Death Note Episode 20: Makeshift

The investigation team monitors a Yotsuba Group meeting via wiretaps and surveillance cameras installed in their conference room. They overhear the group casually discussing Hatori's recent death by Kira's hand, showing little remorse, especially from Reiji Namikawa, and openly planning further killings.

Higuchi complains about Eraldo Coil's slow progress in exposing L, but Takeshi Ooi notes Coil has detected a pattern of deaths concentrated on weekends, prompting the group to adjust by spreading killings more evenly and targeting officials at various companies.

The Task Force debates action: most members, including Soichiro, urge immediate arrests to prevent more deaths, but L insists on waiting until the killings confirm Kira's identity among them, rejecting Soichiro's idea to call and warn the group as too risky.

Light proposes a makeshift plan, posing as L in a phone call to Namikawa, revealing the surveillance, and blackmailing him to delay the killings by one month in exchange for pardoning everyone except Kira, while forbidding Namikawa from telling the others or facing arrest.

Namikawa complies, convincing the group during their meeting to postpone deaths for a month to give Coil time to identify L; if unsuccessful, they will proceed randomly and repeat the cycle until L dies, then resume normally, reducing suspicion.

L, impressed yet suspicious, decides his methods differ too much from the Task Force's and announces he will work separately, though they can stay at headquarters; he then asks Misa to help by modeling for Yotsuba, emotionally pressuring Light to join L's smaller team instead of his father's.

L tests Light by praising his plan and proposing him as the next L if he dies, but Light discerns the trap and declines cautiously. Soichiro expresses concern that even with more intel, capturing all group members will be difficult.