Episode 7, "The Hidden Truth"
*****SPOILERS*****
Synopsis: Edward and Alphonse are in a bind when the 1st Branch of the Central Library is burned down, with all of Marcoh's reasearch in it. However, with the help of Maria Ross and Denny Bloch, their new escorts, they track down a woman named Sheska, who used to work at the library. Sheska has the unique ability to recall everything she has read, and copies what she read of Marcoh's notes, which are encoded as recipies. Edward eventually deciphers the code and comes to the realization that the Philosopher's Stone is made of living humans, and likely by using prisoners. The Elric brothers sneak into Laboratory 5, a supposedly abandoned lab next to the prison. They aren't alone, however, and while Ed sneaks deep inside, an armored guard attacks Al.
Comments:
So, after last episode, I was wondering who was playing Doctor Marcoh. It sure didn't sound like Brice Armstrong, who delivered strongly as the character in the first series. Well, apparently he has indeed been replaced. He is now voiced by a guy named Jerry Russell. This is a little disappointing. Even though Russell's Marcoh isn't unfitting, I was looking forward to hearing Armstrong again in this series, especially since we get a lot more of him.
With that over with, we get the official introduction of Maria Ross in this episode (she'd been in a past episode, but only had a couple of lines), as well as the introduction of Denny Brosh. The pair will be in the next few episodes, and Maria Ross will especially be fairly important later on. They're played by the same VAs who did them in the first series, as far as I can tell, and sound pretty good. Solid voices and solid voice acting for those parts.
Of course, the real highlight of the episode is the character Sheska, who was in a lot of episodes in the first series, but is in far less in this one. In fact, she and Winry spent a lot of time together in the first series, but I don't think they ever meet in this one. This is too bad, too, because I thought they made a good pair (no, I wasn't "shipping" them), and Sheska is a favorite character of mine. She's played again by Gwendolyn Lau. It's a good performance.
Maxey Whitehead's Alphonse is so natural now I hardly remember it's a new VA for the character.
Overall Score: 3.5 out of 5
