Score: A-

Every episode leaves me satisfied that I decided to talk about this show each week. The sword tournament took center stage this week and managed to get all the way to a solid conclusion. It ended in a way that works. You could argue honestly that Sion or Abel could have gotten a win here. The edge seemed to go to Sion, but that’s almost a good thing. It should further fuel Abel’s drive to improve and surpass his newly attained rival. And that is a nice side to this. Sion picks up a rival as well and that might help him continue to get stronger. At the very least I don’t think he wants his arm to go numb from blocking a slash like that again!

Abel really has come a long way

I didn’t expect how cute this Mia and Abel ship would be when they first introduced him. At the very least I wouldn’t have been surprised with them leaning hard into love triangles and such. But instead, Mia has stayed true to herself. She still doesn’t want to have much to do with Sion and is really falling hard for Abel. This pair are just cute together and bring out great qualities in each other.

There’s zero doubt that Abel wouldn’t be where he is right now without her. This guy would have been messing around, avoiding responsibility, and wouldn’t have lasted a minute against his brother in the tournament. But instead, now he’s a rival to Sion and wants to live up to the expectations he thinks Mia has for him. At the very least he wants to be someone that can protect her reputation and of course her safety. That of course makes it a bit sad to think that Mia’s life isn’t yet saved. Even love can’t overcome everything at this stage.

Behold her grand creation!

There’s a lot of positive going to Mia as well. Though I think the biggest win is allowing herself to get swept up in the moment and not simply obsessing over her fate. That is important obviously to deal with. But there’s positives to be had in Mia just having some fun. It was cute watching her be so focused on the horse shaped food concept. Mia was just utterly focused on making something that would make Abel happy and once she determined that a horse shape was necessary…nothing was going to stop her! Not even Keithwood could stand in her way there.

And it was both silly and cute how Mia has built up her biases so strongly that entire conversations lead to whiplash of her reacting one way or another. It was fun watching her turn every word from Abel into the greatest thing ever said and mentally dragging Sion through the mud with every comment on his side XD. Mia can pause and try to rationalize how she shouldn’t fall in love with Abel super-fast, but it doesn’t matter since she’s falling fast. And that’s sweet since obviously her original timeline didn’t lead to a romance like that for her.

He doesn’t seem stable

A huge moment for Mia was continuing her support of Abel even while thinking it wasn’t the best idea. It’s easy to make choices focused on her survival, but much harder to make ones where she can’t argue that it’s the best choice for herself. Choosing to support Anne in the first episode is the closest to this decision. That one was driven by emotion and a desire to repay the kindness Anne showed in that other timeline. But here Mia is aware that upsetting Abel’s brother has risks and that the last thing she needs is him refusing to help Mia if the Revolution breaks out and her life is on the line. Still, her heart knows what it wants, and she stood by the guy she liked regardless!

That led to a nice duel between the brothers. Nothing special in terms of the fight visuals, but the clash between the two worked nicely. Abel’s brother is either a total scumbag or sure likes to give that impression! Either way he provided more than enough motivation for Abel to rise above his brother and show what he’s truly capable of. I’m curious how his brother will take it…once he regains consciousness. Must be quite the event to have the brother he didn’t think much of…knocking him out like that.

Quite the hero in this episode

The cooking scene started this episode, but it ends up being the last thing I really go into XD. Honestly though, it was a cute scene. Poor Keithwood! I mean wow he had quite the collection of troublemakers to sort through. Mia’s giant horse bread was cute, but yeah that thing wasn’t going to cook properly. It’s adorable how Mia has fallen so hard that she couldn’t let go of the horse theme for her meal. But the others were quite disastrous as well. Tiona can cut…and cut…and cute some more. But she seems to have trouble with proper volume that can be consumed by normal humans! And to say nothing about some of the other ideas! Thankfully Keithwood knows what he is doing and managed to pull it together.

Of course, even Keithwood couldn’t avoid falling into the cult of Mia XD. Seeing her gratitude as examples of her treating people equally no matter their standing. And even later he saw her support of Abel as an unwillingness to let talent wither. But that’s fine. She isn’t a bad person at heart anyways. Plus, it makes sense that Mia was like that. Sion is just someone she can’t willingly feel good about. Which is fair considering how she died. Keithwood is just barely ok. He may work for Sion, but he isn’t Sion himself. So, she can still thank him.

I’m curious to see where things go

This episode was just a feel-good episode overall. It was focused on the present and how Mia is just swept up in a budding romance that I’m surprised is being given such good focus. I am curious when the story will turn back towards Mia’s future and impending death. The romance is important, but also important that she can live to enjoy it. But I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. The episode ended with the tournament (mostly) ending so it’s not clear where we’ll go next. But at least things are looking good for Mia and Abel as a pair.