Escape is easy… a good night’s sleep is hard. At least for Wil.

I’m not going to berate you this week, because I’m late anyway! Lay off me, it was my birthday!

Well, those villagers sure seemed nasty, but turns out none of them made Wil squeal like a pig, just locked them in a basement with a convenient window to get out of, and boxes to stand on to making reaching said window just a little easier. Thanks, guys.

Getting out of the basement is only the beginning; fortunately, Benedict has arrived to make the rest of the escape easier, provided Allison doesn’t brain him with a shovel first. A couple strokes of luck later and the crew are hiding out with Benedict’s new friend Fiona at her house. She’s prepared to harbor them, provided they agree to sneak her out to the capital to meet this Owen Nihito guy. Why? She’s Princess Francesca, the last surviving member of the murdered royal family. Those of you in the pool, you owe me (and Atarashii Prelude’s Shin) money.

That night, while Wil shares a bed with Allison’s sprawling limbs, Benedict and Fiona share a little moment. She’s nervous about revealing herself, so she asks Major Kerr if people treat him differently now that he’s somewhat famous. The answer is a disappointing yes, but he says it just makes him more glad to have friends like Allison and Wil who don’t — and she can count on the same from him. Nice words from a guy you barely know, but he does have a trustworthy face, no?

Escape proves easy once again, thanks to Benedict’s brilliant Operation Winter Camouflage, a.k.a. Operation Let’s Get Under A White Sheet and Walk Through The Snow. Primitive, yes. Silly, almost certainly. Marginally effective — surprisingly so. Marginally. When they’re found out, though, it’s all over. Or is it?

Fiona/Francesca asserts herself to the village leader, and — surprise again — he turns out to be cool with it. See, he knows. Or at least, he knows that her grandfather thought she was Francesca. Strangely, he seems a bit skeptical, but maybe I’m reading too much into it.

Fun Facts

• No conflict in the Allison and Lillia universe that looks awful at the end of an episode is really all that bad at the beginning of the next one. It’s like Geass that way.
• Allison is all to keen to sleep in Wil’s bed, but not to let him have his half, or his blankets.
• Backup plans are useful: Operation Winter Camouflage may not have been great, the crew were able to quickly move on to Operation Chewbacca-style Fake Prisoner and, when that too failed, Operation Punch That Guy In The Gut.
• It appears that Benedict has found himself a lady.

Next week: showdown with Lenin Owen

Will there be a twist? Who knows, this storyline has breezed by without a lot of real conflict. Things have fallen into place fairly easily. Complain if you will about a too-conveniently-placed window, or villagers who let our heroes go without a fight. But to me those bear a strong resemblance to Rollo conveniently Geassing Suzaku at the moment that LeDouche gets written into a hole he can’t mua-ha-ha his way out of.

In a parallel with the last arc, Wil gets a gun (Benedict confiscates it from Fiona when he starts to get scared she’ll try to assassinate Nihito), but this time he knows firsthand how difficult it is to use one on a human being. I’m sure this will be a major factor, but what else is going to happen when Fiona announces herself to the world? There are enough questions waiting to be answered that the climax to this short arc should be a winner.