OMFG. I had a tear in my eye after watching this episode. A tear of fucking joy at having seen such a beautiful, kick-ass episode. If you are not watching Hitori Shizuka, what are you watching jdoramas for? Lots of spoiler talk and screencaps here so stop reading if you haven't and get right to it!
This whole series has been pretty much asking who is Shizuka? We get all these interesting characters who get caught up in her web but we don't get to explore them much. Its pretty much what's Shizuka up to next and episode 5 finally shows us who the whole sequence of events got started and it is mind blowing good.
I love how it comes full circle. Actually since ep 5 is a flashback, how the past shapes the present. Shizuka already using her body to get men to do her bidding at a young age. You could say its a learned response from watching her mother. She has equal amount of love and hate for her mother. Shizuka despises her mother because she latches onto strong men who turn violent on her and Shizuka I think has learned to use men like that but toss them away. At the same time, she wants her mother to be happy.
Does Shizuka know that the yakuza dude is her father? This gives her original plan of killing herself after offing him a whole new meaning. Was it revenge for Shizuka's mother getting abused and losing her hearing or was patricide revenge for the life Shizuka was born into? Or was it as she asked at the end, Shizuka trying to find out who she is. Was killing her father the end game she wanted after running away?
We don't find out who Shizuka is in episode 5. We find out what made her. The ending scene was the first time we see her smile. She could finally say what she wanted to say and it was to the point. Shizuka was finally free of this violent cycle her mother had brought her into and her purpose was not making the same mistakes her mother made and get them out of that life. Now that they were free, she had no responsibility to her mom and could go find herself.
The acting and directing in this episode is just so good, not just from Kaho but also Noguchi-sensei and the mother. Thank the jdorama gods for WOWOW. If other channels made this, Shizuka's farewell speech to her parents won't be so succinct, cold and awesome. It would probably be Takei Emi blabbing on for 15 minutes.
