Like Mayaka earlier, Satoshi and Eru also tell Houtarou that they think the ending created by Houtarou is not the one Hongou, the original script writer, wanted. Houtarou starts to question himself if Fuyumi Irisu was sincere in her admiration with his thinking.
Synopsis[]
Even Mayaka tells Houtarou how the movie was intriguing, she also tells him about the missing prop, which was the rope. Houtarou does remember it being mentioned, and makes an excuse that it could have been an unnecessary item. But Mayaka doesn't buy it, since it's a fact that story-writer Hongou wanted the ropes to be part of the story so badly. Houtarou becomes slightly dismayed by this truth, but Mayaka tries not to make things more complicated by saying that she liked his idea. Even so, she still thinks that all the clues didn't fit his solution. Houtarou agrees, and Mayaka heads to the Manga Society.
As Houtarou walks out of the screening room, he wonders why he had forgotten this crucial element, whether if he subconsciously ignored or had changed the questions around to fit his answers. As he walks across the school bridge to the next school building, Houtarou doesn't notice that someone is calling from behind, as he is in deep thought. When the person who's behind him taps his shoulder, Houtarou surprisingly looks back, only to see Satoshi. Satoshi wonders what was wrong, but he ignores it and asked what he wanted from him. Satoshi has a question he wants to ask, while Houtarou takes note that it seems Satoshi doesn't want to talk about this around neither Mayaka or Eru.
Satoshi goes on to asking his question, asking whether or not the solution Houtarou thought of was supposed to be Hongou's idea, or just Houtarou's own idea. When Houtarou answers that it was supposed to be Hongou's idea, Satoshi is disappointed. He knows very well that the solution couldn't have been Hongou's intentional idea. Houtarou worries that there were some inconsistencies he had missed, but Satoshi says that there weren't, since he thinks the ending was truly interesting. He then asks Houtarou what a "narrative trick" is. He answers that it is a story that tricks the reader with the way the story is presented, exactly like the solution Houtarou had thought of. Yet, Hongou, who had no background in the mystery genre, studied books of Sherlock Holmes only, and none of the Holmes mysteries ever use the narrative trick.
The use of narrative tricks came during the age of Agatha Christie, which was in the 20th century, after the character Holmes was created. Satoshi does not feel that Hongou was someone who read Christie's mysteries. Because he liked the movie ending, Satoshi would have been happy if Houtarou admitted that the ending was his. But, since Houtarou claimed it was supposed to be Hongou's idea, Satoshi believes Houtarou is wrong. Houtarou attempts to make an excuse that Hongou may have read or watched some kind of mystery based book or movie, but Satoshi ignores this and tells him if he believes this excuse is "right", then he'll just go along with it. Though seemingly disappointed, Satoshi takes his leave, since he has said what he wanted to say.
"Mysteries" solved[]
Reason behind the Failure of Houtarou's Conclusion case[]
Mayaka pointed out that Houtaro's conclusion doesn't use the rope at all, even though Hongou was insistent about it which indicated that it is crucial for the movie. And then, Satoshi pointed out that Houtaro's theory used a narrative trick which is a common trick to trick the reader from knowing how the story was presented. Since Hongou only read Sherlock Holmes' stories which didn’t use narrative tricks, there was no way she could’ve wrote a script using a narrative trick. Satoshi also felt that Hongou isn't an avid reader of Agatha Christie's books where a narrative trick is more common which makes him sure that Hongou would never use narrative trick at all in her script.
Finally, Chitanda confronted Houtaro and told him her thoughts about the case. She believed that Hongou had an ending to the script she wrote but she didn't tell anyone about it even though no one would criticize it if that's what she wanted it to be. She thinks that something was driving her into a corner that she couldn't talk about. Houtaro seems very devastated that his theory was completely wrong and disregarded Hongou's feelings towards her script. He decided to forget about it, but, he couldn't get it out of his mind. He started reading a book about tarot cards and remembered his conversation with the others about that topic. He looked at the Strength card which was supposed to represent him, but it's actually a mockery from Satoshi that implies he is so easy to be manipulated by women to use his full potential. But then, after thinking more about it, he figured out what he had missed from the words he just said.
The Cruel Truth of the Unfinished Script case[]
Houtarou confronts Fuyumi and invited her to a tea shop where they talked before. He asked Irisu what kind of talent does he have that makes him special from their previous conversation. Irisu was about to answer that he has a talent for deductive reasoning but Houtarou interrupts her and replied that she's wrong. He remarked that he wasn't the detective but the mystery writer. He then explained that Hongou made notes which was assumed to be a list of tricks from Sherlock Holmes' stories, but it was actually a list of stories where the characters lives and stories where the characters dies which meant that Hongou didn't care about the tricks and preferred a happy ending particularly where no one died based on how the list was marked. And, from the result of the poll the class took, she entered a vote for zero deaths for the movie which confirmed that she wanted to write a script where no one died. But, since she wasn't present during the shooting, the class went out of control and ad libbed a lot of the movie including Kaitou's death despite the script never mentioning his death. Hongou saw that the incomplete movie was wrong, but couldn't bring herself to ask the others to re-film it since she felt guilty for ignoring the result of the poll, but then, Fuyumi came to her and asked her to fake an illness and leave the script unfinished. After that, Fuyumi gathered her classmates and asked for their theories about the movie, but the truth is it was a script writing contest. But seeing their theories doesn't work, she asked the Classic Lit Club to help them. In other words, Fuyumi changed everyone's perspectives of writing a whole new script into completing Hongou's unfinished script and used Houtarou's theory to replace Hongou's original script in a way it wouldn't hurt her. Later, Houtarou is shown walking home and seeing a ad on a shuttered store for a story writing contest. This irritates him, which causes him to punch the ad out of frustration as it reminded him of how he was deceived.
The conversation with an unknown person[]
After the conversation between Houtarou and Fuyumi, Irisu is seen at night chatting with an unknown person in a chatroom. The unknown person’s username is shown to be “it’s me”, it is revealed that this person who is on the other side of the world had told Fuyumi to use Houtarou. Which implies that this unknown person is actually his sister, the two are shown chatting about the movie and how Fuyumi had manipulated everyone for her own purposes. At the end of their conversation, the unknown person calls Houtarou an idiot saying that he probably didn’t even figure it out, but Fuyumi tells them that she only did what she did because she wanted the movie to be a success. However, the unknown person does not respond to that comment and instead logs out.
The Actual Ending Script to the Film case (?)[]
While spacing out in the clubroom, Chitanda asked Houtarou about what was Hongou's original script would be. And so, he explained his hypothesis that the culprit would be Kounosu and she would climb down with a rope from the second floor into one of the windows at the right side of the building and attacked Kaitou with a knife but it didn’t kill him and then climbed back up to regroup with the others. And the seventh actor Hongou had been searching for is actually a narrator that already appeared in the incomplete movie. But he's not sure why would Kaitou locked himself inside a room. And then, Chitanda who seems to understand Hongou a little bit better believed after Kaitou was attacked, he asked Kounosu her reason for attacking him and then he covered for her by locking himself inside the room and laid down on the floor. But Chitanda is not sure how he would explain his injury to the others, Houtarou added that there was broken glass inside the room and so he could explain that he got injured by the shards of the glass. But even so, they would never know why Kounosu attacked Kaitou and why he forgave her unless they asked Hongou herself and Chitanda seems to agree that it couldn't be helped despite how curious she is.
Trivia[]
- This episode is adaptation of Ch. 7 "Do Not End the Show" and Ch. 8 "Credit Roll" from The Credit Roll of the Fool.
Notes[]
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