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File 1088-1090 Review/Discussion
This case was just full of surprises and is showing in my opinion big potential for Rum arc yielding one of the most satisfying plot twists that could beat Vermouth arc's Araide twist.
To start off, we had the awaited comeback of the Ooka family, but with the very much unexpected reveal that Kuroda Hyoue has ties to the retiree of the Ooka family (Momij's grandfather) (File 1088).
This connection gave an implication to some kind of history between Kuroda and the former Ooka family head. This connection is already quite hintful, since we recently learned that Ooka family has ties with the rich Haneda family (File 1039-1042), and Kuroda has been hinted to have a particular interest in the Kohji case (due to him immediately thinking of that case just from seeing the "Wakasa Rumi" name and her stunt in the news) (File 987). Since the common link between Kuroda and Haneda is the Ooka, this further pushes the idea that Kuroda Hyoue could be Akai Tsutomu, who is confirmed to be a family friend of the head of the Haneda family (File 1037), Haneda Yasuharu. This could also mean that Ooka retiree is aware of Kuroda's true identity (a fellow friend of Haneda).
Then, we also get more hints on Iori Muga (who I have speculated to be Rum's true identity undercover), where he showed more Rum-like features; an old habit indicating that he has monocular vision (File 1089). Iori Muga has an old habit of turning his head often every he time gets off a car. This is a very common habit among people who only see through one eye, because having monocular vision means that your peripheral vision worsens, meaning that you have to compensate for the lack of full view with turning your head often. This was among the crucial awaited hints to point to Iori having a prosthetic eye (and by extension being the one who is going around disguised as Wakita Kanenori, Rum).
Finally, we have the most exciting part of this case, which is the resolution chapter, where we got a lot of context clues to Iori's history and Kuroda's relationship with him, as well as the big tease to a mysterious figure that is heavily framed to be the infamous Boss of the Black Organization.
To start off, we learn that Kuroda has been aware of Iori's old habit since way back and that Iori has explained it to him in the past as it being a habit to check his surroundings for any stalkers, as well as that Iori used to go by the first name alias "Sakakibara" (Ooka Echizen reference, likely full alias: "Takewaki Sakakibara") in the past while being undercover and working with Kuroda Hyoue (File 1090).
This was then followed by Conan connecting Kuroda's words of habit "inspecting" and "disinfecting" to being that of the Public Security and started suspecting that Kuroda and Iori are a part of it.
This reveal, that finally not only doesn't shy away from portraying Iori Muga as a main plot character but also reveals that he at least used to work undercover with Kuroda/the Public Security, is the most exciting part of this case, as it brings so much to discuss and has exciting possibilites for the future. For starters, this confirms one of my suspicions about Iori Muga. If Iori Muga had this familiar coworker-relationship with Kuroda Hyoue in the past, it would automatically mean that Iori is older than the age he claims to be (30 years old) as the butler of Ooka family, because Kuroda Hyoue has been in a 10-year coma (File 914). If Iori Muga was working with the security police under Kuroda's command 10 years ago, it would mean that Iori would have been 20 years old, which is abnormally younger than the average police officer (for reference, the prodigy Furuya Rei graduated police academy at the age of 22, and that's before entering the NPA). This means that Iori Muga is definitely older than 30 years old, which confirms the last key speculation of mine, which is that Iori Muga actually has an age that is competent enough to carry out the 17-year-old murder case of Haneda Kohji.
Secondly, among the biggest implications of this reveal is the fact that Iori Muga used to work undercover with Kuroda (which is heavily implied to be for the Public Security). This could be bigger than it seems, because if Iori Muga were to actually be Rum/BO, it would mean that Rum/BO had successfully infiltrated the Public Security over 10 years ago. The concept of BO members wanting to infiltrate governmental agencies was already foreshadowed properly in File 1049, when Vermouth was revealed to have been trying to impersonate Akai Tsutomu in order to infiltrate the MI6. If Rum had infiltrated the security police this long ago, then it's very likely that Rum was the one who ordered Vermouth to infiltrate the MI6 in the first place, in order to gain inside-intel on how much they know about the organization. This Iori Muga development could potentially be Gosho's setup to revealing what lead to the mysterious incident that put Kuroda Hyoue, a seemingly high-positioned NPA agent, in a coma. After getting close to Kuroda Hyoue, Muga could have learned of how much of a threat Kuroda is to the Black Organization and executed an order to eliminate him. This could be were Kuroda's and Wakasa's history comes into play. Wakasa (who I suspect to be Vermouth in disguise), who showed a big reaction to Kuroda's sudden appearance in burning tent case (File 988), could have been the one who Rum ordered to assassinate him in an orchestrated accident, which ultimately lead to Kuroda surviving but not posing a threat to the BO further. This would explain Wakasa's sinister behavior of trying to fish out information from Kuroda on why he is interested in her and how much he knows.
The next panels of this scene however arguably reveals the biggest indication on how dangerous this situation is. Kuroda Hyoue reveals that he has heard about Iori meeting Amuro and Iori essentially reveals that he has learned that Amuro, who he directly met during his own introduction (File 981), is a promising NPA agent that is restrained by his past.
This setup might have huge and dangerous implications, because if Iori Muga really is the main antagonist of this arc, then this would mean that he is now aware of that one of his subordinates (Bourbon) is a NOC for the NPA. This would mean that moving forward, Rum will have the power to directly destroy Rei's infiltration mission. However, if Rum were to act now on this powerful information, it could tip off Kuroda, who just now learned that someone outside of the "inner circle" knows about Rei's undercover mission, so perhaps this could be how Gosho could delay any immediate threat towards Bourbon's life. This however just further pushes forward the notion that we are gearing up for Rum arc's climax and that Gosho might start giving us continuous main plot progression in the upcoming cases.
Finally... the most controversial cliffhanger scene takes place, where a mysterious old man, that is shadowed out and using a respirator, is revealed to be driving by all of them, showing very much intended similarities to the infamous Boss of the black organization (Karasuma Renya) and who is showing negative opinions on the police.
This old man, who majority are speculating to be Karasuma Renya, is in my opinion a very on-brand red-herring/mislead of Gosho's to make the reader believe it's the main antagonist of this whole series. This old man has very stereotypical features and elements to him that signals the reader that this could be the boss, like for example that he is driving a retro car like Gin, using a respirator for life support (which is what people would imagine for an old man who is 140+ years old and is supposed to be dead) and who is showing a bad opinion about the police (the "good guys"). This is however done without any explicit evidence to that he really is BO-affiliated. This is a classic Gosho mystery-writing move, where he frames characters strategically to seem one way without definite evidence for the sake of his iconic twists. I think that the timing of this tease rather suggests that it could be one other powerful/rich figure that was active and teased in the previous Ooka/Heiji case and who has good reason to dislike the police, Haneda Yasuharu (Kohji's father). Haneda Kohji was revealed in the previous Ooka/Heiji case (File 1042) to be the son of a very rich/powerful family. This is just in time to fit with this mysterious rich old man. We also know that Haneda Yasuharu was revealed to have asked for his friend Akai Tsutomu's help in order to solve the murder of his son (File 1037), which indirectly reveals that he didn't find the police competent enough to handle his son's case. This perfectly fits with the mysterious old man's negative opinions on the police, who failed to solve his son's murder.
Now, here comes an exciting prospect to this setup. For Gosho to use Haneda Yasuharu as a mislead of being the Boss of the BO ("Bad guy"), it would mean that he is planning for the twist that he is actually a "good guy". However, that framing alone doesn't seem complete when you consider his writing of previous overarching mysteries. Gosho usually uses his framed characters in pairs of "framed good" vs "framed bad". Examples:
Vermouth arc: Jodie, Akai, James (framed as a "bad guy") vs Araide (framed as a "good guy")
Bourbon arc: Subaru, Masumi (framed as a "bad guy") vs Scarred Akai, Amuro (framed as a "good guy")
So, what immediately comes to mind is that what Gosho is actually setting up with the mysterious old man is for him to be the "bad guy" to someone he is very clearly trying to portray as the "good guy" in this chapter, Iori Muga. I have speculated that Rum (as Iori Muga) is actually trying stay close to the Haneda family, and by extension Haneda Yasuharu, through the Ooka family in order to monitor their activities partaining to his crime 17 years ago, especially due to Haneda Kohji case info being uploaded online constantly. This portrayal of the old man, who most likely is Haneda Yasuharu, just fits like a glove with this new portrayal of Iori Muga, since we could see them framed as each other's enemies. So, when compared with the examples mentioned above, this time it could be:
Rum arc: Mysterious old man (framed as a "bad guy") vs Iori Muga (framed as a "good guy").
This could be Gosho's strategic plan to subvert the readers' expectations by essentially flipping the script right on its head, which in my opinion shows great potential to beating the big twist of the very-beloved Vermouth arc.
Overall, this case just set the bar high for what Rum arc could give us in its climax, and I have never been more excited for the future of Detective Conan.