SPY x FAMILY 1×17 Review: “Carry Out The Griffin Plan / Fullmetal Lady / Omelet Rice♥”

The latest episode of SPY x FAMILY is another dose of slice-of-life brilliance, this time with three unrelated vignettes that showcase the series’ humor and heart, as well as shine a light on some of the side characters.

“Carry Out The Griffin Plan” is the first, the longest, and by far the funniest of the three stories. Anya narrating her thoughts like an episode of her spy cartoon (or, say, an episode of this anime) was delightful. Attempting to give Damien’s griffin jet engines was inspired. (Let’s be real, griffins would be so much cooler with jet engines.) I don’t know if I’ll ever get over Becky asking if Loid was single while staring at a family portrait that includes his wife.

One thing SPY x FAMILY does really well is the kids. I’ve never really enjoyed child characters in any media, but I actually love the kids in this series. There is a lot of nuance in their storylines. Damien is dealing with a lot of issues and managing to navigate them with a maturity that he shouldn’t have yet. Becky comes across as silly and flighty but is actually quite intelligent and creative. Anya is Anya.

These are young children, and Anya is younger than the others because she lied about her age at the orphanage. Kids can be stupid and naïve and Anya encapsulates that perfectly. But she has a lot of heart, and for all her plans never turn out the way that she expects them to, I think she’ll manage to befriend Damien before she is even close to becoming an Imperial Scholar.

You can sit here and examine the three main kids’ personalities and make arguments about various parenting styles if you wanted to. Anya and Damien have a lot of similarities in that they’re desperate for a loving family; they even have the same goal of achieving that (Imperial Scholar). I love that for all this series can often be seen as irreverent that there is an undercurrent of seriousness in everything. 

I always love Anya’s imagination versus reality; I think we can all agree that she has the best reaction faces. But in the same episode, we get to see aspects of Damien’s imagined scenarios, and I think the contrast is amazing. In all of Anya’s fantasies, everyone speaks with her voice, and everyone always acts well out of character. Damien’s fantasy father speaks with his own voice, and everything is much more realistic. This is potentially down to their upbringing, but also possibly their ages.

“Fullmetal Lady” is such a badass nickname, and a well-deserved one for the illustrious Sylvia, head of WISE. This is a nice little side story that shows us a couple of things. First, Ostania is aware of the existence of a covert organization operating within their borders and has enough intelligence to recognize that Sylvia is part of it. Second, Ostania is regularly fooled enough that Sylvia, and therefore WISE, can continue their work. Third, Operation Strix is quickly becoming Operation Proud Papa, as Loid definitely sounded like a father bragging about his daughter’s achievements instead of an agent reporting in.

“Omelet Rice♥” is a nice little epilogue to the episode and goes along nicely with my theory from the previous episode that Yuri is immortal after having eaten Yor’s cooking for so long.

I enjoyed all three vignettes in this episode, although I do think three is a bit much. Having Yuri’s be so short and at the end did help, but two is probably enough. Then again, the idea of a bunch of mini-stories – something like The Simpsons’ “22 Short Films About Springfield” – would be very interesting. There are enough secondary characters in this series that they could quite easily pull that off.

At the same time, though I very much enjoy these slice-of-life episodes, I’m eager to move on to the next multi-episode arc. Let’s advance the plot some, please and thank you!

Author: Jamie Sugah

Jamie has a BA in English with a focus in creative writing from The Ohio State University. She self-published her first novel, The Perils of Long Hair on a Windy Day, which is available through Amazon. She is currently an archivist and lives in New York City with her demon ninja vampire cat. She covers television, books, movies, anime, and conventions in the NYC area.

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