Caemeron Crain
The following recap contains spoilers for Sunny S1E10, “The Dark Manual” (written by Aja Gabel & Katie Robbins and directed by Colin Bucksey)
After last week’s episode took place entirely in Sunny’s (Joanna Sotomura) mind, the action of the season finale picks up where Episode 8 left off. Suzie (Rashida Jones) reunites with Zen (Fares Belkheir), but it isn’t long before their hug is interrupted by Hime (You) and Tanaka (Anam Sekiguchi) entering the room with thugs in tow.
Suzie and Zen are taken into custody by the yakuza and put into a metal cage along with Mixxy (Annie the Clumsy) and Hiro (Jun Kunimura). Tanaka, meanwhile, sets himself to the task of extracting code from Sunny, only to find that the homebot has initiated a wipe of her system. Tanaka is able to stop this by physically disconnecting hardware but ultimately runs into further difficulty when something Masa (Hidetoshi Nishijima) did to Sunny’s port short circuits the computer Tanaka is trying to download code onto.
Regardless, Hime’s plan becomes clear. She purposefully pushed Sunny to kill Tetsu (Shin Shimizu) in order to protect Suzie—something she knew was possible based on the events we saw in flashback in S1E9—and now wants to extract that novel code in order to put it into other homebots. I don’t know if that really makes sense in computer engineering terms, but we’ll just have to accept it.
Back in the cage, Suzie gets a call from Noriko (Judy Ongg), who is still in prison, and they discover that the woman who has been bullying Noriko is the mother of the man who is guarding the cage Suzie et al. are being held in. So, Noriko disconnects her nemesis’s oxygen tank in order to force the woman’s son to release his captives. He does so, and Mixxy ties him to a chair.
After Sunny’s port fries Tanaka’s computer, Hime concocts a ruse to create an opportunity for Sunny’s code to be transferred directly to Jin’s homebot. You’ll recall that Jin seized the place of power in the yakuza that Hime believes is rightfully hers, but she approaches Jin in S1E10 claiming she wants to make peace. She’s brought a bottle of booze for them to toast with, but she drops it such that it shatters, then asks if Jin’s homebot could fetch them some tea.
While Tanaka is connecting Jin’s homebot to Sunny, Suzie figures out the trigger that the yakuza implanted in Sunny that made Sunny punch Mixxy. She thus takes the stage at the Setsubun festival, grabs the microphone, and starts repeating that she wants Yuki Tanaka to “suck a dick.” This awakens Sunny, who punches Tanaka and gets away from the yakuza.
Undeterred in her plans to kill Jin, Hime stabs him with a shard of broken glass.
Sunny still wants to wipe herself, but Mixxy suggests searching for a way to remove the pernicious code while saving Sunny as a whole. Hiro says he has a friend in Tokyo who might be able to do that, but he wants to get Suzie and Zen to safety first. This leads Mixxy to say that she’ll take Sunny to Tokyo, and at first that seems to be all well and good.
Hiro takes Suzie and Zen to his cabin, where they meet the trashbot that Masa trained, and the voiceover that punctuates S1E10 is revealed to be from a note that Masa left there for Suzie.
When we cut back to the van Mixxy is driving, however, Tanaka is in the cab with her, telling her what a good job she did. So, apparently, my previous suspicions of Mixxy were on the right track, and I was wrong to think she’d exonerated herself. Still, I’m not sure if it makes sense to think that Mixxy was working for the yakuza all along, and she clearly has some mixed feelings as Season 1 comes to a close.
A lot of things in Sunny Season 1 don’t add up neatly, and I’m left wondering whether that indicates mysteries yet to be resolved or if we’re just supposed to refrain from thinking too hard about it.
Noriko being in prison ends up being fortuitous here in the season finale, but I’m still not clear on why she got herself arrested in the first place. Zen is alive, but Hime basically tells Suzie that Masa is dead, so I guess the yakuza grabbed Masa and Zen before they got on their plane… and then also crashed that plane somehow?
Episode 4 opened with Masa chasing down a man at Zen’s school and then meeting Hime at a bar for what seemed to be a friendly encounter. By the end of the season, however, we’re led to believe that Masa died trying to keep the Dark Manual code from Hime. He sent Hiro to give Sunny to Suzie, and I guess told Hiro to tell Suzie his name was Yuki Tanaka. How do those things all fit together? And what’s up with Masa creating the Dark Manual in the first place?
Those last two questions are ones that I think Sunny will have to address in a hypothetical Season 2. The first season has done a good job of mixing comedy, drama, and mystery together with a distinctive tone, so I hope the series is renewed and we get some more answers as it moves forward.
