Awesome episode! And I mean that in a totally non-sarcastic way. If this was a sandwich, we’re eating it…sort of. Actually we’re kind of going back to the kitchen. Actually, forget the sandwich! We have more important things to focus on, like…Kitty Helmet Ninja Biker Girl!

This is going to run long, but bear with me. Important info, kids!

We meet another character this time around, one Shinra Kishitani. He describes himself as an underground doctor, one whose patients can’t – for whatever seedy, criminal reasons – go to a normal hospital. He also says he does plastic surgery on people who need new faces, but I’m skeptical.

More importantly: he lives with Kitty Helmet Ninja Biker Girl! And her name is SELTY STURLUSON. Actually that name is not as cool as I had hoped it would be…

Name aside, Selty is just like you and me. She showers! She sasses! She sulks! And she does it all without a head. That’s my girl.

Shinra really seems to want to figure out how she can see, think, smell, hear, etc., without a head. One speculation is that the black smoke billowing from her neck hole collects data in the way that a brain would and somehow transmits information to the body that way. I’m not sure if this is something that we’re supposed to dwell on or if we should just accept it. Soo…moving on.

Shinra spends the episode talking to us, the viewer, about Selty and their history together. Turns out, Selty is a Celtic fairy known as a Dullahan and she’s originally from Ireland. I don’t know enough to know if the Dullahan legend (if there is one) is accurately portrayed in this series, but for the purposes of Durarara!!, a Dullahan is a headless lady who travels with her headless horse to the homes of people who are close to death. If someone sees her who isn’t supposed to, they get a bucket of blood to the face. Gross. And awesome!

Twenty years ago, Selty suddenly woke up in the mountains of Ireland, without a head and without many of her memories. She knew her name (I would have picked a new one) and what she was, but not where her head went. And so she resolved to find it, following the “feeling” of her head around the country.

In the present, in Ikebukuro, Selty is trying to locate a man who claims to have seen a Dullahan to find out if he has any information about her missing head. Izaya gave her the idea to look, so you can bet there’s something bad coming her way.

Back to Ireland: she knows her head is on its way overseas. Then Selty comes up with the idea to turn her headless horse into a motorcycle. The horse, it turns out, is actually a familiar of the Dullahan that just happens to be inhabiting a horse’s corpse. A headless horse is sort of a weird companion, even for the 80’s, so she traded up for a bike. Smart lady.

Back in the present, Selty eventually finds the man, who admits he saw the Dullahan years ago and knows she was very beautiful, but he can’t remember what her face looked like or what happened to her head. Nice old guy, but not very helpful.

Selty goes home and sulks a bit, talks to Shinra, who advises her to give up her search for her head and run away with him. In my favorite conversation of the series thus far, Selty’s all, “I can’t stand you,” and he’s all, “let’s make out,” and she’s all, “ew yuck I’m going to my room.” Good girl.

Back to flashing back…thinking her head is on this one boat, Selty stows away and that’s where she first meets Shinra. He’s 4 years old at the time, traveling with his father, who’s a doctor. When Daddy hears about the headless woman, he immediately wants to autopsy her. In a very gruesome, disturbing bit of anime, the doc slices her open (as she screams and struggles) and then, finding that she has no blood and her organs exist but don’t function and she heals quickly, offers the scalple to HIS FOUR-YEAR-OLD SON. WHO TAKES IT AND CUTS ON HER AGAIN. Obviously, this relationship is WTF from the beginning.

And gross. Just gross.

At the close of the episode, Shinra goes to talk the the old man who saw the Dullahan. He says she’s beautiful even without her head, he loves her just how she is, blah blah blah. Then they LAUGH. And it makes my skin crawl.

New creepster character! Background info! Tension! Violence! PLOT!

Loved it. Thanks, Durarara!!!

Next Time: Cry Wine And Sell Vinegar
Well. Ooookay…