Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? V

Episodes 12-13

Whenever a show takes a break like this one did, the question is always, “Was it worth the wait?” In the case of the fifth season of Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, the answer is emphatically yes. We left off in the proverbial darkest hour before dawn, and now, midway through the twelfth episode, it feels safe to say that dawn is breaking, or at least the stars are shining bright enough to make it look that way.

Cassandra, that beleaguered prophetess, did hint that this would be the case. In her visions, she spoke of a wind that would blow, and many of us assumed that she was talking about Ryu, Astrea Familia's Gale Wind. After the major role she played in the previous season, she was conspicuously absent for most of this one, and that turns out to have been for a very strategic reason: Ryu had sought out her goddess, Astrea, who had not returned to the heavens, but instead was waiting for Ryu to be ready to face the future again. If Bell and the fight against the Juggernaut helped Ryu to accept the past in season four, season five is her taking first steps into the future. When she returns to Orario, she's once again the girl she used to be – her hair is back to its bright, natural color, dressed as she was in the days before she lost everything, and, more importantly, she's allowed her falna to be updated. This is Ryu as she should have been.

That's only possible because she's come to terms with the past. For Ryu, that means accepting that her sisters are always with her if she wants them, a belief that culminates in her new skill, Astrea Record. This gift from her goddess allows her to call upon the powers wielded by her lost sisters more concretely than during the battles last season. Hogni recognizes this immediately: it's not just that Ryu is using Alise's skill, she's summoning the spirit of Alise to fight alongside her. In Ryu's mind, this is how she inherits the justice her sisters bequeathed her: by never forgetting them and always feeling that they're with her. Doing so has set her free.

It's also a moment of catharsis for the people of Orario. We haven't seen much in the main series about how the loss of Astrea Familia affected them (the three-volume novel spinoff about the time does go into it), but the look of relief and wonder on their faces when they recognize Alise in Ryu's actions says a lot. People may have been on the side of the plucky underdogs anyway, especially given what Freya did to all of them, but knowing Astrea Familia has returned to fight for them, however metaphorically or metaphysically, makes it that much more important that Bell and Hestia Familia prevail – because if the goddess of justice is on their side, they can't be wrong.

And even without Ryu and Astrea, people are working behind the scenes to ensure that the right side comes out on top. We shouldn't have expected anything less from Loki and Hermes, of course – they are trickster gods, and telling tricksters “no” rarely works. (Even if Bete maybe wishes it did; his poor face is going to take a while to recover from Anya's claws.) Loki's plan, possibly helped or hatched by Finn, involves getting the ladies from everyone's favorite tavern to join the fight, and that's a two-fold situation: the gods they're pledged to need to show up alongside Astrea, and they need to fully understand the Syr situation – especially Mama Mia and Anya, who are part of Freya Familia.

The revelation that Mia used to be Freya Familia's captain, Demi Ymir, is a major surprise, to say nothing of a serious blow to Freya's team. Her title also explains her current nickname, since in Norse mythology, Ymir is a primordial being whose body functions as, for lack of a better word, the mother of the world, and “mama mia” can be translated as “my mother.” But her defection, even without surrendering her falna, speaks of an earlier schism in Freya Familia, possibly related to Anya leaving her brother behind, and it foreshadows the biggest twist of these two episodes: Hedin's abrupt repudiation of Freya's desire.

Mia says that part of the condition of her leaving is that she wouldn't interfere if Freya found her oðr, which suggests that her obsession with finding such a person is at the heart of most of her familia's issues. When Mia met the goddess, she was sobbing in a field of flowers, and that reminds us of the contradiction of Freya: she's simultaneously an emotionally fragile girl and a powerful, sexy goddess. It's not that those two sides can't coexist, but rather that she hasn't figured out how to let them. That's why Hedin chooses to side with Bell – Freya's drive for her oðr is hurting her. Gaining Bell won't help. Only being forced to face the consequences of her actions will.

Astrea tells Ryu that justice is passed down. Ryu inherited her lost sisters' justice, and Hedin could be said to have inherited Mia's. Justice doesn't mean fairness, because what's “just” isn't always (or often) “fair.” Ryu choosing this moment to tell Bell she loves him wasn't fair, but to her, it was just, because it was something she had to do to live with herself. Hedin defecting wasn't fair, but it was just in the broader scheme of things; the same with more gods joining the fray.

Whatever happens to Freya/Syr/Hörn may not look fair or right in the end. But it will be just, and perhaps the justice that Freya has been needing to accept for a long, long time.

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Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? V is currently streaming on HIDIVE.