Dirty Pair (Episode 17) - Come Out, Come Out, Assassin

Kei and Yuri are searching for the notorious assassin, Sundric. Their only lead is that he’ll be on a certain flight. However, when they try to find him, the pilot aims the ship at a black hole and then kills himself!

Dirty Pair (Episode 17) – Come Out, Come Out, Assassin

What happened?

Kei boarded the ship dressed as a nun. She has information on all of the passengers and is busy checking them out. One of them must be Sundric, but who? There’s Marcus, a lawyer who is headed to a shady business meeting, Margaret, a nurse and her son, Jack, Ralph, a rather dull-looking illustrator, and wealthy playboy Bobbit Huey. Bobbit appears to have developed a crush on Kei and is distracting her from her mission. Yuri shows up dressed as a flight attendant and reminds her to focus.

However, there’s a commotion in the cockpit. Kei and Yuri break in and find that the pilot has killed the co-pilot and destroyed the controls. The ship is set to fly straight into a black hole unless they can stop it. Ironically, Sundric might be their only chance to survive. He’s also a skilled hacker. However, Sundric is not willing to reveal himself, especially since Kei and Yuri are there. So, they arrange for everyone to be on a different part of the ship, giving Sundric the chance to act in secret.

Then, the escape shuttle activates despite the warnings that it will explode. It turns out Ralph doesn’t believe them, but he doesn’t get far before it blows up. Kei and Yuri have eyes on the cockpit but are soon ambushed by Bobbit and Markus respectively. That’s when they notice Margaret heading to the cockpit. Just who is Sundric? Is this all connected or a random series of events?

Dirty Pair Episode 17 Kei disguised as a nun

What did you think?

This was a cool episode. The premise alone would have made a great movie and probably has in a variety of different formats. It’s convenient that Sundric is the only person that could crack the code, but that’s what made this interesting. They had to reveal themselves or die along with everyone else. I liked that everyone was potentially a suspect and as the episode progressed, they all gave you a reason to believe that it might be them.

I liked that it wrapped things up as it went. We discovered that the pilot did what he did because his ex-wife was on the plane and she had a child. He didn’t realise that the child was actually his as they might have changed his perspective. As much fun as this series is, there are often some fairly tragic moments and I don’t think they’re necessarily given the weight they deserve. The series would be a lot darker if that was the case, but then, personally, I would enjoy that too!

What have you learnt?

The best thing about this episode was that everyone had a reason for doing what they did. Some weren’t as compelling as others but then not everyone needs a good reason. Bobbit claiming he was Sundric to impress Kei was funny but believable given what we learnt about him. Marcus trying to kill Yuri to allow Sundric to reveal himself also made sense since we know he’s a shady bastard. Then, there was Margaret and Jack. No one knew who Jack’s father was so even he could have been Sundric. At one point, I was wondering if it was the co-pilot who might be pretending to be dead. I do love a good mystery.

This approach shouldn’t be limited to mysteries though. Every character in every scene should have a motivation. It may not impact the story or even be revealed, but they need to appear to have a purpose. Background characters flesh out worlds and make them feel real and lived in. If they all just stand around or only react to the actions of the story then they don’t add anything. They might as well not be there. You want the audience to believe that it could be a real place with real people.