Spy X Family – Season 1 Episode 12 “Penguin Park” Recap & Review

Penguin Park

Episode 12 of Spy X Family begins with Loid meeting an old woman who is a contact for Westalis’s intelligence agency, WISE. He accepts another mission and flees the scene via the subway. The woman ponders if there’ll ever be a day when they’re no longer needed. We see Loid completing his mission and chatting with another contact about Operation Strix before departing home.

Meanwhile, we shift to Yor and Anya finishing their dinner. Yor wonders why Loid’s been late for the past few nights. At the same time, we see Loid slowly making his way home, feeling tired by all the extra missions HQ has required him to take on. He even ponders if HQ is in dire need of extra personnel because of this. Reminded of his pretend family, he wishes that he’ll get a vacation or a break for once.

Upon entering the building, he overhears his neighbors gossiping about his absence as of late. One of them even claims he’s probably cheating on Yor and neglecting Anya on purpose. This worries Loid to the point where he swiftly heads to his apartment to declare to Anya and Yor that they’ll be going on an outing. He gets an idea for a family trip to an aquarium thanks to Anya’s drawing of a penguin with a pistol.

Your worries about Loid overworking himself. Loid urges her that he wants to make sure their pretend family looks legit in the eyes of others. In the morning, Loid looks sleepless and lacks energy. Despite Yor’s worries, he shoots those down by saying all is well with him. Before they depart, they run into their neighbors, who are stunned to see them together.

Anya reads Loid’s thoughts about wanting to prove to the neighbors that they’re a real happy family. She tries to simmer down their neighbor’s worries by explaining to them that her mother and father are great people. Despite sounding more explanatory than anything, it does the trick.

They arrive at the subway station, but Loid notices something that indicates that he may not be off-duty today. He meets with the old woman from the episode’s start. Before she could request him to tackle another mission, Loid denies it. However, he finds out this new mission is taking place at the aquarium and accepts the request out of pressure.

They finally reach the aquarium, and Anya’s thrilled to see all the fish. Moreover, Yor notices something’s off about Loid as he’s upset that he has to tackle another mission. To make matters worse, his neighbors are also at the aquarium, adding more pressure upon Loid’s shoulders. This is because Yor insists they all group up, which is in poor taste for Loid since he’ll need to depart the group to complete this new mission. Yet, Yor believes that by traveling with their neighbors, they’ll appear normal.

We get a brief flashback to Loid and the old woman discussing the details surrounding this aquarium mission. It involves a penguin swallowing some highly important film. Loid must retrieve the goods from that film before the enemy organization does. Back to the present, Loid insists that they all go to the penguin exhibit, and none of his neighbors object.

At the penguin exhibit, Loid examines each penguin to see which one has swallowed the film. Anya overhears Loid’s concerns and tries to utilize her powers to find the mysterious penguin. Although she has trouble reading each penguin’s mind, she notices one of them having breathing issues and alerts Loid. Furthermore, Loid excuses himself from the group to get close to that specific penguin.

We then shift to the aquarium’s staff, whose getting ready to check on the penguins. Loid disguises himself as one of the workers. He fools the chief by feeding each penguin the perfect amount of food. This helps him pinpoint his targeted penguin’s location. He offers to take that penguin to the treatment room after telling the chief that the penguin is having issues breathing.

In the back, Loid examines the penguin and finds the film stuck in the penguin’s throat. Before he can retrieve the film, a strange man walks up to him. This man states that he works in marine biology research and demands Loid hand over the penguin to him. The man tries to prove he’s legit by presenting Loid with an ID. Loid discovers that the ID is fake, alerting the man to run away.

Even though Loid’s given up on catching the criminal, Anya listens in on his thoughts from afar. She tries to stop the criminal herself before he can alert his men outside to slaughter Loid and get the film. Although her attempts prove futile, Yor happens to stroll on by, giving Anya the chance to strike. Anya tells Yor the man’s kidnapping her. This angers Yor and leads to her knocking the criminal out. We get brief intel from the narrator that Loid successfully retrieved the film, gained knowledge of the enemy organization, and sent it all to HQ to complete his mission.

We shift to the entrance, where their neighbors talk badly about Loid in front of Yor and Anya. Loid returns to the group with a large penguin plushie in hand. He apologized for being away as he wanted to get Anya a gift and that it took him several tries to win it. This act of goodwill and his kindhearted words toward his neighbors allows him to win them over. Although he wants to file a complaint to take a vacation, seeing Anya smile encourages him to keep going.

We transition to Anya in her room playing spy with her stuffed animals. Anya starts assigning them, Loid, and Yor code names in her spy fantasy. She shows off many rooms in their apartment to her new penguin comrade. Before she ends up entering her fake parents’ room, Loid yells at her for trying to do so. This causes Anya to cry, resulting in Loid and Yor deciding to play along with Anya’s fantasy to calm her down. They even participate with her in public to do so. However, they settle on buying her a pack of peanuts to prevent her from making them feel more embarrassed.

The Episode Review

Although lackluster for a season finale, the episode had a lot of charm and heartwarming moments to it. Unfortunately, we don’t get to see the family’s new pet, which is something I was looking forward to concerning the previous episode’s cliffhanger. The focus on overworking Loid and not Yor felt underwhelming to some degree.

I’ll admit, it’s cool to see Loid challenged with balancing his spy work with his home duties. It helps to keep Loid on his toes even when a situation seems calm and collected. Yor, however, should’ve received the same level of challenge in the episode. Not in the realm of her balancing assassin work, but maybe something having to do with calming their neighbor’s nerves. We’ve seen Loid stand up for Yor plenty of times, so a scene where she does so in return would’ve been nice to see.

While Anya playing with her stuffed animals was cute, I feel the episode would’ve been better without it. Replacing some of those bits with the Yor scene–I proposed above would’ve been more efficient.

This would aid in Yor’s development as a character. It would also show her making substantial progress in achieving that motherly role of her dreams. I mean, if she doesn’t have any problems showing random police officers her passion for Loid and Anya, then why not show her neighbors?

Despite my qualms with this season finale, it does its job in setting the stage for Spy X Family’s next season. Hopefully, we’ll get more progress and unexpected developments concerning the Forger Family and Operation Strix.