The Demon City
Episode 5 of The Promised Neverland Season 2 begins with a look at the demon city, as they refer to human children as chickens. It’s been a year since the Grace Field Farm incident and demons are still talking about the kids that escaped. Where are they? What happened to them? Well, we soon get our answers. Hiding in secret within an abandoned building, our kids use a series of makeshift alarms to signify when one of their own arrives. Well, it turns out Emma and Ray have been donning a demon disguise to head out and get food for them all. Only, they’re living off scraps for now. As they all huddle together, the kids mention how they haven’t been able to do anything since the shelter was attacked last episode. Emma is starting to doubt herself too, as thin slivers of hate seep into her mind. Realizing they’re on their own, Emma begins to despair and wonders how she’ll be able to keep all the kids alive. After agreeing to let a couple of the kids don their demon disguises, a strange demon arrives and tells them all they need to leave. According to him, this is the evil-blooded temple and after helping to collect up apples, we learn that trouble brews for the demons too. There’s clearly a hierarchical system in place, with the better food reserved for the rich classes while the lower-rank demons struggle to survive. Well, with more soldiers and a higher reward placed to bring the Grace Field kids back, the children soon find the disguises losing their effectiveness. The smell of human is just too potent and even with the masks on, find themselves caught. Suddenly, a whole flock of other demon arrive and slash the necks of the duo after Emma and Norman. Unveiling their disguises, the one in charge reveals himself to be none other than Norman!
The Episode Review
The Promised Neverland inexplicably jumps forward in time, offsetting a lot of the drama and tension that’s made the show so appealing in the past- especially given the slow-ish pace of season 1. While that season’s time jumps made logical sense, here it doesn’t work in the context of the story, leaving way too many questions. How did the kids find demon disguises? Why doesn’t the demon inside the temple smell their human scent? How did the kids end up in the city? Or at least the outskirts of it. What happened to the giant demon? Who were those soldiers? There’s just so many questions left unanswered with this one that it unfortunately sours what’s otherwise a nice reveal at the end with Normal still alive. I’d imagine the next episode will dive into Norman’s backstory as we learn more about exactly wat happened to him during this time. In the meantime though, Promised Neverland bows out with an okay episode but also one of its weakest too. Let’s hope this isn’t a sign of things to come going forward.
