Episode 61, "One Who Devours God"
*****SPOILERS*****
Synopsis: Father's sacrifices awaken. Father, now in a body resembling Hohenheim when he was much younger, claims that he has absorbed God by using the souls of the people of Amestris. However, Hohenheim explains that he has made a transmutation circle of his own using parts of his Philosopher's Stone that is connected by the shadow of the eclipse. The array causes the souls of Amestris to leave Father and be guided back to their bodies by the souls from Xerxes. Father blasts energy at the group, but Hohenheim and May block it. Wrath and Scar continue their battle, but when Wrath is blinded by light for a moment, Scar destroys his arms. Ranfan arrives and Wrath has a few last words before he dies. Scar activates the giant reverse array his brother came up with which reverses Father's deactivation of alchemy. It turns out that Father had made a buffer zone out of Philosopher's Stones and without it, alchemists can now control more power in their alchemy with no fear of Father deactivating it. Ed, Al, and Izumi attack Father, and are joined by Greed. Father decides to retreat to obtain more Philosopher Stone. Everyone follows, except Edward, who stays to fight Pride. Pride tries to take over Ed's body, but Kimbley, from within him, won't allow it. Edward destroys Pride's container and Pride reverts to a very small baby. Edward leaves to join the others.
Comments:
Sigh. Where do I start with this episode? I'm really disappointed in this episode.
Mostly, I'm disappointed at the pacing of this episode, and it's probably due to the fact that yes, I have read this part of the manga. In the manga, Father's circle is activated, the people's souls are taken, he obtains God, and then we have him using his new power a bit before Hohenheim and Scar counter it with their own circles. Here, a few moments of gloating is all Father gets before Hohenheim's plan is put into motion and his uber power is downgraded to fading uber power. I was even bothered by how fast he lost it in the manga, and here it's just fucking ridiculous, because so many things happen here and at breckneck speed.
But hold it, I also have a few problems with the actual content. I mean, now that Father has God inside him, why not completely recreate the world with alchemy right away? Instead, he sits there talking about how great he is. But he's practically God now, and all he does is fire some energy blasts like a DBZ villain. Where's the creativity? With God at his disposal, he should be able to wave his hand and turn everyone present into a Philosopher's Stone. Instead, he just blasts and blasts and then has to retreat when alchemy returns.
Next, it was never really explained about how alchemy works. In the manga, we get a handy little diagram about how Amestrian alchemy uses the energy from movements of the Earth's plates. This was never shown in Brotherhood, so of course, nobody watching should know what the hell is going on when Scar's array is activated. Now, back to the manga content that was brought over, because Father put in a network of Philosopher's Stones, whenever anyone had been using alchemy in Amestris, they had really been using people's lives. People's lives were powering alchemy. Hmm, what does that remind you of? That aside, what about the people who used alchemy outside the country? Wouldn't they notice that their alchemy was more powerful in, say, Xing, Aerugo, Drachma, or one of the other countries? Wouldn't somebody figure that out, besides Scar's brother?
Oh, and yeah, Scar's brother, the guy from the shithole country that shunned alchemy, somehow figured out everything out during a war wherein everything was blowing up every two minutes, just by doing some studying, where nobody anywhere in Amestris had even thought about it, despite the whole history of Amestris giving them huge hints at it. All right, maybe Scar's brother was an exceptional person, but for him to figure out nearly everything going on himself? Come on. That's just a lot to get us to believe. I could understand if Hohenheim, who already knew about Father, figured it out, he's clued in, but Scar's brother not only figured it all out, but came up with a perfect countermeasure.
That brings us to Pride's bullshit defeat. I always figured that Pride would be absorbed by Father in case he needed to, but I wasn't so disappointed that this didn't happen so much as I was that Pride's actual end is such fucking crap. From a writing point of view, that Kimbley's only purpose for being absorbed by Pride in the story is to set this situation up makes me gag. Pride never used Kimbley's abilities, therefore this was all a contrived set up to have Kimbley be the downfall for Pride. And Ed entering Pride like Shinji saving Rei in Evangelion 2.0? I expected to hear "Tsubasa wo Kudasai". Last week we had Third Impact, and now this? I realize that Arakawa was not trying to rip off Evangelion, because I'm pretty sure this particular chapter of the manga came out before 2.0, but it's still stupid. What's especially stupid is that the biggest douchebag homunculus gets to have a happy ending, because now he's a little mini-baby (why a tiny one?) and will get to live with Mrs. Bradley in happiness. This isn't an Evangelion rip off. It's a Sailor Moon rip off. Fuck Pride. He doesn't deserve a happy ending.
Fortunately, the production values kept the rating of this episode out of the scrap heap. Let's hope Bones can keep the pacing out of the scrap heap.
Also, Wrath's death was pretty awesome, despite it being due to being temporarily blinded. You have to give him credit for stabbing Scar with a sword without having any arms.
Overall Score: 3 out of 5
