At the center of this episode is the tea party—the titular “vilainess test.” It is a rather excellent scene because it does so many things at once.

To start, we see the rift growing within the young generation. Liz’s sycophants will side with her on any subject—believe every plan of hers is perfect—just because she is the one who proposed the idea. They feel personally saved by her and thus their reactions are based on emotion rather than logic. The whole situation is so extreme Alicia and Jill wonder if magic is somehow involved. But regardless of whether it is or not (or is even being done maliciously or not), the kingdom is being divided into those who worship Liz and those who are not charmed by her existence—namely the King, Duke, Henri, Jill, and, of course, Alicia.

Luckily, there does seem to be hope for the kingdom even if Liz does continue her rise to power. While Liz’s ideals are just that—as she doesn’t think through the consequences or long-term issues likely to arise from her pretty words and half-baked plans—she can see the issues when confronted with them directly. And once she is forced to face them, she can be led to finding (at least passable) solutions. Therefore, if Liz can continue to learn to think things through properly as a leader should, she might live up to the title of saint.

Of course, the issue is that Liz needs someone willing to speak truth to power. Unfortunately, whoever takes that role earns the ire of her sycophants. While Alicia may be more than willing to take on that role, that doesn’t mean she’s safe from reprisal—hence her kidnapping at the end of the episode.

This ties into the other running theme of the episode: Alicia coming to realize that she’s not emulating the original Alicia Williams but is rather using her as a base for her to create “the greatest villainess of all time.” Time and again she has outdone the original Alicia. This has had a butterfly effect—one that she can no longer ignore. Because of her, both Henri and Duke are acting way out of character from how they did in the original game—and that’s not even mentioning Jill, Rebecca, and the villagers. I mean, Jill and Rebecca would be dead and the rest of them would be living in hopeless squalor while dreaming of revenge.

So we are left on a cliffhanger. The plot has diverged so far from what Alicia knows that she is now in real danger—her having been kidnapped and Jill beaten. How will she get out of this one? We’ll just have to see next week.

Rating:

Random Thoughts:

• I have a feeling the kidnappers are drastically underestimating Alicia. Even if they know about her magic, I bet they wouldn’t expect her proficiency with a blade.

• I honestly hope that Liz is as innocent as she appears. All too often the trope these days is to make the heroine a secret villain. I’d much rather see Liz as an unwitting pawn of a greater bad guy or simply a puppet of fate.

• What exactly caused Henri to take off his “Liz goggles”? Perhaps Liz isn’t the only one unconsciously throwing out charm magic (if that’s what is going on).

• I love how, instead of rescuing people, Alicia is all about making people stand on their own. She’s more about “teaching a man how to fish” while Liz only thinks about “giving fish.”

I’ll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History is currently streaming on
Crunchyroll.

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