Originally Posted by GMT
How to review this episode? As LN readers know, this is the point where Haruhi reaches her moral nadir. The fact that the LNs continue for seven more volumes after this shows that, well, she gets better. Well enough that people are willing to continue to read about Haruhi's world.
And then it got adapted for the anime. Haruhi's Dark Side, in all its ugliness is on stark, unflinching display. Here, we have someone who, not only flirts with The Line, but would cheerfully go screaming over The Line, and over the moral event horizon beyond if not properly restrained.
She pushed Kyon to the very limit of his seemingly unending patience. So much so that Kyon, of all people, lost it. Were it not for Koizumi, he would've pounded Haruhi into next week. And a good lawyer would've gotten him off on self-defense. Trying to deflect her with words didn't work. As we all recall, Kyon was pushed far enough last week to physically man-handle Haruhi. And that didn't work either. Trying to pound some sense into Haruhi was the least-unpleasant option out of a whole plate of really unpleasant options presented to Kyon. And his dialogue makes it clear that he's doing it because he cares about Haruhi, and what could happen to her if he does nothing.
As we saw in this episode, Haruhi got the shock of her short life . . . that what she's doing has finally gotten to the one person whose thoughts and feelings she genuinely cares about. The storm of emotions which flashed across her face was beautifully done, as was her attempt to hide them by lashing out (only after it was clear Koizumi had Angry Kyon safely restrained.) And then everybody reacting to Kyon attempting to pull free, while letting Haruhi feel the full force of his rhetoric, was excellent. Even the normally-unfazable Tsuruya's expression tells us that this is no longer a laughing matter.
Koizumi is also in rare form this week. Here we see a man who seems to be making it clear that he does what he does because he feels its his duty to protect the world from Haruhi's brand of weirdness. His, and Kyon's, dejectedly gazing at the cherry blossoms that Kyon caused by, essentially, caving in to Haruhi, was especially poignant.
I gave this episode a 9 out of 10. Only a nine because, well, I never give 10s.
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