Epi on April 12, 2010 · in Full Metal Alchemist 2

Holy crap! That was a ridiculously, ridiculously, ridiculously AWESOME episode. WOWOWOWOWOW!

Summary:

The episode starts off immediately where we left off, with Al using the power of the Philosopher’s Stone to attack Pride and Kimblee. Wasting no time, Al immediately charges at Pride, but Pride and Kimblee manage to make a few counterattacks on Al. Leveled up by the power of the Philospher Stone, Al manages to block Kimblee’s explosions, take Pride’s jabs by regenerating his arm on the fly, create a sword using his old foot that Pride throws at him, and even manages to bend the sword to get around one of Pride’s shadow arms to make the critical hit. After a few more insanely fast moves, Al manages to once again trap Pride inside a cocoon of dirt. Pretending to be cornered, Kimblee has a little chat with Al before revealing that he too has a Philsopher’s stone.

Meanwhile back at HQ, the Armstrong siblings fight off Sloth with some awesome alchemy bullets and swordplay. As they find a winning combination to damage Sloth, the Homunculus decides enough is enough and he fully ramps up his powers by accidentally killing off a few red shirts before using his surprise speed to charge at Olivier and Alex.

As we flash back to the Al fight, Kimblee uses a neat trick with some rocks to pinpoint Al’s metal armour and Pride manages to take him hostage. Al surprises the two by taunting them that it was all a rouse, and before Kimblee can react a newly restored Heinkel (thanks to Dr. Marcoh and the philosopher’s stone) goes right for Kimblee’s jugular to take him out.

Back in Central, Mustang and company manage to sneak into Central masquerading as a meat truck as the soldiers look for an ice cream truck. Realizing that all the access points to HQ have been cut off, Mustang decides to sneak in underground and leave all the direct fighting to the Briggs troops.

Back underground, Ed and company are busy fighting down the endless hordes of the immortal army. After some initial failures, Scar discovers that the soldiers can at least be incapacitated with their legs damaged.

Back inside HQ, Alex saves a surprised Olivier with brute force and manages to even throw Sloth back with his power. As he destroys the floor to drop Sloth below, the Homunculus quickly jumps back up knocking Olivier unconscious with his move.

Meanwhile, with Kimblee incapacitated, Pride makes a move on Heinkel but hesitates when he uses Kimblee as a shield, and decides to switch his target to Dr. Marcoh. At that moment Yoki suddenly appears driving a speeding car which deflects Pride’s shadow arms and saves Dr. Marcoh’s life. Everyone jumps into the car as they make a quick getaway and head straight to Central. Pride remarks that humans are so easy to trick as his hesitation to attack Kimblee was all a rouse to get Al to Central.

With Kimblee dying on the ground, Pride taunts him one last time before enveloping him into his body.

Back at HQ, Alex manages to stop Sloth with an alchemy spike directly into his head. As Olivier wakes up, she finds that they have been found by a group of soldiers intent on executing her. Before they can though, the immortal army appears on scene and Pride regenerates. Faced with the prospect of fighting the monsters, Olivier asks the soldiers if they will kill her and die to the monsters, or fight with her.

Back in the sewers, May Chang puts up a heroic fight against Envy as she dodges his every attack. As more immortal soldiers show up, Envy absorbs their bodies too.

The episode ends with Ed and company. After a valiant attempt, they are slowly overwhelmed by the immortal soldiers. As the soldiers are about to eat Ed’s brains a sudden burst of flame takes them out… Roy Mustang has arrived.

Summary:

WOW! WOW! Wowowowowow! What more can I say?

After a zillion episodes of teaser skirmishes where every fight seemed to end too early, we finally got treated to an episode with four fights to end all fights. It was as if an immortal army of Moe~~~ attacked an anime convention releasing decades of pent out frustration all at once. Truly an episode for the ages.

Al’s ridiculous fight against Kimblee and Pride was without a doubt the highlight of the episode. His super quick alchemy action showed just what the Elric brothers are capable of if they had unlimited alchemy power. Using an endless combination of raw power, tricks and thinking one step ahead, it was as if Al was playing chess with Pride while running a marathon while dodging explosions, while healing his arm that fell off all at the same time. I really liked how everyone helped out at the end, and even Yoki finally got some hero time. I wasn’t that big a fan of Heinkel being alive again though because not since the death of Barry the Chopper have we had a named character die and the fact that he’s now alive again makes you wonder if any good guy will actually die in this show.

Kimblee’s final fight though was very fitting. As with real battles, he didn’t go out in a blaze of glory or anything. He was tricked, and then surprised and then killed, which added a bit of ‘haha sucker’ feeling to the whole thing. When Kimblee was first introduced a number of episodes ago, I had high hopes that he would become more of a foil both intellectually and physically to the Elric brothers. In the end he really didn’t amount to that much, losing quite a few battles in this show and being bailed out only because of his hidden Philosopher’s stone. With Heinkel’s resurrection, I wonder if Kimblee really is dead (NO SPOILERS PLEASE), but I hope so because in the end his character was really more of a distraction showing that humans are mere pawns in Father’s plans than anything else.

The Armstrong siblings beating on Sloth was really fun to watch too. While Olivier had previously managed to easily beat Alex back in their house, it seems in a battle of raw power, Alex really does have the upper hand as he shows Sloth who really is the strongest one of all in Amestris. We haven’t seen Alex at his best since he fought Scar, so this was a real treat to see him kicking some ass once again. Now if only Buccaneer were there too… perhaps I’d die of over-manlyness!

The final two fights (Ed vs immortal army and May Chang vs Envy) were pretty good fights too, but next to the two premier fights were almost wasted in this jam packed episode.

I do wonder though what Hohenheim’s been up to all this time and if he’s been beating down on any immortal soldiers. I would also like to see whatever happened to Denny Bosh but he’s not so important anyway.

Next episode promises to show some Mustang flame action. I wonder why Mustang is always kicking the most ass in that one room?