I have good news and bad news. The bad news is: No festive gift baskets are being sent by me to the writers of the show. Better luck next time, guys! But the good news is: even though this episode had some big ups and downs, its downs were not the worst of the season and its ups illicited some genuine emotional reactions (different from the usual reactions of annoyance and eye-rolling). So…nice work on that!

When last we saw Shizzy and the gang, he was getting ready to battle possessed-Niekawa. Shocker: he beats him up. After the beating, Selty brings Sonohara home and then heads home to decompress with the Doc.

They chat for a bit about the happenings of the evening and the Doc says that it all seems a little too unfinished. Back at the scene of the beating, Shizzy agrees. Then he goes off to find Izaya and beat him, too.

This allows for a funny comment from Erika about the Shizzy/Izaya feud, something to the effect of, “they’re totally in love! our very own BL!” Normally I would just smile at the yaoi reference, but recently while I was very innocently browsing a photo gallery I came across some Durarara!! fan art of the BL persuasion. In the interest of full disclosure, I will admit that I like yaoi in general, but guys…there are some things you can’t un-see. I was – and remain – totally disturbed. I mean…it was just…yuck.

But…uh…back to the episode.

Meanwhile, someone starts ringing the doorbell at Sonohara’s house. A young girl? Not someone she recognizes, but of course that’s soon taken care of: it’s the illusive younger Niekawa, the writer’s daughter. And she has some CREEPY eyes happening.

Basically she wants to take Sonohara to task for her “relationship” with the creepy teacher. See, Miss Niekawa believed the two of them to be in “love” and does not take kindly to the “competition.” Of course her way of expressing this “love” is to slash people…which I think we can all agree is totally normal and justified. Right. (Gross.)

While Sonohara and the creepy girl are having their little chat, the action skips back and forth to Selty and the Doc. They’ve put it all together through some kind of mystical ESP that the Slasher is now looking to strengthen her love (?!) by having babies (?!) which she does by slashing people (?!) and implanting bits of herself in their souls (?!), turning them into zombiefied slashers (?!). This was definitely not covered in any health classes I’ve ever taken.

Also: I’d love it if once, just once, an anime let its characters have these incredible leaps of knowledge and then turn out to be totally, 100% wrong. What if it wasn’t Saika that was controlling the Slasher? What if it was just a disturbed individual out to hurt others? What if the know-it-all Doc had to sit back in an episode or two and say, “wow…I really flubbed that one…my bad?” Would you feel let down or would that be kind of awesome?

Just before the break in the episode, the creepy girl says to Sonohara something like, “I don’t love you, but Saika will love you,” and I literally got chills. Seriously – goosebumps and all!

After the break, Shizzy goes to find Izaya. When he does, he accuses him of having something to do with the whole Saika situation, arguing that if something bad is going down there’s a 99% chance Izaya is involved. Izaya suggests that maybe this particular emergency falls into the 1% that’s not his fault, but Shizzy’s not buying it.

And then Izaya pulls a knife (a knife! significant? I think so!), so it looks like Shizzy has a point.

Back at Sonohara’s house, the creepy girl continues to prattle on about what a parasite and a slut and a generally bad person Sonohara is. Then the doorbell rings. And it’s the teacher – what timing, dude! He, of course, freaks out and runs off. The girl decides to run after him, but sends in a bunch of zombie-Slashers to kill Sonohara. SOMEBODY GET OVER THERE AND HELP OUT!

Selty interrupts the impending fight between Shizzy and Izaya to bring Shizzy to the park. It sounds sweet, but the park is actually full of zombie-Slashers who have inherited Saika’s adoration and desire to draw blood, so…perhaps not awesome for him. It’s revealed that Selty brought him there hoping to draw out the original Saika and take her down – since it’s only episode 16, we know immediately that the plan fails.

Once he’s surrounded by his psycho fans, Shizzy makes an utterly ridiculous speech, along the lines of, “I used to hate myself for this incredible gift I have, but if all of you like me so much I must not be so bad, but I don’t care about what you think about me, so now you have to die!” Who writes this stuff? What a load of garbage! I’m hoping that he’s being sarcastic and I’m missing it because of the language barrier.

As the episode closes, the creepy girl is threatening to gut the teacher (in the name of love, of course) when Sonohara comes to stop her. Niekawa is not super-thrilled about not slashing the teacher, so she turns on Sonohara. But instead of being hacked apart, there’s just a metallic clanging noise…?

Sonohara is a robot?!

No. Wait. Sonohara has the original Saika?!

…WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT???

I did not see that coming. But it takes this goofy little series to a whole new level. And I can’t wait to hear all about how she came to have the demon sword. How long do you think I’ll have to wait for it?

Next time: Everything Changes
Everything? Really? We’ll see about that!