So Shion really was sniping with a random anti-tank rifle
Come on, seriously?
Ok for a start Hei is back to normal which is a really good thing. I liked the old Hei and I liked the hobo Hei since he had his emotiaonal reason to act the way he did. What I don't like is the sudden change from hobo to normal Hei that really lacked basis. It's again an example of how focused on Suou's development this is and how the other characters suffer from lack of almost any development. I know the OVAs will cover Hei's emotional downfall but that doesn't mean they have to skip it in the anime.
One thing about Suou - it seems she got over Tanya pretty fast. There should have been at least some kind of emotional effect on her and yet she was just fine. "Suou's a contractor" won't cut it since they're going through all the trouble of showing us she cares about people and she acts on her feelings unlike most contractors. So why was she acting like the only problem was that Hei didn't let her shoot "his girl" (Suou seems to be certain that Yin is Hei's girl).
The plot twist didn't really come as a surpires though. Ever since someone mentioned the crater in episode one and others looked into it it was clear that Suou wasn't there meaning something probably happened to her. After that we learned about the change in the family's record and from those two anyone could guess something really happened to Suou with the most common conclusion that she was dead. Thus this really didn't come as a surpirse. If I remember corectly recently people were wondering who possibly revived her so yes that wasn't really a twist. Of course we don't really know what's going on for sure but this scene didn't have the impact it should have had.
Overall half of this episode felt really laid back with the "searching for Suou's mom comedy time". It was good but I think they won't have time to properly develop the plot in the end and there will be lot of things that just happen out of nowhere for the sake of connceting the events. There is a possibility that there'll be a next season so a semi-open end will be perfect in that case.
I liked Hei while he was executing his plan. Even if at times it seemed like he was just lucky I see it more as careful planning. Also he didn't kill Hazuki even when he had the opportunity to do so. In s2 every time there was a contractor that tried to kill him he would just fight back without a second thought and it always ended with a death (excluding the times when Hie had something better to do so he ran off). I believe this shows that he's a real pro - he takes what he needs and avoids as much collateral damage as possible. Overall that was a really nice scene. When I think about what will happen to Youko next episode I remember the Havoc "interrogation" scene in s1.
I wonder where Hei is getting his info from. I think he's not working for anyone right now so he doens't exactley have a good source that can find this sort of information. After all that's high-class government organisation.
Lots of good points if you're content with just seeing character since we got the old Hei back, we saw Amber, Kiko and the detective guy. So yes that was nice but it didn't really do much and it wasn't really necessary for the plot to move on or at least the Amber appearance. But hey I like Amber's character and I wanted to see more of her because she was one of the most misterious characters and she knew everything that happened both in the future and the past and yet they never really developed her. It's not like they did it now but still
One question - where did Suou get that camera from? I mean really after all that she has a camera that probably costs a small fortune.
I adimit though this time the Mao jokes were good probably because the detective was there and they had quite the history.
Graphic Designer
I've always liked Kiko, so I was happy to see her. 
