Fullmetal Alchemist S2E11: “The First Homunculus”

With a title like that, we pretty much have to be getting some backstory. Well, let's check it out.


Before the title card, we see Miles watching suspiciously as some soldiers from Central stomp around the base. Kimblee brought them up when he picked up Winry from Briggs Town, and apparently they escorted her the whole way up here from Rush Valley. He trusts this as little as the viewer does.

So, Kimblee actually did drive town to the town and come back with Winry and these guards. Okay, I guess this is the real Winry then. The temporal cuts toward the end of the previous episode were just really confusing. And General Armstrong looks pretty bad now, for actually leaving the brothers in that cell without giving the order to release them (or, you know, coming up there in person to tell them that the plan they were instrumental in was successful in person) in that amount of time. Ah well. Anyway, cut to Winry replacing Edward's automail, which is a skill I don't think Envy possesses.

Winry's behavior when Kimblee walked her out into the cell bloc still felt a little off, but there may be more to the story there.

Winry asks what the heck the prison cell was all about. Edward starts to come up with an explanation, but then Kimblee comes in with a cup of overpriced coffee in hand and saves him the trouble. Kimblee is in a pretty good spirits, despite being flanked by Miles and Hook who are both watching him like hawks. Either putting on an act, holding onto some more aces, or just because he's batshit and likes being in deadly danger as he said before. Yeah, probably the last one, no further explanations really needed for this guy. Anyway, he assures Winry that Edward and Alphonse were the victims of an inter-agency misunderstanding, and that they should be free within the hour. Winry thanks Kimblee for the ride up here, and tells him to please look after these two for as long as they're working together.

Winry notices Edward's reaction to her pleasant interactions with Kimblee. He takes the chance to whisper a warning to her about him, which takes her by surprise. Flash back an hour or so, to Kimblee driving Winry up the mountain. He's apparently researched her, as he knows about her parents' career and their deaths in Ishval. He mournfully tells her that his squad was the one that found their bodies. This...might actually be true. Kimblee was part of the spearhead in the destruction of Kanda, and it probably wasn't more than a day between his wounding of Scar and Scar's accidental killing of the Rockbells, so he would have been right in the area. He also tells her that he admires their conviction (lol), and also that they were holding a photo of themselves with a little blonde girl who they clearly loved very much when he found them (LOL).

Winry actually buys it. Wow. Not your sharpest moment, Winry. He's exploiting a particular vulnerability of hers, sure, but still...they just randomly had a photo of her in hand while at work in their field hospital? Come on Winry, think about this for a second.

Anyway, Kimblee was apparently able to bullshit Winry into being kindly disposed toward him, and so now she's quietly asking Edward why she needs to beware of him. Still afraid of telling Winry anything about the conspiracy, Edward starts to instead tell her about what he did at the end of the Ishval campaign. But then, he realizes that all he thinks he knows about the Ishval war, he heard from Hawkeye (erm...I'm pretty sure Edward and Alphonse knew about Kimblee's notorious mass murder independently). Maybe now that he's actually thinking of the Ishval genocide itself as an atrocity, he's thinking of that rather than Kimblee turning on his fellow officers, without realizing that the same logic should also apply to Mustang etc.

And then he remembers the part of that conversation where Hawkeye told him that he's clearly in love with Winry, and something really fucking weird happens. Usually when FMA does its superdeformed slapstick thing, I can at least tell what the show is trying to communicate even if I have stylistic objections to how it does so. But this just. I. What?

So, first, having seemingly forgotten about his complicated feelings for Winry until he was reminded of that conversation with Hawkeye, Edward starts trembling. Then, he is launched off of the cot, The Exorcist style, and is banged back and forth repeatedly between bed, ceiling, and eventually floorboards as if gravity is flipping back and forth.

Then his body seizes up, he shivers and sweats as if gripped by a fever, and starts reciting the periodic table of the elements to the bafflement of all those present, as well as mine.

Like...what is this supposed to represent? That he completely forgot about loving Winry until something happened to remind him of the person who told him he loves Winry, and he's now unable to process those feelings? If he's able to "forget" being in love until he happened to think of Hawkeye, then I'm preeeetty sure that's a sign that Winry isn't the one he's crushing on.

And also, representing emotional confusion as being thrown around the room by an invisible force while screaming in anguish is just extra in a way that not even this show generally is.

With the topic of Kimblee forgotten in the wake of whatever the hell that was supposed to be, Winry just goes back to attaching the new cold-resistant autolimbs. It's not as strong as steel, but as Hook demonstrated earlier it's still strong enough for most combat purposes. Speaking of Hook, he comes back in and asks why Edward hasn't returned to his cell. Wuh...why would he have to go back to his...? What is even going on anymore? Winry starts geeking out over Hook's own automail and asks Edward if he wants an arm like that himself.

Hook asks who Winry is and why she and Edward are so lovey dovey. Edward explains that she's his automail mechanic. Hook announces that he's disgusted, punches Edward to the floor, and stomps out of the room. Winry keeps geeking out over Hook's arm, not seeming to notice what just happened.

...

Did someone drop this episode's script into a blender before it went into production? What the fuck even is any of this? Why is anything happening? What does anything mean?

These have got to be six of the most baffling minutes worth of animation I've seen to date. The hell?

...

Well, nowhere to go but up from here I guess.

After Winry leaves the room to talk to the Briggs medic about their automail designs and which ones a civilian like her is allowed to have a look at, Kimblee tells Edward that its time to talk business. Hmm, I wonder what this is about now? He seems to want Scar for himself, so it probably isn't about hunting him.

Cut to Alphonse, still in that prison cell, which is now guarded by some of those soldiers that arrived with Winry. I guess Hook wanted to know why Edward was out of his cell because Kimblee ordered him to be kept in it, and Kimblee has been given special executive powers for this mission. And Armstrong is going along with this because...turning on Kimblee would be more dangerous to her position here than killing Raven in front of dozens of witnesses from all up and down the chain of command? I guess?

Yeah, no, this still doesn't make much sense.

The camera zooms in on these strange blank badges that Kimblee's soldiers have on their uniforms. Don't think we've seen that on an Amestrian uniform before. These guys are from some off-the-record Delta Force equivalent, maybe?

Anyway, Alphonse decides to play docile for now. Kimblee's being smart by keeping him and Edward separated, so he'll have to be smart back.

Down in the sublevel, Armstrong is sending Hook and some others to search for any survivors in the Sloth tunnel. I guess that explains why Hook was in such a bad mood earlier, if he was about to go on this possibly suicidal mission, though the expression of that mood still baffles me. I also was half expecting Armstrong herself to have led the rescue mission, which would explain why her Kimblee-balancing command has been so conspicuously absent around the base, but I guess not.

...

I don't know how much of this is the studio's fault and how much is the manga's, but this whole northern arc is really badly plotted compared to most of the rest of the show. Characters just doing things, insanely fortuitous coincidences one after the next, etc.

It's also the same KIND of bad plotting that I remember from each arc of JJBA after it got past its beginning. And the fact that it set in so quickly at a certain point makes me suspect publisher crunch.

...

Hook leads a a search and rescue team down through the extra hatch Edward created, and tells Armstrong to seal it up and forget about them if they aren't back in 24 hours. The initial recon team went down there a week ago, so it's not likely that any of them are still alive, but they're going anyway.

As he descends, Armstrong tells her other lieutenants that if anyone asks, the murder of General Raven was all on her, and none of them had any foreknowledge. It still would have been way smarter of her to kill him somewhere with fewer witnesses, but it's a nice gesture regardless.

Back at Central, we're continuing Mustang's conversation with the old flower lady delivering secret messages from General Armstrong. Armstrong says she knows he's moving against the powers that be, and that she is as well, but she'll need a strong offensive force to complement her own defense-drilled troops. As such, she wants him to get her in touch with General Grumman and see if she can count on East's large shock infantry force's support.

The messenger flower-seller also makes it clear that Armstrong just wants Grumman's forces, but doesn't care at all for Mustang and his special alchemist unit. The flower lady says that Armstrong trusts Mustang to not betray her to Central, and that she has total confidence in his honor and accountability, but that she also wants nothing to do with him beyond what's strictly necessary.

So it's not just a political rivalry, then. Olivier Armstrong has something personal against Mustang. I suspect her brother will be the one to eventually tell us the story.

Speaking of other Armstrong relatives, Mustang asks the old florist who she is and how she came to be a confidante and covert messenger of Olivier's. She removes her headscarf and shows her familiar shade and structure of hair by way of explanation.

That makes sense. I'm guessing she's either Alex and Olivier's mother, or their aunt. She leaves, and Mustang tries to decide what to do with this giant pile of flowers he just bought. Mustang, integrate them into the uniforms for your secret hooker army! It'll be funny!

Flash back north to under Fort Briggs. After an unspecified period of time exploring the Sloth tunnel, Hook and Co find a couple of survivors huddled in the darkness not far from the remains of their former companions. Their party only brought a couple days' worth of rations, but if these are the only two survivors out of a party of what looked like around ten then that's plenty. That said, the pair are in terrible condition psychologically, huddled in fear of "the shadow" returning.

They panic at the sight of their rescuers' lamps, and try to get them to douse the lights, claiming that the shadow attacks again whenever they try to make light. Curious. They seem to have been very close to Edward's new secret entrance when Hook found them, so I get the impression that they managed to avoid the Shadow after learning not to light their lamps, and made their way back here only to find the old entrance sealed and the new, well-hidden, one impossible to find in the darkness. That all adds up. And is pretty nightmarish.

As Hook and the others try to calm them down, baleful eyeballs open from the shadows on the wall further down the tunnel, and a dark mass starts flowing toward them. Just before the shoggoth thing can get close enough for them to notice it though, something seems to get its attention back the way it came from. It turns its many eyes back down the dark tunnel, narrows them in what appears to be suspicion, and then quickly withdraws. A more important intruder to deal with, perhaps? Or a brighter and more irritating source of light?

Back to Central again. Hawkeye is visiting the House of Wrath and Glory in the command center complex, delivering some documents to Queen Bradley to give to her husband whenever he shows up again; he hasn't been at the office, and he didn't even tell his new adjutant/hostage where he was going. Queen claims not to know where he is either. Hmm. Abandoning his hostage and vanishing...is Wrath putting his own plan into action, making some wild bid for freedom while Father's other minions are distracted by Mustang, Armstrong, and Elric actions? Maybe, but that doesn't feel right just yet. More likely he had to run off on a secret mission or something. Anyway, upon hearing that Wrath hasn't been home recently either, Hawkeye looks ecstatic, seeming to realize that this is her chance to try and escape.

Then a bunch of shadowy tentacles rush across the floor from around a corner behind her. Holy shit that thing can move fast what the fuck...or, well, maybe it's actually been an hour or so since it retreated from under Fort Briggs, it's not clear when things are happening in relation to each other, but even then it's got to be pretty damned quick. Hawkeye catches the motion out of the corner of her eye, but before she can turn around the shadow-shoggoth has changed form.

I probably should have figured this out sooner. Raven indicated that Sloth and Pride had been in communication very recently, so if I'd thought about it more carefully I would have probably realized that the shoggoth was related to Pride. And I was almost completely sure that Pride was Selim, though now there's no "almost."

The thing with the lanterns, in light of everything I've seen until now, makes it seem like Pride's telepresence ability doesn't work through light per se, but rather it needs light sources to navigate. His longranged communication/surveillance/attack form is a shadow, so it might need light in order to distinguish itself from its environment and find its way to places. So I guess he had one of his tendrils extended toward that lamppost and was using it to orient himself when he was having that conversation with Wrath? Something like that.

As for the larger implications of Pride's alternate form...

...

Given his shadow form's resemblance to Wog-Sothoth that I commented on in the previous episode, I wonder if Pride was created as a more successful second attempt at a synthetic Gate of Truth? That, or maybe he and Gluttony are meant to complete each other; Gluttony being the Gate, and Pride being the entity that resides behind the Gate, with Father's ritual being meant to unite them to form the core of his new universe? Both of those things seem possible. And, of course, if both of them are part of Father, made from fractions of his philosopher's stone "soul," that would make him the all-in-one God of this new world in an almost literal Christian Trinity state. If everyone can reach the Gates of Truth by looking inward, then...yeah, Gluttony's role would map to the Holy Ghost's pretty damned well, and Pride's childlike primary form definitely works for the Son.

The universal human connection to the divine in Father's world would be Gluttony. This is just getting more and more explicitly Lovecraftian by the ep.

Then again, Envy did say that Gluttony was a failed experiment, not just an incomplete one. So yeah, maybe Pride is just a total replacement for Gluttony's original intended role. And/or Father is planning to create yet another being to act as the "Gate" for Pride to inhabit. The new iteration of Gluttony that we recently saw him gestating looked pretty much the same as the old version, so I doubt it's something he can do just with a mid-regeneration upgrade.

...

Pride asks his "mother" who Hawkeye is and what she's here about. Upon receiving the explanation, he courteously allows the butler to remind him that it's past his bedtime, and leaves the room. Queen Bradley tells Hawkeye that her son really is the pride of her life. Hardy har har. You think you're clever, lady? She thinks she's clever. I think she ain't shit. When asked by Hawkeye which relative they adopted him from, she tells her that she isn't sure, as he's the son of some relative of her husband's who she never met.

Hawkeye gets it now.

So, if I'm understanding what just went unsaid correctly: Hawkeye thought that Wrath might have actually let her unguarded, and contrived a reason to go to his house and make sure he really wasn't anywhere in Central. Pride still had a piece of himself (or perhaps his "main" body. Does he actually turn into that shoggoth form, or does it just extend out of his usual form like...well, like a shadow? Eh, either way) in the House of Wrath and Glory, and realized that Hawkeye was planning an escape. He decided that preventing that took priority over defending the tunnel for now, and withdrew his full attention back to the house.

So he actually did withdraw his tendrils all the way from the northern tunnel back to Central in a matter of seconds. Damn he's fast. And big, if we're counting those shadow tentacles as part of his "mass."

Also, if he didn't notice that Hawkeye had been left unattended until just now when she knocked on the door, then that means Wrath didn't tell the other haemonculi that he was leaving Central. Okay, maybe he is actually making his escape attempt now!

Hawkeye leaves the house and makes her way hurriedly across the command center's courtyard, worrying to herself about what she's just learned. Maybe she's still planning to try and make a break for it. Maybe not. It doesn't matter though, because Pride catches up to her and, in the same echoey version of his voice that he had the lamppost conversation with Wrath in, informs her that he REALLY needs to teach his foster mother to keep her stupid fucking mouth shut. Since Hawkeye has obviously already figured out what he is, he decides he might as well make a formal introduction.

So that's where we get the title, then. I was expecting a loredump about Father's origins to go with what we learned about Hohenheim last time, but I guess not.

Hawkeye asks him what he means by "the first," and that's a question I have to echo. Wouldn't the Father be older? I guess he could mean "the first of the ones Father created," but in the lamppost scene Wrath made a remark about how it might be time for "the younger generation" to step up to the plate, seemingly talking about Pride. Maybe he was being ironic, making a little joke about how Pride is masquerading as his son when he is in fact older? Or maybe I'm just overthinking things, and by "first" he means "greatest" or "most highly placed in Father's hierarchy." Given the powers he's just demonstrated, and the fact that Wrath and Sloth both acknowledged him as a superior, those definitions would work even if he also happens to be the youngest.

If he actually is the oldest of the siblings though, it raises the question of why he's only being shown to the public in the guise of Selim Bradley now. And, if my theory about him and Gluttony is correct, that could mean Gluttony was a failed attempt at creating a suitable counterpart for Pride, and what he's doing with Amestris might be part of the second attempt.

Regardless, Pride mocks her for thinking she could bait more information out of him. Even though he was obviously fishing for that question when he needlessly introduced himself as "the first." What a prick. Wrath plays those kinds of mind games, but he always does it for a reason, getting information or winning people's fear or loyalty as part of his Fuhrer act. Pride is just being a twat for its own sake. To emphasize what a jerk he is, Pride wraps his shadow tentacles around her body and asks her if she feels like being a body donor for another haemunculus, even though he knows she must have already been made that "offer" and any others that Father thought her worthy of.

When she says no, he scratches her cheek, drawing blood. She doesn't panic though, and barely even flinches; just asks him if he's really about to kill off a valuable hostage over something so trivial. He chuckles, admires her bravery, and complements her on not having drawn her pistol, because if she had done that he really would have had to kill her for her audacity, consequences be damned.

Yeah, I really don't think he's the chronologically first now. He has the personality of a petulant little kid, and doesn't seem to have Sloth or Gluttony's disabilities that would have stopped him from maturing over the centuries.

Anyway, she'd better not try to escape, because he's watching her even if Wrath isn't. And he's a lot trickier to elude, considering that he seems able to be in multiple, very distant, places at the same time, and is very hard to spot unless he wants to be seen.

Back up north, Kimblee is having his private conversation with Edward. He relays three orders to him (allegedly from Wrath, but probably originating from Envy). First, help Kimblee find Scar. Edward isn't being ordered to assist in the battle, just in the tracking. Second, help find Dr. Marcoh, who may or may not be traveling with Scar at this point (Edward is surprised to hear that Marcoh is even alive, let alone free and in the probable company of Scar). Kimblee seems to expect Edward to already know who Marcoh is, though, so I guess Envy filled him in on how Lust first captured him. Did they also fill him in on the nonzero probability that Edward and Scar might likewise be in cahoots now (they aren't, exactly, but looking at this from Father's perspective it definitely seems possible)? Unclear. Third, after they finish hunting those fugitives, he wants Edward to participate in a bloody battle that will be taking place here at Fort Briggs.

Lol really Envy? Do you actually think that's going to work?

I wonder how much of this Kimblee is creatively reinterpreting. We know he's prone to reckless, impractical stunts, so "try to rope Edward into actually helping rather than just staying out of the way of this shit even though I probably don't need him, just to see if I can" would fit.

Edward tells him fuck no. Kimblee tries to convince Edward, hoping that maybe he's finally found the one other person in the world besides himself who thinks that "soldiers kill people, so if you're a soldier you should have no hesitation about killing absolutely anyone for absolutely any reason" makes sense. No dice. Just give it up Kimblee, that person doesn't exist.

Edward asks Kimblee if he knows what his masters are planning to do. Kimblee doesn't appear to know the specifics, but he does know enough of the general concept to make it clear that telling him more isn't going to help. Kimblee believes that the haemunculi are a superior form of life to humanity. As such, he believes that if they will the extinction of some or all humans, then their will be done. In fact, if he is able to play a key role in ensuring their victory, then that will necessarily elevate him to a greater level of importance than any other human in history (he notably does NOT seem to be expecting an immortal haemunculus body of his own as a reward). Edward tells him that that doesn't make any damned sense. Kimblee replies that if his side wins, then that will have meant that his logic made more sense than Edward's. That doesn't make sense either, but there's clearly no point in trying to talk to this guy.

That isn't the end of the conversation though, as Kimblee still has one more tactic besides appeals to serial killer moon logic and threatening Winry.

Refuse to cooperate, and Winry dies. Cooperate, and Kimblee will give him one of his protostones, which may or may not have enough power in it to restore Alphonse (notably, it's the old one he used in Ishval, not the fresh one that Envy just gave him) but is certainly worth a shot.

Edward tells Kimblee that he'll need to talk to his brother and Winry before he makes any decisions. Kimblee reluctantly permits this, but accompanies Edward to the cellbloc (where Winry is now being held alongside Alphonse. General Armstrong is just quietly allowing this for now, for some reason, I guess) to make sure he doesn't tell Winry too much.

So, they go there. Edward tells Winry that she is now a hostage, and that he's being forced to cooperate in some bloody military work in exchange for her continued survival. Winry realizes now why Edward didn't want her following him and Alphonse up here, and curses herself for her own blithe naivete.

Edward also tells Alphonse about the offer Kimblee made him with regards to the stone. Alphonse starts to protest about the implications of using a philosopher's stone, but Edward shuts him up before he can say too much in front of Winry. He then tells Alphonse that he's planning to go through with it.

Alphonse looks at him in bafflement for a while, and then tells him to "do what you want to do. I won't judge you."

Edward turns back to Kimblee, with Winry trying not to cry at what she's done and Alphonse staring into space, and shakily tells him that he'll do it. Also, he asks for permission to let Alphonse come along on the hunt for Scar. He wants to go after Scar before starting on the trail of Dr. Marcoh (if the two are in fact not in each other's company), because Scar killed Winry's parents and he'd like to at least do something for Winry to help make up for how much this is hurting her. And, due to Alphonse's synthetic body, he's better able to survive Scar's attacks than a flesh-and-blood human. I'm not sure how true that actually is, but Al did manage to tank at least one direct hit from him back in East City, which is more than an organic body could do.

Kimblee seems to be earnestly taking this into consideration. Oh my god what a moron.

The instant Kimblee and his men have led Edward out of the room, Alphonse and Winry start talking.

Al fills Winry in on why using a philosopher's stone might be an even bigger moral transgression than mass murder, and that he and Edward already have a pretty good working theory on how they can restore Al's body once they've learned some medical alkahestry from Scar's other companion.

Winry decides that she's done sitting around waiting and hoping for the brothers to get themselves out of one bad spot or another, and that she's going to have to come up with a way to help with this.

The next morning, the Scar-hunting expedition is on. Despite his authority, it seems that Kimblee lacks sufficient resources to hunt Scar with just the handful of reinforcements from Central who brought Winry up, so he's needing to requisition forces from Fort Briggs as well. And, he doesn't have enough clout (or is afraid of pushing Armstrong that far) to keep Winry detained for more than a few hours without explanation. Thus, when he meets Edward and Alphonse outside by the fleet of vehicles that are about to set out, Miles and Hook are both present as well. And, Winry is able to join them as well, explaining that she isn't sure how Edward's going to handle his new cold-resistant automail what with diving straight into prolonged low-temp field operations the day after getting it, and that it's standard procedure for an automail mechanic to come along to the advance base in such cases.

Based on the look Miles is giving Kimblee when he hesitates, Winry is correct about this being SOP for automail-using soldiers. And Kimblee can't exactly say why he doesn't want to allow this.

Well, GG Kimblee. Unless you have some massive ace up your sleeve, on the level of one of those elite soldiers being Envy and the other being post-liposuction Gluttony mk II, it's GG right here.

Armstrong watches the fleet depart from the Fort Briggs scaffolding. It ends on the Elrics and Winry having a forboding conversation about the perils ahead while ominous music plays, but...I'm not buying it. Edward has Kimblee by the balls, pure and simple. Kimblee is already dead, he's just too stupid to have noticed yet. End episode.


The first half of this episode is a strong contender for worst FMA:B episode so far. It was pure nonsense. The second half was significantly better, but the Briggs arc as a whole with its disappointingly typical shonen-y railroading and deus ex machinas is really just starting to wear my patience. I love General Armstrong and most of her underlings, but the plotting they've been co-occurring with ranges from "subpar for FMA" to "just plain bad," with a few good exceptions.

The stuff with Mustang and the older Armstrong woman was good, and the Pride and Hawkeye scenes were easily the highlight of the episode (no wonder they got title rights, despite being a small percentage of the runtime). As for Kimblee's attempts at whatever the hell he thought he was trying to do toward the end there, well...on one hand, it's consistent with his character. Kimblee established back in the train battle that he's foolhardy to the point of self-destruction and - despite having real smarts at least in some areas, with his tracking skills etc - has no ability to understand his own limitations. He was a loose cannon to begin with, as the act that led to his arrest demonstrates, and years of incarceration and obsession seem to have only made him worse.

My main criticism of Kimblee (aside from how it seemed like he was being used as a sin-eater for the other war criminals) is still that he just isn't a worthy opponent. For all his power and skills, his weaknesses are such that he's probably closer to Father Cornello in terms of threat level than he is to the likes of Scar or Yao, let alone the haemunculi. Which is both anticlimactic at this late stage of the story with attempts at serious tension and menace being made, and is making me look more and more slant-eyed at Envy's decision to trust this clown with anything important. Envy's choice to entrust Kimblee with things is likely to be THE moment that Father's ultimate defeat stems from.

I don't think Kimblee is a bad villain, or a bad character. Rather, he's a bad fit for a "raising the stakes" part of the story. This is a baddy who Edward and Alphonse should have mounted on their wall sometime in the first 20 episodes.

So...I don't know how to rate this episode. There were a lot of only vaguely connected parts in it. Some of those parts were great. Some of them were extremely bad. Others just felt misplaced.