Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood S2E31: “Eternal Leave”

Sounds like someone's going to die, but that's been happening pretty regularly since the Baron Brademous von Shitpost came back to Central. Straight into the OP this time, no teaser. Episode start!


We open on Ninjette dashing through the tunnels alone, presumably looking for Leed. As she explores the space under the command center, presumably trying to figure out which anomalous ki-signature she should be chasing, she happens to pass under a floor-grate through which she can hear some soldiers talking. Loyalists, who are eagerly discussing how Dear Leader returned home and took out those mountain monkeys' tank singlehandedly.

She adjusts her course, presumably to try to help deal with that problem. Cut to the problem in question, being confronted by Leed and Graninja at the inner perimeter gate. Graninja muses that this is his first time meeting Amestris' legendary generalissimo in person. And also that Wrath is responsible for the loss of his granddaughter's arm (well...sort of), and therefore must be stabbed.

Good luck with that, old man.

Elsewhere in the facility, Izumi has dragged General Whoever before the Armstrongs, Sieg, and their accompanying Briggs and Central soldiers, where he is made to spill everything for the benefit of those who don't already know.

Even after hearing all that, some of the soldiers aren't sure who to believe, or what to do about it. Still a step up from obeying the haemunculi and their puppets, but the rebels really need all the manpower they can get right now with Wrath rallying the remaining loyalists, and "too confused to keep fighting for either side" isn't good enough anymore.

Izumi tries putting it in more Pascal's Wager-y terms. If the rebels and their own former general are telling the truth, they're all at risk of eternal damnation as philosopher's stone. Is that a risk they're willing to take, when there's credible evidence supporting the veracity of their story?

This seems to have been the right move. These guys aren't trained to value their own lives especially much, but they all have loved ones somewhere in Amestris, and having them scream forever in some asshole demigod's veins isn't a prospect they care for. They remove their pips and badges. Nice charisma check, Izumi.

Still, regardless of this group of soldiers having been swayed, there are a lot more who haven't still pressing in. And they've got Wrath leading them. The good guys are right in his office at the moment, so he'll probably be making his way to them in person very soon unless Graninja and Leed pull something really clever out of their asses really soon. Olivierre radios her men and tells them that they're free to go to ground or flee Central if they're getting overwhelmed. They've done as much damage and caused as much of a distraction for Father's underlings as they're going to. Hopefully it was enough to disrupt the ritual and leave Father exposed and vulnerable to Hohenheim's strike team.

For now, they're going to flee into the sublevels and have Izumi transmute another tunnel for them to escape. Not much point in staying here, and Izumi in particular really needs to get far away before the eclipse begins.

Cut to the strike team members who Hohenheim just kind of separated himself from for reasons that I'm still skeptical of, plus Mustang and Hawkeye, making their way onward through the tunnels after having dealt with Envy. They reach a multi-way intersection on their way forward, and find that it contains a man that I don't think any of them have seen before, but that we have. The gold toothed alchemist who helped create Wrath and who healed Kimblee using the protostone back up north is standing in a small transmutation circle he just prepared, waiting for them.

Oh, that guy. I guess he'd be around here too. I guess he was busy preparing whatever he's about to unleash now during the fighting.

Kinda wish we knew this guy's name. Or like, his exact role and position in the cult. Is he even a official military figure the way that the generals are?

He refuses to name himself when asked to. So, Mustang doesn't know this guy's face, despite having worked at the Central command center for a good while. I'm leaning toward "this guy isn't on the books at all," then. He does, however, gleefully recount his deeds, most particularly being the man who injected Father's substance into the slave who would become Wrath. He also expresses surprise that Mustang isn't still at the radiobroadcast station.

So he can see, despite his eyes being unfocused and blind looking, I guess.

He says that he was expecting his recovery of Mustang and the other sacrifices to have been a lot more work, and thanks him and Edward for coming right here on their own. Okay, so that's why he hasn't been helping defend the command center; he's in charge of procuring the sacrifices in time for the eclipse. Seemingly using magical means, given that he's been preparing a complicated transmutation array this whole time. I...hope Izumi can get out of range of whatever it is he's about to cast, in time, but given that she doesn't know about this detail that's probably not very likely.

Granted, him having to do this also means that the sacrifices don't just need to be "somewhere within Central" as I earlier suspected. So, there's that at least.

Dr. Goldtooth gives the order for someone unseen to distract the good guys for a few minutes while he hurries up and finishes his work. A group of vacant looking swordsmen fall out of an opening in the ceiling and lunge to the attack. Faster than Mustang can get a fireball off, apparently. That's kinda dumb imo, but whatever, shonen initiative rolls.

These swordsmen are EXTREMELY skilled. Fast and strong in a way that few human characters in the show have been depicted as being. Combined with their faded skin tones and expressionless faces, these are pretty clearly zombies. Similar to what they did with Barry the Chopper's body; in fact, their movements are actually pretty similar to zombie!Barry's. Nice callback; I'd almost forgotten that Father could make those. These ones seem to be a little less feral than the Barry-zombie though, as they are able to follow specific orders and use weapons proficiently.

Dr. Goldtooth soon reveals exactly where this squad came from.

The slaves who were killed by the philostone before Big Chungus' successful transformation, whose bodies we saw piled into a closet during his flashback. I guess they weren't completely dead after all, or at least didn't stay so for long after the application of some good old fashioned necromancy. So, similar to what they turned Barry's carcass into, but not quite the same. And seemingly still in possession of their swordsmanship muscle-memories, if nothing else of their previous selves.

Do they also have animal souls in them, using those muscle memories? Not sure. If so, I wonder how they'd react to Wrath's personal presence, if he still has even just trace amounts of their old selves still in him?

Actually, they don't appear to be decaying like Barry-zombie was. And they look like they might have actually aged since their "deaths." So yeah, I guess they're something a little more different than I first thought.

Anyway, super swordsman zombies, sure. They use a lot of the same fencing moves that we've seen Wrath himself employ, which is a nice touch. The battle gets off to a bad start for our heroes. One gets the impression that if the numbers were anything close to even, the living would get the upper hand just like they did against zombie!Barry, but there were eleven failed candidates before Wrath's creation worked, and - while there's no clear shot that lets me see exactly how many zombies there still are all these years later - they still outnumber the four intruders considerably. And Dr. Goldtooth is wisely having them focus their attention on Mustang and Edward, who pose the biggest threat to grouped opponents like them. He might not have a name, but he's a reasonably good tactician.

Cut back to Lucky Number Twelve, who is having his own swordfight with Leed and Graninja. Neither of them are quite as fast or skilled as him, but working together and making judicious use of Greed's armor to tank blows meant for Graninja they're at least keeping him busy. Meanwhile, more soldiers are trying to make their way up the entry ramp, and the scant handful of Briggs troops manning the gun turrets at the top are running dangerously low on ammo.

Then, despite having been Wrath'd twice, Hook starts pulling himself off the floor near the swordfight.

Oh for fuck's sake, really? REALLY? Even THIS fucking side character gets plot armor? Plot armor that works against Wrath, the one bad guy who's been reliably allowed to take off the kid gloves and do lasting damage?

As the somehow-not-dead Hook watches, Wrath slowly gets the upper hand, managing to disarm Graninja and then take his sword - closer to the sabre weapon that Bradley normally uses than the knives he'd been stuck with until then - and lands a shallow, but heavily bleeding, head wound on the old man.

Wrath delivers another wound that would probably have been fatal if Leed hadn't made it back over and pulled Graninja back just in time. Inside of Leed, Greed scolds Ling for taking control without warning and pulling risky maneuvers like that. Outside, Wrath also seems to infer that this was Ling's action rather than Greed's, and muses in wonderment at how Ling is still putting his life on the line for people who are supposed to be protected him.

Ling makes an impassioned little speech about how if he won't defend his loyal subjects with his dying breath, he's not worthy to ever become emperor. Ling's moral code is a strange one, seemingly by Xingese standards as well as Amestrian ones, but he's fully committed to it.

Graninja agrees with Wrath, though. He wrestles himself free of Ling, bleeding heavily from his wounds, and shouts for Leed to shield themselves with the Greed armor. He runs at Wrath, and reveals the explosives hidden under his vest.

And...with one neat blade-stroke, Wrath cuts off the fuses of his entire beltfull of bombs. And slices his body nearly in half in the process.

Yeah, that was a really stupid idea, considering the things that have failed to kill Wrath in the past.

And, that's that for Graninja. Probably. After what just happened with Hook, I really can't tell anymore.

Speaking of Hook, he somehow managed to drag himself over, pick up a sword with his remaining arm, and stab it through Graninja's crumpling body and into Wrath. And it's not just a glancing blow this time.

It's still kinda stupid that Hook was able to manage that after the wounds he'd taken, but it's a clever enough strategy that I guess I can sort of look past that. I'm still vague on exactly what Wrath's supereye does aside from just having very acute conventional vision, but evidently X-ray vision isn't on the list.

Hmm. DID he know that May was hiding inside of Alphonse's body and deliberately miss her with that stab, that one time? I've been operating under the assumption that he did this whole time, because he's always been very good at noticing hidden details, but if he's specifically bad at noticing threats that are hidden behind other things...hmm. On the other hand, his suspicions in that scene were specifically aroused by hearing her make noises from inside of the suit, so you'd think he'd have checked more thoroughly if he was suspicious, especially knowing (as he likely did) that one of the missing intruders was a small girl, but...yeah, I'm really not sure now. He may have let May escape on purpose, and he may not have.

Overdramatic sad music plays as Wrath kicks the two men away, pushing Hook's sword out of his body in the process. But, he's now taken enough damage that he's slow and off balance, allowing Leed to land another strike with his armored claws.

It's not entirely clear, but I think Leed might have damaged Wrath's supereye there as well as breaking his new sword. So, whatever that eye does, it probably can't do it anymore. And, given that Wrath can't regenerate (or more likely, needs personal attention from Father in order to do so), that means it's out of commission for the foreseeable future. Combined with his torso wound, Wrath is effectively crippled as a personal threat going forward, even if he survives this scene.

Ninjette arrives on the scene just in time to see her grandfather go down. And, presumably, to take his place in assisting Leed finish off the wounded and handicapped Wrath.

Okay, I'm starting to actually consider Ninjette a main cast member at this point, with the amount we've followed her and seen her change in response to tribulations. I still can't really bring myself to care all that much about Graninja or Hook though, except insofar as the former's death impacts his granddaughter. I'll just interpret the sad music as being for her sad moment rather than their own deaths in and of themselves.

Cut to Alphonse, Yoki, Marcoh, and Lionheart running through the streets of Central after crashing their car. Either Yoki's fault, or the brakes just giving out after all the abuse they've put this car through over the last day or so, depending on who you ask. So, they're hurrying on toward the command center on foot to reinforce Hohenheim's group in the sublevels. Seeing smoke rising over the command center, they increase their hurried pace.

Cut back to battle with Dr. Goldtooth and his sword zombies. It turns out that the good doctor may have underestimated the other two party members. As we saw with Barry, zombies are not nearly as resistant to gunfire as most of Father's other creations. While the undead swordsmen are focusing on Mustang, Edward, and (to a somewhat lesser extent) Scar, Hawkeye finally gets to use her pistols on something they can cripple if not kill.

Nicely done, Riza!

However, while they're slowly whittling the zombies down, they still aren't quite able to get a clear shot at Dr. Goldtooth. And, he appears to be very near to completing his complicated diagram.

Cut to the Armstrongs, Curtises, and their soldiers as they descend the spiral stairwell into part of the facility that isn't meant for humans. They still have that general with them, bound and closely guarded. Izumi is explaining to the others about human transmutation, the Gates of Truth, and the tolls that the entity claiming to be God takes from those who open the gates. Olivierre asks about Izumi's own loss, and actually looks taken aback and slightly horrified when Izumi reveals her uteral deficiencies.

Maybe Olivierre was actually using some genuine personal anxiety of hers when she told General Raven she was worried about getting too old to have children. I wouldn't have suspected it, but she definitely looks like Izumi just touched a nerve.

This also leads to some philosophical musing by Olivierre and the others, about the concept of being willing to give up part of your own body in order to revive someone dead. Granted, neither Izumi nor the Elric brothers knew that the attempt would cost them that when they tried it, but the notion has seemingly just gotten Olivierre thinking. She muses back to how, even when she was doing her best to intimidate information out of him at Briggs, before they knew they were on the same side, Edward refused to tell her anything about the leverage the state held over him. That determination to not lose any more than he'd already lost.

Comes back to what Pride said to Alphonse a while ago, about how Father is choosing his sacrifices based not only on alchemical talent and having potentially already seen Wogdat, but also on who would be most unwilling to write off their imperiled friends and family and flee Amestris. Olivierre seems to be thinking over the fact that this *wouldn't* work on someone like her, and perhaps wondering if that's something she should be ashamed of.

Enough introspection and character growth for now, let's go back to fighting sword zombies!

Hawkeye and the others have taken out at least several of the soulless fighters, but they bought Dr. Goldtooth enough time to hurry up and finish drawing his array of glyphs. Hawkeye tries to shoot him, but the zombies defend him with their own bodies. Damn, this guy has them under impressively fine control. Dr. Goldtooth feels like he should have gotten more screentime and development before now. As far as "human alchemists who are loyal to Father to the end out of madness or something" go, this guy has managed to evoke more menace and demonstrate more competent villainy in his meager onscreen appearances than Kimblee ever did. He calls the remaining zombies into a defensive formation around himself, and does the thing.

Blue lightning, rather than red. He doesn't have a protostone on him at the moment, then, or if so he's not using it for whatever this big spell is.

All around Central, the ground trembles. Animals (and chimaeras) startle back at something they can feel but not see. Just like McDougal in the pilot, Dr. Goldtooth is using the city-glyph built into the layout of Central to do something. Presumably the thing it was actually intended for, rather than just repurposing parts of it like McDougal did.

Cut to Izumi, preparing her goodbyes to those members of the resistance group (including both Armstrongs) who are choosing to stay and continue fighting rather than flee through the new tunnel with her. It's a pretty mellow scene, but the dramatic scary music that started when Dr. Goldtooth finished his glyph is still playing, so the other shoe is about to drop. The city-glyph flashes bright blue, illuminating all of Central for a moment. Back in the tunnels, five of the zombies - who it seems were standing in a ritual formation around the doctor rather than simply a defensive one - are consumed by Wog tentacles that emerge from the floor.

Wait, does that mean that they still had souls? Or are they being treated like body parts that get taken as part of a toll? Not sure.

Then, wherever they are around the city, the sacrifices look down in alarm as Eyes of Wog open under their feet and pull them downward. Izumi is snatched from where she was saying goodbye to the Armstrongs. Alphonse, from where he and his companions were racing toward the command center on foot. Edward, from right there in front of Dr. Goldtooth.

It looks like Edward isn't the only one who thought to use the Antechamber of Truth as a teleportation method. Father had the same idea quite a long time ago.

I suspect they're all about to meet Hohenheim and Father down in the executive office.

So, it's not that Central is one big altar for the sacrifice candidates. Just, the glyph built into it can be used as part of a teleportation spell that pulls specific people within it into the center. Either the spell specifically targets people who have already seen Wogdat (something about the Eyes of Wog recognizing them or the like), or Father just inputted their names and other needed identifiers into the glyph when he narrowed down the list to these five. Or wait, no, it didn't grab Mustang, just the other three who Father hadn't already captured, so yeah, it specifically targets spontaneous casters. Damn, it really was fortuitous for the bad guys that Mustang happened to come down there on his own.

And...I guess they're going to have to make him see Wogdat, somehow? Since that does seem to be what makes someone a viable sacrifice candidate. I thought that couldn't be it up until now specifically BECAUSE of Mustang, but now it seems likely that they have something planned for him within the next couple of hours. Wonder how that's going to work?

Anyway, the episode ends there.


Not a lot of wrapup to do on this one. It was mostly action, with a minimum of heavy character development or philosophical exploration (and the bits it did have, I think I already covered as well as I'm going to).

This was a lot better than most of FMA:B's action-focused episodes, though, talking about it just as an action piece. There were no confusing temporal issues, or people escaping things without us seeing how they could have done it, or anything like that. Each fight was tightly executed and animated. You could always tell where everyone was and why they were doing the things that they were currently doing. That sounds like a low bar to clear, but given how many fight scenes this episode had going on and how many characters were participating in each, and looking at how other cartoons - including other high budget animes, in addition to earlier FMA:B episodes - often seem to struggle with this, it's actually pretty impressive. If the show intends this exceptionally good fighty episode as an apology for the stupid Armstrongs vs. Sloth sequence in the last couple, then I happily accept it.

So yeah. Not the smartest episode of the show, but one of the most tightly executed and exciting to watch. I really am curious about Dr. Goldtooth now, also.