Yep, decided to simply skip past Episode 7&8, go straight on to Episode 9 and make that a review. 

This episode should be the most interesting that I've seen so far, but still not that entertaining enough. I don't even know what genre it should be placed in? 

Anyway. 
A murder happened, and a guy who climbed out of the gate of the house seemed suspiciously like someone who wore spectacles and had a silhouette quite like Kageyama. 

Reiko asked if Kageyama went out the night before and asked about his hurt hand.  

Kageyama asked about Reiko's plans on Christmas Eve and Reiko was 'electrified'. Probably because no one asked her out I guess.

On to the murder place, where she took testimonies along side with Katzamatsuri. 

As usual, during dinner, Kageyama got excited about the case, especially over the dying message part (victim drew a 'X' on the ground). Reiko contemplated telling him everything.

She felt that Kageyama was just like a machine where you could enter in the information and he would churn out the answer quickly.

Here's Reiko clapping in joy at Machine-Kageyama.

She told Kageyama everything, including about how the culprit threw a heavy trophy into the room on the second floor, the very action that drew attention to the habitants of the house that a murder had taken place. Kageyama told her that's the thing she should focus on, instead of trying to find out what 'X' meant. He said that if she thought over it properly, the answer should be quite easy. (as usual he insulted her etc, and she tried calming herself down but ended up wanting to fire him. )

Reiko thought hard….

But simply said, "I don't know." Lol, she didn't even bother trying to put up a strong front this time! 

So Kageyama explained the things to her after dinner, and as usual, churned out a name, but it was Reiko's turn to laugh at Kageyama. Turns out that the person Kageyama thought was the culprit had an alibi, which Reiko purposely left out telling Kageyama. Kageyama told Reiko that he had no idea who the culprit was then, and Reiko was stunned. Then she got a call from Katzamatsuri that there was an eye witness, so she asked Kageyama to prepare the car.

And he had an unusual expression after Reiko marched past him. 

Eye witness said that he saw a man who was wearing a tux/suit outside the house and that his right hand seemed to be hurt. Reiko realised that it sounded like Kageyama and ran back to the car to find him, only to find the car empty. She ran back to the house/place of murder and tried to find Kageyama, only to be stunned when she saw another corpse on the floor, the corpse of the person that Kageyama felt was the murderer. 

Kageyama appeared with a knife, and Reiko asked if he was the murderer.

"Answer me, Kageyama!!"

-the end-

I know that the last episode is already out, but I wanted to review this before going on to the next episode(: It would be really cool if Kageyama was the killer but I think I'm quite sure he's not the killer because he's the main lead, he had no motives, and I don't know…he's probably set up. I really hope that whichever was the case, Reiko would be the one to solve the case this time round. I mean, if she doesn't start using her brains, then there would be no point right? There would be no growth in her intellect, which would be terrible because even Katzamatsuri seemed to have grown a little less idiotic. (Key words: A leeeettle) 

What a pity though. I felt that the roles and characterisation are really good platforms to expound on a good detective story…but even till the second last episode, they are repeating the same structure as they did in the first few episodes. It got a little repetitive and hardly any expansion of plot movement, which is weird, because Japanese Dramas usually make sure that something does happen along the way, since they only have maximum of about 11 episodes to work out the whole plot. 

Acting wise…I felt that it was a pity too. I have no idea about Sakurai Sho's acting skills, but I knew definitely that Keiko Kitagawa could act much better than what was presented as Hosho Reiko. It wasn't her fault, but the character Hosho Reiko just didn't give her much space to perform. 

The redeeming points would probably be that the murder was entertaining enough, that it kept me watching till the last episode…Okay make that a point, not points. 

Don't get me wrong though, I don't hate this drama, not at all! In fact I quite like it (which is why I'm spending my time talking about it instead of giving it up) but I just wish that there were more areas where they could explore, instead of (perhaps) depending mostly on Sakurai Sho's and Keiko Kitagawa's popularity. 

<3thoughtsramble