When we last left off, it looked like the SSS was more than willing to sacrifice a school bus full of children just to send a message — just to maintain Ostania’s image of a strong, unflappable nation. But now that the second bus full of hostages have been found — thanks to the combined efforts of WISE and Yuri working his connections — we now learn that the SSS is not as unified as it seems. Yes, yes, what a shocker: it turns out not everyone wants to kill children.

I don’t expect any child to die; I wouldn’t be watching this show if that was even a possibility. I just started reading the Berserk manga, and to be quite honest, I can’t help but be repulsed by the wanton violence. Like seeing a woman get her head chopped off… or seeing that same head get squeezed until the eyes pop out. Sheesh. My point is, SPY x FAMILY is thankfully the opposite of that. It’s still a feelgood series at the end of the day. Nevertheless, you don’t just forget a bus hijacking by actual freakin’ terrorists. These kids will be physically unharmed when it’s all said and done, but it wouldn’t surprise me if a few of them will have nightmares about this incident going forward. But mental struggles are easier to sweep under the rug, so I bet the show won’t even bring light to this.

Henry (Henderson) bumps into Martha at the site of the standoff. Oh, they know each other? I wonder what their history is. When I think of Henry, I can’t help but be reminded of the butler from Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day. Okay, maybe Henry is nowhere near as tragically dense and deluded as Stevens, but both men kinda have the same vibe, y’know? They both seem to have a disproportionately rosy view of the limited role they play in society, what with Henry going on and on about the importance of imparting elegance on his students. The best part is that the students have been crafty and resourceful, but certainly not elegant. Not with all those requests to poop.

In any case, Henry being onsite does at least serve one crucial purpose. The terrorists will allow someone to bring food and water to the children, but they won’t let a police come near them. Naturally, Henry volunteers himself to do the job. In fact, he even becomes one of the hostages just so the kids’ chaperone — just another teacher — could get medical attention. Look, I wasn’t trying to say that Henry’s a bad guy. We know from his interactions with Anya that he genuinely cares about his students unlike someone like Madam Schlag. I just think Henry can be a little self-important sometimes.

When Henry tries to reason with Billy, the ringleader, we finally learn about Red Circus’s tragic backstory. Like with most terrorist groups, they’ve been radicalized thanks to the government’s violent suppression. To be specific, Billy blames Ostania for his daughter’s death. And look, terrorism is unconscionable. Targeting civilians is unconscionable. There is no room for doubt on these matters. But we can never hope to stop extremists without understanding where they come from. Contrary to many ill-conceived foreign policies, you can’t just carpet bomb and drone strike hospitals and weddings in order to stamp out terrorists! Doing so actually has the funny side effect of creating even more terrorists! Weird, huh?

We see a flashback where Biddy, Billy’s late daughter, bravely exclaims to her father that she’s not afraid to die for the cause. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened. We have little evidence to suggest that Red Circus managed to achieve anything, either through peaceful student protests or their actions now as an extremist organization. But I’m reminded of one of the most important conversations that takes place in 1000xResist, a game I recently played through. In that narrative, the mother questions whether or not the Hong Kong protests of 2019-2020 should’ve occurred in the first place. After all, those demonstrations didn’t exactly lead to a happy ending. The mother argues that their resistance only made the government come down harder on them. But the father takes a difference stance. Sure, the protests failed to achieve their aims, but they made their voices heard. History books can’t say that the people of Hong Kong laid down quietly and accepted their fate. I suppose the same can be said here. Yes, Biddy lost her life and the early student movements probably failed to achieve any of their goals. But at least they fought. And while you can’t condone the path of terrorism that Red Circus has taken since her death, at least the spirit of their resistance lives on. You might not be able to overcome the tides of fascism, but the least you can do is not make it easy for them.

Thanks to her telepathic abilities, Anya gets to look deep into Billy’s painful memories. I’m surprised she’s so… nonplussed. She has just seen a man’s lifeless daughter lying in a morgue. Maybe she’s too young to fully grasp just how horrible that is. Well, this is SPY x FAMILY, so all this darkness will likely not affect Anya going forward. This show has given us a few heavy moments, but it is by no means a heavy show. Far from it. And you can already guess how this episode is going to play out. Anya will ultimately talk Billy down.

Elsewhere, Yuri discovers the second bus stashed away in a warehouse on some seemingly unmaintained compound. Ostania certainly has its blind spots. The Red Circus goons here, however, make the fatal error of leaving the bus due to believing that their location is still a secret. As a result, the SSS quickly moves in and slaughters them all. When the lives of children are on the line, I suppose you can’t afford to take half-measures. You can’t try and subdue the terrorists without shedding blood. But again, this is another example of Ostania taking the most violent option available to them. Not only that, saving the second bus actually works against the first bus’s favor! Part of the SSS still wants to crush Billy and his Red Circus buddies with impunity. Obviously, that’s not going to happen; we’re not going to see children die onscreen. Nevertheless, you can’t help but feel that extremism will live on, because it already exists within Ostania’s very heart and soul. Naturally, it must exist on the outside as well. I doubt anything that happens today will convince dissidents to stay their hand, because the fascists certainly won’t — not for want of trying. Red Circus might die out today, but other similar-minded organizations simply need to be even more careful and more prepared than their predecessor.

So how does the SSS want this to play out? It’s simple: they will make a token request for Billy and his comrades to stand down by dawn, but they expect the cornered terrorists to dig in and continue resisting throughout the night. As a result, they can strike when the terrorists least expect it while pretending that they tried to resolved the situation peacefully. Sure, the commanding officer tells his men to try and minimize casualties, but let’s be real. First, you can’t gun down three terrorists in a small, enclosed space like a school bus and not expect some friendly fire. Second, one of the terrorists — the bus driver — is more than ready to go down with the sinking ship. As soon as the SSS storms the bus, he plans to blow the entire thing sky high.

Luckily, we have Starlight Anya, who ironically serves as the voice of reason… sorta. By telling Billy that she isn’t scared of the (fake) bomb around her neck, she invokes even more of Billy’s memories of his daughter. He initially plans to free only Anya, but she resolutely fights to remain on the bus. She even takes after her father and rocks Billy to his very core by employing Loid’s own words. This leads to a series of misunderstandings where Billy suddenly does a 180. He now believes that these rich kids are somehow underfed and thus not privileged — that Ostania’s economy is somehow in the gutter and that his actions will only further widen the inequality gap. As a result, he peacefully surrenders. This is such a tonal whiplash. Like yeah, it’s kinda funny. But at the same time, he and his comrades are still going to be tortured to death once Ostania takes them into custody. So it’s like, “Haha, Anya outsmarts the silly terrorist! Everyone point and laugh!” But they’re all going to fucking die, man! Most of all, none of this will solve the root of the problem, which is that Ostania’s heavy-handed actions led to the radicalization of a formerly peaceful student movement. Hell, if anything, Ostania will probably be emboldened by this victory. And in return, even more peaceful movements will be radicalized.

Well, driver stubbornly refuses to follow Billy’s example, so he tries to make a quick getaway only to find his escape route blocked by the police. He makes one last ditch attempt to use Anya as a human shield, but Martha literally leaps into action and saves the day. After all, she can’t let Becky lose her bestie. But seriously, I thought the driver was planning to blow the bus sky high. I guess when push comes to shove, he values his own life more than his principles. Not that many of us can really say otherwise. All’s well that ends well? Well, no, this doesn’t really feel like a happy ending to me. The SSS is still as evil as ever. Ostania is still as fascist as ever. And I don’t think we’ll be seeing an end to terrorist activity anytime soon. But at least the kids are safe?

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Stray thoughts & observations:

• Becky’s father instantly reminds us how out of touch he is — how out of touch all the people like him are. Maybe he should try sending the terrorists some cake to eat. Maybe that’ll win them over.
• Bro, don’t blame yourselves for not being able to stop armed terrorists. If anything, this field trip had very light security despite all of the VIPs involved. I’m sure someone up top is to blame. It’s just not one of the rank and file teachers.
• Anya is so carefree. She better get a Stella for this.
• Oh kids… they’re now complaining about their tasteless rations.
• In the process of saving the second bus full of hostages, Yuri takes a direct hit to the shoulder. Well, he kinda deserves it. He has a lot of defenders within the SPY x FAMILY community. People argue that him not caring about what happens to Anya is just cope. It’s just an intrusive thought, they say, and that his actions should speak louder than his words. Perhaps. But he’s a big boy. He can handle a bullet to a non-fatal area. Basically, I’m not going to lose any sleep over this.
• Maybe he can’t handle it after all. I will never like Yuri. Just the fact that he works for the SSS is a huge non-starter.
• Damn, we’re really going to resolve this conflict without Yor or Loid even lifting a finger, huh? Loid doesn’t even show up once in this entire episode. As for Yor, she’s just now calling Eden College to inquire about her daughter’s whereabouts. I know things were lax back in the day — kids could play on the streets unsupervised and all that — but still, you’d think she would’ve called the school earlier.
• From the preview for next week’s episode, it looks like Anya will definitely be rewarded for her bravery. I’m more interested, however, in the upcoming encounter between Melinda and Damian. After all, they’re supposed to be estranged according to Loid’s intelligence.