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By definition, the term “farce” is used to describe “a comic dramatic work using buffoonery and horseplay and typically including crude characterization and ludicrously improbable situations.” In that case, the Undead Murder Farce anime certainly lives up to its name, especially in episode 7. In “Free for All,” the chips are down as Lupin unleashes his master plan to steal the Penultimate Night diamond, but a batch of intruders arrive to foil his rather ingenious scheme.
Editor’s Note: There will be spoilers for episode 7 of the Undead Murder Farce anime below:
Image via Crunchyroll
In episode 6 of Undead Murder Farce, we were left on a cliffhanger with Holmes, Watson, Fogg, Lestrade, and Ganimard at risk of drowning when the chamber housing the Penultimate Night diamond begins to flood with moat water.
Picking up where we left off, we find Holmes, Watson, Lestrade, Ganimard, and several guards trapped in the chamber of the Penultimate Night diamond as moat water floods in from a loosened ceiling vent in Undead Murder Farce episode 7. Lestrade remarks that they won’t last 20 minutes, but Watson notes how Lupin is known not to kill. Holmes admits he was outsmarted, but deduces that the water should stop once it reaches the ceiling, allowing them at least a hair of breathing room.
Cut to Reynold and Fatima. The former sends the latter to help the trapped gentlemen, while Reynold patiently awaits Lupin’s inevitable arrival. After a short while, back in the diamond chamber, the flow of water suddenly slows. Fatima fires her arrow-darts into the steel door to puncture it, allowing the water to flow freely out and drain the chamber. Just as Lupin had hypothesized, the water flows out at precisely 11:30PM. Holmes is astonished to find the safe missing, despite no entry points into the room.
Fatima escorts them back to the mansion across the wooden drawbridge. We see Holmes side-eye Ganimard. Back inside, as the men dry off, Holmes asks to see Ganimard’s handcuffs. Everyone gasps when Holmes wrestles Ganimard to the ground, handcuffs him, and declares him Lupin in disguise. Holmes points out that Ganimard’s footsteps crossing the drawbridge were light, implying that his fat belly was fake.
Holmes further explains how the safe containing the diamond was extracted using a rope that was inserted through the ceiling vent. The water pressure had torn the grate covering the vent loose. We then recall how Lupin had showed up at Sherlock’s flat in disguise in the previous episode, but Holmes unmasked him in no time. He notes that Lupin deliberately wore a flimsy disguise to make him seem like an amateur, so that when his real disguise came to fruition, it would be much more believable.
In a stand-off with one another, Lupin asks Sherlock who wins in this scenario. He has the diamond, but Holmes has caught him red-handed. Sherlock explains that the diamond was never in the safe to begin with, but he’d placed it in Watson’s left coat pocket. When Watson goes to rummage through his coat, Lupin pulls out the box containing the black diamond. Lupin then drops a smoke bomb to make his escape.
As Lupin flees, believing he’s won, Tsugaru and Reynold stop him in his tracks at the botanical gardens. Meanwhile, Holmes’ voiceover details a story about “The Pot Thief,” who uses his head to catch a criminal. All of this correlates to Aya, whose head is revealed to have been in the safe the whole time. Aya confronts Lupin, informing him of how she cleverly inserted herself into the safe, all the while he mistook her for the red-headed Parisian reporter.
Lupin’s associate, the Phantom of the Opera, flees. Fatima chases him down, leaving Reynold and Tsugaru to fight Lupin for the Penultimate Night diamond. During the fight, the drawbridge collapses following an explosion, trapping everyone inside the mansion. Professor Moriarty arrives with his band of misfits; Aleister, Carmilla, Victor, and Jack the Ripper. They plan to ambush Lupin for possession of the diamond.
Carmilla and Aleister take out the guards with ease; Carmilla decapitates a handful of them and Aleister sets the rest on fire using his “magic.” In the aftermath of the fight between Lupin, Reynold, and Tsugaru, Holmes and Watson arrive to find Aya. They get acquainted and Aya asks them to bring her along, remarking how she’s interested in these monsters.
Fatima “Doubledarts” confronts the Phantom of the Opera, whom she manages to wound with an arrow to the shoulder. Meanwhile, Holmes, Watson, and Aya run into Aleister, whom Holmes remembers as Aleister Crowley, the man who made headlines as a self-proclaimed researcher of magic and numerology and often conducted cult rituals.
Aleister fires a small pin at Watson. Holmes pushes him aside, then examines the pin. He discovers it to be laced with paralyzing agent used by the Indigenous people of Andaman Islands. He also mentions how Aleister’s thumbs work twice as fast as a regular human’s, so it was never magic at all, just quick reflexes. All of Aleister’s weapons are concealed within his trench coat.
Cut to Shizuku, who has cornered Carmilla, the vampire lady. She intercepts her plans to kill Lestrade, demanding to know if she’s seen the Phantom of the Opera. Carmilla says she hasn’t, but becomes fascinated by the concept of a “Cage User.” She threatens Aya’s life, which prompts Shizuku to spring into action.
Elsewhere, free-falling through the sky, Lupin, Tsugaru, and Reynold comically fight over the diamond. When they land, their brawling leads them right to the church.
The Undead Murder Farce anime is streaming on on Crunchyroll. Kodansha handles the manga outside Japan.
