The following contains spoilers for Spy x Family Season 1, Episode 22, “The Underground Tennis Tournament: The Campbelldon,” now streaming on Crunchyroll.
After being assigned a new mission with Loid Forger aka Twilight in Episode 21, “Nightfall/First Fit of Jealousy,” WISE’s most ambitious agent, Fiona Frost aka Nightfall, begins ruminating over the changes she’s observed in her partner and former mentor. More specifically, she’s noticed that Loid has softened considerably since gaining a family, which she feels is negatively impacting his work as a spy. At the same time, she’s liking this new side of him, and wants to be the person who draws out his softer side. For Fiona, this means eliminating her competition in the form of Yor Forger, Loid’s pretend wife.
At the General Hospital, Fiona meets with Loid to discuss their new case involving the 56-year-old Cavi Campbell. Apart from having built his fortune through the energy industry, Campbell is known to be an avid collector of antiques. As such, he owns an expensive painting known as The Lady in the Sun, which was originally owned by the deceased Colonel Erik Zacharis. The former owner of the painting was a member of the East military’s intelligence division, and was known to possess top-secret military information known as the “Zacharis dossier.” Fiona notes to Loid that this dossier would easily reignite the flames of war if it went public due to it containing records of the human experiments the East military carried out.
With the whereabouts of the dossier unknown, it’s speculated the Lady in the Sun painting contains hidden clues to its secret location. This means it’s only a matter of time before Campbell and the East government discover the painting’s true significance, which means WISE needs to get ahold of the Zacharis dossier before they do. Fortunately for Loid and Fiona, the location of the painting itself is known, and they just need to infiltrate Campbell’s mansion to get to his basement where the painting is stored. However, given Campbell’s connections to the Secret Service Police and having tight security around the mansion, Loid and Fiona will need to be able to enter the mansion through unsuspicious means.
Fortunately, for the two Westalis spies, Fiona has an airtight plan for infiltrating the mansion undetected. Since Campbell runs an underground tennis club, he holds illegal tennis tournaments within his mansion known as Campbelldon. During these tournaments, financial elites and members of the underground tennis club enter their own personal players to compete, while ordinary civilians are only admitted after paying an expensive entry fee. At the end of the tournament, the winner is allowed to choose an art piece from Campbell’s personal collection as their prize. This presents a golden opportunity for Fiona and Loid to easily obtain the painting by posing as civilian tennis players and winning the Campbelldon tournament.
Posing as the married couple Twain and Nafalia Phony, Loid and Fiona initially compete against professional tennis players Wolson and Babol. To prepare for the tournament, Loid had practiced playing tennis with his pretend wife and daughter — Yor and Anya respectively — under the guise of needing to practice for a business tournament. Fiona, of course, has ulterior motives for this mission, and is hoping to prove herself so that she can replace Yor as Loid’s pretend wife for Operation Strix.
With that focused mindset, Fiona gives the tournament her all and effortlessly defeats Wolson and Babol, effectively impressing Campbell and flooring the audience. For their next round, Loid and Fiona go up against the Boric Brothers, who use performance enhancement drugs to give them an advantage on the tennis court. They still prove no match for Fiona, who singlehandedly takes them out of commission. From there, Loid and Fiona continue to advance in the tournament until they reach finals.
Elsewhere, Yor and Anya continue playing tennis together at a public park, though Anya notices her pretend mother has something on her mind. In this case, Yor is thinking about what Fiona said to her when she first visited their apartment, and wonders if Loid will be competing in the tournament alongside her. She then starts to question if Fiona’s relationship with Loid is strictly a professional one or if there’s something more going on between them.
The longer Yor thinks about the threat that Fiona poses to her stable life with Loid, the more she starts contemplating killing her. Fortunately for Fiona, Yor stops herself from entertaining this thought further. Before Yor has the time to keep punishing herself for having these thoughts, however, Anya steps in to cheer her up, which surprises Yor as she has not been verbalizing her thoughts aloud. Anya then quickly rectifies the situation by telling her pretend mother she doesn’t need to worry about Loid losing the game as he will be bringing home a fabulous prize.
Before starting the final tournament, Loid and Fiona are escorted to a room to wait in for 20 minutes. While resting, Fiona thinks about whether or not Loid was impressed with her killer moves on the tennis court. Loid, however, is thinking about the fact they’ll be competing against Campbell’s two adolescent children, and expects the game to get rigged in their favor. Fiona, however, isn’t concerned since the Campbell children are not particularly skilled players. Loid, however, cautions Fiona against this line of thinking as it’s been known to get spies killed in the past.
Before Fiona and Loid get an opportunity to continue entertaining their own thoughts, both spies realize their room is being pumped with an invisible odorless gas as a means of incapacitating them before the final round. Since they can’t escape the room without arousing suspicion, Loid and Fiona opt to climb the lockers and cover their skin to minimize their exposure to the gas. Both spies stay put as best as they can until it’s time for them to start the final round against the Campbell siblings.
During the final tournament, Loid and Fiona begin to feel the effects of the gas on their performance as the Campbell siblings cheat their way throughout the game. Loid, however, isn’t about to lose to their petty tricks, and asks Fiona to back him by keeping an eye on their surroundings. This gesture alone reminds Fiona of why she’s fallen in love with Loid and commits to having his back in the final round.
Based on the popular manga series by Tatsuya Endo, new episodes of Spy x Family stream every Saturday on Crunchyroll.
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