It took me a while to muster enough motivation to watch this episode. For the first time, I did the retiming without really watching. I guess I'm still bummed out by the not-a-chikan thing. I did another two attempts before I could sit down and watch it through.
I liked the scene in the beginning. Koharu hates her mom but has to do it for her kids. Koharu's mom knows she is lying and wants her out of their lives for Shiori's sake. Shiori the emotional zombie wants Koharu to stay probably because of her guilt except there is no hint of it. The mom wants nothing of Oguri Shun in the house to torment the poor NEET but Mr. Shinya Shokudo is saying that this is what the mom actually wants. I like the fact everyone's doing stuff for their own reasons and wearing their own masks.
For Sakamoto Yuji to go this route, Shiori cannot be an expressionless girl. The audience needs to see hints of some sort of emotion trying to creep its way out of her mask because we're currently 100% inferencing her motivation and feelings. A good example would be Koharu's smile at her mom. Shiori acts like she's been smoking some weed and is chilling while listening to her music.
Its sweet but you can see she's forcing herself and she's holding something back.Maybe Mitsushima Hikari should have been playing Shiori. The doctors backstory is that his wife died of leukemia as well. Ho hum.
Then we get to the ending scene with Koharu's mom claiming responsibility for Oguri Shun's death who BTW has climed Everest which is a great feat. There's the question of how much of it is real. There's probably a part of her that feels responsible for Shiori's actions. Was it to explain why she doesn't want Oguri Shun's stuff in the house or to drive the point that she's not comfortable with Koharu around? I don't really care either way. A lot of the tension has been lost.
So Koharu is going back to Oguri Shun's hometown and to the delight of squealing fangirls, we will be getting more Oguri Shun flashbacks. For me, Woman has been derailed and lost all that tension from eps 1-3. One can only hope that it gets back on track and doesn't end up like Minna! Esper Dayo!