Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood S2E19: "The Promised Day"

Time to find out what the stars being right actually means, I suppose!


We start where he left off last time, with some violent sin-on-sin action taking place in the Home of Hate and Hubris. Greed attacks Wrath wildly, demanding to know what's wrong with himself. Like he's begging for help and attacking at the same time. Is he just confused and lashing out randomly in the wake of his memory recollection? Kind of seems like it. Queen and Pride take cover at the side, but Pride starts extending his tentacles a little in case this gets out of hand. Presumably, he'd rather let Wrath handle this if possible just in case there are unseen witnesses.

The fight goes better for Greed than the last one did. This may be partly due to him having Ling's speed and muscle memory to rely on, but it also seems like he's fighting more defensively this time and knows what to expect from Wrath. Which makes sense. Last time they fought, Wrath had probably been filled in on every detail of Greed's power set and habitual tactics, while Greed had no idea he was even facing his baby brother. This time, nobody has an informational advantage. As he presses the attack, Greed starts accusing Wrath of taking his stuff, as memory flashes of Greed I's battle in the sewers keep coming back to him.

Ah, okay, it's not just confusion making him attack the nearest Sin. He went for Wrath for a reason. And Wrath seems to realize this, which is why he isn't offering to take him downstairs to get him looked at by their father as he presumably would if this was just a matter of "I think I'm malfunctioning I feel like I have to attack everything help."

Wrath ultimately wins, of course, but Greed uses Ling's memories of eluding Wrath back in the "let's capture Gluttony" escapade to slip away from him again, escaping out a window as Ling did before.

I'm starting to understand what Greed is, and why he's prone to rebellion. What Father dismisses as the vice of greed is basically all sorts of everyday normal human desires. When Father pretended not to be jealous when Hohenheim told him about the human desire to marry and have children and live a fulfilling, comfortable life, that was him repressing the feelings that he would later expel as Greed. Of course, he missed the fact that ACTUAL greed, the negative kind, is much more along the lines of the stuff he clung onto. The King of Xerxes devouring his kingdom, the desire for endless power and endless authority. He discharged the "lame" kind of greed, and kept the "cool" kind of greed, not recognizing the latter as a vice at all.

Damn, Father is one emotional mess of a demigod, isn't he?

Soldiers arrive and tell Wrath that that intruder just tore right through the detail around the house. Wrath tells them not to blame themselves, they couldn't have stopped a creature like that. Pride withdraws his tentacles that he was holding ready, and looks suspicious. Does he suspect Wrath of letting Greed get away on purpose? Is he correct in that suspicion? He's been skeptical of Wrath's loyalty for a while, so he's going to be mulling this sequence of events over very carefully.

Cut to the Armstrong manor, where Olivierre is visiting her magnificently bearded father and trying to convince him to retire. He's been dutifully managing their family's lands (I'm guessing they're from an older feudal nobility that got grandfathered into the Amestrian government sometime in the past, sort of like what seems to have been the case with Rush Valley's anarcho-technocracy) for many years, and she wants to take over as successor.

He's already named Alex as his successor, but she insists that that simpering coward would only bring the Armstrong legacy to shame and ruin. Geez, harsh. Cue Alex's arrival, because of course.

Beardo Armstrong shrugs and tells them to just fight a duel or something over who gets to be heir. For now, he, his wife, and their teenaged daughter who hit Yoki with a piano that one time are going to take a vacation to celebrate Beardo's retirement. As their two oldest children open up on each other in a storm of flying furniture, flashing blades, and pounding fists, the parents empty their safe of seemingly all the money in it (hmmm...did Olivierre clue them into something being about to happen?) and take the youngest daughter and household staff.

They decide they'll bring Olivierre and Alex back souvenirs. Maybe elephants? Those are big and strong, they'll like them. Little sister says that if her older siblings are getting elephants, they had better buy her one too. The parents laugh coldly as Olivierre slams Alex through the foyer window and into the fountain behind them.

These people are the best Prussian stereotypes ever.

The sibling duel at the Armstrong manor is sillier and more over-the-top than the one that just happened between Greed and Wrath, but no less long. It's also, surprisingly, a fairly one-sided one. In favor of Olivierre. Somehow. Given how Alex seems to rank among this story's elite combatants, Olivierre must be up there with the likes of Scar, Ling, and late game Edward.

To be fair, I don't think we see Alex using any alchemy, probably due to traditional rules of dueling or the like. Perhaps the battle would have gone differently if he wasn't restricted in this way.

Hmm. From what we've seen of the Armstrong family, it may well be that all Armstrongs are super strong, but the women of the family have also have a secondary supernatural ability to compress all that muscle mass into an average-looking physique, while the men just have to wear it normally. Doubtless the result of some Fantasy Germanic shaman's experiments many centuries ago.

Speaking of improbable family traits, both of the Armstrong parents have the same distinctive blond hair and curly bangs. Well, fantasy Prussian aristocrats, it would be weird if the show didn't hint at incest.

The battle ends with Alex yielding, and Olivierre exiling him. He asks her, in the privacy of the battered mansion's foyer, if she knows about the macroglyph, if she deliberately sent their family to safety outside of Amestris, and if she's really making friends with Wrath and his cronies. She just smirks and tells him to get out.

It's hard to avoid the conclusion that she really does hate her brother. Perhaps not for the reasons she claims to hate him for, but for something. And, while she's trying to save Amestris, she's also power hungry and egotistical as all hell. She really could be the villain of a story that didn't have the haemunculi in it.

Cut to May, who is passing through the town of Youswell. That's the town that Edward liberated from Yoki, coincidentally, and it also happens to be at the edge of the desert to Amestris' east. She's asked by some townsfolk

She tells them she's planning to cross the desert to get back home to Xing. In a scene that would be a hell of a lot more potent if we'd actually gotten to meet these characters beforehand instead of breezing past them in a hasty silent-movie-flashback told from Yoki and only Yoki's perspective, the townsfolk worry over May. Everyone offering her food and supplies for the trip, telling her that a lone child should never go out into the desert, let alone try to cross it, and offer her lodgings for the night before she heads out.

That xenophilic and kindhearted Amestrian public. :/

May starts crying at the prospect of leaving these people to get philostone'd while she runs off to Xing on a mission that may be a fool's errand to begin with. Envy sees May's tears dripping down through the covering around her jar, and realizes she can work with this.

She uses some reverse psychology to convince May that she should stay a bit longer in Amestris. Besides, if she actually manages to stop Father she'll certainly be able to wring much more useful knowledge out of him, right? She should really head toward Central.

It's legitimately probably for the best that Envy never gets to meet the Xingese emperor, so kudos to her I guess. Anyway, looks like we're going to have another round against her once she inevitably gets liberated by Father or his minions and is given a new battery.

Speaking of the Xingese emperor, if everything we've been told (and the other stuff that I suspect) about that guy is true, well. I think the best thank you present that the gang could give to May and Ling would be heading over there after Father's been foiled and just kicking the emperor's ass. From the sound of things, it wouldn't even be that hard to do if they allied with the right tribal leaders.

A little later that evening, Edward, Lionheart, and Simian arrive at the old country house that Mustang used before it got gluttonized. That was a really, really fast drive, or maybe it's just been a couple of days. It's still half-gluttonized, but has a few habitable rooms. Edward is hoping that Alphonse would try to meet up with him here. He doesn't, to Edward and the chimeras' disappointment, but Ling's memories seem to have brought someone else.

He asks for food, saying he's starving. I can't tell if he actually does still get hungry in this state (which would mean that Wrath probably does too. An exploitable weakness?), or if he's just doing the Xingese thing. Anyway, he insists that this is Ling speaking, not Greed. Greed is still confused and discombobulated, and has relinquished control to get his bearings. So, they feed him the rest of the food they have on hand, and he fills them in. Ling tells them that Father is waiting for a specific day to do the thing, and that when he does so he will be "opening" the Gates of Truth in a way that Edward hasn't seen before. At that time, Edward and Alphonse can probably get their bodies back.

However, Edward notes that the cost for the Gates opening is probably "everyone in Amestris," so that's a no go. Ling then asks if Edward relayed his message to Ninjette, and he answers in the affirmative, which seems to make Ling relieved. He sent a distress call, or something? Or maybe a message to the Xingese emperor that he should invade Amestris and steal all the philostone hidden in Central? That would be a well-timed distraction.

Ling loses control then, and Greed takes over again. He apologizes for bothering them, and tells them he'll be off now. Edward asks him why he's not attacking them, and Greed reaffirms Ling's story, and confirms that he has no further interest in working with his father and siblings.

As far as Greed is concerned, Amestris is Edward's fight to win or lose now, he'll be heading elsewhere to make a new life for himself. He rejects Edward's offer of an alliance, and says he doesn't have allies, he only has underlings. So, unless Edward, Lionheart, and Simian feel like joining his gang and following him out of the country, he has little interest in them.

As Greed walks away, Ling's voice in his mind advises him that if he really wants ownership over everything, he should turn back and help Edward, or else cede control to Ling and let him do it. After all, if Ling's plans succeed, he'll become the emperor of Xing. Being emperor would be nice, wouldn't it?

Greed argues that he wants the whole world, not just one country, but he's pretty clearly just confused and being defensive and contrarian because of it. The Greed we met back in Dublith would have jumped at the chance to be king of somewhere. And of course, anyone thinking clearly would realize that taking the throne of a large and powerful empire would be a very good first step toward world domination anyway.

Still, the inner dialogue delays Greed for long enough that Edward and the Pussycats to catch up. Edward says that he's decided he wants to join Greed's gang. The chimeras beat him up a little when he volunteers them as well, but he's undeterred.

Edward you fucking dumbass it's obviously Leed.

Anyway, Edward says he'll serve him in exchange for more information about Father's operations and how to disrupt them. Leed is uncertain, but Greed could never resist a good bargain. The chimeras ultimately agree as well; indignant though they were at first, they're still very much followers. Edward bemoans the fact that he might not be able to see Alphonse or Winry for a long time, now, but if he gets info from Leed and can relay it to Mustang or someone then it'll be worth it.

The next morning in Dublith, the secret police are knocking on Meat & Magic's door again, looking for Izumi. There's some random guy running the shop in her and Sig's absence who I'm sure is also the guy who was supposed to have been watching Edward and Alphonse on the island, but is just appearing out of nowhere here.

...

Brotherhood really kind of sucks, you know? The animation is great, sure. The production values are all good. But I swear, this editorial clumsiness would sink any story that was even slightly less good then the one Bones was handed.

...

Anyway, Butcher Boi sends the soldiers off, and then calls Sig up in...it looks like North Province, somewhere?...and tells him about the new intel he got from Alphonse and Hohenheim.

Ah, smart Alphonse! For want of anyone else to call, he's been in phone contact with the Curtises. Or...maybe Hohenheim initiated that, since he ran into them earlier himself. Either way, good idea. They're another possible point of contact with Edward, and Izumi adds a good amount of firepower to the party.

Meanwhile, Izumi is destroying an Amestrian bunker somewhere near Fort Briggs, and then using the landline to report that a housewife just clowned on their men. I suppose we'll learn why soon enough.

Heh. I saw the white-sleeved hand reaching out to take a fallen soldier's phone, and my first assumption was Kimblee. I wonder if that was an intentional fakeout?

And, ah, okay. It looks like she was trying to get herself captured on purpose.

She recognizes Miles and Hook from descriptions she and Sig were given. She gives them a message from Alphonse, and they relay it to Mustang and Olivierre's contacts and sympathizers around the military. Including General Grumman, who sexually harasses one of his sniper underlings while giving her a message to relay to her friend in Central, Riza.

Grumman is a weird one alright.

Rebecca the sniper goes to Central, and has a cute but also weirdly sexist interaction with Riza while coordinating subversive activities in North, East, and Central.

Arakawa seems to have been having a bad case of the shonens while she was writing this issue.

Rebecca also gives Hawkeye a secret note, which she relays for her to Havoc. The guy who got all fucked up by Lust and is still in the hospital, yeah, we haven't heard from him in a while. Havoc realizes that the note is really for Mustang; he and Hawkeye are being watched, and not being allowed to interact, so they need to use intermediaries. Mustang seems to have anticipated an infodrop sometime around now, and was laying low right there in the hospital waiting for Riza to leave so he could get it from Havoc. The message says that they've confirmed the date of the Promised Day, and that North and East will be making their move on the morning of that day.

That seems like cutting it awfully close, but I assume there's a reason for it. Father might have to pull the Sins off of their guard duties for the ritual or something, which would create a window for the insurgents to act without supernatural opposition. Either way, the end credits music starts playing while Mustang reads the note to himself, so that's pretty badass.

The Stinger is brief, and wordless. Just a couple shots of Sloth, Wrath, Pride, and a newly reconstituted Gluttony gathered around Father's throne, the latter looking disturbed. Presumably they've just given him the double-whammy of bad news about Greed defecting again and Envy having gone missing.

There's also a post-coda coda of Mustang burning the note after reading it, but I think we could take him doing that for granted after having seen him dispose of similar communiques in the past. End.


Not much to say about this one that I haven't already. In the next couple episodes, I think I'll have more to interpret as we learn more about Greed and Olivierre's motivations, as well as what Leed is going to want Edward to do as a member of his gang in exchange for the intel.