Spy×Family Season 3

Episode 44

This season of SPY x FAMILY isn't shying away from the danger adults' conflicts can put children in. But the hijacking of Anya's school bus has one very distinct difference from Loid's war-torn childhood: Anya is secure in the belief that the adults will come save her. Loid was disabused of this notion the moment the bombs fell and killed his father; his mother's death a short time later, due to the same, firmly taught him that grown-ups cannot protect children. Everything in his life since then has been motivated by his unspoken (and perhaps not fully understood) desire to prevent other kids from living through the hell that he did. And Anya fully believes that he can pull that off.

Loid's also not the only adult she knows she can count on, and most of the off-the-bus scenes this week are devoted to proving her right. Becky's dad is fully hysterical as he plans for his daughter's rescue, and Sylvia is (for her) clearly shaken by the fact that a bus full of children, including two she's invested in, has been kidnapped. Henderson goes an entire speech without mentioning the word “elegant,” which really shows how worried and sincere he is in his desire to save the children. And even Yuri is overcome with a need to rescue his niece. Yes, he writes it off as being about his sister (because it is Yuri, after all), but it's clear that Anya's safety matters to him, too, and he is not okay with the way his employers plan to handle the situation.

It's interesting that the least trustworthy adults in this case, the State Security Service, are the ones most closely associated with the war machine. WISE is tightly tied to it as well, but the difference between the two organizations couldn't be clearer: WISE isn't going to sacrifice children. Yes, Sylvia seems indifferent at first, but the alacrity with which she changes her tune makes me think that she was more biding her time than truly leaving everything to the police. From a cynical standpoint, both Anya and Damian are crucial to Operation Strix. But I doubt that the deaths of a lot of children serve anyone's plans, especially not if they're to remain in the “good guys” category.

That makes Billy and his Red Circus at least a little interesting. Yes, they've hijacked two buses of school kids, but he also seems to be going out of his way not to hurt them. As Anya's mind-reading skills attest, the bombs he straps around her and Damian's necks aren't real. They're more about fear than actual desire to kill six-year-olds, and when he fires his gun, he doesn't actually aim at the children. He could have done much worse to Anya – and Becky, for that matter – after they dropped the candy tin out the window. He's even willing to exchange prisoners, not prisoners' corpses. Having live hostages to negotiate with is advantageous, but I just don't get the impression that he wants to kill the children. They're a means to an end, not what he was actually aiming for.

Anya may know that, to a degree, although her mind-reading and her reasoning skills aren't necessarily on the same level. But she, Becky, and Damian are all doing their utmost to handle a situation they have no business being tasked with. The three of them feed off of each other's bravado, with Anya leading the charge. Even if she's got more insider knowledge than the other two, she's still the one who came up with the idea to write the note. Becky taped it to her school ID, and Damian was the distraction – they're working together. This, too, is a major difference from Loid's past, because he was always alone. That's something these kids don't have to cope with.

I keep coming back to the opening theme. Showing the entire cast as children, running and laughing in a way they rarely do within the series itself, is an indication of the perfect world none of them really have access to. But Anya pulling child Loid by the hand, Damian laughing in a carefree way without the pressures of his parents, and the parade of toys all speak to the end goal of the story. The juxtaposition of Anya's bus-jacking experience and Loid's childhood trauma speaks to how things are moving closer to that goal.

And this time, the adults are working together to bring it about.

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Spy×Family Season 3 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.