust in Avilio for a fresh recruit. Balbero, by contrast, has been suspicious of Avilio in ways that would be counterproductive if he were using him to eliminate the higher-ups. At the end, Avilio finally meets face to face with Ganzo, who presumably has Corteo and will start dishing out the answers next week.

In other plot developments, Vincent has handed the position of Don down to Nero. Before that, he gives a remorseful speech about everything that he's lost in trying to ally himself with the Galassias, all for the sake of peace for his family. It's heartbreaking until you remember that this guy murders children. A little later, Nero pours his heart out to Avilio regarding his insecurities, which began soon after his first job assassinating the Lagusa family. His failure to kill their son back then was his impetus to turn himself into the remorseless criminal that his family needs. This leaves Avilio indignant.

I can't wait to see what will happen when these two finally confront one another with the full knowledge of each other's full identities. They're both people who know the difference between right and wrong, but have nevertheless managed to twist their moral faculties into something that permits wanton evil. I wonder how they'll interact when they've taken everything away from one another and realized that, for all their natural enmity, they're about tied on the moral scorecard. That is, if the show goes in that direction. I suspect that it will – it seems like the natural extension of the self-destructive spiral that 91 Days frames as the natural trajectory of a gangster's life.

Overall, this episode was important in terms of revelations. It was a cooldown period for last episode's show-topping finale, as well as a rest for the animators. (Seriously, every cut looked like garbage. The gulf between this show's animation and the rest of its production can be wider than Don Orco's waistline.) This week also provided enough insight into Avilio's emotional state to overwrite the coldness I felt for him mid-series. Nine episodes in, and 91 Days approaches its finale without any major missteps.

Grade: B+

91 Days is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Gabriella Ekens studies film and literature at a US university. Follow her on twitter.