"Do You Know Shakespeare?" note with the English title of "Dark Charade".
The President of an unnamed country has summoned Jigen and his partners to his office. Their embassy received a carrier pigeon with a letter addressed to the gunman from Sister Angelica, a figure from his past. She needs his help to rescue her friend, Dr. Othello, from the African nation of Borodias. Dr. Othello is the leader of the country's freedom movement; the country's black population is rebelling against the country's white regime. The President wants Lupin, Jigen, and Goemon to go into Borodias and get Dr. Othello out covertly before the rebellion falls so he can help the him establish a government in exile. There will be a plane waiting at the border of Catanbe to fly him to safety. If the gang succeeds, they can name their price.
On the flight over, Jigen tells the gang how he met Angelica eight years earlier, before he was a member of the gang. As a young hit-man, he killed the son of a prominent mafia boss that sent him on the run around the world. In Venice, he gets sick, and as he walks the snowy streets attracts the attention of a young lady in a Rolls Royce. He tries to shoo her away, but just then the mafia catches up with him in a boat in the canal; he's forced to use the woman's car to blow up the boat, but the effort makes him sicker. Jigen then claims he's going to help her because he owes her for blowing up her car; Goemon and Lupin are suspicious that isn't the end, but just then the three have to make their jump into Borodias.
Sister Angelica is praying over graves at her church, which doubles as Dr. Othello's hospital and the last surviving rebel stronghold when Jigen makes his appearance. She is overjoyed to see him. As the army of Borodias continues to close in on the church, Angelica urges Dr. Othello to stop treating the wounded and leave; his survival elsewhere will keep the rebellion going even if their rebellion falls. The doctor is reluctant to leave, wanting to stay beside his countrymen and fight, but as the army closes in, he reluctantly agrees to go. He gives Angelica a golden rosary as a parting gift before leaving accompanied by Lupin and Goemon. Jigen will stay behind and protect Sister Angelica.
As Othello departs with the thieves, the bombing of the church starts in earnest. Unable to help the injured rebels around the camp, Jigen and Angelica flee into the basement, where Dr. Othello's locked laboratory is. Jigen shoots the door open and the two go inside for shelter; they turn the lights on and are nearly blinded by the sheer number of lights in the strange room, which has only a single reclining chair in the center. Their shelter proves temporary as the bombing intensifies. Meanwhile, Dr. Othello gets on the escape jet, thanking Lupin. However, just as the jet flies away, a stray missile, apparently from the nearby bombing, appears and chases it over the horizon. There is a massive explosion...
Jigen and Angelica emerge from their shelter to find the church obliterated, and the rebels dead. Panicked to see if anyone survived, Angelica runs into the site, ignoring Jigen's warning about unexploded bombs just in time to step on one. Mortally wounded, she tells Jigen as she lies dying that she gave up her life of luxury after he left because she felt empty, filling it up instead with love from God. Happy she will soon be with God, and that she lived long enough to see Dr. Othello escape, she passes away in the gunman's arms.
Meanwhile, Lupin and Goemon run to the crash site to find the fighter jet a smoking wreckage, and Othello dead, only his distinctive signet ring visible to identify him. The two start lamenting the loss of the remarkable man and his cause, but Jigen interrupts them, furious and holding Angelica's body in his arms. He's figured out they've fallen into a trap...
Sure enough, Dr. Othello is alive and well, smoking cigars with the president. He's also named Brenan, is the director of the GIB, and is not even black, but disguised himself as one to infiltrate the rebel group. With his agency's intelligence, Borodias was able to wipe out the rebellion leaving the whites in charge... ones who are eager to sell other countries gold, diamonds, uranium and other resources that Borodias is only starting to mine. Brenan leaves to bleach his skin back to his real color at the President's rather racist behest.
Back at their hideout, Lupin shows Othello's picture to Fujiko. She's confused since Othello was reported dead, but with some urging, she realizes that Othello bears a strong resemblance to the GIB Director Brenan, who was supposedly terminal with a brain tumor. She dined with him on a couple of occasions, so Lupin asks if she's willing to go on one more date with him. Sure enough, a miraculously recovered Brenan is happily dining with Fujiko, where she takes the opportunity to snag his wine glass. She returns with her prize; Lupin uses the graphite dust from a pencil and gently blows it onto the glass and the gold rosary Othello gave Angelica, revealing distinctive fingerprints on both.
At the golf course, where the President and Brenan are hitting the links. Before he can arrive, Jigen and the others show up, accusing Brenan of being Dr. Othello. Jigen has figured out the purpose of the "lab" in the church; it was actually a tanning room so that Brenan could darken his skin to appear black. The gunman further points out the hint in the doctor's name: Othello was a moor, but was traditionally played by a white man. And finally, they hit hard their strongest evidence: the fingerprints on the rosary and the glass are a match. The President laughs, wondering who will believe a group of thieves. Jigen warns him that betraying Sister Angelica and the Borodian rebels is not going to look good in the eyes of God.
Zenigata finally catches up to everything. He offers to help protect the two against Lupin, but the President and Brenan dismissively get on a nearby helicopter to escape. As Zenigata is knocked over in confusion, the helicopter turns to fire on the gang. Working together, Lupin shoots the windshield, cracking it and blinding the two men. Goemon (with an unwilling boost from Zenigata), cuts the tail rotor off with his sword. As the helicopter, now losing control, passes overhead, Jigen fills the fuel tank full of holes with his magnum. The leaking fuel streams into the damaged tail, causing the whole thing to go up in flames, killing the President and Brenan, ending their scheme, and revenging both Sister Angelica and the rebels of Borodias. Grimly, the gang walks away as Zenigata fumes behind them.
Jigen visits Angelica's gravesite, leaving her flowers and remembering the last time he saw her before she became a nun. She was happily talking of marriage in the family rose garden, but Jigen grew scared and ran away. Jigen regrets it now, but there's nothing else he can do. He asks Angelica to forgive him for everything as he walks away.
This episode contains examples of:
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: Goemon cuts the tail rotor off of the President's escape helicopter, setting Jigen up for the final shots to take it down.
- Blackface: Brenan used the tanning room in the church basement to darken his skin and hair, as well as brown contact lenses over his blue eyes to turn into Dr. Othello.
- Bulungi: There are two... Borodias, where most of the episode takes place, and the neighboring country of Catanbe, near which the rescue plane waits.
- Covert Group: Lupin's gang acts one on this rare occasion. In this case, they're called in so Jigen can use his connection with Sister Angelica to help get Dr. Othello out, since calling in the military directly to support the rebels would create a tricky diplomatic situation. Of course, it ends up much more complicated than the gang realized...
- Died in Your Arms Tonight: Sister Angelica, after being blown up by a stray bomb, confesses to Jigen why she became a nun before succumbing. The normally He-Man Woman Hater gunman cries as he cradles her body.
- Dramatic Irony: A variation; Zenigata never knows about Brenan and the President's scheme, nor does the gang inform him of it.
- Fictional Country: Along with Borodias, the President that charges Lupin's gang with their mission is the head of some unknown Eurocentric/America-ish nation. The flag briefly shown at the beginning doesn't match up to any known country, past or present.
- Grave-Marking Scene: Jigen visits Angelica's grave at the end of the episode to ask for her forgiveness.
- Meaningful Name: Jigen uses Othello's name to help him figure out the doctor's true identity: it was tradition in Shakespearean theater for the moor Othello to be a white man in black makeup.
- Nice Gal: Angelica stopped to see if Jigen was alright when he was sick out in the rain.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Lupin appears to be sharpening a pencil into shavings out of boredom while waiting for Fujiko to return, and then confuses everyone by blowing into it to make a dust cloud. And then he shows the fingerprints on the glass and rosary.
- The One That Got Away: Jigen left Angelica because her talk of marriage scared him. He later shows regret at her graveside.
- People's Republic of Tyranny: The Commonwealth of Borodias, which sounds rather pleasant, but is actually an African nation ruled by a white minority; the black citizens are rebelling to form a breakaway nation. Not helping matters is a seemingly affluent country seeking to clandestinely aid the regime to get access to the natural resources of Borodias.
- Taking the Veil: Angelica reveals she became a nun after Jigen left her because his loss left her empty; she hoped God's love would fill the void.
