Summary:

As Scar, May Chang and Dr. Marcoh attempt to decipher the secrets of Scar’s brother’s research, Winry looks on to the disassembled Al. It seems that after his sudden collapse, Al was disassembled for easy carrying. When Al finally wakes up, everyone moves to reassemble him. As they struggle, May Chang realizes that perhaps the research notes themselves are one giant jigsaw puzzle, so she decides to disassemble the book and reassemble the pages. With a few more suggestions from the group, including Al, they realize that not only had Scar’s brother deciphered Father’s giant alchemy circle, he also included the Eastern alchemy circle as a possible counter to Father’s power.

Meanwhile Kimblee is still busy searching in the mines for traces of Scar. As he is about to give up his search, he finds a marked off doorway which leads directly into the tunnel that Sloth has been digging. He’s instantly approached by Pride who instructs Kimblee to ‘carve a blood crest’ into Briggs, and suggests to use Briggs’ strength against it.

After a quick montage to show that Mustang’s former subordinates are still alive, we flash towards Lior where Rose is now running a soup kitchen for the local folk who are rebuilding the city. Suddenly a famished Von Hoenheim appears begging for food. Knowing of the massacre that took place here, Hoenheim asks Rose to take him to the church of Lior’s basement which leads him to a mysterious tunnel that leads to Sloth’s tunnel.

There Hoenheim encounters Pride. After trying to slow Pride down with some alchemy, Hoenheim finally goes back into the tunnel that he made and confirms his suspicions that Pride cannot pass outside of Sloth’s tunnel. After taunting Pride as the first sin to be cast off from Father and made in his image of his former self in the glass bottle, Hoenheim gives Pride a message: Let Father know that Slave 23 will be there to see him soon.

As the episode ends, we get treated to a bit of LOTR:TTT with Helm’s Deep being assaulted by the Uruk-hai army, led on by Saruman and guided by the treachery of Wormtongue.

Oh yeah, and Zampano decides to telephone King Bradley about Dr. Marcoh’s whereabouts.

Reaction:

When I saw the preview from last week, I was mistaken when I thought that this episode would feature awesome battles with the Homunculus striking back, Empire style. This episode was far from disappointing though, as it showed the depth of Hoenheim’s determination to stop Father from further evil deeds.

First of all, we know that Eastern alchemy was indeed introduced to Xing by Hoenheim himself. As a version of alchemy fundamentally different from Father’s alchemy, I wonder if this alchemy is actually the more ‘pure’ form of alchemy that was practiced in Xerxes before it’s destruction. Meanwhile the alchemy in Amestris is fundamentally different as we see that it is likely powered in some way by Father’s philosopher stone.

Secondly, we find that Scar’s brother’s research has found that Eastern alchemy is the counter to Father’s alchemy. This leads us to the conclusion that even hundreds of years ago, Hoenheim had already at least somewhat known what he was doing when he introduced Xing to alchemy by creating an alternate force to deal with Father.

Thirdly, we find that Hoenheim knows exactly what Father is up to. Well we already knew this from the flashback episode where he leaves Ed and Al, but we really realize just how much Hoenheim knows when he decides to test Pride’s power. He even plays with Pride by pretending to try and stop him with rocks, and pretending to ‘trip’ into his own tunnel. Realizing that Pride is bottled up just as Father used to be, and also realizing the importance of the various Homunculus as symbols of Father casting away his various sins, Hoenheim seems to understand quite a bit.

Putting all of this together, we get a vague sense that after the events in Xerxes, Hoenheim figured that a good counter needed to be created for Father in the future, and now he will likely use that counter by the informal alliance that Ed and Al have managed to create to defeat Father once and for all.

The other very important fact shown in this episode was the limits to Pride’s power. It seems that Pride is limited to traveling in Sloth’s circle and within Central. This may also be interpreted as Pride’s instantaneous power extension is limited by those areas, although concievably Selim Bradley could walk to various parts. If Hoenheim is 100% correct though and Pride really is so tightly bottled up, perhaps the same could be said for Father. Perhaps this whole Amestris thing was started precisely so that Father could gain the power of mobility and travel to far off places that he cannot go to now. Either way, the entire Pride encounter gave us a bit of limitation into Pride’s seemingly endless power which can only be a good thing for our heroes. One thought though, I wonder if Pride is instrumental in the usage of the tunnels/alchemy reaction, or he just happens to be able to travese this span? Thus if Pride were ‘killed’ would that stop the entire Alchemy from happening thus saving Amestris?

The other few things to note in this episode is how FMA implicitly endorses the idea of multidisciplinary teams in solving problems (the puzzle group), and also how much the manga-ka must have loved Lord of the Rings.

It seems like from the preview that the next episode won’t really focus on the events at Briggs, but more on Zampano’s ‘betrayal’ at the end of this episode with a Dr. Marcoh seemingly in the clutches of death. Was Zampano’s phone call an elaborate ruse by that group to draw out some Homunculus to fight with, or was it the result of sheer boneheadedness by Scar, Marcoh and May Chang to not tell him about Father’s evil plan? We shall see.

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