Canaan Episodes Five & Six

One of the many things a professional killer needs to conquer or tame (internally) – in my opinion – is fear: fear of killing, fear of others; fear of death. So to begin Episode Five with Canaan ambling down a street, recalling the sounds of Alphard’s dominance over her – which then causes her to throw up – really discredits her as an assassin. Though some may argue that as long as she gets the job done, what happens in her “free” time doesn’t matter. That’s true to some degree but, as we learn in these two episodes, sometimes what happens in “free” time really affects the job.

We also get a deeper look at Yun Yun: the girl who works everywhere. She manned the shooting booth at the festival in Episode One; she stuffed meat buns in her dress in Episode Two; she serves Maria and Canaan their ice cream parfaits in Episode Three; and she played music at the seafood restaurant in Episode Four. Turns out, she’s a Borner. That’s what they call people who have been affected by the Ua Virus and survived. Most victims develop a special ability as a result of the infection; Yun Yun’s ability? She has to appendixes. She admits that having two appendixes doesn’t grant her any special abilities and thus, she is considered of little use to the people she works for: The Snakes, particularly Liang Qi whom she receives orders from. She’s given the mission to infect the undersecretary of Japan with the Ua Virus, and the plan is executed at the bar where Hakko works. Surprisingly or not, they’re already acquainted. The mission, however, doesn’t work out the way Yun Yun plans and Canaan shows up to stop her from completing her mission. Maria, however, also shows up and stops Canaan from killing Yun Yun. Feeling rejected once more, Canaan leaves. Yun Yun then takes Maria as a “hostage” to lure Canaan out. She attempts to kill her by blowing both Canaan and herself up with a massive amount of explosives. They both survive – but not before Maria starts to cry. Yun Yun eventually agrees to be Mino’s informant, reporting to him any interesting information she picks up.

Episode Six: Possibly one of the most difficult episodes to watch because I dislike Liang Qi so much. In all the previous episodes, we only had tastings of her irritable personality, but in this episode our patience was tested. Normally I focus most of my dislike on Maria because she’s so useless, but if I was locked in a room with Liang Qi and Maria, and given a gun with only one bullet, I would shoot…. Myself.

Moving on: Liang Qi and Cummings work with other members of The Snakes to infiltrate the conference hall where the Anti-Terrorism meeting is being held. By no coincidence, Maria was invited to attend as press. After all the political leaders attending have been gathered into a “safe room”, the undersecretary from Japan – who had been infected by the Ua Virus at the end of Episode Five by Cummings – begins to react to the virus, ultimately dying.

Exciting? No, not really.

Oh! one more thing: Alphard was previously named Canaan by the same man who took Canaan in and trained her. Important? Probably. But as things stand right now: No, not really.

Let’s see what happens in the next episode and hope for something better.