After careful reviewing of the first 3 seasons so far I'd say this is unfortunately a bit below the rest in my opinion. The entirety of SpyXFamily has a whole is undeniably pretty consistent considering it is a slice-of-life comedy and the pacing is dictated by the jokes and shenanigans happening on screen, making the arguments "it's becoming boring/worse" or "it's too slow and nothing happens" quite meaningless to me.
The whole season can simply be resumed as the Cruise arc because of it taking 6 out of 12 episodes, basically the main focus for this part with all others episode being self-contained 1 character arc (Becky, Damian, Bond etc) for the purpose of either comedy or side character development.
Is the Cruise Arc better than what we had previously ? Unfortunately no. My main gripe concerning the treatment of Yor with an issue that is overly apparent in this arc even though it lasted since almost her introduction. It is simply impossible to write compelling drama with Yor's character as the way she is written right now and this makes the Cruise Arc a pain in multiple instances, she is simply too overpowered and carefree at the same time for the emotional moments to hit. Some will say Yor is just a badly written MarySue and that's the core issue, but I disagree, Loid is also a huge GaryStu but is still perfectly written through and through. The difference lies in how they approach the more serious situations of their hidden identity, Loid is constantely in a state of taking everything too seriously, therefore his spy moments feel real and coherent because his character acts the way he should be acting in such situations and his comic side is only on display during slice-of-life family moments where it doesn't come in conflict with the general mood of the arc.
Here we are supposed to accept Yor is at the same time a cold-blooded super assassin and a dumb clumsy housewife, which doesn't work. The amount of people she kills without any remorse is baffling, even if justified in scenario, her detachment to killing is completely incoherent with her ultra emotional reactions toward daily situation like when she does clumsy mistakes in their household. All of this would work if everything was treated as a parody or full on comedy but the character of McMahon is a proof it absolutely isn't, all of his kills are showed as brutal and emotionless, just acting by following orders in a very serious assassin story settings. Her main dilemma is the same as Loid, deciding who they truly are between their hidden identity and their made-up family persona, unfortunately for Yor the treatment is way too ridiculous as she worries more about injuries on her boob than the possibility of her death. The main solution for me and that's what I think Endo initially intended when looking at the first few chapters is that Yor should have had a split personality or similar, basically completely separating the clumsy housewife and the serious assassin in each sections requiring it. Her clumsy self could obviously keep her godlike reflexes and strenght for comedy purpose but her cold-blooded assassin side would be taken more seriously, then you could add interior conflicts for her to find which personality is the real her instead of simply making her hop inbetween the 2 at will. This is better as a narrative standpoint mainly because Yor's conflict between family and job is pointless as she perfectly lives with the 2 without any troubles, she reached her goal when the made-up family was created which isn't the case for Loid, as his main goal is still the operation Stryx and the whole fake family would be abandonned once it is over. Technically Yor has no goal in the story (so far) than just doing what she does, becoming a good mother is pointless because Anya already loves her, Yuri is living his best life as Gestapo agent and Garden is apparently doing well (Ost/West peace is Garden's goal, not Yor's).
In the end the only best thing that can happen now in next part is finally a plot progression for operation Stryx now that all important introductions have been done (Yuri, Bond, Fiona) and all comedy/side characters got some screentime (Franky, Becky, Damian, Daybreak). Things can truly only stagnates or advances from here. |