Roll Over and Die

Episode 12

While I did not expect a conclusive finale from Roll Over and Die, I am a bit stunned at how messy and inconclusive it ended up feeling. This episode is primarily concerned with setting up several plot threads for Flum's next arc. Meanwhile, it treats the resolution of this season's events as an afterthought, invoking multiple instances of narrative convenience to grease the wheels of its story. The result is both overstuffed and unsatisfying, but perhaps that's befitting of this adaptation and its chronic lack of focus.

Milkit again finds herself in sexually charged peril at the hands of her former owner, Satils, who plays her part with the sadistic relish of a professional dominatrix. If we're looking at Roll Over and Die as a sapphic work, then this evocation of lesbian BDSM fits that mold. However, the adaptation's shortcomings in direction and mood prevent the scene from feeling either too dangerous or too titillating. The flat visuals make everything else flat, which in turn makes this situation feel even more superfluous. I want edginess here! If the series is going to keep stringing Milkit up and slicing her clothing to ribbons, I think it needs to be nastier and trashier. It needs flavor. It needs sauce.

Instead, Flum swoops in anticlimactically and rescues Milkit with hardly any struggle. Milkit, at least, receives a morsel of character development when she refuses to give in to Satils, but the series otherwise doesn't seem to know how to wrap up this excursion. Its solution is to throw everything at the wall and pray something sticks. Nothing does. Let's take inventory of what happens after Flum appears. She and Milkit enjoy a moment of respite. Flum apologizes to Ink. A mysterious force drags Satils into her torture chamber pit, where the horde of zombies devours her. Mother and Nekt walk out of a portal. Ink rejects her old family. Ink begs Flum to kill her. Eterna shows up and reveals everything is going to be okay. It's nonstop tonal whiplash, and none of these “twists” have time to breathe.

The episode doesn't slow down after that point, either. The truth about Origin comes out of nowhere, and the ridiculousness of that is matched only by the nonchalance with which our characters discuss these earth-shattering revelations. It should be a bigger deal that Origin is a supercomputer AI that was sealed with magic after it caused the apocalypse. That's interesting and timely, and I would have loved the narrative to have time to explore it. But there's no time in the second half of the finale, which unfolds into a disjointed collage of scenes catching us up on more or less the entire cast. To Roll Over and Die's credit, the next part of the story seems like it should be a lot more engaging than this part. If only that didn't make me also consider how directionless the past few weeks of story have been by comparison.

It's difficult, then, to comment or speculate on where Roll Over and Die might go next. I'm spoiled for choice, yet I lack enough information to discuss anything with appreciable depth. For instance, what do I make of Mother's appearance? Are her exaggerated masculine features rooted in inconsiderate transphobia, or is the series doing something more nuanced with the idea of gender? Does the writing mean to contrast the “villainous” queerness of Satils and Mother against the “virtuous” queerness of Flum and Milkit, or does it have loftier ambitions than didacticism? I know it'd be easy to dismiss the series alongside most of its Narou peers, and it might even be correct to do so. However, Roll Over and Die has shown an ability to be subversive and metatextual, so I'd like to remain receptive to its potential subtext. It's just frustrating when a finale arranges an intriguing pattern of dominoes without proving to the audience that it has the gumption and foresight to knock them over correctly.

In the end, I don't dislike Roll Over and Die. I wanted to see a yuri take on this genre, and that's what it delivered. In its best moments, Flum and Milkit become a couple worth rooting for. However, the writing in these early stages quickly becomes overeager. The cast grows too big without scaling up the conflict. Welcy, Ottilie, and Ink should have each gotten their own little adventure with Flum as Sara did. Better and slower pacing, ironically, would have made this season not drag as much. But there's not one fatal mistake—there are a bunch of tiny and annoying ones that ultimately add up to a middling product. By that token, however, I do not think Roll Over and Die can't improve. After these growing pains, a few adjustments by a more confident author could be all it takes to elevate the material. I won't be holding my breath for another season, but I might check out the novels to see how they compare and where they go after this point. Therefore, I can call this season a partial success, even if this is a sour note to leave on.

Rating:

Roll Over and Die is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Sylvia is on Bluesky for all of your posting needs. You are not allowed to ask her to roll over. You can also catch her chatting about trash and treasure alike on This Week in Anime.