Air Dates: April 12th to June 26, 2020 on NTV, Sunday's at 10:30 pm and nine episodes in all
Title translates over to 'Gourmet Detective Goro Akechi'.... this episode's rating: 8.5%
Main Cast:
Tomoya Nakamura as Goro Akechi.... Runs the Edogawa Private Investigation firm named after the famous writer, he's a connoisseur of fine foods and is the the grandson of a very wealthy store owner. Seems like a capable detective but can he actually solve cases?
Fuka Koshiba as Ichigo Kobayashi.... Operates a food truck outside of Akechi's office, he stops by for lunch most days but never pays her. By pure chance she happened to get roped into helping him out on the first case and has become his 'unofficial' assistant.
Yukiya Kitamura as Toru Katono.... Detective at the local station who often butts heads with Akechi though the pair seem to respect each other.
Kanto Sato as Tatsuomi Takahashi.... Somewhat new detective at the local police station who is Katono's partner though he would rather help out Akechi on the cases.
Miu Tomita as Momoko.... Ichigo's best friend who appears to be crazy about all men.
Akechi's murderous nemesis....
Eiko Koike as Takizawa but is actually known as Mary Magdalena.... Hired Akechi in episode one to find out if her husband was cheating on her but in reality is was a clever ploy by her. Though it seemed to all she died falling from a cliff in the same episode she's somehow come back from the dead and she does resemble her idol 'Mona Lisa' quite a bit.
Guest stars for this episode
Shinji Takeda as Chef Ito.... Owner and chef of a fine French restaurant whose reputation was unfairly stained by a 'gourmet food' reviewer, also an 'ally' of Mary. We first met him in the third show and he'll be playing Mary's henchman on an off and on basis
Riisa Naka as Midori Kiritani.... The wife of Kazuhiro or should say ex-wife as he was killed in this show, is she also going to become one of Mary's gang?
Motoki Ochiai as Kazuhiro Kiritani.... Former high school classmate of Akechi who is married to Midori or was as he was murdered in this episode.
It appears Ito will be a character who will be making an appearance now and again to help Mary out. In the previous show he had killed a food critic but Akechi didn't turn him into the police who have dropped the case. Also as a guest star was Riisa Naka and at one time was a big fave of her. Watched many of shows from a decade ago and thought she was quite a looker. But in 2013 she had a shotgun marriage due to being pregnant, those happenings kind of turn me off a bit so haven't followed her since. Have noticed she's still appearing in many dramas but these days doesn't have lead roles and the recap will begin off with her character Midori.
Midori is about a thirty year old housewife married to Kazuhiro, at one time they were a happy couple but those days have passed. Kazuhiro used to work as a stock broker but now works at home as a day trader, business has been fair but seems to be slipping and he's become an edgy person. Especially to Midori and he has nothing good to say to his wife these days. She too has many aggravations and they're mainly because of Kazuhiro's mother. Since he attended a private high school in Tokyo, he's originally from Niigata, Kazuhiro's mother has been sending him at least one box a week of food she prepared. That didn't cease once he married and he had such a love for his mother's food which Midori despises.
That mother still sends so much their refrigerator is jam packed with that food, you can't put one more item into it. Midori though loves to cook and is quite good at creating dishes but never has a chance to prepare any because of all the food Kazuhiro's mother has sent which is laden with sugar and other unhealthy ingredients according to Midori. Those situations with the food and her husband working grumpily at home have sent Midori to the brink of having a breakdown and she had begun spewing her troubles on a social media site. Her username was Reizoko and there's a new word I've learned which means refrigerator though she refers to herself as 'Fridge'.
One day eating lunch with Kazuhiro Midori finally exploded, she tore into her husband about all of the crappy food from his mother she has to eat and swept the food on the table onto the floor. That really incensed Kazuhiro who does love his mother's cooking, he was once a nice man but these days has turned into such an unlikable character. In such a demeaning act he forced Midori to eat all of the food lying on the floor, in tears she obeyed his instructions. She's at such a loss on what to do as divorce is out of the question and has no one to turn to. That is except for one person who she just met on her social media site and all of all people who should it be but.... Mary!!!!
Their first meeting via camera took place late at night, Midori's husband was still working while this was taking place. Mary said if she followed her instructions things should get better, first off for Midori is to throw every little bit of food Kazuhiro's mother has sent him. While Mary watched via her laptop Midori proceeded to do just that as soon two trash bags were jammed with food but before her task could be finished who should appear but Kazuhiro. He was furious with what his wife was doing as the pair struggled, he may have been furious but not to the level of Midori. She quickly grabbed a huge kitchen knife and to her husband's surprise stabbed him endlessly which of course led to his death. Mary viewed or heard the entire incident which even shocked her too as she hadn't ordered Midori to kill him... yet.
Above in two screenshots is the chef Ito who we met in the previous episode. He had owned a French restaurant which served some of the best cuisine in Tokyo but it's since closed. Ito has known Mary for thirteen years, she helped plan the murder which he committed in that last show and he's still associated with her as the morning after Midori killed her husband he was sent by Mary to help her dispose of the body. The plan is to dismember Kazuhiro and sent his parts down the condo's trash bin which crushes any trash thus leaving no evidence of Kazuhiro's body. Sounds good in theory but will it work(?), it could but a crime often doesn't go unsolved when Akechi is on the scene.
We didn't see much of him or Ichigo in the opening 1/3 of the episode as all of the action had taken place in Midori's condo. It was the tenth anniversary of Akechi graduating from high school, he had gone to a very exclusive one just for males. Akechi arranged a reunion party, all showed save for one person who just by coincidence happened to be.... the murdered Kazuhiro! He had told Akechi he would be attending, when he didn't Akechi tried calling Kazuhiro with no success so then headed to his condo where no one answered the door. But Akechi knew someone was there as he checked the meters located right outside the condo and noticed they were being used in high gear. That made sense as the bathroom where the dismembering was taking place takes a lot of energy along with a huge amount of hot water, little did Akechi know what was taking place at that very moment.
Seems Mary may have been setting up Akechi once again as she saw him via her laptop at the condo's front door when he rang the bell. Mary was surprised he was on the scene so soon, it appeared this scheme for Midori getting revenge on her husband was another one to involve Akechi. While he was at the condo another box of food from Kazuhiro's mother arrived, he said he was that person and brought that box to his office. The Kazuhiro Akechi remembered was a very punctual and responsible person, he just wouldn't have blown off the reunion without a good reason. Akechi has deduced that something sinister has befallen his old friend so with the help of Ichigo he returned to the condo to solve the mystery.
Hacking up a dead body, especially the one of your husband(!), will have an effect on you as Midori needed a break and left Ito to cut up the harder body parts. Upon leaving her condo building she ran into Akechi with Ichigo in tow. He had been at their wedding and remembered Midori though she had no clue who Akechi was. She stammered that her husband was ill and couldn't attend the reunion, her other excuses were all quite lame and Akechi didn't believe one word. One huge reason was because Midori had been talking about her husband in the past tense which Akechi picked up on, he pressed her a bit more about Kazuhiro but she said to leave her alone and fled the scene.
That wasn't going to deter Akechi who needed a warrant to enter the condo, he tried to enlist the help of the two local detectives he often associates with. One is the youngster Takahashi who really wanted to help Akechi out as he could sense a crime had been committed. However his elder partner Katono refused to help Akechi much to his surprise so it appears he'll have to solve things on his own again but we haven't seen the last of the detectives. Meanwhile Ichigo had been trailing Midori and finally cornered her on a deserted street, Midori seemed so troubled so did she want to spill her guts? That wasn't going to be possible as also trailing Midori was Ito who couldn't take the chance on Midori going to the police or even Akechi.
Ito quickly subdued Ichigo and brought her back to the condo. There Ito tied her up while he and Midori resumed the dismembering of Kazuhiro's body. That job was soon finished and all of the body parts were stored in the refrigerator which Ichigo could see though she was partially blindfolded. She had been tied up by Ito but nearby was her smartphone, she was able to talk to it's 'Clook' program and Ichigo ordered it to call Akechi about her kidnapping. Upon hearing that plea Akechi zoomed to the condo where he had Midori open the door but couldn't get her to allow him inside. That was until the pair of detectives Katono and Takahashi arrived on the scene, Katono finally believed his rival Akechi about a possible murder and the trio then entered the apartment.
First off Akechi saw Ichigo tied up and freed her, meanwhile Katono made a more gruesome discovery. That was the inside of the refrigerator which was jammed back with Kazuhiro's body parts and for a few moments everyone stood gasping at the carnage. That pause was a huge mistake as Ito manged to slip away unseen, somehow he escaped by the balcony though they were on the fifth floor? Also eluding Akechi was Midori, he knew where she may be going which was the trash bin that would chop everything to a small particle, as he arrived he saw the bin's door shut with her shoes on the floor. So the case is now solved but only the murder of Kazuhiro as Ito has escaped to possibly help Mary in another future crime to involve Akechi. Also have the feeling we haven't seen the last of Midori, it appeared she threw herself down the trash bin to her death but did it really happen?
That bottom pic was a threat Mary had made to Ichigo while she was tied up though she couldn't bring herself to tell Akechi about it. First ten minutes of this episode seemed to drag a bit but then it picked up and was another fine show, all have been quite superb to date. Will be taking a four day break from dramas, then will have a marathon viewing of the final five shows.
Besides finishing up this series will also be starting on Fuka's new drama once a few more shows air. With the changes coming to Blogger it may make it more difficult for me to write up posts such as this one so am going to try to cram a lot of drama viewing in before August 24th so I can at least get the shell of the posts done. Another show which I'm about to begin is "Where Stars Land", it's a 2018 Korean series and haven't viewed a drama from that country for two months. Seems like a lighthearted yet serious show so will be starting on that once this drama is completed and that'll be the next series to be recapped.
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