Score: A

I think Shy really came into her own as a hero in this one. It was one thing to try and save Iko, it was another to do that and face her heart directly. Even if what she heard wasn’t pleasant, she had to take all of it if she wanted to reach her. Or at least she felt that was what she needed to do when considering the conversation, she had with her grandfather as a child. Taking some seriously harsh hits to try and save someone in pain is just classic hero stuff. And I certainly haven’t lost so much love in heroes that I can’t celebrate a moment like that.

A look of satisfaction

The ending just brought everything together nicely. Shy didn’t and couldn’t know for sure what to do in that moment. All she could really do though was trust her gut and respond to the girl in need in front of her. Ideally the situation would have allowed her to slip that ring off before things got too dangerous. But after that point the only real choices were to shatter those crystals…or remove her hand. So I’m glad that Shy went with the far less gruesome option.

And I think this was the result that both Iko and Shy needed. Iko needed that feeling of being saved without accruing more survivor’s guilt. It was important for her to accept that it is ok to be alive and it’s ok to want to be saved. And Shy needed this chance to see the positive impact of her own life. Her kindness reached out and truly saved someone.

Helping this girl out was a good move

While it’s pretty cliché, I liked seeing Shy just immediately take charge of helping Iko when finding her on the stairs. When there’s time to think she naturally gets frazzled and nervous. But when it comes to seeing someone in front of her that needs help, the girl steps up. And it doesn’t matter if she’s transformed or not. That’s just who Teru is at her core. Some people might look the other way or take Iko’s claims of being ok at face value. But Teru simply acts and that at least helped avoid that poor girl being left in pain on the stairs.

Man she was in such pain in this episode

Honestly, I didn’t know what to think last week with Iko’s behavior during the rollercoaster rescue. There just seemed to be something going on there and a reason she’d refuse being saved first even though that took up more time. What I had no chance of getting right was the severe survivor’s guilt that girl has been wrestling with for quite some time. When she started to transform I did pretty quickly gauge that her hatred must have been inward. There wasn’t any sense from how she talked that Shy was someone she even secretly hated. And in that case the list of sources for her anger became increasingly limited.

It’s such a sad thing really. Iko understandably is still hurting over the deaths of her parents. It’s not too surprising that she’d blame herself for their deaths. Probably thinking things such as if only they had to save her little brother it would have been fine. She loved her parents deeply but felt the need to put blame somewhere for their deaths. And those negative feelings just built up to the point where she blamed her own desire to be saved as the cause of tragedy. And it all turned terribly self-destructive when she tried to kill herself. In some ways it was a good thing her focus shifted to Shy since otherwise stopping her from ending her own life would have been incredibly difficult.

I hope someone KOs this brat!

That kid is just plain creepy! Can talk a good game about freeing hearts, but I doubt he has any particular affection for humans in general. Out of all the hearts out there he chooses to “free” one that is captured by self-hatred and the only logical result of that would be Iko ending her own life. I don’t get the feeling that he would have cared and someone with his abilities probably knew her heart was suicidal even before giving her the ring. Obviously, people in general have to restrain themselves somewhat. If we did everything that popped into our heads it would be pure anarchy. People are mixed bags and some sense of restraint to decide what actions are appropriate isn’t the worst thing in the world.

I simply don’t expect to see this kid suddenly releasing the hearts of people who are super altruistic but holding back out of some sense of embarrassment or shame. He just seems all about chaos and seeing how many people can be killed by his free hearts. I don’t think anyone can look at this creepy kid and think he has anything good in mind!

Teru shared her kindness and now Iko can do the same

This is the kind of episode I was hoping for. A good focus on Shy truly saving Iko. Not only her life, but her heart as well. And it gives Teru one heck of a good friend in her corner now. It’ll just be nice to see how Iko handles things going forward. Hopefully she can channel what guilt she still has into spreading kindness and reaching out to others as well. Having innocent people being turned into dangerous threats like this is certainly a solid challenge being thrown towards the heroes out there. If they want to spread hope, then they have to save these people. Not going to be easy though. Not unless the fingers with those rings on them avoid being covered as quickly as they were in Iko’s case.