For the rest of the world, that’s roughly 160 km. Just trying to be helpful. Anyway, this is probably my least episode yet. Not only is it all over the place, it also introduces a billion characters in its short runtime. A woman by the name of Deborah Darkian summons Constance to a secretive but nevertheless investigative tea party. Odd, but okay. This is just some random woman, though. Okay, not exactly random; Deborah supposedly belongs to one of the four great houses. Nevertheless, she has no jurisdiction over anyone or anything for that matter, and Randolph even says as much. He advises her to ignore the “summons.” Constance still insists on attending, however, because, y’know, she’s trying to gather information on her ghostie girl’s death. But when the meeting finally goes down, there is no new information to be had. All we get is Deborah threatening Constance over… um, what, exactly? Pamela’s false accusations? I thought we settled that. And again, what exactly can Deborah and her followers do to Constance? Deborah mocks Scarlett’s death, so is she implying that she can also frame Constance with a similar crime?

Before anything can happen, a new face shows up: Abigail (also from one of the four great houses) crashes the tea party and puts Deborah in her place. Constance is “saved,” I guess. But from what, I still don’t really understand. Again, what jurisdiction does she have? What exactly could she do to Constance, especially now that the girl is engaged to Randolph? Nevertheless, Abigail is here at his behest, which makes Constance feel all fuzzy wuzzy on the inside. Sure, I mean, gotta squeeze romance into this show somehow even though we don’t really need it. But just like that, the tea party is over. That’s the name of this episode, though, isn’t it? It’s literally called “The Silent Ladies’ Tea Party,” but said tea party is over already? Apparently. Thus begins the endless procession of events and new faces.

Immediately after the tea party, a rude reporter runs up to Constance and starts peppering her with questions about her recent exploits, but she is soon chased off by her own colleague. One of Constance’s friends then reads a newspaper clipping that paints Constance a salacious girl who participates in “wild orgies.” By the way, did you know that this friend aspires to be a reporter one day? Welp, no time to dwell on that revelation, because we’re moving right along. Meet Kimberly Smith, who has read that same article, and now wants to confront Constance for being a wild party animal! Such sordid behavior will not do, tut tut! But she also gets chased away, thanks to Kate magically appearing at just the right time. Constance’s bestie then and turns around and lays a guilt trip on her for not telling her about anything, especially her recent engagement to Randolph. Yo, what the hell? No time to reflect on Kate’s hurt feelings, though! Go, go, go, next scene, next plot development! Hurry!

Constance has a tea party with Princess Cecilia now! But on the way there, we bump into this frantic, old man. Why does he look so worried? Because the seventh prince of Faris has been abducted. Yup, just fucking throw that out there, I guess. What else do you want to tell me? How about the weather on the other side of the world? Don’t answer that, ’cause it’s time to move onto the tea party with two teapots. Why would you need two teapots? That’s because Cecilia’s tea has been spiked with a drug that induces abortions! Wow, what are the implications? Sorry, you know we can’t stop to think about stuff. Gotta move on, because we also find out that Cecilia has been meeting with a merchant whom no one knows anything about. Not only that, this mysterious merchant might actually be the kidnapper of the aforementioned prince. So afterwards, Constance starts investigating that, which reunites her with her ex-fiancee who has a new haircut. Good, ’cause his previous, Trowa-looking ass hairdo was stupid. Then there’s this guy who they don’t even bother to voice.

Phew…

Take a deep breath, because we’re almost done. Finally, Constance hops onto a carriage which mysteriously stops in the middle of the street. All of a sudden, her driver’s voice is different. When she pulls back the curtains, she gets jumpscared by some dude who reacts violently to that phrase the orphans taught her: “Kiriki kirikuku.” And just like that, we end on a cliffhanger. Can you believe it? We just got all those events squeezed into one 24-min episode. And considering how we always leave room for both the OP and ED, the plot actually has less time to work with. Not only that, the tea party took up the first half of the episode, so everything else I just described had to be shoved into the other half. It’s ridiculous storytelling. Why would you do this? Slow down, smell the roses. It’s bad enough that we have to try and process this mystery on a week to week basis. But when the information comes at you like raging river, it’s just not fun anymore. I can’t play detective alongside Constance. Can I assume that the pacing is better in the light novels that this series is based on? Either way, I hope the story got that out of its system, and we can go back to slowing things down a bit after we resolve the cliffhanger. But if the pacing is still this bad, then I’ll just relegate the show to “Everything else” status. I wouldn’t mind freeing up my Thursday nights.