Coming off a week of being trolled by Kampfer AND Akira, at least I have FMA:B to make my anime life happy again as episode 36 proved to be the best episode in a while by a longshot.

Summary:

We start off with some heavy plot development, as Hohenheim rips some blood out of himself, and then thinks about the past. Apparently his wife Trisha knew of his immortality but married the big lug anyway (ah shucks!). Being married, then having two kids – Ed and Al – made Hohenheim realize that being immortal wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be as he realized that he would outlive his wife and kids. Before he can do anything to abandon his immortality though, Hohenheim decyphers Father’s plan, and after an ‘oh noes!’ moment, decides that he must leave and do something about it. Ed and Al manage to catch him at the door and after almost crying at their sight, he manages to make a ‘mean’ face before leaving.

Back at Briggs, the exploration team is trying to figure out where the train tracks lead to empty out the dirt from the growing tunnel, when everyone is suddenly confronted by a mysterious power (probably Pride?) who kills everyone with relative ease. At the base, Raven keeps trying to mack up Olivier, and she plays along. When word comes of the missing exploration team, Olivier sets out immediately, but is stopped by Raven who tells her not to worry, and in fact orders her to put Sloth back into the hole and cover up the hole. With Raven and Olivier’s conversation over, the Elric brothers pretend to be prisoners yet again.

After ordering Sloth back into the hole by invoking the name of Pride, Raven makes a speech about Kobasa to everyone not to worry about Sloth and that he is in fact a chymera from Central helping to make the country safer. Quite worried about her missing troops and the prospect of covering up the hole, Raven remarks to Olivier about how the weak die to support the strong. With that she’s finally had enough, and decides to cut Raven down and bury him in the concrete used to cover up the hole. Raven gives a few pathetic parting words before being entomed forever.

Meanwhile, Miles who had been stalling for time by pretending to care about what Kimblee had to say, is finally given word that Raven is dead. He tells Kimblee that Raven is missing, but is surprized to hear that Kimblee already had orders from Bradley himself to act independently if Raven were to die.

Back in the jail cell, Ed and Al contemplate what to do next when Kimblee suddenly bursts into the room with Winry in tow.

Reaction:

Pretty spectacular episode all around. So many things happened in this episode.

First of all, we get a bit more of an insight into Hohenheim himself. He really does love Ed and Al quite a lot, and it really is a shame that Ed’s memory of him leaving is only filled with the ‘mean’ face but not the almost crying one. We also learn that Hohenheim has figured out Father’s plan and decides to do something about it. He also seems to have some sort of Philosopher’s Stone blood in him, with possible Homunculus powers as well. This changes the dynamics between him and father quite a bit. Originally, with his white hair, I thought that Father perhaps created Hohenheim as well, but now I’m not so sure. What if they were equals? Each one, part of perhaps even the same person before that person became immortal, and representing different parts of the same person?

Secondly, we get Raven really blustering quite a bit about how he’s all that. It was totally awesome how Olivier would have none of that and just cut him down to size. The question is, of course as Shinmaru pointed out, why does Kimblee have orders to act indepently if Raven were to die? Ignoring the fact that Kimblee just made that up, the only real explanation I can think of is that Bradley realized how annoying Raven was, and more or less figured that he’d get killed in Briggs. Whether that is because he knows how much of a hardass Olivier is, or if he totally used Raven as ‘bait’ to bring out Olivier’s true mutany against him is hard to say. Either way, it had a bit of a feeling of a mafia movie, when they send out the police mole to do some stupid errand knowing that he’d die just to get rid of him.

Thirdly, we finally get to see the final Homunculus, Pride. I have to say, while Pride had previously floated like a butterfly, he now stings like a bee… IF A BEE WERE TOTALLY AWESOME AND FREAKY IN EVERY WAY. I did appreciate though how he let the horse live. For a second there I was sad that all those innocent horses got killed, but they were safe! PHEW!

Finally we get a sense of just how awesome Miles is. It seems his entire trying to provoke Kimblee to talk about Ishbal and so on was just a ruse to stall for time. The fact that Miles was (as he admits himself) just acting during that whole conversation is a pretty amazing show of his character. Truly the type of no-nonsense person that Olivier would rely upon.

Next week we might get to see Bucaneer kick some Pride ass… or will we?

Related posts:

1. Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood 38
2. Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood 40
3. Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood 35