Girl From Nowhere – Season 2 Episode 5 Recap & Review

SOTUS

Episode 5 of Girl From Nowhere Season 2 begins with a look at the awful world of hazing. Given what we’ve seen so far this season, things are going to get real nasty, real fast.

As applause rings around a hall, numerous students wearing placards are forced to sit in circles. Kaye is our main focal point, driving this circus forward.

After feeding the kids maggots, Kaye then sets up a human centipede-type conga line. Nanno delivers her trademark laugh though – followed by Yuri who also stands up and faces her old friend. While the two dance, we flashback slightly to see Nanno was the one who gave the girl life and took her under her wing.

Anyway, Kaye flexes his superiority and forces all the students to take their tops off. After reenacting the aforementioned centipede line, the headteacher gets involved and tells Kaye he needs to keep this quiet. There’s definite friction between Nanno and Yuri though, and this extends to the next day of hazing.

This crescendos into a lot of drama as Nanno lies down on the floor, surrounded by balloons as each of the students are forced to hit her with a baseball bat. Their mission is to pop all the balloons.

Eventually Kaye hits Nanno hard with the baseball bat, prompting the girl’s eyes to roll across the floor. Four balloons remain. Because of his actions, Kaye is forced to leave the school immediately.

We then cut forward three months later. Kaye has now been transferred and is a junior at his new school. Nanno shows up in front of him though, and this time Kaye is due to be hazed.

Nanno immediately goes after him, forcing all the different students to cross-dress. Kaye refuses to get involved and tries to run away. When he’s caught, the boy is forced to wear bondage, complete with clown makeup.

Kaye is humiliated, eventually seeing each of the other students taking his punishment after he sprained an ankle. After being forced to bow to a dog, the other juniors turn on Kaye and force him out in the middle of the night.

Nanno happens to be there though and she immediately lets the dog go, claiming Kaye is responsible and hurt Mr Lucky. This sees Nanno ask for a replacement – which is immediately forced on Kaye.

The seniors demand Kaye move like a dog, playing catch and breaking his spirit. This gets even worse though when they force him to sleep in a cage at night. Nanno drops him off some food to rub salt in the wound, but Yuri is the one who arrives after and lets him out.

This is all a ruse to speed up the hazing process though, as Kaye bolts away from complex and hides in the back of a truck. Hidden under a blanket, he finally gets a chance to reflect on what’s happened and sobs.

When the truck stops, Kaye finds himself back inside the complex again. Even worse, Nanno shows up with Mr Lucky’s dead carcass. Yuri is there too and they claim Kaye did all this, giving everyone a chance to skip initiation if they bash Kaye in the head. They don’t hesitate, and race into the water to do just that.

While Kaye fades from this life, seeing his own enraged self in his final moments, Yuri and Nanno reflect on what’s happened. Nanno tells her junior that she’s too quick to judge, but Yuri scoffs at the idea, clicking her tongue and taunting her teacher, telling Nanno she may even have to take her job soon.

The Episode Review

Girl From Nowhere returns with another good episode, this time honing in on the idea of hazing and how dangerous it can be. Especially in America, there are a lot of stories about hazing gone wrong and this episode perfectly exemplifies how.

The power trip and subsequent fall that Kaye experiences is another example of someone experiencing things through the eyes of their victim. It’s not dissimilar to the story from episode 1 with the male pregnancy, but here everything is that much more urgent and raw. By the end you almost feel sorry for Kaye and want him to get away, despite everything he’s done.

The dynamic between Yuri and Nanno continues to be a fascinating shift from the one-sided dimension seen in the first season. The exception there, of course, is the end two-parter where all the students started to rally together and figure out who Nanno is. This time though Nanno has someone who’s her equal and it provides an absolutely fascinating backdrop for this to play out.

This season has been very good so far and although this episode is pretty similar to the first, there’s enough here to enjoy nonetheless.