I agree with the people who sympathize with Houtarou and see the somber tone of the episode as justified. It's not the movie that's important, it's how Irisu was leading him and Hongou on with fake complements to try and work things to her own end.
Like how Chitanda feels like she understands Hongou better, I feel like I understand the author a lot more with this episode. It definitely shows that he cares more about character development than about a gripping mystery, which I don't mind at all. Hongou has never appeared on screen and Eba got minor speaking roles, yet I feel as if I understand them more than I do a lot of other extras in other anime.
What really sealed the episode for me as an enjoyable one and really gave me appreciation for Irisu as a character was the final scene with Oreki's sister, where Oreki's sister confronts her with the real reason why she scrapped Hongou's script. Irisu is quick to defend herself and justify why she did what she did. She has a tendency to push fault away from herself, as we have also seen when she was talking with Oreki. But it also shows that she doesn't want to think of herself as a selfish person. She wants to believe that she's manipulating people for the good of the whole, and that what she's doing is objectively good.
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