Emily of New Moon Episode 6 - The Case of the Poisonous Apple

Emily meets a farmer by the name of John, who lives in the land near the New Moon Farm. Emily and her friends have come to love the trees in this area, and frequently spends their time in John’s house. Elizabeth however forbids her not only from writing, but also from visiting John’s place because of the bad influence he has on Emily. With the way Elizabeth is preventing her from having any fun, she voices out her complaints in the form of a letter to his dad. Elizabeth however catches her in the act of writing, and Emily does something she’ll regret for the rest of her life. Her depression becomes even worse as she eats some poisonous apples. Thinking that her life is going to end, she starts writing her “last will and testament”…

Summary

Emily still continues to write despite her Aunt Elizabeth’s disapproval, and recently finishes a poem about the forest near the New Moon farm that she has come to love. This place used to belong to the Murrays, but was sold to the Sullivans, and is now being taken care of by John Sullivan. Elizabeth wanted to buy back this land, but John utterly refuses to sell it because of both his love for it, and his hatred for Elizabeth. Emily gets easily acquainted with John because of the similar sentiments they have about Elizabeth.

Elizabeth finds out that Emily frequently spends time in John’s house, and refrains her from doing so because of the bad influence that he might have on her. She keeps watch on Emily so that she won’t be able to write poems or stories, or even visit John’s place. The only time she finds to write a letter to her father again was then Elizabeth and Laura went out for an appointment. She tells her father about how Elizabeth is so strict on her, reprimanding each and every action she does. Emily thinks that Elizabeth doesn’t seem to have anything she enjoys, and thus wants her to act like her as well (and rid her of the things she enjoys). Elizabeth catches Emily on the act of this writing as she goes back to get something she forgot, and struggles to confiscate Emily’s notebook. Emily refuses to give her the notebook, and pushes away Elizabeth in the process of this struggle. Due to all this panic, Emily burns the notebook she treasures with all her life, causing her much regret as she thinks about the memories and thoughts she ‘burned’ together with it.

She runs out of the house to find solace in John’s place, and gets a bite on some apples there, which she finds out a little later to be ‘poisonous’ apples. Emily hurries off to go home, and makes her ‘last will and testament’, believing that her death is coming soon. Perry became very much affected when he found out about this from Emily, and quickly tells Laura and Elizabeth about this when they arrived. Elizabeth immediately finds out that this was simply a prank by John, and confronts him. Elizabeth scolds John for what he did, since Emily really took it seriously, and tells him that he’s a bad influence on Emily. John refuses to give her any apology and simply shouts back at her.

The following day, Emily finds out the truth about what John did, and felt somewhat betrayed because she really trusted him. Just then, a shocking news came to them – John is planning to cut down the forest in his place, the forest which Emily holds dear in her heart.

Thoughts

In this episode we’re introduced to a new character, John, though I felt as though the ‘introduction’ was a little bit awkward because it was narrated, and the next scenes we see is that of Emily already ‘close’ to him. This was probably done to cut down on some scenes for the anime to cover the critical parts of the book.

The autumn leaves of the trees near John’s place are just beautiful, so it’s not surprising how Emily would come to love this place. Emily of course, still can’t give up her love for writing because the beauty of everything she sees inspires her to do so. And of course with Elizabeth still not explaining exactly why she can’t write (in a way that Emily will truly understand), Emily can’t help but be ‘stubborn’ and not heed what she tells her.

Though, Emily’s stubbornness lead her to doing regretful things this time – pushing Elizabeth away in the course of the struggle for her notebook, and eventually burning it, desperate to find a means for Elizabeth not to read what she wrote. Emily’s actions either stemmed from ‘guilt’ over what she wrote about Elizabeth, or the fear she had if ever Elizabeth finds out about this. Emily doesn’t really hate Elizabeth, she just gets annoyed by how she ‘controls’ everything she does, especially writing.

Emily’s reaction to finding out that the apples were poisoned was somewhat exaggerated in my opinion, but that could probably be due to the lack in the sense of judgment she has considering her depressed state. Nevertheless, seeing how Emily dealt with the “last moments of her life”, made it quite a fun watch, seeing as to how she immediately thought about making her ‘last will and testament’. She even dragged Perry to believing that she’s really going to die, and Perry’s reaction was just priceless. Elizabeth is quite perceptive that she already knew this was simply a prank by John and confronts him immediately. I’d have to agree with Elizabeth that John isn’t really a good influence on Emily, especially with his lack of respect for Elizabeth.

I had mixed feelings about John throughout the episode… At first I thought of him to be a comic relief, especially when he was imitating Elizabeth perfectly. I was thinking her grudge on Elizabeth wasn’t that serious, seeing as to how he can simply laugh at what Elizabeth does. But then it seems that he’s quite close-minded when it comes to other things, and his grudge on Elizabeth is far more serious than I first thought. When Elizabeth confronted her regarding the prank he did, she was just reprimanding his actions because he really went overboard. He simply laughed at what Elizabeth told her that Emily took his joke seriously, with not a single ounce of concern and guilt over what he did. Elizabeth surely gets on his nerves, probably because of her ‘pride’, which John sees to be ‘arrogance’. I became even more disappointed with what he was planning on doing to the trees in his place. It’s like his ‘love’ for it wasn’t genuine, and his hatred for Elizabeth was enough for him to do things to such an extent.

I can’t wait to see how things will develop in the next episode… John will most likely change, with the help of Emily perhaps. It’ll be great if Emily defends her aunt against John, then perhaps we could see Elizabeth open up to her more ^^