Blogging Brotherhood: Episodes 42 & 43

Episode Forty-Two: Signs of a Counter Offensive

"May and Marcoh's efforts to decode the research of Scar's brother yield progress, but it might be too late to prevent catastrophe."

Alright, I'm going to suspend my disbelief at the notion that any human being could accurately and effectively encrypt notes in the fashion done by Scar's Brother for the sake of the story. It isn't important in the long run, as ridiculous and nonsensical as it is.

What I thought was great about this episode was that Alphonse was given the opportunity to be in the spotlight. Edward is who-knows-where at the moment, and even without his brother Alphonse is still able to hold his own as both an important and valuable individual within the show and as a character. And I've gotta say: I'm kind of digging this Alphonse & Co group going on in this episode in general. Everyone has gotten used to each other to some degree and they're all--as eclectic and weird as they are--quite an effective little team. It's also charming to watch them all try and re-assemble Al's armor.

Scar, in an odd way, is coming around. He is by no means friendly, but he does seem much less antagonistic and virulent towards others, even Alphonse, who got in the way of his plans on more than one occasion. He's more cooperative than he was before, I suppose, and also much less annoying than he has been for the last three seasons.

So now we have some further information about the Amestrian transmutation circle: There's apparently another type of transmutation circle activated through Xinghese alkahestry that is supposed to work as a counter to the one being made by Father and his Homunculus. How it works is still a mystery, but I'm assuming it has something to do with whatever Hohenheim is planning.

Hohenheim features quite prominently in this episode and it's the first time that we are given some bigger, connecting pieces to this plot's puzzle:

• The Homunculus are the seven deadly sins of humanity, separated and manifested into Homunculus by Father. Pride was the first one because it was the strongest and most prominent trait of Father and therefore the easiest to extract.
• Pride's real form is something almost identical to what Father looked like before he gained Hohenheim's body. Although that does beg the question: If Pride and Envy both have "original" forms, does that mean the other Homunculus do as well? And if they do, where do the human forms that they take come from? At least with Wrath and Greed, we know that actual, living people were used as vessels for the Homunculus, but what about everyone else? Where do their human forms come from? My assumption would be that they are, in fact, the bodies of people that were transmuted, but that hasn't been clarified. These are just some things I'm mulling over in my head.
• Pride is limited to his "flask," which kind of confused me. I'm sure it will be explained later on, but how on earth there's a flask for him to be confined to in real space and time, I don't know. Maybe it's like a force-field type concept? Where it covers a certain area and the person can only access what's within the force field? I'd also like to know where this "flask" is, if it's in Amestris or if it expands further.
• Hohenheim is getting ready to do something against Father, but as to what that is...we don't know. He certainly seems confident in his ability to take Father on, though.

There is one thing that Hohenheim said that I took note of, and it comes when he's talking to the true form of Pride: "And the mere fact that he took the time and energy to give you his original appearance...that act alone shows how egotistical he truly is." To most people I'm sure this line is relatively innocuous, but going off of an earlier comparison I made (waaaaay back in the beginning of season two) between Father and Jesus/God...his statement is interesting to me. It's obvious that many of the central concepts and some of the larger themes running through this show have strong religious affiliations: the Seven Deadly Sins is a Christian (more explicitly Catholic) ideology, for one, which is used to help humans identify their vices. If we're seeing Father as a the creator of these Homunculus (his "children"), then they would be, for argument's sake, humans. They have certain abilities that set them apart, but they're not as powerful as Father, and it's obvious that he places at least some value in them as his creations. Christians believe that we are made in the image of God, so for Hohenheim to point out that Pride's appearance being so identical to Father's is evidence of his arrogance, that would imply that God is arrogant to make something that reflects him.

A rather bold statement, that's for sure.

Although I'm not sure if the comparisons are meant to be more like "God gone wrong," since Hohenheim is more Jesus-like in his qualities than Father (he even "walks on water" in this episode, which was amusing). I can see it going either way.

We get a little bit more of Mustang's crew here, and for once it's probably a good thing that they're all in different locations: Their experiences give us a pretty solid picture of the state of Amestris and its neighboring countries, and that picture is a bleak one. At this point it's kind of a miracle that everyone is still alive and in one piece. Poor Fuery had to run through a bombing and watched one of his fellow soldiers die. He always struck me as a more technical guy (he WAS the one screwing around with all of the radio signals prior to his re-assignment), so picturing him fighting is a bit odd in the first place.

There's also a minute or so at the end that reveals what "making the blood seal" at Briggs involves--namely that Kimblee convinced Drachma that there was a weakness in Fort Briggs and they would be able to attack them and win without much effort. That, of course, wasn't the case, and those men are all slaughtered in...not much time at all.

Also of note: The Drachmans all look and speak quite...Russian. Significant? Probably. Another comment I made back in season two was how there were strong connections to WWI with this show, although I don't know the background on that war well enough to give any kind of analysis as to what the purpose in making Drachma Russian would be

Thank you, American education system, for teaching me history so ineffectively.

Episode Forty-Three: Bite of the Ant

"In the snowy north, the soldiers of Fort Briggs engage an invading army, and Marcoh leads an attack against monstrous Envy."

May and Al's banter at the opening of this episode is hilarious. Props to Scar and his character growth for being able to tolerate it for more than four seconds.

Actually, this does open up the door to the potential for Al and May to maybe end up together after all. It might be a wild accusation, since May is on the younger side, but I don't know. The opening credits have her and Shao May come stand behind him where Winry stands behind Ed (and we all know for a fact that those two are an item), so the implication of that would be that it could happen. And for those of you who don't think opening credits mean anything, you need to watch them more closely.

Ahhh and that conversation between Bradley and Hawkeye is awesome! I had noted before that I was surprised that the show didn't go into much detail about her time working for him. It isn't a long scene, but I think it reveals a lot about Bradley as a character. Last season they gave us his background and how it was that he came to be the "person" that he is now. He and Greed are the only ones with actual human bodies as hosts for the Homunculus, and it's been made pretty clear that there's hope for Ling to regain his body from Greed's control (again, he appears with Ed and Al & Co in the opening which is telling). I didn't think, back when all of that went down, that Bradley was capable of taking back control considering that there wasn't much of an identity for him before the Homunculus. He's also been a Homunculus for much longer than Ling. I'm not convinced he'll become good or anything, but the way he talks to Hawkeye here is much more...vulnerable than we're used to seeing from him. He might feel more comfortable speaking openly to her since she's female and I doubt he views her as an actual threat. Even so, I found it interesting that, though he's aware of how much his life has been constructed for him, he was still able to choose his wife. And the way he says it, too, says a lot. He clearly has affection for her, which could mean that he may not hate humans as much as he claims.

Hawkeye's reaction to it is also kind of funny, how she freaks out at the notion that there may be a heart underneath all of his darkness. She's the only character so far to get to see this side of the Fuhrer, and whether or not that will have an effect on the story, we'll see. As far as this scene shows us, he's also quite polite and respectful to Hawkeye despite her position as pretty much his footman.

This episode also gives us the "defeat" of Envy as a full-blown Homunculus. His actual form is freaking hilarious. I have no idea what the hell he's supposed to be other than some sort of tape worm-chameleon hybrid, but it's so funny.

Like I said in the last episode, I'm loving this awkward band of heroes. They are the strangest combination, but they are all so great when working together. Scar in particular has officially started to see what his past actions have done courtesy of Major Miles' words of wisdom, and I am so happy to see his character finally growing. Strangely enough, he seems to have built a friendship (on some level) with Marcoh and that's awesome. I love how he says, "We did it, Marcoh. We won" after they defeat Envy. His sudden change of heart doesn't necessarily mean he's free from consequences for his actions, but maybe something will change by the time the show wraps up.

May is officially going back to Xing with Envy, but I'm not sure she's going to get all the way there. She's been a solid presence in the show for a while and I doubt that this is the last we'll see of her.

Olivier and Armstrong come face to face, too, and I see that my assumptions about her disdain of him were correct: She's ashamed of his behavior at Ishaval, not because he did horrible things, but because he disobeyed orders and was weak. I can see how that would be offensive to her character, but even so, she's kind of...unnecessarily cruel to him. He tries to be nice and patient, but she steps on his foot, insults him, and more or less verbally abuses the poor guy. It's one thing to be pissed at someone; it's another to treat them like dirt because of it. I think Olivier needs to own up to her anger and move the hell on.  In a world that's running out of heroes, being a bitch to one of them isn't productive.

But that's just me.

The last chunk of this episode leaves off with an interesting cliffhanger--the law against creating humans wasn't put into place because of ethical reasons, but to prevent people from creating armies. Now that Olivier is part of the immortality-seeking generals, it makes sense that they'd show this all to her. My question is, however, what on earth are they using this "army" for? Because if it's how they've acquired a good portion of the people they use in the actual military, that's...interesting. It makes me wonder why they'd bother having actual people in the military as well, but then again--if that is what they're using the faux-people for--I guess it would be more for the sake of appearances. Unless they wanted to be found out fast, they'd need to let regular citizens in.

And, there's a bonus scene after the credits! Hohenheim is being a complete dork and wearing a rag on his head while helping Rose in Lior when Alphonse and everyone arrive. Al, Winry, and Hohenheim's reaction is pretty great.

General Thoughts

These two episodes were the first since like, the opening episode of season three, to not have Edward in them. I'm a little surprised that they still have his whereabouts a mystery. Given the preview for the next episode, though, I don't think that will last long. I won't say that his absence isn't felt, because I think it is, but it's important to note that even with the main protagonist gone, the story and characters are still strong enough to hold their own episodes. Even with Edward gone, everything that happens is engaging. You miss his presence, but it's not like things drag their heels with him gone.

At this stage in the game, the story is both being fleshed out and getting more complicated. We've got this new army that is being used for some unidentified (as of yet) purpose, Scar has made a turn for the good, Envy is now in a jar on the way to Xing, there's a potential goodness in Bradley, and Hohenheim is hanging around Lior for some reason. They've revealed a lot of things, yet I don't feel like I have much of an idea of what's really going on. Which I guess is good. Better I be curious and struggling to put pieces together than see where the story is headed without any trouble.