ID: Invaded (Episode 1) - Jigsawed

Sakaido wakes in a strange place with his body fragmented. He slowly begins to pull himself together and then tries to make sense of this strange location. Meanwhile, a team of detectives watch on, waiting for clues.

What happened?

This episode started with Sakaido literally falling to pieces. He seemed to be startled at first but then managed to make sense of it… kind of. At first, he had no memory of where he was and even who he was, but it started to come back to him with the discovery of a girl’s body. He continued to piece together the fragmented world and start to unravel the mystery. A group of detectives monitored Sakaido’s experiences, making notes and connections of their own because Sakaido was in the ID Well of a serial killer. This enabled him to enter the consciousness of the murderer and try to find clues to his whereabouts, and with two more victims unaccounted for, time is of the essence.

ID Invaded Episode 1 Sakaido Waking in the ID Well

What was your favourite element?

I thought the opening was excellent, especially watching Sakaido trying to pull himself and the world together. It was interesting to see him work out what was going on around him. Then, when we got to see the team of detectives watching him it just got even more interesting. There were little gems of information all over the place and it’s understandable if you’d missed them. The one that really stood out to me was when one detective mentioned that only a killer could enter another person ID, telling us more about Sakaido, but leaving enough to keep us coming back for more.

What have you learnt?

I mentioned this with Darwin’s Game, but I’m going to say it again. It’s great when we’re not hit with massive exposition dumps and allowed to work things out for ourselves or at the very least with the main character. Sure, with this series, that would be a little tougher, but I think it opened with such a brilliant and profound moment that it was really exciting making sense of it with Sakaido. So, to capture the interest of the reader, it’s a great idea to allow them to make discoveries with the character, sometimes, it’s even better to set things up that the reader works it out first. They have to work it out though, you can’t just tell them. This will give the reader a sense of accomplishment and further bond them to the story.