REVIEW: ‘Spy x Family’ Season 2 Episode 11 — “Berlint In Love/Nightfall’s Daily Life”

Spy x Family Season 2 Episode 11, “Berlint in Love/Nightfall’s Daily Life,” exemplifies the one primary concern of the second season. Based on the manga by Tatsuya Endo, Season 1 managed to show the two major shifts in tone of the story that detailed the lives of a spy and assassin, respectively, and the domesticity of (fake) family life. The balance between these two distinctive paths of life and how they came together was an essential aspect of its success.

Season 2 maintains that tone balance, but the stories, aside from the cruise arc, have become lighter and more inconsequential. There’s little movement towards any objective goal, be it Anya (Atsumi Tanezaki) winning the coveted Stellas at school or Loid (Takuya Eguchi) gathering intel for his mission. It’s just vignette storytelling that details some of the finer inner workings of the character’s lives. While it’s enjoyable, there’s a concern that the season, for the most part, has been mainly filler. 

However, this concern happens after one of the season’s funniest episodes, which makes it a bit of a moot point. There’s an innate quality behind the writing and animation that Spy x Family is always enjoyable; it’s just the knowledge of how much more it can be and the idea that there’s one episode left of the season that begs the question of the season’s intent. Was it to show the small, minute ways the Forger family has moved closer together? Or perhaps it’s simply the calm before the story for manga readers out there?

Maybe Spy x Family is meant merely to luxuriate in the minor idiosyncrasies of these characters, happy to exist with Anya, Loid, and Yor without constant narrative momentum. It works in series such as the delightful My New Boss is Goofy. That all said, Spy x Family Season 2 Episode 11 doubles down on the slice-of-life pacing they’ve been delivering for most of the season. 

It’s an episode dealing with those who love Loid or, instead, those who have significant, all-consuming crushes on Loid, who are none the wiser. One of the greatest running gags is how much Loid misses despite being highly intelligent and equipped to face most dangers. Here, this culminates in his not realizing that both Anya’s friend, Becky, and his co-worker, Nightfall, harbor feelings for him. 

Becky’s, at least, is borne from her obsession with romantic dramas as she demands to be brought over to the Forger home under the guise of visiting Anya. Anya catches on pretty quickly, which delivers some of the biggest laughs of the episode, namely her quick decision to throw Yor under the bus. We’re reminded that compared to Becky, Anya and her family live modestly (or in squalor, in Becky’s opinion). Becky daydreams about replacing Yor and how she’d treat Anya, as her new stepmother, to lavish meals by home chefs. That’s all it takes for Anya to approve of Becky’s decision even if she doesn’t fully understand her friend’s motives. 

The animation of Becky leans into exaggeration as she tries to convey her feelings to Loid, from her shock at his appearance to trying to flip her hair the way the actresses in her dramas do. Becky and Anya are both given hilarious animated details, and both wear many different faces in the episode.

It’s a stark contrast to Loid and then Yor, though Yor gets her own moment of panic when she fears for a moment that she’s accidentally served Becky alcohol, not realizing Becky was pretending to be drunk based again on a drama she watches. It launches the episode into action mode as Yor races Becky to the hospital out of panic, righting herself after being hit by a car and only stopping once Becky finally confesses that she was faking it all for Loid’s attention. Yor smiling at her with blood dripping down her face hilariously sums up Yor’s character, who is caring and shockingly strong.

It’s that strength, she tells Becky, that had Loid drawn to her. This is yet another detail that Spy x Family handles so well. The show, and Loid, constantly celebrates Yor’s strength and sees it as both an element that can deliver humorous character moments and something worthwhile and inherent to her nature. It’s what makes Becky wanting to be her apprentice all the sweeter because she wants to become strong so Loid will like her, but it further pushes the idea of seeing this kind of physical strength in women as a highlight. 

The back half of the episode lacks the same frenzied energy of the first but does update us on Nightfall, who tries to tackle all of Loid’s missions while he’s on his three-day vacation. She notes that any mission he’s tasked with comes with a certain level of danger since he’s Wise’s strongest spy. The comedy of the moment is how the show interlaces her training and missions with Loid’s exploits with his family, a reminder that to him, being a typical dad and “relaxing” is the most challenging mission he could ever confront. 

Spy x Family Season 2 Episode 11 is often hilarious, with some small heartfelt moments that bring the found family element into focus. Weighed down by its lack of energized narratives, it’s less that the episode lacks quality and more that the season as a whole is missing a spark to catapult it forward. Still, while the episode doesn’t add to any more over-arching narrative, it delivers some of the season’s funniest moments with playful animation and strong character dynamics. 

Spy x Family Season 2 is available now on Crunchyroll.