Episode 1 of “Drops Of God” ended on a cliffhanger with Camille listening to his father’s last message. She will have to decide whether she should stay and compete with Issei in the wine competition or leave. Episode 2 shows whether Camille is able to master her sense of smell since she cannot drink the wine but can identify any wine by just smelling it.
Spoilers Ahead
The Complication
Little Camille is rushed to the hospital when she starts bleeding through her nose after drinking wine on her father’s order. Her mother doesn’t let him get into the ambulance. That was the last time she was at the Domaine. In this season of harvest, it is Philippe’s son Thomas who will be hosting her and not Philippe himself. She vaguely remembers Thomas from her childhood days. He is now an enology teacher. Thomas, however, remembers Camille very clearly and mentions how he was fascinated by her as a kid because of the way she could sense wine. He gives her a tour of the entire place, including the vineyards, the fermentation cellar, and the room where she will learn more about wines and know how to taste them for the next three weeks. This is when she reveals to Thomas that her relationship with wine is “complicated.”
Thomas tells his father about Camille’s complications. Philippe has absolutely no idea what he can do. He was asked by Alexandre to improve Camille’s knowledge of wines, and here she is saying that she passes out on even a single sip of alcohol. Anything other than rice and green beans makes her fall sick. This has been the case for the last 20 years, and it is her father who is responsible for it. Camille asks if Philippe can help her because only he can.
Flavor Of Trauma
Issei Tomine is at an interview with the members of a reputed international cooperative company that is looking for a consultant oenologist. They ask him to identify a wine that’s placed in front of him, which he does to the last bit. All it takes is a handful of smells for him to identify the source, the ingredients, their percentage, and even the year of manufacture. Alexandre has trained him very well.
Camille’s mother came over after Philippe called her. He has agreed to help Camille, but only after she gets checked. An MRI scan follows, and it reveals that she has a childhood trauma linked to taste, especially alcohol, that’s affecting her brain. Unless she can get rid of it, the doctor suggests that she stop her wine training as it will pose a risk to her health. So, unfortunately, Camille and her mother decided to leave. Before leaving, Camille and Philippe get into an argument about Alexandre. While Camille tells him how her father never cared to contact her, Philippe tells her that Alexandre tried to contact her many times, but it was her mother who didn’t let him. He then shows Camille an email that she apparently sent to her father. In it, she tells him to forget her. However, Camille never sent her father an email. She then realizes that it was her mother’s act to keep Alexandre away from her daughter. Camille decides to stay back and sends her mother home alone.
A Walk Down Memory Vine
Camille has made up her mind to utilize her sense of smell rather than that of taste to learn the craft of recognizing wine. She and Thomas sit down with 54 different aromas. She is blindfolded just like when she was young, and the task begins. She stumbles at first but is slowly able to remember her father’s methods that she learned and identify all 54 of them. This is followed by the identification of wines. Thomas introduces Camille to Juliette, who seems to be his girlfriend and the sales director of Domaine. From the moment they meet, it is clear that they don’t seem to like each other. Juliette takes pride in what she does and looks down on Camille, while Camille feels uncomfortable in front of her. Thomas is very friendly with her, while Juliette is the opposite, trying to explain things to her as if she were a kid. She belittles Camille with a laugh after the latter is unable to recognize her first wine. Later on, Philippe finds her hopeless under a tree in the vineyard. He takes her on a tour of the vineyard and explains how she needs to stop associating wine with her pain. Her father never wanted to hurt her. They halt at a spot in the evening, and he tells her to take a walk in the vines. There, she tastes the grapes. The next day, Thomas hands her a glass of wine made from the very grapes she tasted the previous evening, asking her to identify at least one aroma. She does it correctly, identifying the dominating smell of peach. She smells lots of other aromas, one of which is very familiar. Thomas reveals that it is a fern. That’s when she realized that fern was one of the aromas that she smelled in the wine in Tokyo.
Issei enters his office and finds a note from his secretary telling him that he has failed the interview. A few minutes later, Issei’s grandfather and mother enter his office. His grandfather is upset with the way Issei has ignored his family business and opted for the wine company. And now, his mention in Alexandre Leger’s will has put him on the front page of every newspaper. He tells Issei to announce publicly that he is pulling out of the competition. Issei says yes politely. On the way out, his grandfather uses his walking stick to topple the stack of glass jars, each containing a different substance with a unique aroma. The jars fall to the ground and break into pieces.
Is Camille Able To Master Her Sense Of Smell?
Two weeks have passed since Camille’s training began. Now it is time for a surprise test. She smells from the glass that Philippe has handed her. Thomas is also present. Camille is able to detect almost all the aromas, but not all. Thus, she gets the name wrong. Philippe tells her that what she has achieved is extraordinary, but it is very difficult to identify a wine unless one tastes it. Camille asks for a second chance and gets lost in her mind.
8-year-old Camille is with her father in the cellar. Alexandre puts a few drops in her mouth, and when she’s done tasting it, he tells her to spit the wine out and open her mouth. She gets the name wrong, and her father calls for a second round. That’s when her mother arrives and snaps at her father for making Camille drink wine despite knowing the effects it has on her. Alexandre takes his wife away from Camille. As her parents argue, she is left with a glass of red wine in front of her. The need to prove herself right makes her take the glass and finish the wine in one sitting. She puts the empty glass back on the table and passes out.
Camille snaps out of her thoughts. She realizes that it wasn’t her father’s fault that she was taken to the hospital. It was she who drank the wine only to prove herself worthy to her father. Before Philippe or Thomas could stop her, she takes a gulp. It tastes really good.
It seems that Camille has overcome her fear of drinking wine. However, we have to wait to see if it stops her nosebleeds. Also, we must remember that we haven’t seen Issei taste wine yet. All we see him do is smell and correctly identify every aroma during the interview. Does this mean that he, too, has a condition that keeps him from tasting wine? Also, will he pull out of the competition as per his grandfather’s orders? Seems unlikely. Meanwhile, only a few days remain before Camille and Issei meet again. What will the outcome be?
