Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood S1E25: “Doorway of Darkness”

Edward sloshes through the dark, cluttered world of Gluttony's extradimensional stomach, wondering where he is, how he got here, and if "that dumb prince" also got sent here. He calls out for Yao, and eventually the two find each other.

First things first, they test each other's memories and personalities (mostly via insults) to make sure that neither of them are Envy. This is actually a hugely important development: until now, they didn't know that the enemy roster included a shapeshifter. As of last episode, Yao, Edward, and Alphonse have all seen Envy switch through multiple forms before their eyes. This is immense. As I observed in some earlier reviews, shapeshifters are an outside context problem for this world, and knowing that such a thing even exists is the first and possibly most important step in adapting to it. Sin Inc just lost one of their major trump cards as far as dealing with the Elrics and their allies is concerned.

Yao is the first to realize that they've been gluttonized, as he recognizes parts of Hawkeye's car that were caught in Gluttony's opening shot, and also notes that some of the drier wood and cloth debris is burning: a result of Mustang's flare being pulled in. Once he's accepted that analysis, Edward looks around a bit more himself, and ends up finding Alphonse's severed gauntlet. He's relieved that Alphonse didn't get his glyph split in half, and that he's still free (though he doesn't quite seem to realize that that leaves Alphonse fighting alone and one-handed against at least one and possibly two haemonculi...).

He does worry about Alphonse worrying about him though. His attempted method of communication is...well, after the ever-escalating weird shit that Edward has seeing in the past few years it actually might not be the worst idea in the world.

Yao acts unimpressed. Obviously, he's just jealous of those latent Xerxian psionics.

Edward tries transmuting a shaft down into the floor, and Yao drops one of their makeshift torches in. The light fades away to nothing, and they never hear it hit bottom. Next, they try running in one direction until they hit a wall or boundary of some kind, but no dice.

Either Gluttony's gut is infinite, or it has a treadmill type deal going on.

It does seem to have plenty of air though, as evidenced by the fires burning and Edward and Yao being alive, so that's fortunate.

Meanwhile, in the half-empty outskirts of Central, May Chang still can't find her pandarat. As Yoki labors to build a fire despite her crying on the wood, and Scar sits off to the side being broody and morose, May explains her and pandarat's history together. The Changs are the poorest and least influential of the fifty clans of Xing, being relegated to a swampy backwater province near the empire's periphery. One day, when May was walking along the edge of one of the forests of her gloomy homeland, she found a baby pandarat whose growth was stunted, causing its pack to abandon it. As children are wont to do, she adopted it, and also said that something about the animal’s smallness and weakness spoke to her.

Though it took a little while for it to warm up to her.

She talks about how she and Pandarat have "grown up together" since then, but May looks pretty much the same age in the earliest flashback as she does now.

I wonder. May's personality is childlike, but still plausible for say, a teenager. Does she also have some kind of stunted growth going on? That would explain her having lived long enough to master alkahestry and martial arts to a similar degree as other exceptional teenaged characters. She could actually be Edward's age, but with (even more) arrested physical growth.

Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions, IDK.

During the montage of May and Pandarat eating, sleeping, training, and playing together, it doesn't appear that May is any sort of princess or aristocrat. Or at least, if she is an aristocrat, it's lower-rung aristocracy in a poor enough region for her to have to work alongside the peasants. We see her carrying bales of hay on her back, and sleeping in the same room with at least two other people (we only see the edges of their bed-mats though; not the people themselves. They could be children, or they could be older). Pandarat gave her the comfort and motivation she needed to persevere through the hardships of her life; she claims she wouldn't have been able to cross the desert without her.

When Yoki asks why she crossed the desert at all, she explains that she has to recover the rumored Amestrian philosopher's stone and present it to his majesty the emperor. Making him immortal will raise the status of her clan, and prevent a ruin that it's been expecting.

That's two Xingite clans so far who think that making the current emperor immortal is essential for saving themselves from decimation. Either Yao's dad is all that's keeping the dominant clans from wiping out the lesser ones, or else I have it all backwards and he issued an ultimatum of "make yourselves useful to me or else" to some clans that had displeased him.

After hearing her cry for a while, Scar gets up and gruffly tells May to come on, let's go look for Pandarat. There's still a bit of time before dawn, and the manhunt should have calmed down somewhat.

May is understandably awed by Scar sticking his neck out for her like that. Yoki suggests that Scar might feel some Ishvalan sympathy for the Chang clan's situation as a minor polity living at the border of a larger, angrier empire that doesn't think much of them. Huh. That's pretty insightful, coming from Yoki. Off they go to look for Pandarat!

Back in the Wild World of Gluttony, Edward and Yao are tiring. The spongey, blood-covered ground (hold on, wouldn't Edward have had to know what kind of substance it was in order to transmute it? Maybe its less materially exotic than you'd think, considering that they're in what's essentially a pocket dimension) is hard to slosh through, and the smell of blood and dust and ruin is overwhelming. Finally, Yao collapses.

He doesn't lose consciousness, but he becomes a panting mess while Edward still has enough energy to walk just fine. Maybe he wasn't just Benjamin Franklining them back in Rush Valley? Maybe he actually has some sort of disorder? Not that those two are mutually exclusive (and May having done the exact same thing to Scar and Yoki suggests that this is a Xing thing rather than just a Yao thing). There's definitely something up with Yao, though.

Edward tells him that he's going to leave him, but can't bring himself to do so, no matter how many times he repeats it and moves a few steps further away. Finally, he admits that he can't just leave Yao behind, if he really does have people who need him back outside, and tries to carry him. It's a touching gesture, but it also doesn't get them very far, so finally they just climb up on a piece of Xerxian-looking architecture and make a fire out of some more bits of tree. Edward has leather boots, so they can make one edible with enough boiling. It's not shown where they get the broth, but if Edward was able to create something even close to a living human body five years ago then he can certainly pull water out of blood now.

Biology is not Yao's strong suit, if he thinks the athlete's foot fungus can infect Edward's prosthetic leg.

The two have a reluctant, but potent, bonding moment. Yao actually realizes that Edward is only stuck in here too because he tried to save him from the gluttonizer beam, and he apologizes for having gotten him trapped as well. He also admires Edward's persistent optimism at them ever getting out at this point, whereas he'd have just sort of given up by now.

After being sort of overshadowed by Yao in some ways for the last episode or two, with Yao seeming to be the one coming up with ideas that normally would be Edward's, it's nice to see the pendulum swing back. Edward knowing that you can eat softened leather is something that a smalltown boy would know and a prince might well not. Edward also must have created the bowls and utensils they're using, in addition to the broth.

Suddenly, Yao's ki-sense detects a familiar signature. He gets up in alarm, and sure enough Envy is trudging toward them.

She's not behaving aggressively, though. It looks like they might be able to cooperate, at least until they get free. Could this be the seed of some growing camaraderie, with Father's creations? Envy would be a surprising one to start that with, given that she has the most difficult personality out of all the ones we've met, but these are exceptional circumstances. And, for all that she's prickly, moody, and cruel, Envy has proven herself less eager to get into physical altercations than the rest, so that's an opportunity at least.

Edward asks her where they are, and demands an explanation of how to get out. Envy sits down on some broken masonry and ruefully tells them that there isn't one. Not even for her.

Of course, Envy might just not know that there's a way out. Father is definitely the sort to keep secrets from his children, and he may not have seen the need to tell the others if he can remove things from Gluttony's stomach of holding. Granted, that would be out of the frying pan and into the fire for Edward and Yao at least.

When asked what this place is, exactly, she tells Edward (while refraining from calling him pipsqueak, with some effort! Holy shit she really does care Envy best girl Envard OTP~) that he should recognize that feeling in the air. And, he realizes that indeed he does. Something about the atmosphere reminds him of Wogdat's realm, even though it looks nothing like it. When he describes it for her, Envy says "Oh. So that's what the real thing looks like."

Oh shit, the gluttonizer really IS related to that! Fucking hell, what was Father even doing? HOW did he manage this?

The answer to the first of those questions is even more out there than I thought.

Last episode, Envy told Dr. Marcoh that a true philosopher's stone wasn't quite what they're working toward. Now it seems like the actual goal might be the creation of Father's own universe. If the Doorway of Truth leads to knowledge of the composition of everything that exists or can exist, like a Platonic realm of Forms that the material world draws upon to shape and run itself, then creating a new Doorway...well, it could be the foundation for a new spacetime continuum.

Does that mean that Gluttony himself is a proto-Wogdat? An embodiment and guardian of the gate? Perhaps, to continue building on Sin Inc's distorted Christian motif, Gluttony would be the Holy Spirit to the Father's...Father?

How damned powerful is this guy, though?

Well, I guess Edward actually did physically enter Wogdat's realm, if he recognizes the feeling in the air. Not just mentally or spiritually like I interpreted it at the time. This makes the "Alphonse's body is siphoning nutrients out of Edward" theory a bit more plausible.

Anyway, Envy finishes her explanation by saying that there's no way out of this failed proto-nexus, and that there's not even any way IN besides the gluttonizer. They're doomed to stay here until "our lives run out and we drop." Heh, that wording is a nice touch. That's not how humans would die in this situation, but it's how a haemonculus (eventually) would. Also, this is a much worse fate for her than it is for them, come to think of it. They'll die in days, and can choose to kill themselves before that. Envy's battery won't run out for centuries, and it's not clear if a haemonculus with her powerset could kill itself without access to external firepower.

Edward is NOT ready to hear that it's hopeless. To be fair to Envy, he's never ready to hear that, so it was really a fool's errand for her. Alphonse is going to need him to restore his body, and Edward is NOT going to let himself die or be imprisoned forever or anything like that until he manages to. His next furious question to Envy, and probably the same one that I would ask, is who this Father of theirs is, and if his name would by any chance happen to be Master Chief Executive Director Johnson. Envy is amused by that incorrect guess (in fairness to Edward though, I briefly suspected that he was actually the father of the family myself in the early episodes), and tells him that no, Wrath is just one of her siblings. Edward probably should have pressed her more on the topic of Father, but he instead lets his emotions get the better of them, and asks if Sin Inc was responsible for the Ishval genocide.

Envy laughs, and says that it's funny he should ask her that out of any of her siblings.

There's a flashback to Amestrian George Zimmerman patrolling an Ishvalan city. The colors are muted again, so I guess that's either just A Thing for flashbacks now, or else Ishval itself just happens to be covered by an alchemical monochrome field. He beckons Ishvalan Travyon Martin over to him, and then grins a very familiar, too-wide grin before shooting.

Envy is personally responsible for the civil war's inciting incident. Wrath's leadership of the Amestrian army was the second half of a one-two punch. Also, she did that while impersonating an Amestrian officer who had vocally opposed annexation of Ishval in the first place and who she knew wouldn't have an alibi. Either to discredit the anti-expansionists, or just because the irony amused her.

Cut to Scar and May off pandarat hunting. May asks Scar about his people, and what happened to them. Scar looks pained, and says nothing.

Cut back to beyond the Gates of Gluttonization. That was certainly a brief interlude.

Envy starts gloating about how easy it was, how much of an impact she had with such minimal effort, and how superior to humans that makes her. Envy is really, really insecure. She takes any opportunity possible to lord how much better she is than most people just by virtue of not being human. This...was actually our first introduction to her, come to think of it, when she'd just incited that riot in Liore. I don't think she was the one who started Lust on the topic of how pathetic humans are, but she escalated the conversation and kept it on that subject.

And Greed revealed that she's ashamed of her true form. Is having an actual, genuine human body the thing that she's envious of, and has a massive complex about? That could fit.

She gloats and cackles, obviously taking pleasure in Edward's rage as he realizes the implications. His and Alphonse's mother died in the plague that accompanied that war (or so he thinks). Winry's parents were direct casualties of the war. Scar, one of the brothers' most persistent and dangerous antagonists, was a product of the war. Envy isn't just an enemy soldier like Edward thought. She's the demon that's been corrupting and consuming everything positive in his life from childhood until the present. And when she sees how mad it's making him, she just laughs harder.

I wonder if she's trying to get him to kill her? That would make a lot of sense, given the circumstances.

If that's what she's going for though, Edward doesn't deliver.

Really, Ed? Just a normal automail punch? No disintegrating touch? No extending blades? What the hell did you expect that to do?

Seemingly glad for an excuse (not sure why she pretended to need one, honestly. Maybe her thinking is just more erratic than I thought), Envy tells them that since they're all going to die anyway, she might as well give them a look at something before she does. Something she doesn't normally like people to see.

Oh. Huh. Envy's true form a'coming, then? I thought she was deathly ashamed of it, more than anything else. I guess her feelings about it are more complicated than that. She's definitely cripplingly insecure and taking it out on humanity, but maybe this isn't actually the source of it if it's something she can use to bully and lord over them in itself.

Yao warns Edward to get back. During his battle with Envy before, he noticed that her footsteps were way too hard, and that when she fell in soft earth she made too much of an indentation, suggesting that she's much heavier than she should be. Her true form, in that case, is likely to be large. That makes her athleticism and agility even more impressive, then! Edward backs away, and in a flash of red lightning and a new music track that could easily be a boss theme for a Soulsborne game, Envy turns into a fifty-foot long, ten-legged flesh spider with hundreds of screaming human faces and flailing limbs growing out of its neck and shoulders.

O...kay. I was expecting something a little more Frankenstein and a lot less Silent Hill.

This does raise some major questions about how Envy doesn't break everything she sits and stands on, if her true form's mass actually is being applied in her assumed forms. And about what the limits of her shapeshifting actually are and where they come from, if her primary form isn't even close to human size or shape.

Well, I guess we'll be getting back to this soon enough. For now, cut to Alphonse, sitting in silent shock and despair as the sun rises above the treetops around him. Pandarat and Gluttony play hide and seek around him, but he doesn't react to either of them.

Seeing this side of Gluttony juxtaposed against the depths of Envy's monstrosity really drives home how sympathetic the former is. And with what we just learned about him, having all the knowledge of a (potential) new universe inside of his gut, combined with the childlike demeanor…it makes him almost a Laughing Buddha or Ganesh like figure. And yet, here he is being used as a glorified hunting hound and backbreaker.

He gives up on the peekaboo, and asks Alphonse what he should do now. Alphonse, of course, is just wishing he had someone to ask that. Gluttony then looks down at the grass and mewls about how Father will be so angry at him for accidentally gluttonizing both an important sacrifice and his own sister.

Mention of the haemonculi's creator, of course, gets Alphonse's attention.

Gluttony has probably been told not to go blabbing about Sin Inc proprietary information, but if so he's distracted and confused and lonely enough right now to do so anyway. After curiously touching Gluttony's stomach and silently wondering where all the mass could have gone, and implicitly hoping that his appearing to "swallow" his prey might be a teleportation or space warping trick, Alphonse then asks Gluttony if he can take him to Father. Gluttony thinks about it, but after a moment agrees; after all, Alphonse is supposed to be a sacrifice, and the sacrifices are supposed to be brought home eventually, so bringing this one a little early isn't really against the rules right?

Alphonse demonstrates some unusually quick thinking (and characteristic empathy) and plays along with this. He is a sacrifice, and he wants Gluttony to bring him to Father because that's what you do with sacrifices. Reassured and happier, Gluttony starts leading the way.

This could go really well, or really badly. I'm thinking probably both.

Cut to the capital building, which is probably pretty close to where Gluttony and Alphonse are headed, where Amestris' top generals are still convening.

The first thing we learn is that all the ones in this room, at least, are in on it. I was going to say that it seems like there should have been less need for the haemonculi to be going out there and doing the dirty work themselves, but on further thought that's not actually true. Generals are nothing without underlings to command, and letting even one or two people who aren't dedicated Father cultists learn more than a tiny bit of what's going on could be disastrous for them. So, it makes sense for Wrath to have promoted collaborators or cultists or whatever exactly these men are into positions where they can cover things up with red tape and gag orders while letting his siblings continue doing most of the field work.

I wonder. Where they on Father's dime before they even joined the military, or were they scouted and inducted as junior officers? Maybe people who Wrath picked up as he underwent his own engineered rise through the ranks? Could be.

Come to think of it, I wonder to what degree Envy literally played kingmaker for Wrath? Ensuring that he became Fuhrer would have taken a lot of diplomatic and bureaucratic manipulation, and that stuff is her job.

Anyway, back to the scene that's currently being depicted. They're discussing which of the sacrifice candidates they can use to "open the doorway." Wrath mentioned to Envy that he had Mustang in mind for this role, but they're discussing the merits of various others. Including both of the Elric brothers, Mustang, Dr. Marcoh, and...Kimblee. The random psycho-for-hire who happened to kill Scar's family before turning on his own commander at the end of the war. I wouldn't have taken him for anything particularly special among the many state alchemists who they're planning to sacrifice. Apparently, opening the doorway takes "nerve," which implies cooperation on the part of the candidate.

I can't even begin to guess what this is all about. The gate is obviously Wogdate's Gates of Truth, with Father's first plan to just make his own having failed, but what they're planning to do with them or how I'm really not sure.

Meanwhile, Wrath is having a private conversation with Mustang. Why he's having a private conversation with Mustang is a question that the colonel asks at the beginning of it, and Wrath pointedly dodges it. He just says that he wants Mustang to appreciate his position, which basically just rephrases the question rather than answering it ("why do you want me to appreciate my position, Wrath?"). Of course, we the audience know that given Wrath's uncertain loyalties and talent for manipulation, he could have any number of reasons for doing this. Possibly contradictory ones.

Rather than pushing him on that subject, Mustang asks him how long Sin Inc has been in control of Amestris. According to Wrath, they've been controlling things from the shadows to at least some extent since the founding of the Amestrian state. Of course, as the second youngest sin, Wrath knows less about the details of this than most of the others, so he may have been told a slightly fictionalized version of events himself. At the very least, I don't think Father had had all of the country's top administrators under his thumb for that long; if he did, there'd be no need for a haemonculus to be the head of state. Mustang next asks him if he really doesn't care at all about the country or people he's lived among for half a century; he say Wrath's hands trembling at Hughes' funeral, he must have been feeling something. Wrath explains that he was just irritated that everyone pretends to care so much about the death of one random officer who most of them didn't even know, and also that he was trying to keep himself from strangling Hughes' daughter who just wouldn't shut the fuck up during the ceremony.

I wonder if Wrath is telling the truth? We know he does have some affection for the humans he's come to rule over (when he said that Greed was "pathetic" for getting attached to his minions, that may have partly been projection), and "my hands were shaking because I wanted to beat this little kid to death for crying at her father's funeral" sounds less consistent with Wrath's onscreen behavior so far than it does with a lie he'd tell to put up emotional walls and get Mustang to back off. Whatever was bothering Wrath at the funeral, I don't think it could have just been that.

Regardless of how true this story is, Mustang has little reason not to believe it. Although...hmmm.

When Mustang brings up the topic of Selim, Wrath gets sort of slow and deliberate in the way he talks. He says that Selim is "a good boy," and that he "isn't a way that someone could get at me," but he avoids saying that he doesn't actually care about him. He doesn't imply that he does care about him either, but something about the wording and the delivery makes it clear that he isn't being totally honest with Mustang.

Wrath recovers quickly though, and turns it around on Mustang by saying that the colonel on the other hand does have people he can be gotten to through.

Cut to Hawkeye, still waiting outside even as the sun rises. How long has she been standing out there? I don't know what time it was when they drove here, but I suppose it could have been pre-dawn rather than midnight-ish as I'd thought. One of Mustang's minions who I don't think has had more than a minute of screentime until now runs over to her and tells her that there's been a shocking development. Fallman, Breda, and the rest of the gang have all just received notifications from Personnel reassigning them across the country. Not a single one of the people who Mustang brought to Central with him will be staying here after today.

Then, a colonel from the Personnel office comes out of the very building that they're standing in front of and addresses them. After they hurriedly salute him, he hands a reassignment order to Hawkeye herself. She opens it, and stares in disbelief.

There's one exception to the "none of Mustang's people stay in Central" thing. Hawkeye isn't Mustang's adjutant anymore; she's Big Kahuna's.

Flash back to his own office, where he's telling Mustang that Hawkeye is going to be within literal arm's reach from now on, so he'd better not try anything heroic.

...

Here's the moment of truth for Wrath, I think. What is he going to do with Mustang, and what is he using Hawkeye as insurance against?

If he does the sensible thing and locks Mustang in a cell with his hands restrained at all times except when he's being fed, with Hawkeye just being an extra precaution in case he somehow gets out, then Wrath's desire for freedom will have probably been too little and too late.

If he's actually planning to let Mustang free again and rely on his hostage alone to keep him under control, then it's the opposite. If he does this, it will mean that he's doing everything he possibly can to set Father up for failure without incriminating himself too obviously. Envy would make the mistake of relying on leverage alone to keep someone in check, and maybe Father would too (we haven't seen enough of him for me to make an educated guess), but I don't think Wrath would, and so Wrath pretending to make that mistake might well fly under their radar.

So. Let's see what he does.

...

Beyond the Gates of Gluttony, Envy is still throwing Edward and Yao around with her mighty claws and tail, all while the screaming faces that constantly bubble and erupt out of her flesh beg for death in a maddening chorus. Are there actually conscious people stuck inside of Envy, or are those babbling faces just echoes of their dying pain or something? If the former, and if this is true of all philosopher's stone based constructs, then leaving any haemonculus alive for longer than you absolutely have to would be an atrocity. Damn, that's dark.

On a brighter note, despite being battered, Edward and Yao are both in fighting condition. Once they manage to put some distance between themselves and the monster, Edward transmutes some weapons for them out of the ambient blood iron, and they prepare to take down another haemonculus together.

Also, this scene makes it clear that Envy is CGI, and it really sticks out against the rest of the show's traditional 2D art style. It doesn't look bad on its own, but the juxtaposition gives the whole thing a cheesy horror movie feel; Envy's monster form just looks "fake" because of it. Probably unavoidable, given how ridiculously detailed all those little moving parts on her are, but still annoying.

The episode closes on Gluttony leading Alphonse to his home and Father.

Alphonse is a bit more surprised than he should be at this point when he realizes where they're going, but I can get that it might have just not sunk in until now. End episode.


This episode suffers somewhat from the main characters being separated into three different locations, and all of them having quite a lot going on, in addition to the interlude with May and Scar. There's a ton to talk about, but I think I'd rather wait until finishing the next episode or two before doing so, since this looks like the beginning of a two or three parter.