For its third episode Michiko to Hatchin opts for a degree of variation alongside certain constants.

What’s constant is the focus on that core relationship, Michiko coming to the rescue in the nick of time, and the subsequent flaunting of her lack of gun fear. What’s variant is the move away from roadtripping and into life in the big town. Aside from one shot of the typical image of the famous beachgirl arse we deal with the actual experience of the place. The sea’s out of sight (as are the tourists), people live in crowded pathways and cramped eateries.

Which means we go from hitting the next town on the bike to hanging out in a den of preying thieves and perverted old men. No longer flying through the country like a freewheeling legend. So it’s a different sort of us against the world situation, which complicates the picture of the protagonists. In this new home Hatchin gets a job and then gets in trouble, while Michiko wastes her time or tricksters and hopeless fantasies.

The central personality clash continues to be the main engine for this show. Hana’s rational certainty and Michiko’s emotional certainty cast at odds. With the (rational, sceptical) audience seemingly naturally sitting in the place of a stoical Hatchin, encountering a world of astounding Michikos.

Only, of course, it’s not really like that any more. In fact the world and Michiko seem to be increasingly at odds. In that first episode I thought she was omnipotent, but clearly she’s a bit neurotic up close. She lies about nicking shoes. She can’t draw right. She acts the fool. She’s a person, not a force of nature.

Which leads me to conclude that Hana’s heroine can’t really be ours. Or at least, she can’t play that role for us all the time. She isn’t the hero to the casual spectator, because she isn’t personally at the heroic level. We don’t have that dedpendent relationship with her. Instead she can continue to rescue the girl week in week out, if in an accidental way. She’s one girl’s heroine, and everyman’s beautiful weirdo.

Did you spot how the OP credits Michiko’s motorbike designer? Well, it’s a nice bike. Michiko’s a heroine when in motion and a human mess in repose. In the big city she’s lost and gullible. Magnificent, yes, but not so savvy as we might have guessed. That’s why she’s only able to be one person’s heroine – a heroine for the one who needs her, not an exemplar for the rest. And everyman’s heroine? The one we can all turn to? That’ll be the kid.

Without having shown us any single moment of brilliance, Hatchin is already where it’s at. She’s even cut her hair – quickly too. I was expecting some kind of great makeover moment regarding the haircut (which was predictable on account of the OP). As it turned out we didn’t even get a shot of shorn locks hitting the floor. Just a look up/scissors – next-moment haircut = done. Not even a shocked reaction from the shopkeeper (’why Ms. Morenos, you’re beautiful assertive’). Quick and easy.

Still though, even stripped of the bullshit dramatic haircuts are always a bit lame. Really, female characters need to stop doing that shit so often. I’m glad this show didn’t fuss over it, but it’s still a strange ritual in female characterisation.

Anyway. What I do like about this trope is its tendency to locate the change of direction for a character in private. As happened here, where Hatchin makes the call by herself and then steps out to declare to the world that she’s now fired up. Personal resolution followed by symbolic assertion.

She then shows a degree of recklessness and courage. This indicates no simple admiring relationship to confident spunky Michiko. She keep her job secret and does her own thing. Which is good, because she’s already on the road to cool, and cool is independent. We can see her snarling in the OP. We know she’ll get there. And here we see the first weak signs of a one-woman army in the making.

Part of this coming individualism is in her disconnection from her past. I think this is where Michiko to Hatchin has a potential strong hand in comparison to other tales of independent hardnuts. It does actually deal with the family and upbringing. Many a criminal hero is simply disconnected by a traumatic event, by adulthood, orphanhood – by ignoring their origins. These characters are a bit more rounded, which contextualises their individualism. And so we’ve seeing in detail how Hatchin relates to the father she doesn’t have, and to defining herself through a new name and appearance. She’s shouldering the distance-from-home implicit in the emotional world of adults.

This maturity is primarily symbolised in the combination of her ever more clear wilfulness and her more measured approach to the old huckster. Moving away from her blank scepticism seems to be part of her journey. She’s becoming a cooler adult, a self-reliant and measured individual.

What this episode really does is move us away from the caper formula. That’s why we stopped travelling. We take a chance to settle back and see somthing of these people’s relation to the world. This episode still fit in a gun to ignore and a bad guy for the heroine to cripple, but this was within the context of a slowed journey. An episode which placed the characters in a more naturalistic setting than I expected from my action-roadtrip show, which will probably be a good thing in the long run.