Summary:

After a brief flashback of Ed and Al as little kids discussing the creation of a “Perfect Being”, we flash back to the present with a montage of everyone dead in Amestris. It appears that the only ones left alive are those at the centre of it all, which include our five human sacrifices (who weren’t really sacrificed at all). Father meanwhile has changed into a younger and more evil looking Hohenheim, now able to generate a mini sun in the palm of his hand. Before a furious Ed is able to fight him Father turns off alchemy once again.

At that moment, Hohenheim finally decides to reveal his trump card. After years of careful calculation, he had scattered the souls in his own Philosopher’s Stone around the countryside which now activate of their own volition to form giant alchemy circle using shadow from the solar eclipse shadow to reverse Father’s previous transmutation to take the souls of the 50 million people of Amestris. With the souls returned, everyone is back alive, and Father is unable to hold in his new found powers with just the remaining souls of Xerxes.

Still extremely power, Father decides to fire pure energy at our heroes, but May Chang and Hohenheim manage to deflect this energy while they await to Scar to complete his part of the plan.

Upstairs, the Bradley/Scar fight continues as Bradley taunts Scar on his usage of constructive Alchemy being against his religion. Scar is no match for Bradley even with alchemy though. As Bradley’s about to deal the finishing blow, the glare from the reappearing sun provides Scar with some last minute luck as he finally connects with his arm of destruction and takes down Bradley, but not before Bradley manages to stab him in the abdomen. At that moment, an unmasked RAN FAN appears to avenge his grandfather, but she has talked too much and Bradley perishes before she is able to do more. Scar asks RAN FAN to move him over to an alchemy circle, as he performs his brother’s alchemy.

Scar’s alchemy is actually aimed at nullifying various Philosopher’s Stones that Father had installed around Amestris, allowing him to turn off Western alchemy at will, the oddity in the west that Scar’s brother had discovered years ago. With those stones nullified, our heroes in Father’s lair are once again able to perform alchemy. With Hohenheim’s urging, they start to fight Father to force him to use up his Philosopher’s stone. After pouring some molten lava on Father, he survives and escapes up the hole in the roof to the surface where he starts harvesting more souls from the people he encounters. Hohenheim, Greed, Al and Izumi set off to fight Father, while Al stays behind to finish off Pride.

Although weakened, Pride still manages to pin Ed down, but before he can kill him, Kimblee suddenly appears in Pride’s head to interrupt the little guy. Surprised that Kimblee could retain his own consciousness inside his Philosopher’s Stone, Kimblee explains that despair is like home for him. With Pride momentarily distracted, Ed moves in and manages to defeat Pride, reducing him to his basic form, a small fetus crying for it’s mother.

Reaction:

This was a pretty amazing episode. The chilling scene at the beginning of the episode of all the dead bodies was perfectly executed and haunting to say the least.

As was easily predicted, while the previous episode showed Father’s greatest moment, this showed the beginning of his defeat. We had been led to believe that Hohenheim’s entire plan rested on him trying to take over Father’s body with his soul power which failed a few episodes back but we were wrong. It seems like his abandoning his kids and wandering the countryside for all of those years really did serve a purpose with his alchemy circle which restored the souls of the people of Amestris. I had a feeling that he had an extra card up his sleeve as he had promised a lot of episodes back that he could neutralize Father, but was still a bit surprised that it was this epic. So Hohenheim, I applaud you.

As for Scar, it’s interesting to note that his battle with Bradley ended up with him severing both of Bradley’s arms. It was a bit of poetic justice that his greatest victory would be to end someone else’s life the way his own was almost ended. While Bradley taunted Scar about using constructive alchemy and Scar said nothing, we can imply that this was one of those “the greater good outweighs these sins” kind of moments. As predicted, Scar had some awesome alchemy up his sleeve when he completed his brother’s research by reactivating tectonic alchemy in Amestris. We have all wondered all along what those pipes coming out of Father were actually doing, and instead of actually powering alchemy in Amestris as I had believed, it seems like the tectonic plate thing was actually not a lie after all, and in fact Father was actively blocking alchemy all along. I do wonder, if some of this blocking was actually used to siphon off extra energy for Father himself to increase his power, or if the act of blocking actually took power to perform.

I was quite happy with the fact that after episodes of standing around doing nothing and crying, RAN FAN was finally unmasked and doing something after all. Although she didn’t kick any ass, she at least had the pivotal job of moving Scar to the right place so that he could save the world. Kind of a letdown considering how totally awesome RAN FAN is (I would have liked for her to have taken out Bradley before he could kill Scar instead of having the the glare be his downfall, but I guess scar needed his duo amputation moment) but at least she’s still in the story unlike say how Dr. Marcoh and crew haven’t been seen for a long time now.

With the death of two homunculi this episode, we get to see the “basic forms’ of both Wrath and Pride. Wrath being of course Bradley, an old man without the invigorating powers of his Philosopher’s Stone, and Pride literally a little baby. I was a bit surprised to see Kimblee reappear, but if anyone could “live” in a Philsopher’s Stone, I guess ole pimpin’ would be the one to do it. Nice to see though him somewhat asserting his respect for Ed and Ed’s ability to fight for his beliefs.

With three episodes left, we’re left with a number of major loose ends to tie up. Firstly there’s the defeat of Father. While weakened, he’s still the most powerful guy around, and I predict that Hohenheim will use up all his own power to defeat him. Secondly, there’s the fact that both RAN FAN and Al are now holding Philosopher’s Stones. I do wonder what will happen with them, and whether they will tie into the third point that Ed and Al need to regain their bodies (and perhaps Mustang and Izumi as well).

Then of course we have all the more ‘minor’ plot points about Grumman vs Olivier vs Mustang to rule Amestris, WinryXEd, what happens to GreedLing now, and the end of the Scar, Ling, RAN FAN and May Chang stories. And of course whether or not the RAN FAN spinoff will ever be a reality.

One last thing though. For the last 40 episodes we’ve been made aware that Ed and Al (and later Izumi, Mustang and Hohenheim) had been marked off as “human sacrifices”. With Father completing his part of the plan, how exactly were these guys sacrificed? From what I saw, they were the only ones left alive after Father becomes a perfect being, so I’d say that’s pretty much the OPPOSITE of being a sacrifice. Seems like this was all a convenient moniker for our heroes to misdirect viewers/readers on purpose which personally I think is kind of crappy.

P.S. With the manga over, and with me not being a manga reader, I ask PLEASE NO SPOILERS.

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