Summary:

After a teasing glimpse of Ran Fan and a quick recap of the end of last episode, we arrive back at the Office of the President, where Izumi and Olivier are interrogating the general whom they have captured. After admitting to the entire immortal army plan and even admitting that he knew of King Bradley’s ‘creation’, the central soldiers who are in the room finally decide to think for themselves and cast their loyalties with Olivier. Meanwhile, as word of Bradley’s return spreads, the Central forces start regaining on the Briggs soldiers, and Izumi proposes that everyone evacuate to fight another day.

Back underground Ed, Roy, Riza and Scar run into the Gold Toothed Alchemist, the guy who made Bradley and had previously revived Kimblee after Scar impaled him on the train. Happy that Mustang arriving has ‘saved him time’, he uses his army of ‘failed’ King Bradleys to attack our heroes while he sets about drawing a complicated alchemy circle.

Back above the battle between GreedLing, Fu and Bradley continues. After a long fight, Fu is mortally wounded and decides to charge at Bradley as a suicide bomber, but Bradley disables his explosives with a swipe of his sword. Smug that he has defeated the old guy, Bradley is caught off guard when Buccaneer comes out of nowhere to stab him by stabbing him through Fu. With the sword previously in him taken out, Buccaneer lies down dying from blood loss while Fu is done for as well while a recently arrived RAN FAN looks on and cries out.

Meanwhile Al, Yoki, Dr. Marcoh and Heinkel have managed to arrive at Central within sight of HQ. Back underground, everyone has trouble with the ‘failed Bradleys’ with the exception of Riza who makes short work of them with her double pistol power. Meanwhile as the Armstrongs escape with Izumi, Olivier has a heart to heart with her and learns exactly what the sacrifice of human transmutation really is before telling her to escape with her husband as the soldiers will fight on to the end.

Calling back some of the ‘failed Bradleys’, the Gold Toothed Alchemist starts his transmutation circle, which creates a pentagon design and quickly runs through all of the alchemy research labs across Central City. Before anyone can do anything, the power of the transmutation circle brings out some of the shadow arms from the Gate of Truth which grab and dematerialize Ed, Izumi, and Al as a horrified Roy Mustang looks on.

Reaction:

Well, well, well. It looks like it has finally started, and just the way that Father had planned it too. Before we get to that though, some notes about the rest of the episode.

I was a bit surprised to see that Buccaneer sending himself to his grave, if only because it marks the first likely character death since Hughes (whose death was an important plot point and thus wasn’t so random). Of course the fact that his sacrifice led to a mortal wound to Bradley, coupled with Olivier’s talk about soldiers never getting sad for the dead, at least show that while a huge loss, his death will be accepted by his comrades, and possibly even celebrated as an act of a true warrior. Fu’s death meanwhile was inevitable (and besides… he’s old anyway) and easily predicted once we saw him get emotional over Bradley being responsible for Ran Fan losing her arm. Grandpa Fu becoming a suicide bomber was interesting to say the least. This show has now officially made it okay to cheer for beating up little kids (Pride), thinking World War I style machine gun fire is okay (Falman), and okay to cheer for suicide bombers.

While I was of course a bit sad that Ran Fan was not able to do much this episode, I was none the less happy to see that she hasn’t been forgotten as she managed a brief cameo, speaking part included.

The ‘fake Bradley’ fight was fun to watch as well. After a few episodes where Roy Mustang seemed absolutely invincible, it’s nice to see that at least that there is a way to stop him: by moving so fast he can’t aim his fire, and attacking him before he can snap his fingers. It was cool to see everyone absolutely flustered by the Bradleys, but Riza making short work of them with her double pistol action. I like how every fight in this show is unique, and that no one character has a monopoly in being overpowered. In every fight, every character has a certain weakness and strength, and this power may be the deciding factor. Even Father and Hohenheim counter each other which makes them less invincible as well.

Finally we’ll get to the end of the episode, the start of the alchemy of the promised day.

There has long been talk about who the ‘sacrifices’ actually are, and Mustang was always listed as a maybe. Considering he was not dematerialized with Ed, Al and Izumi, it looks though that he definitely is not, and that fits, considering we’ve never had any hint of him attempting human transmutation (real soldiers accept death after all). The question is of course what of Hohenheim? He was listed as one of Father’s chess pieces, but we do not know his fate, nor has there ever been any serious hint of him attempting human transmutation before as well. Also does the fact that Roy was actually not useful as a sacrifice make a real difference to Father’s plans? You would think that his plans hatched eons ago would not so rely on people who had not even been born yet who may or  may not attempt human transmutation in the future. As such, the reasons for the ‘human sacrifices’ still remain unknown at the moment, nor do we know whether they are crucial for the plan or whether they are bonuses.

And what of the Gold Toothed Alchemist? It seems almost as if this guy is immortal. He looked more or less the same the day Bradley was ‘created’ and Bradley is already about 60 years old. I wonder if the Gold Toothed guy is actually one of Father’s minions (on par with a Homunculus) or if he has some Philosopher Stone power within him. For Father to so rely on this guy to bring his plan into fruition shows how much he trusts him, and I wonder if Father would ever trust any random human no matter how twisted to do the job right. Well that is unless this isn’t even the REAL plan but just a way to get rid of our heroes (perhaps those who have previously attempted human transmutation will screw up Father becoming a perfect being).

One last thing…

Next Episode looks to be a continuation of the GreedLing Bradley fight where concievably Bradley will be defeated once and for all. Interesting to note is that while Ed, Al and Izumi have been dematerialized, everyone else is still going on as if nothing’s happened yet. I fully expect a full introspection type episode where Ed, Al and Izumi will be confronted by their previous human transmutation failures within the Gate of Truth.

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