Lupin the Third PART4 11 Review
Lupin the Third (2015) episode 11
Lupin III / ルパン三世

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Rebecca’s research into a large book of notes regarding the Dream of Italy leads her to what she thinks is an abandoned house. However, MI6 has agents there, who kidnap her and take her to their secret facility under the Theatre of Marcellus in Rome. Rebecca’s butler comes to Lupin’s hideout to ask for help, knowing Rebecca’s location thanks to an implanted locator on her person. He also knows of the MI6 facility. He briefs Lupin, Jigen, and Goemon on the book Rebecca has been studying for years and the now deceased Japanese genius scientist who was versed in a large number of fields of study. Lupin’s is able to determine that Rebecca must have gone to that abandoned house. He and the others begin planning how they are going to rescue Rebecca, including recruiting Fujiko, while the MI6 boss gives orders to terminate Rebecca after they get whatever information she has.

Lupin makes sure Zenigata is aware of his plan to assault the Theatre of Marcellus, but MI6 rebuffs his efforts to help. The facility goes on high alert as Nix gets orders from the MI6 boss to get Rebecca out of the facility and to the embassy since they have intel that suggests Lupin has already infiltrated the facility. Nix does this, but then has to fight off several of his fellow agents in the process. When he gets to the embassy, Lupin and company are waiting, where they grab Rebecca, having taken over MI6’s satellite links to impersonate the MI6 boss. Since Rebecca’s butler has a bomb planted at Nix’s home for insurance, Nix goes nuts, causing the other agents to try to restrain him. Lupin and company get away to his hideout, where it is revealed that the man who gave Rebecca the book is the only man she’s ever loved. Since the man committed suicide, Rebecca has spent the rest of her life trying to figure out why. With that, Lupin vows to make his wife’s dream come true.

Thoughts/Review:

While we’ve gotten a tease of the Dream of Italy overall plot thread over the past several episodes, I wasn’t expecting us to actually have an episode (the first of two it seems) dedicated to the plot. Fortunately, this episode was a fairly interesting dive into said plot even if we don’t have any answers.

While I haven’t raised the issue to date, this episode really raises the question of what MI6 is doing in Italy, including having a secret facility under the Theatre of Marcellus (beyond the normal foreign intelligence gathering). Obviously, it has something to do with this Dream of Italy (whatever that is), but what that has to do with Great Britain is the mystery.

Then there’s Nix. I understand he’s MI6’s best field agent due to his skills, but someone so unstable as to cause a diplomatic incident if they go off (to say nothing of the then need to kill your asset) may not be the best option, especially with his family being his Achilles heel.

I got a chuckle out of Goemon going up against Nix in order to defend Lupin and the others from Nix’s gunshots. Nix has these unexplained, Matrix-like powers (I’m guessing they’ll be tied to the Dream of Italy), and Goemon has those unnatural, samurai abilities to stop bullets. So when Nix was stunned that someone cut down all his bullets, I just couldn’t help but laugh.

As to the mission Lupin and company embark on, I like how Rebecca being his official wife is the element used to get Lupin engaged. In some ways, I lament that Rebecca and Lupin aren’t together as a husband and wife as I think they would be a good team. I think he could trust her a heck of a lot more than he could ever trust Fujiko.

As to Fujiko, I guess this episode ends her rivalry with Rebecca since she did her small part in helping rescue Lupin’s wife. She even found an element of Rebecca to be cute.

I liked Rebecca’s butler’s dedication to his master. Planting a bomb at Nix’s home to protect Rebecca is understandable to me. He knows MI6 is probably going to kill Rebecca, so to save her life, threaten Nix’s family. I loved how Lupin covered for Rebecca’s butler so that Nix’s wrath was at Lupin.

Zenigata doesn’t have much of a role here, other than knowing that MI6 is hiding something big if Lupin is involved. I’m hoping he’ll have a more meaningful in the second part of this story.

Jigen has little to do as well, other than being the usual hired gun. Hopefully he’ll get more to do in the next episode.

In the end, this was a really good episode, finally delving into the bigger story arc.