Umineko no Naku Koro ni episode 6 review; Shannon’s deal with Beatrice: love for freedom.

 

      This episode begins with a flashback of George and Shannon enjoying their first date together, George asks Shannon of he can call her by her real name, Sayo, and he tells he that magic must have brought them together. Then we jump back a little bit in time and we see Shannon walking up to the island’s shrine in the middle of a storm, she opens the inner door and removes a mirror and smashes on the ground, and she says now that she’s kept her promise it’s time for Beatrice to keep hers. Then in little further in the past, we see George briefing the family on what he’s been studying and who’s he’s been studying with. After hearing this, Jessica’s mother tells her that she needs to be more like George, and she storms out of the room.

 

       After Jessica leaves the room Shannon begins to serve tea and makes a mistake, Natsuhi jumps all over her, and George makes small talk to cover for her. Outside the house Shannon talks with Jessica about George, and since she can tell that Shannon likes him she teases her a bit. Eva sees George talking with Shannon and Jessica and goes out and tells him that Grandfather wants to talk with him about a marriage meeting. As Eva walks past Shannon she whispers to her to not forget her place.

 

       Later, we see Shannon standing in front of Beatrice’s painting saying that before, she wasn’t human, she was a piece of furniture, but why was she given a heart that loves. Then Beatrice appears before Shannon and tells her that before she had a heart or knew love she wasn’t human, but now that she has a heart, she’s human. Beatrice compares Shannon’s situation to Adam and Eve inside the garden of Eden, they tasted of the fruit and left the garden because they knew they desired more than the garden, and she tells Shannon that if she smashes the mirror inside the shrine she’ll regain her powers and help her out. At first, Shannon refuses, saying she wants the peaceful days on the island to continue. Yes, things will stay like this forever, but if you change your mind I always keep my promises, Beatrice tells her. Kanon walks in on the scene and yells at Beatrice, and when Beatrice threatens to hurt him, Shannon begs Beatrice not to hurt him because he’s still a child. Before Beatrice leaves she gives Shannon a butterfly hairpin/broach and tells her the pin represents her wish, and if she smashes the mirror her dreams will come true, but if she does nothing everything will stay the same.

 

       Then we jump forward about two years where we see Shannon telling Jessica about her date with George, and Jessica teases her a bit then she tells Shannon that she wants her own boyfriend. Shannon asks her, doesn’t she already have someone she likes? Then we see Shannon having lunch with Beatrice, Shannon thanks her for her help and tries to return the pin to her, Beatrice refuses saying that it’s very seldom that someone thanks her for her help, and Beatrice tells Shannon that only her and Kanon see her. They go on to discuss how she was summoned by Kinzo for the gold, and how Beatrice’s power was blocked by the mirror.

       Later, that night, Shannon tries to give the pin to Kanon but he refuses. Then Shannon tells Kanon that she wants to talk with him about Jessica, and this catches him off guard. Then we seen that the scene switch to Jessica’s high school where we see Kanon meeting her there during cultural festival, and some of Jessica’s girlfriends go all gaga over him. Jessica thanks him for pretending to be her boyfriend, and she tells him that she’ll be busy but will try to make time for him, so enjoy yourself. We see Kanon watching Jessica while she’s doing her cultural festival activities, Kanon wonders what the hell he’s doing here, I hate crowds, then he notices that Jessica is much different from how she acts at the mansion.

        Back on the island Kanon tells Jessica that she sings very well, and he can’t sing at all. He calls himself furniture, and Jessica tells him to give it a rest, they’re both human after all. Jessica tells him she doesn’t even like living on this island, let alone being a heir to this family, it’s a pain, so she created another self, one in which she can be the person she wants to be and do the things she wants to do. She tells Kanon that even you can create another you, one in which you like yourself. Basically, Kanon tells her thanks for thinking of him as human, but there can be no love between humans and furniture, so they could never work, and even George and Shannon will fail.

        On his way back to the house, Beatrice appears before Kanon and tells him that she thought her magic brought another pair of lovers together. Kanon takes the pin out of his pocket (it looks like he took it after all) and smashes it to the ground and tells Beatrice to stop messing with people, and begone from here. Beatrice just laughs at him, and says that nothing can stop her revival, she’s the true ruler of this island. After Beatrice vanishes we hear her say that now that she’s planted these seeds she wants to see how they grow, and it’ll soon be time of the banquet. Well, that’s all for this episode.

        This was quite an interesting episode because we did a little time travel and got to see how Beatrice got semi-released from bondage, and I never would have thought that it would have been Shannon that did it. My, my, Eva seemed quite worried that her son might consider slumming with a servant girl, and Eva was really a little bitch for going after Shannon instead of talking with her son. It was very enlightening to find out that Beatrice’s spirit was still hanging around the island for who knows how many years just waiting for the right time to appear. So, it was to Shannon that Beatrice first chose to appear to, Shannon was offered a deal with the devil, I’ll help you with love if you help me with freedom. I found it very interesting that Beatrice never threatened Shannon, she just offered her a straight forward deal, help me and you’ll get your love or do nothing and every stays the same forever.

       It was also quite interesting to find out that at one point Shannon was just like Kanon, she felt she was furniture, not human, and didn’t deserve to love or be loved. I think that Beatrice knew she had her once poor Shannon’s heart felt the slight warmth of love, she knew that once Shannon had a taste of that warmth she couldn’t go back to being a piece of furniture, and she knew that Shannon would have to risk leaving the unchanging but not satisfying safety of her island garden, game over. I also found it very interesting to find out that Kanon’s heart was much harder than Shannon’s heart, he was offered the chance of becoming human and tasting love, but he refused. I kind of thought that Beatrice was playing the role of the snake by getting Shannon/Eve to taste the fruit then she gets Kanon/Adam to also eat of the fruit, but it seems like he refuses. I really feel sorry for Jessica it seems like her love for Kanon was pretty one sided and unrequited, unless more information is forth coming in future episodes.

       Beatrice; my reaction to her in this episode was all over the place, at times I really liked her, and at other times I despised her. At the point when Shannon and Beatrice where sharing tea and snacks it seemed to me that Beatrice almost liked having someone to talk to, and might I say even having a friend. Shannon expresses gratitude towards Beatrice even though they made a fair exchange, and Beatrice seemed to appreciate her gratitude. But, at the point when Beatrice raves about getting ready to sow the benefits of the seeds she carefully planted I found myself hating her. I would like to think that even though we supposedly have seen both Kanon’s and Shannon’s dead bodies that they’re in one of Beatrice’s rooms having tea and enjoying the show  hoping for a good end to the game that Beatrice is playing with everyone.