The strings
Synopsis
A town where every favour done to you ties a coloured cord around your wrist, and the only way it comes off is by giving that favour back.
Plot
The rule is shown whole before it matters: two cords come off on screen in the first minutes, so that when the moment arrives the audience knows exactly what is at stake. Malios's flaw is owing nobody anything and fixing everything himself. In the wide shot he is the only person in a square full of tangled people with a bare wrist, and it does not look like freedom, it looks like being loose. The last knot is the one the season keeps. Kenya walks out clean, having paid hers back; Malios walks out with a small frayed red cord still tied on, because he took a favour and never gave it back. That cord is on his wrist in every episode after this one, and in The wrong groove it is the only thing that does not change between drawings: it is how she finds him.
Malios
Kenya
The cat