Fate/Zero S2E2: "Golden Shine"
Gilgamesh-focused title. He's literally flying a throne-spaceship over the city like a cheesy Dr. Who villain right now, so that's only natural. Let's find out what bullshit happens next.
Arturia and Alexander are starting to get tired hacking relentlessly at cephalo-Gilles. He seems to have stopped fighting back for the most part, and is just trying to race to shore so he can start refilling his mana bar with tasty civilians. It being able to keep regenerating without a source of mana feels like BS to me, but whatever. Waver is still huddled in the back of Alexander's chariot asking what they should do now, as if the show is going out of its way to remind me that Diarmuid is still standing around on the shore with his thumb in his ass waiting for someone to give him a lift.
Gray, meanwhile, is deep in thought, smoking a cigarette to help focus as he struggles to come up with a plan. A panning shot reveals that he's perched on the prow of a boat charging boldly into the fog.
I guess that's also where he sniped Uwu from. I wonder who's driving it, though? Maybe Maiya? I guess he could also have enchanted it to steer on its own. Anyway, if he's heading straight into the fog like this then he may be planning to use another of his irreplaceable anti-magic bullets on the kraken. Not sure if that'll work, but it may be worth a try.
In the clouds overhead, Gilgamesh and the Berserker continue their stupid CGI flight simulator duel with no change in the status quo. I swear, this is like the comedy C-plot to the Toto and Kraken battles.
Speaking of Toto, Daisy isn't doing all that well against him. He's digging so deep into those Matou crest-worms' power that its literally making his skin crack open and his blood flow, but spamming wasp demons just isn't an effective strategy against Toto. The latter just keeps a shield spell active that deletes the wasps from existence like a magic bugzapper as soon as they get close to him, and unlike Daisy he doesn't seem to be expending much effort on this. Fortunately for Daisy, we see Kirei creeping up on the duel through the shadows. Looks like he's planning to cheap-shot Toto while Daisy has his full attention.
It's...not exactly the worst thing a person could do, in Kirei's situation.
Back in the bay, the Kraken!Gilles gets annoyed enough at Arturia's attacks to grab her while she and Alexander have their guard down. Fortunately, Alexander is there to swoop down and repay his debt from a few minutes ago, so that's cool I guess. Also, the music for the kraken fight parts of this sequence is really nice.
Cut briefly to the shore, where Diarmuid is indeed standing around with his thumb in his ass. Next to him, Iri is just wishing there was a way to fix Arturia's right hand so she could use her mystery superattack. No sign of Mrs. Snape around here, unfortunately. Wish I could remember her actual name. Sona, I think? Sonya? Sonya for now.
Roll OP. Song is growing on me a bit, but I still prefer the first one, and the visuals remain less interesting aside from the flashy shadow effects. Afterward, re-open on the river battle, with Alexander telling Arturia that they should retreat to the shore for now and plan a new tactic. Arturia is reluctant to let the kraken make uninterrupted progress toward the city, but she relents and heads back with him. They're both much faster than the kraken at least, so they reach the promenade where Diarmuid and Iri are standing before the kraken can get to anyone. There, Alexander tells the others that he has a way of stalling Gilles for a little while to buy them time to come up with a permanent solution. He...
...
Oh for fuck's sake.
Did Alexander seriously just now remember that he had that ability?
And...okay, hold on...this...
I think I'll just summarize this next bit before breaking it down, because there's a lot to take issue with.
Alexander says that he can use his pocket-dimension battlefield to contain OctoGilles. It's not meant to suck in something that large though, so it'll likely only last a few minutes before collapsing and releasing its occupants back into realspace. In the meantime, the others will have to come up with something that can kill OctoGilles. Alexander also tells Waver to stay sharp, look out for betrayals, and mentally summon him if he needs help.
Cut briefly to OctoGilles reaching the bridge and starting to grab at civilians with his tentacles.
Cut slightly less briefly to Gilgamesh and Berserker, who are still doing inconsequential nonsense at each other up in the clouds. Apparently Gilgamesh has some guided missiles in his treasury. Or else, he can turn the swords and spears he shoots out of there into smart weapons.
Whatever, not important.
Alexander charges off and reaches OctoGilles just before he can stuff anyone else in his mouth. Reality warps around them, and he sucks himself, his chariot, and Octogilles into the reality marble.
Waver, Iri, Arturia, and Diarmuid try to decide how to prepare for the reemergance, when Iri gets a cell phone call. She seems to...not know how it works. Which calls into question her decision to carry one.
Oooooh wait, no, right. Her fingers are paralyzed due to homunculus decay syndrome. She's probably pretending to not know how the phone works to hide this fact from the people who she'll probably have to go back to fighting shortly. Good save, Iri. A bright spot in this otherwise very frustrating sequence.
Waver grabs the phone and answers for her. It's Gray, and it turns out that he actually wanted to talk to "Rider's Master" as well as his wife anyway, so it works out. He asks Waver if his Servant can control where the contents of his reality bubble will emerge again, and is told that he can control that to within 100 meters or so. Gray says that that's good enough, and that he'll launch a signal flare to show Waver where he should have Alexander aim for.
Gray then says that Arturia has an ability that can one-shot OctoGilles if she gets a clear shot at him, but she'll need both hands to do it. That is all. He then hangs up.
The others all ask Arturia if that last part is true. Reluctantly, she admits that it is. In response to that, Diarmuid says that he'll have to do what he'll have to do, then. Arturia tries to convince him he doesn't have to, but he's adamant that he really does, in fact, have to. So, Diarmuid makes a final speech about how slaying evil and defending the innocent is what he and Arturia both aspired to do throughout their mortal lives, so they really should put that ahead of their Grail War interests in undeath too. Arturia says that losing the use of her hand was worth it to have made a friend like Diarmuid.
Dang. She and Iri never even got to welcome Diarmuid to Castle Anthrax. You can hear how much she was wanting to in her voice.
Diarmuid says goodbye, and breaks his spear in half, which I guess kills him or something. IDK, that didn't happen to Gilles when they broke HIS Noble Phantasm, but I guess Diarmuid could have just as easily stabbed himself or something with the same result so whatever.
Or...wait, no. That doesn't kill Diarmuid. Breaking the gae buidhe just undoes its magical effects, including the permanent wound it left on Arturia's hand. Diarmuid is still here, and he still has the armor-piercing gae dearg to fight with.
Arturia can use her super attack now. Yay.
...
Okay. Most of these problems COULD be from something being lost in adaptation, or to the presumption of the audience knowing more about the metaphysics from older Moontype works. That's possible. But I have a feeling that that's not it.
So, in order of occurrence.
1. Alexander's reality marble only being used now is a real headscratcher. Even if he was reluctant to use it up before Uwu's death, as soon as he died it's an obvious choice. Gilles will quickly run out of mana now that he's Masterless. If they all go into the bubble with him and keep hacking and slashing at him for as many minutes as it lasts, without him being able to get more mana, would that really NOT do the trick? Especially considering that when it DOES rupture, Alexander can make sure that it releases them all back out in the middle of the bay again, so even if he still has any juice left Gilles will have to start his shore approach all over again?
2. I already complained about them forgetting the very good plan that Arturia came up with at the end of last season, with her distracting Gilles while Alexander airdrops Diarmuid into the kraken's open wounds. That's all been said already. But now we're really compounding the stupidity by having Diarmuid break that spear.
Like, think about this. They're fighting an enemy with a powerful healing factor. They have a guy on their team whose signature weapon is an anti-healing spear.
Maybe the kraken's healing factor can overwhelm even the gae buidhe's effects. That would be even more bullshit than everything else about the kraken, but even IF it were the case, isn't it something someone should have at least mentioned as a possibility before it gets shot down? Maybe something they could have tried first before going for this more costly and complicated other plan?
3. Why does Arturia need Gray to remind everyone about her superattack?
Remember, in this story we're assassinating Arturia's character by making her a naive, overly self sacrificing do-gooder. I could buy her not volunteering this information due to wanting Diarmuid's spear in her gaping holes, if she were the type to put her personal desires over saving lives and vanquishing evil. To assassinate Arturia's character that way, we would have to have not assassinated her character in the opposite way. This is a problem.
Taking the broader view of this, it also kind of fits the pattern doesn't it? Arturia's plan from before gets completely forgotten about in favor of Alexander and Gray's. Arturia isn't able to use her effective weapon until prompted by Gray, and then Diarmuid has to proactively enable it as well. This fight DID give Arturia a cool moment when she cut Alexander's chariot loose from the tentacles, but that's overshadowed by the story ONCE AGAIN making her weak and ineffective except when she's being a tool for men.
4. The problems of #3 are called into question by EVEN BIGGER PROBLEMS when it turns out that Diarmuid isn't actually sacrificing his unlife to heal her, but just one of his spears. WHY would she be so reluctant to tell him about this power of hers, then, if letting her recover it DOESN'T do anything that bad to Diarmuid and she can still ride the gae eirithe afterward? And, why is the show even acting so dramatic about this, if Diarmuid's only sacrifice in this scene is "one of my two cool weapons?" Why the emotional framing and the long, lingering apologies that sound more like goodbyes? Is it just to psych the audience out? Psyching out the audience doesn't work if the characters need to break scene in order to do it. Then it's just shit writing.
So, long and short of it, this scene is a mess. It was a mess to begin with, sure, but until now it was the cool, fun kind of mess, and now it isn't. It feels like the author was determined to have a certain outcome happen, but didn't do much work at all thinking about what would force the characters to reach that outcome. Joss Whedon's low-key sexism showing itself again in those oversights is just an added irritation.
...
Intercut with this headache of a fight scene is a fortunately more engaging (but unfortunately shorter) continuation of the Toto/Daisy fight. Daisy keeps shooting his wasps at Toto (seemingly the only offensive power he has, as an untrained wizard using brute force crest worm implants) until he finally collapses, bleeding from the everything. Toto smugly tells him that this will be a mercykill, and casts fireball.
It doesn't look particularly merciful, but that might be due to some sort of crest worm-induced toughness rather than any intention of Toto's. Or not. Hard to say.
Cursing Toto, Darth, and all other wizards like them, Daisy is engulfed by the flames and knocked backward off the railing of the rooftop they're on, tumbling to the street below. Doubt he survived that. Which means Berserker isn't long for the world either, unless they randomly have some infinite mana bullshit like Gilles does.
However, Daisy's death seems to have bought Kirei enough time to act. We see him closing the distance, enchanted daggers in hand. It looks like Toto will only be outliving Daisy by a few minutes at most.
Halfway point, and over 2K words. Splitting here.
