"Even the most careless person can commit the perfect crime," says Furuhata in his opening. Apparently not as Sakura Odajima, the world's worst housewife, fails miserably. Her incompetence is brought to hilarious levels. She can't feed the cat, she leaves trails of coffee cups in her wake, she doesn't screw the top on the sauce bottle... I kept waiting for Furuhata to pull a knob and have the whole door fall on his head. Such a character is hardly ideal murderer material and "The Sad Perfect Murder" doesn't cut it as a thriller at all. And yet Kôki Mitani still manages to make the episode fairly engaging for two reasons - the first being the killer's incompetence which leads to some genuinely amusing situations.
The second is the fact that the killer, the supposed villain of the piece, is an abused spouse which makes her far more sympathetic than most "Furuhata Ninzaburô" killers. So far we've had the yakuza, blackmailers, and movie producers as victims and yet a tyrannically neat Go player somehow manages to be more odious and unlikeable than any of them. Credit where credit's due, a lot of the praise should go to Fumiyo Kohinata who is unnervingly convincing as the abusive husband who "has his wife's best intentions at heart". He's the sort of person you don't want worrying about you.
The killer herself is well played by Misako Tanaka, a likeable actress but the character as written is fairly one-dimensional and uninteresting. The best scene in the whole episode comes at the very end after Furuhata has confronted her, when she excuses herself, goes to her room, and watches her own TV show where away from her husband she can be careless and free. It's a touching, emotional moment and I wish there was more than one in this episode. She is, however, not cunning or arrogant and is thus not a particularly good opponent to Furuhata. There's little tension or suspense in this episode, most of which revolves around Furuhata going around the killer's apartment and commenting about her poor housekeeping skills.
Where does this land us then? Firmly in the OK category. "The Sad Perfect Murder" is a perfectly watchable episode with some interesting ideas but an execution that's too lax to thrill.
The second is the fact that the killer, the supposed villain of the piece, is an abused spouse which makes her far more sympathetic than most "Furuhata Ninzaburô" killers. So far we've had the yakuza, blackmailers, and movie producers as victims and yet a tyrannically neat Go player somehow manages to be more odious and unlikeable than any of them. Credit where credit's due, a lot of the praise should go to Fumiyo Kohinata who is unnervingly convincing as the abusive husband who "has his wife's best intentions at heart". He's the sort of person you don't want worrying about you.
The killer herself is well played by Misako Tanaka, a likeable actress but the character as written is fairly one-dimensional and uninteresting. The best scene in the whole episode comes at the very end after Furuhata has confronted her, when she excuses herself, goes to her room, and watches her own TV show where away from her husband she can be careless and free. It's a touching, emotional moment and I wish there was more than one in this episode. She is, however, not cunning or arrogant and is thus not a particularly good opponent to Furuhata. There's little tension or suspense in this episode, most of which revolves around Furuhata going around the killer's apartment and commenting about her poor housekeeping skills.
Where does this land us then? Firmly in the OK category. "The Sad Perfect Murder" is a perfectly watchable episode with some interesting ideas but an execution that's too lax to thrill.
