Guilty Crown - Episode 9

A week away on business for Gai seems to offer up a rare week for normal, everyday activities in Shu's world - not that these possibilities last for long as Yahiro returns to the scene, complete with his extremely ill brother Jun.

Indeed, Shu and Yahiro's uncomfortable reunion comes as quite the coincidence, with the latter escaping from GHQ forces having escaped their facility with his brother, while the former is out on an impromptu "date" with a smitten Hare.  Of course, Hare is dumped for more important matters as the two boys have far more important things to discuss, and thus we're brought up to speed with Yahiro's situation and how the facility treating Jun decided to "put him down", leading to the sibling's escape.

Shu being who he is he can't leave the situation alone despite Yahiro's previous betrayal of him, and so he looks to call in a favour with the Funeral Parlour to take in and harbour the two siblings.  Little does Shu know however that his movements are still being followed by GHQ, meaning that he sends all concerned into the midst of a trap which spells danger for all of them.  Just as things are looking dire, Jun's "infection" surprisingly turns the tide, stopping Daryl (who is now clearly this show's punchbag) and his Endlave in its tracks before setting it against the other GHQ forces.  However, this transference of power not only puts paid to Jun's real body but also his reason, leaving him to beg Shu to stop him before he kills his own brother.  Has Shu really got the mental fortitude to kill someone though?

After being a bit crap last week quite frankly, things at least took a turn for the better with this week's Guilty Crown, offering up some interesting twists with regard to Lost Christmas and the infection which signalled its beginnings if nothing else.  The big problem here is that a lot of the potentially smarter ideas to come out of the episode were rather ill-explained or carried through, leading to a jumpy and stilted progression of events which followed all the way through to its climax, which reintroduced Hare to proceedings almost out of the blue.  It's such clumsiness which continues to threaten to derail this series despite all its hard work and good looks, although despite all this is still somehow remains pretty watchable for the most part, which leaves me torn in my opinion of the show overall.