Many apologies for the late post. Between watching the Olympics (WOO GO CANADA!), Gundam Unicorn and waiting for the non-tsunami warning episode to pop up for screenshots it’s also been quite a busy week for me. But here goes!

Winry ponders the incoming tsunami

Summary:

Not that I'm complaining, but there's been a LOT of Winry fanservice lately...

It’s a few months later as the promised day is about to begin. The Briggs crew ends up bringing Winry back home. Relieved to be home at last, Winry changes into some fresh clothes when she realizes that Ed is there smelling her underwear eating a sandwich. After her initial scream at the sight of an intruder, everyone meets up at Winry’s room and it’s revealed that the Greed/Ed crew has been camping out at Winry’s house with her Grandmother for the last while. Distressed at all the guys in her room, Winry clears everyone out.

I'm loving the expression on the dog

Winry then lets Ed know that Al is nearby at the train station, but after some hesitation Ed decides not to go find him in case their covers are blown. That evening everyone has a meal (which my family could have easily polished off when I was a kid) together and Winry meets Greed for the first time. Afterwards Winry tunes up Ed’s automail when Ed tells Winry to leave the country because he may fail to save everyone. Winry scolds Ed for not believing that he’d succeed for sure, and vows to stay until he comes back. Afterwards Greed has a philosophical discussion with Ed about the nature of Greed.

Back at Lior, the other two chimeras finally meet back up with Scar and Dr. Marcoh and they set off to Central as per the plan. Scar has a bit of a surprise for them all though as he’s managed to gather up an Ishbal army in the previous few months to help with the upcoming battles.

In the East, the joint exercises between the Eastern and Northern army have begun with General Grumman looking as smug as ever (likely from many more wholesome ass grabs). Unfortunately for them all, Bradley has decided to drop in to watch the exercises as he realizes that something may be up.

Pride's such a creepy bastard

While the exercises begin, Al is hiding out in the train yard and realizes that his disabling visions are returning with increasing regularity. As he ponders this, he hears a sound outside and is soon chased by none other than a newly resurrected Gluttony and Pride and is easily captured.

The house is nice but it could really do with a giant hedge maze in the back!

At the Armstrong house, Mustang lets Olivier in on the true identity of Pride, and also lets her know that things are progressing as planned.

Back in the East, Bradley receives word that the Ishbals are attempting a terrorist act in Central and that Grumman’s plan is to intervene to help root out the terrorists. Caught in a bit of a catch-22, Bradley decides to head back to Central knowing of the oncoming trap.

Bradley gets dang blowned upped on the 'Eastwood Bridge', named for the cowboy who drove off the edge of the cliff in his DeLorian 100 years ago...

As Bradley’s train crosses a river, the bridge is blown up and everyone is sent to their deaths.

Back at Central Riza, Breda and Fuery are shown together ready to act.

Finally in the central command room, the generals realize that Bradley has ‘died’ and confusion breaks out in the ranks. As Olivier realizes that this is the time to make her move, she feels a powerful presence behind her…

Olivier is in sexual harassment city

Reaction:

So it looks like they decided to skip over all of the months of preparation and jump right to the final battle after all. I predict that the remaining episodes will all take place within the span of about a day or two (with possibly an epilogue episode at the end or so I hope) showing the final battle in all of it’s awesome glory. I’m assuming that this was to create a bit more mystery as we have no idea what either side has planned and we can be continuously and pleasantly surprised by how their intricate plans play out. Still deep down, I’m hoping that all their plans fail, but we’ll see some of the main characters making it up on the fly and doing a good job at it too, which would be much more fun to watch than have infinite ‘just as planned’ moments.

I do note one irregularity through. How are the Eastern and Northern armies are supposed to intervene, when the main bridge back to Central has been blown up (maybe alchemy will save the bridge?)? Is the country so small that a steam engine train or crappy cars could possibly make it to the capital from the East in a day to get there, considering the exercises take place the day before the Promised Day? While it’s still not exactly clear what Grumman’s plan of actually actually is, he likely knows that his little train stunt did nothing to actually hurt Bradley. Was it all just a play to draw Father out of hiding so that Hoenheim could find him? Or was it simply a way to kill a bunch of traitor senior officers all in one blow, while getting rid of Bradley at least for a very short while?

As for Ed, one wonders what exactly the little guy (who may have grown as he seems taller this episode) was doing all this time at Winry’s house. I really hope that he actually thought of something rather than just go to Winry’s house in the hopes that he might see everyone again (considering his first hunch failed big time). At the moment Ed seems a bit of a non-factor, although the next episode preview hints that him and Greed will have some awesome fight with Pride and Gluttony possibly saving Al in the process, although if they do it will likely be a total coincidence that they meet up.

Meanwhile, Mustang has obviously been busy all of this time. His former troops have now all gathered together (how did Riza escape Bradley’s spies exactly?) and we know *something* is about to happen.

We have no hint though of what’s going on with May Chang and Envy. Presumably by now Envy would have gotten her to meet up with the rest of the Homunculus by now unless she actually wizened up. I’m still holding out for her meeting up with Maria Ross and RAN FAN while squishing Envy somewhere, although I’d also accept Envy escaping as long as RAN FAN RETURNS.

As for the Ishbal army, the whole scene where they meet the army sort of reminded me of the scene in The Patriot where Mel Gibson’s kids kill off all the British soldiers in the woods. That is until I realized they were not actually ambushed and kumbaya was sang afterwards. I desperately hope that the Ishbal army is somewhat useful and doesn’t serve as a Gungan army proxy in some crappy re-imagined three-pronged attack ending to The Phantom Menance. The Ishbal are too awesome to just be ‘tribal army fodder’, although their lack of guns and alchemy power might hinder them.

Finally we get to the question of how Kimblee will factor into all of this. The dude’s gone missing for a while, so I totally expect him to be kicking some ass.

Oh and Izumi too.