The third episode of the drama series "The Hot Spot" (NTV, Sunday 10:30 pm), starring actress Mikako Ichikawa, was broadcast on January 26th. The disturbing final scene depicted the alien Takahashi (Akihiro Kakuta), who hides his true identity from those around him, and caused a stir on social media.
◇The following contains spoilers.
On a Saturday afternoon, Kiyomi (Ichikawa), Hazuki (Suzuki Anne), and Minami (Hiraiwa Kami) are off work and invite Takahashi to meet up at a local restaurant. By chance, Ayano (Kinami Haruka), a classmate of Kiyomi and her friends, comes to the restaurant. Kiyomi and her friends sit at a table with Ayano, who has brought her 5-year-old daughter, and try to get through the situation while trying to ignore the awkwardness of Takahashi being at a childhood friend's gathering.
However, unexpected events occur one after another, and each time, Takahashi ends up using his powers in front of Ayano. With superhuman reflexes, he catches the phone just before it falls to the floor, and with extraordinary strength, he lifts up a car stuck in a groove in the parking lot. Kiyomi and the others are nervous that Ayano might find out... and so the story unfolds.
Afterwards, a taxi with its "SOS lamp" on passed in front of Kiyomi and her friends, so Takahashi, judging it to be an "emergency situation," chased after the taxi at high speed. Ayano's 5-year-old daughter witnessed this. In the final scene, Ayano's daughter was seen sleeping in her futon, and a picture that she presumably drew of Takahashi moving at high speed with Kiyomi and the other four was shown on screen.
Social media was abuzz over this unsettling final scene, with comments such as "What an unsettling ending," "It ended on a creepy note lol," and "It feels like the story is about to move forward."
