Rolling Review – The Promised Neverland (10)

Episode Synopsis:

Norman, who has resigned himself to being shipped out, describes the complex’s ultimate security feature: a deep, empty moat surrounding the outer walls, which will take far more material than they can put together on short notice to effectively cross. Following this, he reminisces about life on the farm while Emma hatches one last plot to free him, which he himself thwarts to stop her from spending the only element of surprise that they may still have.
Each robbed of perhaps their best friend, Emma and Ray fall into depression, and LITERALLY THERE IS A TEN-WEEK TIME-SKIP. Like, there’s a brief interlude partway through, but the last scene picks up twenty-four hours before Ray’s scheduled shipment only to drop enough dialogue to imply that the two of them haven’t so much as spoken to each other the entire time ARE YOU SERIOUS RIGHT N-

Review:

*Ahem*
I think I’m losing my grip on this show. There were hints of this beginning to happen in my assessment of Episode 6 [Edit: see comments], but it got a lot worse when Krone was removed from the board without having affected the state of the game in any obvious fashion. Her story is an interesting look into the world, but I feel cheated – so much energy invested in trying to figure out in what way she was going to be significant, and then… she just… wasn’t. The children have no useful information that they didn’t before, and Isabella has no less (or more) control of the situation than if Krone hadn’t been present at all.

As something of a side note, the kids may (emphasis on may) have a tracker-disabling device that has escaped Isabella’s notice, but she still has a very important piece of information hidden from them: the value of the timing of the harvest of the primary trio. If Emma is to be one of “the supreme goods that will be offered at the Tifari” (as Grandma put it in Episode 3), Isabella probably wouldn’t kill her now, just as she probably hasn’t yet killed Norman (Habeas Corpus!). Since Emma only knows that kids get shipped before they turn twelve, the threat seems to still be effective.

Oddly, this episode also features a brief crack in Isabella’s façade, when Norman asks her if she’s happy. The significance of her being physically struck by this question has yet to be explored, but it might be that she’s cast her life in terms of the relationships she has with her children and, perhaps, her position in her organization, to the exclusion of any kind of self-reflection. It seems like a stretch to me that this will have any significant impact on her, given how stone-cold she acts both before and after this conversation, but it seems pretty obvious that it’s supposed to mean something, so… I dunno.

Sure as heck doesn’t seem to have had any obvious effect during the ensuing TEN SOLID WEEKS I SWEAR TO GO-

Summary:

If Don and Gilda haven’t spent this time recruiting twin-braids, chestnut, and the next four or five kids after that, I am going to be somewhat miffed.

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