Spy×Family Season 3

Episode 42

Although we know that Yor was orphaned early and turned to assassination as a way to keep Yuri fed, we don't really have much information about her background. It's mostly played for laughs or as simply another layer of deception, adding her needing to hide her job from her husband and brother to the mix of everything else that's currently hidden. She's often shown to be about a deep as a puddle, which has consistently been one of my few issues with the series as a whole.

That's why this episode is important. Yor's shopping excursion, although not as serious as her adventure on the cruise ship, arguably adds the most depth to her character that we've seen thus far. And that's because, the entire time she's out and about in public, she's troubled by the fact that she may not appear “normal.”

What is “normal,” and how do we learn to be that way? Honestly, I have no real idea, but in the pseudo-1960s of Totally-Not-Germany, “normal” is very closely linked to social norms, which Yor is very aware that she's not necessarily following. Her marriage to Loid came about because being single (or a widower with a child) was both seen as dangerously abnormal, particularly for Yor. With the pervasive fear of the secret police running underneath the façade of polite society, the Forger family must be as normal as possible – and that's without factoring in Loid's mission, which Yor, of course, doesn't know about. The pressure is really getting to her more with each new outing, as we see when she panics about asking her neighbors where to buy Anya sweets.

But it's her very lack of normalcy that attracts Melinda Desmond. From the moment Yor saves her (and her purchases) from falling down the stairs at the department store, Melinda is fascinated. It's like she's found a strange creature she wants to train, and only part of that seems to come from her stated reason for inviting Yor to join her women's club, which is that Yor doesn't recognize her as Donovan Desmond's wife. If I'm being cynical, I'd say that Melinda sees in Yor someone she might be able to use – she's not only remarkably athletic, but also guileless in a very childlike way. That combination may very well add up to “potential pawn” in Melinda's mind.

And I do not doubt that Melinda would use Yor if she thought she could. The abrupt shift from bubbly mom friend to cold politician's wife is very telling, and you can practically see the wheels turning as she thinks that Yor is Anya's mother. She may be a hands-off parent, but that doesn't mean she's ignoring her sons, and she's very well aware of Damian and Anya's relationship. (That's just another Boys Over Flowers reference waiting to happen – she really is a lot like Tsukasa Domyoji's mother in that show, and Damian is at his most Domyoji this week.) Yor does seem to recognize that danger to some degree, which makes sense; she'd be a pretty terrible assassin if she couldn't sense ill intent. But she's more worried about appearing “normal” in Loid's eyes. She may not always wear it on her sleeve, but Yor is clearly a very anxious person.

Things are really lining up for Operation Strix on the Desmond front, and Loid now has two ins with the family. But there are more plans afoot than just WISE's, as the title for next week's episode shows. What's this about a bus hijacking…?

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Spy×Family Season 3 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.