Spy×Family

Episode 18

Unless I miss my guess, I think this week's episode left out one of my favorite Anya-isms, where she mishears (or mispronounces) something as “swole chihuahua.” While that makes me sad, there are still plenty of laughs this week, most of them coming in the form of Daybreak, a self-proclaimed rival spy for Twilight. As it turns out, he's more of the anti-Twilight, because this man is a moron of the highest caliber; seriously, Anya makes a better spy than this guy, even when she's making her trademark Anya faces. (Which, I might add, Damian copies this week in both a spot-on impression and as proof that she has firmly taken up residence in his brain.)

Daybreak and Twilight meet when both of them set out to complete missions in the super-secret high security vault where Eden College keeps its test answer sheets. Twilight is there trying to save Operation Strix by fixing Anya's scores; Daybreak is there to sabotage the Desmond family by ruining Damien and his older brother Demetrius' grades. Who hired him to do this? Will it actually hurt the Desmond family if the boys flunk? Who knows? That's not really important here, although it does speak to the fact that there are those within the country who wish for the family's downfall and aren't above using Donovan's kids to make it happen. But let's face it, Daybreak's as much a threat to anyone as a single ant is to a brick – maybe if he worked at it for long enough and got a few friends involved he could do some damage, but as is? Yeah, no. Not happening.

And it's definitely not happening on Loid's watch, which is pretty much the only reason Daybreak makes it into the vault in the first place. Sure, Daybreak does a mean…pennant in the wind on a lamppost (?) impression, but the man can't go anywhere without doing a forward roll and he actively sabotages Loid's attempts to help him. Meanwhile, Loid is only helping him because his job will be even harder if they catch Daybreak and call in the cops; it's not so much professional courtesy as it is self-defense. But whatever it is, it's pretty damn funny, and being so fully inside the competing stream-of-consciousness narration of two such disparate characters is an overall great demonstration of how SPY x FAMILY can work its comedic chops. While it's always been a funny show, that does get overshadowed at times by the human drama that makes up its heart, so to see a solidly comedic half-episode with no other purpose than to remind us what an amazing spy Twilight is while contrasting him with the worst spy out there is really entertaining. Yes, there's the implication that Loid has been affected by the family part of the title enough that now he's just unconsciously helping people when that may not have been his first instinct before, but it's hard to hold onto that thought when Daybreak is preparing to leave his signature on the altered test scores to prove how awesome he is before somersaulting out of the vault.

That this follows the front half of the episode in terms of plot is pretty impressive, because the two are tonally fairly different, although both are more reliant on humor than anything else. Anya realizing that she won't be able to use her powers to cheat on her upcoming exams (they don't work during the new moon) forces her to actually study, but Loid's thinking too much for her to concentrate. So Yor volunteers Uncle Yuri, who is such a siscon that he even gets jealous of a five-year-old…until Anya figures out how to wrap him around her little finger. Again, this section has its moments, with poor Bond's quiet visual gag at the end being the best; it's still funny, but it's mostly a gag we've seen before, and recently at that. But after a few episodes that were divided between main and side story halves, it's really nice to see this return to linear storytelling, even if it doesn't come with a swole chihuahua.

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Spy×Family is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.