‘Spy x Family Episode 4’ Review: The Family Goes To The Prestigious School’s Interview
Spy x Family comes back this week with another amazing episode. The Forger family is quickly becoming one of the most interesting, charming and loveable families in all anime. This is just the fourth episode of the show, and everybody is talking about it. It feels great to see that the digital experiment Shōnen Jump did sometime ago with this series has paid off greatly for the company. Spy x Family is now a household name, and has been able to transcend very quickly into the more casual part of the audience.
In this episode, titled “The Prestigious School’s Interview” Loid, Yor, and Anya will try to pass the very difficult and important entry interview to the prestigious Academy. The family has been training for days for this moment. They have prepared themselves to answer the most predictable questions from the interview in the best possible manner, and they have also prepared themselves physically to look not only as a proper family, but also as a very elegant one.
The word of the episode is that one, Elegance. To be elegant seems to be one of the most important requirements. We know that the family is anything but elegant, which makes for some very funny moments when they unintentionally become the most elegant of the pretenders to a spot inside Eden Academy.
We meet a bunch of new characters in this episode. The most important addition to the cast is Henry Henderson, headmaster of the Eden Academy. The introduction of the characters is fantastic, because we only need to see his design to know that he is going to be an obstacle for our main characters. However, expectations are turned upside down when he starts to be impressive by every single thing the Forger family does. It is quite funny, because we, as the audience, know that so far they are a fake family and that some of the most impressive feats have to do with their secret identities, but Henderson doesn’t know. To him, the Forger are just incredibly impressive and elegant.
The show also manages to create a very strong sense of danger around the test. It is a very ridiculous situation. The interview to get inside a school should not be something as stress inducing as this one, and on top of that, we are shown that the test begins even before the parents and kids go inside the main building. Fake incidents, a stampede of crazy cows, everything seems to be alright if it is part of the test. Loid keeps reminding us that in all of his years as the top spy agent in the world, he has never felt so much nerves. That’s when you know getting a spot in the school is the real deal.
The episode’s tension culminates with the interview, where Henderson and two other members of the faculty ask questions to both the parents and Anya, who is going to be the student. The interview begins innocently enough and Loid, Yor and Anya answer accordingly, Although Anya is quite a bit nervous because she knows that the fate of the mission is in her hands every time a question is directed to her. They all seem to be doing great. However, one of the new characters, the despicable Mr Swan, another member of the faculty, starts making very impertinent questions about Yor role as mother.
It is clear at this point that both Yor and Loid have feelings for each other, even when they try to deny them to themselves. So, even if Loid doesn’t know why, he’s getting mad about these questions. We as the audience know why. Nobody would like to have a person you love treated this way. The straw that breaks the camel’s back appears when Mr. Swan asks Anya about her previous mother. These questions trigger bad memories in poor Anya’s mind, and she starts crying. The moment Loid jumps to hit Mr. Swan feels like an iconic heroic moment for the character, and it is an action we can all understand and get behind it. Loid holds back and doesn’t hit Mr. Swan, of course, but we wished he had.
It doesn’t matter because Henderson ends up hitting Mr. Swan in the face, and saves himself from shame. Henderson is a very interesting character, and we hope there is more of him in the next episodes. He’s funny and has a very intriguing moral code, as well as a lot of pride for his work. These episodes set him up more as a future ally than anything else.
When the family goes back home, they feel defeated, and then Anya reveals the elephant in the room. What will happen with the family when the mission is over? The story is going to that place whether we want it or not, and it is going to be a very emotional moment for all the family members. We will cross that bridge when the time comes, but it’s getting closer and closer with each new episode.
