What the hell? As I was watching this episode, I just kept thinking about the ways that Rafal could go on to do astronomy on the sly once he recanted and was at university. I never expected that the main character was going to get killed off in episode 3 of a two-cour show. What a great episode though. I saw Rafal playing with that little pouch earlier in the episode and didn’t know what it was. I never expected that it was the means by which he would kill himself if caught.

So many things I want to talk about. First, the mystery of why Rafal’s dad has so many astronomy books is now a lot clearer. I wish we got more insight into his thinking during this exchange:

Secondly, this show has some gorgeous night sky animation. Just breathtaking stuff @rikka@ani.social:

Lastly, the whole back half of the episode where Rafal and Nowak were talking philosophy was amazing. It’s hard to believe Rafal is was just 12 years old when he was quoting multiple ancient Greek philosophers and then dropping a quote from the previous heretic that Nowak just killed:

Rafal’s behavior shook Nowak to the core I believe. I wonder where things are going to go from here. We just had a ten year time skip at the end of the episode, and some new characters, so I am looking forward to that.