The title makes the episode sound like it’s not terribly important, but Sadao’s wanting to buy a TV sets the stage for everything that happens in this episode.

If you remember from the writeup for Episode Nine, I mentioned that the only really important scene was the post credits scene. Well, at the beginning of Episode 10, we get to see this conversation again… except we see even more of it than we did in last week’s post credits scene. This now means that last week’s post credits scene isn’t as important as it seems, since it’s expanded on in Episode 10. This really makes me think that Episodes Eight and Nine are basically filler episodes. It feels like that the anime studio behind this season really wanted to have a 12 episode season, but that there just wasn’t quite enough in the section of the light novel series that was being adapted to get to 12 episodes, so the two episodes at the farm were added to stretch things out.

But back to the phone conversation. During the conversation, we learn that the humans in Ente Isla have now gone to war, and that Emi’s informant in Ente Isla has met Emi’s mother. It’s being strongly hinted that the woman with long, silver hair we saw at the amusement park is Emi’s mother. You might be thinking that Emi interacted with this woman during that time and wonder why Emi didn’t recognize her. We learn here that Emi doesn’t really know her mother or what she looks like. When it comes to the war in Ente Isla, Emi is told not to rush back because of the optics of the hero interfering with humans that are fighting each other.

It was hinted at earlier in the season when everyone was at the amusement park that Rika, Emi’s friend from work, has a crush on Ashiya. It turns out this idea is utilized in this episode, especially the fact that Rika gave Ashiya her phone number, because Ashiya calls Rika and asks her to go TV shopping with him. Since she’s someone from the current era of Japan, he thinks her opinions would be valuable for their TV shopping adventure. Of course, Rika interprets this as a date, but unknown to her, Sadao and Suzuno are going along. Suzuno is accompanying Sadao and Ashiya in order to keep an eye on them, especially now that the demons know that Satan is in Japan. As she mentions to Emi, there’s a chance the demons might come to Japan and try to take Satan back with them, so the two of them may find themselves having to protect Sadao. We also get an amusing scene of Emi at work as she thinks about Rika and her crush on Ashiya, because she’s obviously not happy with this idea. To be honest, this scene, as well as a phone conversation Emi has with Rika, provided the humor that the first season of this series was known for, and it was refreshing to see it.

We finally get to see Gabriel again, and we learn how he’s hiding out in Japan. While Sadao and the others are gone for their shopping adventure, Gabriel stops by to chat with Urushihara. Through their conversation, we learn that Sariel has returned to Ente Isla. I guess that makes sense, since the MgRonald’s is currently closed for renovations, which means the manager isn’t around for Sariel to flirt with. It’s also revealed that Gabriel was removed from the mission to retrieve the Shards of Yesod after his failure earlier in the season. But he’s now on a mission to learn about Satan and his treasures, but he doesn’t get the information he was hoping for. Their conversation also lets the audience learn a little more about Urushihara’s motives for joining up with Satan and why he still stays with him. I really liked how Urushihara handled this surprise visit from Gabriel, and Urushihara was able to inject some humor into his dialogue, which helped to keep this from feeling like this scene simply existed to provide an “info dump.”

The episode ends with an interesting cliffhanger. All I will say is that it has something to do with Chiho and watching her television set. I really hope that this cliffhanger will lead to something more interesting than the bear cliffhanger at the end of Episode Eight. There could be several possibilities here, and I’m curious to see what direction this cliffhanger takes the story.

But I’m happy to see that the overarching story of the series is starting to move again. It felt like the story had been spinning its wheels recently and not going anywhere, so this was a nice change of pace. I really hope that the remaining two episodes of the season continue this momentum.

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