Rating: A-
The end of last episode found Lawrence at his lowest point, knowing that he was in trouble both financially and with his companion. Left with nowhere to go but up, he spends this episode gradually digging himself out of that hole, and he does so with the help of two formidable women: one the incarnation of the Wisewolf, the other a shepherdess of uncommon prowess.
The situations with both women each have their complexities, but Holo’s is the more involved case. That’s primarily because Lawrence does not understand that she and he are not on the same page over what the problem really is. Understandably, Lawrence believes that he did wrong by slapping her hand away when she was trying to console him, and she’s justifiably upset about that, but that actually isn’t what’s bothering Holo the most. In a sense, her cleverness is working against her here, as she quickly understands that her presence has unwittingly complicated things for Lawrence, and she’s so mortified that Lawrence letting her off the hook for that (which was, objectively, the right thing to do since Holo was unaware of the impact of her presence) only embarrasses her further. It’s also quite possible that she fully understands the irony that she’s getting upset over a commendable trait of Lawrence, which would only further frustrate someone like her. The scene where she and Lawrence work through that in their room in the inn is one of my favorite in this part of the series, as it shows them having to work through a difficult interpersonal issue with no outside forces in play. This is the series’ character writing at its finest.
The case of Nora may be a little more straightforward, but not completely so. Boiled down, her main problem is that she’s too skilled for her own good. People (most importantly the priest) have difficulty believing that she can remain safe from the wolves despite being in a dangerous area without some kind of heretical aid, so she’s stuck in the very-unfair reality where enduring her plight only continues it. While Holo is the one to propose the gold scheme that is the potential solution to Lawrence’s financial problems, Lawrence gets credit for recognizing that Nora cannot be happy with this situation (especially since he knows she has comparatively loftier goals) and using that to manipulate her into participating, both by framing it as a way to get back at the Church and as a way to fund the path she seeks away from shepherding. While this is undoubtedly some crass manipulation on Lawrence’s part, it’s not like he’s screwing her over here; he sees to it that there are great benefits for her if she’s willing to shoulder the risk. And why wouldn’t she jump at it, since it’s also the perfect opportunity for her to leave this city where she’s not welcome?
The other interesting aspect here is the way that subtle foreshadowing in the previous three episodes have pointed in this direction. Smuggling gold is dangerous because the Church tightly controls its trade as a prime source of income, but that also means there’s a lot of earning potential there – enough to even save a faltering trading house. But while wagons and traveler packs might be diligently checked for contraband, who would bother checking a bunch of innocuous sheep – especially with a figure people are uncomfortable around guiding them? Doubtless the wolves that have been mentioned multiple times are going to play into this endeavor in some fashion (and they are referred to in the next episode’s title), and as the first arc showed, people are willing to pull any kind of treachery if enough money is at stake, so the threat to Lawrence and Nora on this operation may not be just from the wolves. But that’s all for the remaining two episodes of this arc to get into.
As with past episodes, this episode plays out almost exactly like its counterpart in the first adaptation (i.e., season 1 episode 11). The only minor differences are some reimaginings of setting specifics and that this version does not include the close-out scene from the original adaptation – but since that could well be pushed to the beginning of the next episode, I won’t bring that up here. Each version also has slightly different ways of portraying Holo and Nora’s body language, but both versions are equally effective.
In all, this is the best episode yet for the current arc.
USA Anime 