My Happy Marriage Season 2

Episode 23

I suspected before that most of Miyo's interactions with Kiyoka's mother were cut from this season in service of completing the story in twelve episodes, and this week's episode seems to support that theory. The little boy in the opening theme is indeed Kiyoka's shikigami, affectionately called Kiyo-kun by Miyo, and he's there to support her while Kiyoka is imprisoned. But the more important detail this week is that, increasingly, Miyo doesn't need someone to look after her. Whether intentional or not, Usui's actions have pushed Miyo into learning to stand up for herself and protect the people she loves, and it's his bad luck that he isn't counted among that number.

Arata's decision to betray Miyo and Kiyoka also takes on a tragic air. He tells Usui's minion that he's doing it for Miyo specifically so that she can become the Maiden of Dream-Sight the Usuba family has been waiting for. But we also know that he's doing it because of what Usui pointed out to him: that he was supposed to be Miyo's husband and protector until Kiyoka took her away. He's replaying Usui and Sumi's story, calling up what's at risk of becoming a generational pain instead of recognizing that sometimes life doesn't go the way you think it ought to. He may know that his betrayal will push Miyo into an awakening, but even if that's the case, his actions still risk his death and creating a real, lasting rift between him and his family. Usui feels that he has nothing left to lose in a world without Sumi. Can we say the same for Arata?

Ultimately, everything about Naoshi Usui seems to return to Sumi Usuba. Or at least, that's what he wants to think and perhaps what he was led to believe. Miyo's grandfather tells her that the truth is actually rooted in trauma, that when his parents were murdered before his eyes, he used his power to kill the murderers. On the one hand, that's a perfectly believable reaction, especially if he activated them unconsciously. But on the other? That horrible, cold, toothy smile that we've seen on his face from the start first rears its head at that moment, as if he got a taste for killing and relished the power it gave him. It's not the typical psychological path, but he veers onto it quickly enough, with his torture of insects until Sumi intervened. Sumi is the only person who can temper Usui's disposition, and the Usuba family encourages that. Interestingly, we know how Sumi herself felt about it, and we can certainly see her as having jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire when she married into the Saimori family. But maybe she felt she had to do it not just for the Usubas, but to create some distance in a relationship that she recognized as unhealthy.

I doubt we'll ever know for sure. The one certainty that we have is that she loves her daughter even from beyond the grave, and it is Sumi, and no one else, who helps Miyo awaken her powers. Whether she does it to help her daughter secure her happiness or because she wishes Miyo what she was never able to have, it's truly a gift from mother to daughter. And maybe it comes down to why Miyo wants the power – not to make the Usubas stronger, not to right the wrongs of the world, but just to save the person she loves most.

In a world of selfish politics and men jockeying for power, Miyo chooses the one pure motive that remains. Kiyoka, Hazuki, Yurie, and Sumi have given her the courage to use it, and now she will do her best to repay them in kind.

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