Burn the House Down (Season 1): ‘Burn the House Down’ is a new Japanese mystery thriller series streaming on Netflix. It is based on the manga of the same name by Moyashi Fujisawa. The first season just dropped on the streaming giant, which takes us through the delirious ride of a revenge tale. It follows the story of Anzu Murata, who decides to infiltrate her childhood home after thirteen years to find the truth about a past incident. While Anzu’s mother took the blame for a sudden fire in this house, Anzu never believed that to be the case.
The season follows Anzu’s journey to get to the bottom of this matter and find the actual culprit. Meanwhile, we get an absorbing, albeit daily soap-like drama that keeps us rooting for her.
*Spoilers Ahead*
Burn the House Down (Season 1) ‘Netflix’ Recap:
What happens in ‘Burn the House Down’?
Anzu Murata (Mei Nagano) decides to infiltrate her childhood home under the guise of Shizuka Yamauchi, a housekeeper. She approaches her father’s new wife, Makiko Mitarai (Kyôka Suzuki), for this job. Anzu’s father, Osamu (Mitsuhiro Oikawa), married Makiko after a disastrous fire in their house. At the time, Anzu’s mother, Satsuki (Michiko Kichise), took the blame for it, which unfortunately led to her marriage falling apart. After their divorce, Osamu stayed away from Satuski and her two daughters for over a decade. While Anzu, Yuzu, and Satsuki struggled while building their separate lives, Makiko became a wealthy model and a celebrity figure.
Satsuki has amnesia and, thus, cannot recall numerous details from her past. At this vulnerable moment for their family, Anzu decides to find the truth about the fire caused in their house 13 years ago. She believes Makiko was behind the fire and is determined to prove so. So, she bags the job as the housekeeper and tries to gain her trust. Anzu distinctly recalls a smile on Makiko’s face upon seeing the fire. That makes her believe that Makiko was responsible for causing it.
Anzu & Kiichi’s Meeting
During her work duty as Shizuka Yamauchi, Anzu stumbles upon a messy room. Since no one is inside, she walks in and looks around. Soon after, a young man with disheveled hair walks in and startles her. Back at home, she tries to figure out who this ‘weird guy’ is. She believes it is Makiko’s young son, Shinji, since the room had many medical school books. (She knew Shinji got into a medical school).
Anzu tries to build a connection with this aloof guy by speaking about things she can recall from the past. She mentions soccer and then talks about the stars in the sky. The guy responds to her query related to a particularly big red star. It reminds her that the older brother used to tell the exact things to her. With that, the mystery gets solved – the guy is not Shinji but Makiko’s older son, Kiichi (Asuka Kudô).
Kiichi finds it strange that this housekeeper knew his specific areas of interest. Due to his suspicion, he looks for information on Shizuka Yamauchi online but finds nothing. So, he manages to get Makiko to fire her from the job. Meanwhile, Anzu’s friend, Claire, goes through Makiko’s online profile and learns about a cardigan. Anzu recalls the security video footage from her childhood where she saw someone leaving the house with the exact cardigan which belonged to her mother.
Yuzu & Shinji’s Meeting
While Anzu tries to make her way into his and Makiko’s heart, her younger sister, Yuzu (Yuri Suematsu), gets closer to Shinji (Taishi Nakagawa). Since their childhood, Anzu stepped in as a caregiver for Yuzu. So now, Yuzu decides to repay her sister’s debt of years’ worth of emotional labor. After their few encounters, Shinji offers to set up a meeting between Yuzu and her father. She decides to use this chance to find a piece of crucial evidence in their investigation.
Soon after her job loss, Anzu manages to convince Makiko to get her back to work. At the time, Makiko’s agent had advised her to share more details of her personal life on social media to improve her public image. So, she gets Anzu’s help with cooking some appetizing dishes. She posts them to flaunt her own cooking skills. While working for her, Anzu forms a theory that Makiko wore her mother’s cardigan on the day of the fire and left the house. She manages to walk into Makiko’s wardrobe and find that same cardigan. Later, she recalls a card with the security footage she kept in her dad’s medical records room. Yuzu decides to retrieve that same card during her visit to her dad’s hospital.
Anzu’s Cover Gets Blown
Kiichi soon figures out that their new housekeeper is his childhood friend, Anzu. He finds it strange that she got a job at their house and questions her intention. She says that she realized having been assigned to work at her old house. That’s why she decided to change her identity and enter as Shizuka Yamauchi. But that does not satisfy Kiichi’s curiosity. Anzu eventually says that she is trying to get help from her amnesiac mother to retrieve her memory. She tries to barter a deal with Kiichi to not let Makiko know about it.
While Kiichi does not blow Anzu’s cover, he starts giving her a hard time. He asks her to edit the articles for his digital clickbait news publication. She finds no other option but to agree. Later, she notes how inconsequential the articles are. She finds him so different from the Kiichi she once knew. Later, her mother tells her how Yuzu also looked out for her since they were kids. She does not want Anzu to continue bearing the burden of taking care of their family by herself.
Yuzu gets to meet her father, who warmly welcomes her after abandoning her for years. That’s when Shinji introduces Yuzu to the hospital’s head nurse, Ichihara. In the middle of her chat with Osamu, Yuzu finds some time to get the card from his records. Ichihara notices Yuzu coming out of that room and tells about this meeting to Makiko. Turns out, Makiko did not trust anyone and, thus, kept using Ichihara to snoop on and find details about everyone, including her husband.
Makiko’s Impoverished Past
Makiko gets elated by her improved social media appeal due to Anzu’s assistance with cooking. One of those comments troubles her since it shares an article about how she is trying to erase her impoverished past. Turns out, Kiichi added that comment through a fake account. Makiko soon stumbles upon Kiichi’s bank account details and finds out about his websites with questionable content.
Kiichi believes his mother worries about how it would affect her reputation. She does not mind if he does not work at all instead. He discusses it with Anzu. Eventually, she shares her firm belief – Makiko was behind the fire incident, not her mother. Kiichi still believes that Satsuki looked away from the flame while she was cooking and caused the fire. But Anzu refuses to believe that. Besides, she wants the actual culprit to bear the burden of its guilt. Kiichi confesses that he was desperately trying to leave that past behind but recalls details better than Anzu does. He recalls his mother hiding some details about the fire at the time.
Makiko’s Lies
Makiko keeps lying that Kiichi works for a trading company somewhere abroad. That is why she desperately tries to keep him away from the public eye. Anzu decides to join hands with Kiichi to find the truth about the fire. But years of isolation had taken a toll on him. So, he struggles to get over his social anxiety and possible agoraphobia. Meanwhile, Claire finds an old lifestyle blog in her investigation and shares it with Anzu. Turns out, before this disaster, Makiko had befriended Satuski as a parent in Anzu’s school. Yuzu also manages to find a blog that is connected to their mother’s past.
Back in the Mitarai house, Anzu decides to take a strict approach to get Kiichi out of his rut. She gets him to clean his messy room. Besides she also shares a story of how she got over the teasing from her entire class. That helps him get over his anxieties. Due to their improved bond, Kiichi gives her his mother’s old laptop. Since Makiko used it as her journal, the laptop has several details to help Anzu with her investigation.
Yuzu keeps meeting Osamu and shares details about her suspicion that Makiko was behind the fire. She tells him about the hypothesis about Satsuki’s cardigan. As a result, Makiko soon learns about it. During one of their meetings, Makiko shows up and confronts Yuzu. She accuses Yuzu of lying about the cardigan and burns it back home.
Later, Anzu meets Osamu to confront him about the fire incident. He accepts he hit Satuski before the fire since he thought she was mentally unstable. He assumed Satsuki burned the house as revenge. He cared about his and his hospital’s reputation more than anything and did not want it to get tarnished but any such things. Ichihara interrupts their conversation and shows the bugs Makiko had placed in Osamu’s office to snoop on him. She reveals she was with Satsuki on the day of the fire. So, Satsuki could not have been responsible for it. Ichihara decides to help the sisters and shares the wrong information about them with Makiko.
Meanwhile, Anzu starts gaining Makiko’s trust. Around that time, Makiko finds Shinji’s classmate, Katsuragi Nanami, at her house. She realizes that this girl is trying to get closer to her son. So, owing to her controlling behavior, she threatens Kasturagi to keep her distance from Shinji. Kasturagi records the warning and threatens Makiko to make it public. As a result, Makiko gets Anzu to resolve this issue.
Makiko & Aliza Community
Kiichi cooks some food for Anzu and gives her a pleasant surprise. Meanwhile, Makiko finds an online blog that speaks about her online ‘Aliza’ persona. Turns out, Makiko always aspired to be like Satsuki and, with the same hope, pretended to be Aliza on an online blog. It created a strong fanbase for her. One of those fans – Mujina, met her and asked if she would attend their gatherings for her online fans. She agreed with a warning that they could not take pictures of her. That is where Makiko wore the clothes and accessories that she stole from Anzu and Yuzu’s mother.
Now Mujina’s blog says that she is planning to expose Makiko’s lies for how she pretended to be rich. Makiko believes Yuzu is behind this blog and humiliates her in front of Osamu and Shinji. Yuzu still continues to accuse Makiko of the fire. That’s when Anzu walks in and says that Yuzu’s accusations are true. Kiichi also admits that it was his plan to reveal Makiko’s lies. He got Anzu’s help to meet Mujina and then created a fake profile under her name. He then created several fake profiles to make Mujina’s account popular and to make her words seem credible. Mujina said that Aliza/Makiko wore the cardigan for their last meeting, which happened to be on the same day of the fire. At the time, Makiko also realizes that her housekeeper is not Shizuka Yamauchi but Anzu Murata.
Burn the House Down (Season 1) ‘Netflix’ Ending Explained:
Who was responsible for the fire in the Mitarai residence?
After confronting Makiko, Anzu expects her to apologize to Satuski for putting the blame on her for the fire incident. But Makiko continues to run away from the truth. Because of this, Osamu decides to divorce Makiko but soon pivots because of her clever manipulation. While she tries to revamp her image, someone posts embarrassing photos of her that reveals lies about her public persona. She soon meets Satuski to learn that this old friend of hers created an online profile to expose her lies. Turns out, because of Anzu’s help, Satuski recently started regaining her memories. Satuski and Makiko confess how much they hated each other in the past.
This public humiliation does not bode well for Makiko or Osamu and his hospital. So, Osamu decides to inform the police that Makiko was responsible for causing the fire in their house 13 years ago. The officers arrest her and bring her to the station. While Makiko confesses her guilt for arson, the officers believe that Kiichi is actually behind it. Despite these accusations against Kiichi, Anzu does not believe he is guilty.
Makiko, however, continues to believe she did everything to save Kiichi. Turns out, on the day of the fire, Makiko came to their house to return the things she had stolen. That’s when Yuzu happened to notice her in their house. Since Kiichi knew about her stealing, she thought he caused this fire. While she shares all these details with the Murata sisters, something catches fire. Shinji makes his best effort to calm it down. At that moment, his trauma kicks back, and he finally decides to confess.
In the end, Shinji reveals that neither Kiichi nor Makiko caused the fire, but he did. On the day of the fire, he went to the Mitarai house to return the cardigan. That is when he happened to notice a dish on the stove and decided to heat it up. It accidentally ended up burning up the entire house. He made an escape wearing that cardigan. That is what the security video footage captured at the time.
After he unloads his emotional burden, Anzu asks him to meet Satuski to apologize to her. Satsuki says she will continue to hold him in fond regard even if people start saying bad things about him. The police also acquit him of his crimes since he was younger than 14 years at the time. He decides to return to his life by working for Osamu’s hospital. Despite the initial hesitation, Osamu allows Shinji to work for him. Kiichi leaves his house and starts to stay with Anzu. Three months later, they both have jobs, and Kiichi manages to turn his life around.
