Blogging Brotherhood: Episodes 27 & 28

Episode Twenty-Seven: Interlude Party

Visions of the past flash by as Hohenheim reflects on the follies of mankind.

My thoughts on this episode can be summed up in one word: WHAT.

I just...I can't...I don't...WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA.

Okay, maybe looking at it from the perspective of airing seasons at different times would help, but then checking air dates, they seemed to have uploaded everything pretty much continuously. There were no official "seasons" for the show. So then why make an episode that's more or less a giant recap if everyone is keeping up with the story? That's what I'm doing now--and I get the benefit of watching however many episodes I want in a single sitting. I choose to watch two (or three). I'm not confused or lost (for the most part). And we're not even technically halfway through the show, which would be the most appropriate place to recap, so what was the point of all this?

On top of everything else, this episode is just waist-deep in confusion. From the opening scene all the way to the end, nothing makes sense. Well, the flashbacks do, but that's only because those had context and happened within a coherent timeline. Young Pinako knows Hohenheim's kids. The little girl at the party keeps aging until you realize who she is. Children explode for no reason while dancing around the fire. Young Pinako takes off her face and becomes Hohenheim. The ending reveal of everything being a dream helps until you realize you've spent the entire episode thinking you missed something and then find out the writers are just screwing with you.

Part of my confusion may be because I have prior knowledge to story elements that make me think this is taking place in some parallel world. Putting my biases aside, though, doesn't do anything to make the episode better because a) it's hard to tell that this is a dream sequence and they spend the entire episode playing it as one interspersed with real events with characters giving out information they shouldn't know and b) newcomers don't have any idea that this could be anything other than a flashback which makes even less sense.

I'd even go so far as to say the whole "humans will never give up" element is a bit redundant and forced considering I picked up on it in my last entry, and I'd had that thought in my head for a few episodes by then. They've shown you everyone's determination (a lot); why do they need to say it? The same goes for the "duality" of humanity: being immensely strong and willful despite also being incredibly weak and powerless. I thought Young Pinako's character was cool until she turned into Hohenheim, so now I have no idea if the things she was saying were from her actual mouth or Hohenheim's subconscious.

I guess the thing that saves it is that they have Hohenheim as the one reflecting, whose point of view we haven't gotten much of anything from. There's a little bit of a glimpse into the kind of relationship he had with Trisha, who seems to be positive and caring and hopeful above everything else.

Maybe I'm mad because the description of the episode led me to believe it was going to include flashbacks of Hohenheim's past, not the freaking show's.

Grr. This was dumb. I'm annoyed.

Episode Twenty-Eight: Father

Edward, Envy, and Ling manage to escape Gluttony's stomach while Alphonse and Gluttony arrive at Father's "lair." Scar and May Chang show up and the ensuing chaos produces some unpleasant results.

 Oh my god. My head hurts.

Something about this episode felt strangely...sitcom-ish. I don't know why, but it had that wacky sense about it. A large portion of the cast end up in the same location and have to work together to "take down" Father. Which...no one actually accomplishes.

On the topic of Father, remember when I said in an earlier post how he looks like God? Yep, still does. And seeing his face makes it even more distinct, not to mention that he "performs miracles"--like healing Edward--with his hands. Even so, there's something a little bit...dopey about him. His reaction to finding out that Hohenheim has children is remarkably pleasant given the circumstances and the little bit we know about him, but my question is this: Is he faking it? Or did this "Father" really not now that Hohenheim had kids? Based on what we saw in the last episodes, it would appear that this guy is potentially another version of Hohenheim, kind of like alternate universe characters in comics. They share similar histories, appearances, and goals, but the way they go about their lives or the circumstances of their existence may be different. So...why wouldn't he know that Hohenheim had kids?

Regardless, I felt like the main purpose of this episode was to chuck a bunch of stuff at us so we can start chewing on it. Nothing is explained and not a whole lot happens, at least of note, aside from Ed & Co getting the heck out of Gluttony's stomach and the creation of a new Homunculus. It's mainly 24 minutes of fighting and yelling and confusion.

Oh yeah. I said that I wanted to see some more Homunculus as well as figure out what happened to Ling, so there's two birds killed with one stone and in a rather quick amount of time at that. I'm surprised they went with another voice actor for this Greed. That's going to take some adjusting. It seems that the personality of these Homunculus come from some type of ambiguous spirit of Greed or Lust or Wrath or whatever, which takes over the body (at least in the case of human-to-Homunculus transformation), so wouldn't it make sense that the voice actor for the first version of Greed would come back?

I'm probably reading far too much into it, but hey.

I'm also left wondering if the alchemy that May Chang and Scar are performing isn't technically alchemy. May Chang said that she learned alkahestry back in Xing, and Scar's brother had been studying both before he died. It's possible that the tattoo on Scar's arm isn't alchemy, but alkahestry. But then again, they haven't really explained the difference between the two, if there is one at all. And even if there was, wouldn't it be coming from the same source and therefore the differences wouldn't be enough to bypass whatever it was that Father did?

Gahhh so many QUESTIONS.

I feel bad in saying this when I've flung so much negativity at these episodes in general, but I'm not crazy about either the new opening or ending. They're not terrible or even that bad, but the music in the ED isn't to my taste and the animation itself doesn't have much going on. The opening is the same way, although the song is better. They're both kind of just "meh" for me, and that's okay. I wasn't expecting every one to be stellar and they're still way better than the original's.

General Thoughts

I entered this season with a lot more questions and confusion than I was anticipating. It feels like there's been a bit of a tonal shift, but I can't explain why or what specifically is causing it. My best guess is that they've chucked a lot of new information at us in a very short span of time and nothing is given the opportunity to be fleshed out.

Now. I realize I'm two episodes in, so I'll give it some time. I reserve my frustration and full-fledged anger for later episodes if these things never get resolved, which honestly I don't see will be an issue. I'm sure I'll start watching the next one and get plenty of answers to what the hell is going on.