Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood S2E7: “The Northern Wall of Briggs”

You know, thanks to the OP's visuals, I'd been sure that this episode's title referred to an actual, literal wall that fortified the Amestrian border. We see the soldiers, including the general who Armstrong is probably related to, standing on this gigantic armored wall that runs along the Briggs Mountains.

But, I guess that's the nickname of the officer rather than the fortress. Alright then!

We start out considerably southwest of there, though, with Kimblee and his squad investigating the most likely place along the mountainside tracks for Scar and Dr. Marcoh to have jumped off that train. As he looks out over the valley below and thinks, Kimblee is approached by some returning scouts. One claims that a local fisherman told him that a rowboat went missing around the right timeframe. Another heard about two unidentified men moving past the village further west. Kimblee, for his own part, is curious about an old logging road that heads north, supposedly abandoned due to frequent avalanches.

As he muses on the possibilities, we have this lovely high angled view of the western mountains and forests, with serene music to accompany it. As if to throw the banal, bureaucratic evil of Amestris and the scrabbling, greedy evil of its hidden masters into relief. And perhaps, going back to "Interlude Party," point out how little humans and human nations matter, given the sheer scope of the lands they claim as "theirs."

It's not just an ironic and pessimistic thing though, I don't think. Looking at the mountain ranges, Father and his spawn don't look any bigger or more in control themselves. And, fittingly, these mountains are allowing their foes to elude them.

Kimblee decides to have a look at that old logging trail, and follows it to the first avalanche site. It's pretty clear why the trail was abandoned, as the pile of rocks covering it and the nearby patch of forest is easily large enough to have crushed a whole fleet of logging trucks when it fell, and it blocks off the entire road an then some. However, Kimblee notices something off. The marks left by rainwater accumulating around the rocks doesn't align with where the rocks actually are.

He investigates the dirt and pebbles, and a predatory grin comes over him as he finds what he's looking for. A duo with Scar and Dr. Marcoh's capabilities, he explains, could easily blast these rockpiles out of their way and then leave new ones behind them. And, sure enough, some of these rocks have the gridlike texture left by a hasty transmutation. He orders his men to head north.

Kimblee might be unstable and self-defeatingly reckless, but he's clearly not stupid.

Title card. Then Edward and Alphonse excitedly hurry out of a train station somewhere in the northern province to see their first really serious snow covering. Apparently, they only ever get a little bit of it in Resembool and Central.

I guess most of Amestris is at a warmer latitude than I thought. Though, given the great eastern desert that probably should have been obvious.

Edward immediately slips and falls on his ass, but other than that their first experience of North City is positive. It reminds them of one winter in their childhoods when the Resembool area got an unusually heavy blizzard, leaving it looking temporarily like this. In particular, they both remember that snowman that Edward transmuted, to the delight of the other local children.

Edward's artistic leanings don't seem to evolved much at all in the last 7-8 years.

This reminiscing goes on a bit too long and has some unduly sappy music playing over it, in a manner that makes me think they were just trying to fill time by dragging this very minor moment out and trying to make us think that it's emotional or something to justify it. The brothers then decide to wander around and explore the city a bit until its time to board their next train for Briggs.

Meanwhile, in the command center of that same city, Kimblee is receiving word that two suspicious individuals were seen sneaking aboard a cargo train headed further north, toward Briggs. So, he and the Elrics are both catching up to the target at around the same time. The soldiers ask if they should order the train to stop, but Kimblee figures that given Scar and Marcoh's proven history of leaping off of trains they should avoid giving them reason to suspect that this one's been compromised. Instead, they'll be overtaking it in a high speed military train of their own, and Kimblee alone will be taking point.

On one hand, he doesn't need anyone to see him using his protostones and asking questions. On the other, he's being juuuuust a tad overconfident here. However much power the protostone gives him, it's not going to make him any faster than he is without it, and speed is Scar's entire thing.

Cut to the freight train speeding across the wintery forest. Scar and Dr. Marcoh are stowed away in a half-empty boxcar, huddled together for warmth. Scar thinks he hears something amiss in the rumbling of the wheels over the tracks, and gets up to look out the door amid rapidly intensifying music. He sees nothing, and turns back around, but then seems to notice or remember something and does a double take. Looking outside again, he now spots Kimblee's train catching up to them on the parallel tracks, with the Amestrian lion-gryphon-thing proudly displayed on its armored nose. Cut to Kimblee instructing the civilian conductor to match the military train's speed and then leaping over.

Erm...Kimb? I'm not particularly invested in your continued presence in the show, but I still feel like I have to point out that this is not how you confront someone like Scar. You're counting on him to have not noticed the military train in order for you to sneak up (and even if he didn't, there's no guarantee that you'll spot him before the reverse). You're going to be engaging him in an enclosed environment that nullifies your range advantage, and where he has doors and shutters to hide behind and use his legendary speed in a surprise attack. And, since this is a speeding train, any attempts to blow up his cover from close range runs the risk of derailing or destroying the car and killing you as well.

I mean. I assume Kimblee is also fast. But is he Scar fast? If so, I feel like someone should have commented on this. Like, during Scar's attack in "Rain of Sorrows," Mustang or Hawkeye could have said "holy crap this guy's as fast as Kimblee!" As it is, the only exceptional thing that's been established about Kimblee in terms of abilities is that he's good at tracking and he has protostone, neither of which are likely to be much help here.

So, either Kimblee's been weirdly downplayed by the other characters until now, or this is just the reckless part of "smart, but reckless."

After jumping over, Kimblee then signals for his own ride to slow down and let the freight train speed on ahead, cutting himself off from any quick backup or escape. Kimblee what you doing? I get that you don't want anyone to see an obvious use of protostone, but this seems really excessive given the poor visibility that the soldiers would already have of this fight.

Kimblee happens on the cloaked and hooded Dr. Marcoh in one of the cars. Scar either didn't come back to him after spotting Kimblee's train, or he's using him as bait and is waiting to jump out. Kimblee orders Marcoh to surrender, and when he makes no attempt to flee he walks up and spins him around to..oh LOL.

I totally forgot about that guy. Figured Scar and May had just left him behind in Central or something. Granted, this could actually be Dr. Marcoh, if May regenerated his face to disguise him as Yoki, but looking at his body language and overall body shape I don't think so. So, Scar's been running around leading the Amestrians on a chase with Yoki this whole time. Presumably, the other mysterious hooded figure who we saw May traveling with was the real Dr. Marcoh.

And, just as I predicted, while Kimblee is staring at Yoki in confusion Scar comes swinging back in through the boxcar's side entrance and just barely misses his chance to end the fight before it begins as Kimblee jumps out of the way. Man, would that have been hilariously anticlimactic.

As they face each other, the moon comes out from behind the clouds and shines in through the door Scar just bursted in through, and the two men recognize each other. Scar remembers the man who maimed him and killed his entire family. Kimblee remembers a Tuesday. Cue Yoki fleeing to a different car as Scar blows this one's box cover to smithereens in a wild rage. But, I guess Kimblee is pretty speedy after all, because he managed to kneel down and pull off some sort of repulsion effect that kept the shrapnel away. Scar confirms his identity. Kimblee confirms his, asking if that was his family who he killed from that walltop in the city of Kanda.

So, that Ishvalan city has a name. Kanda. Sort of like Kandahar? Yeah, say what she might about the Ainu, I'm having trouble believing that Arakawa wasn't channeling a lot of Afghanistan into the Ishvalans.

When Kimblee mentions Brothar specifically ("the one who looked like you, but with glasses"), Scar makes the first strike. To Kimblee's credit he does about as good a job of evading Scar's attacks as Armstrong did. But, unlike Armstrong, he's a dumbass who distanced himself from his backup, so when Scar starts tiring him out he gets worried. Kimblee, did I not fucking tell you this would happen? I can hear Envy facepalming all the way from Central. Kimblee attributes Scar's gaining the upper hand to himself being out of shape after these last couple of years in prison. Eh, maybe. He backs away from Scar onto some open traincar platforms and waits for him to charge, but Scar knows better than to run down an open, narrow corridor toward an area-of-effect specialist. Instead, he just throws a piece of metal debris at Kimblee and impales him right through the fucking stomach to the boxcar behind him.

Scar advances toward the gasping, writhing, and bleeding tactical supergenius, as the latter bemoans his failure to kill the same man twice over. Kimblee's only choice to avoid disintegration is to sever the link to the aft cars and leave Scar and Yoki behind while the front part of the train zooms on with himself pinned to the end like a grotesque hull ornament, bleeding and exposed to the frigid winter night.

Enjoy the ride to Briggs. Idiot.

Eventually, the conductors notice that they've lost their backmost cars. That military officer ordered them not to stop, but that cargo is their liability and they doubt he's going to stick his neck out for them that far, so they stop. Circling around the train, they find the very moron in question stapled to the new end of the train like a butterfly to a board, babbling a bunch of shit that barely makes sense about the nearness of death and the beauty of his own mortality. He also orders them to get the train moving again, because thanks to his galaxybrained idea of having his own men fall back that's literally his only chance of getting medical attention before he dies a slow, horrible death of hypothermia and blood loss.

Meanwhile, the citizens of Central look up in alarm at the anguished sound of a haemonculus slamming her head against a desk over and over again while screaming incoherently.

The next morning, along a different approach vector, May Chang and the real Dr. Marcoh are traveling by foot. We finally get a look at the aftereffects of what Scar and May did to his face, and...well, it's not only bad, but it also doesn't do a particularly good job of hiding his identity (at least from anyone who's seen him in person before).

May says she wishes she could make him heal faster than she already is, and he tells her that she's done enough for him. His new face suits him better than the previous one. I...can't really bring myself to disagree with that assessment. As they talk, they cross a hill and see the Briggs Mountains rising before them in the morning sunlight. The northern boundary of Amestris, with hostile Drachma beyond. I guess this is where Scar hid Brothar's research, but I'm not at all sure why. It must have been pretty far out of his way, no?

Meanwhile in Rush Valley, Winry tries to call the Elrics and is told they headed up to north on some mission or another. The guy she's apprenticing under, who is apparently an occasional transvestite, tells her - appropos of nothing - that they're going to die. What a pleasant work environment.

Cue the Elrics riding a horsecart from the town of Briggs itself to the border fortress' perimeter. Unfortunately, civilian traffic isn't allowed past this point, and military supply and personnel convoys only come through at specific intervals, so they'll have to take it on foot from here. And also be ready to prove that they're State Alchemists from a good distance away, or else they'll likely be shot on sight. Before leaving, their driver asks Alphonse if his suit is automail, and when he's told that it isn't he tells them that that's lucky, because you don't want to bring automail out here. He drives away before Edward (whose limbs he must not have had a chance to see) can ask what that's supposed to mean.

It couldn't just be the temperature he's warning them about. Surely, Edward would have picked up on any hazards of that sort by now?

In any case, they start up the foothill toward the fortress. Do they have a reason to go here specifically aside from Armstrong's request to deliver that letter? I feel like something might have been lost in translation, like them having picked up a detail about Scar and May being bound for the area around the border fort specifically. A surprise blizzard offers the mixed blessing of obscuring them from the sentinels' view and also blowing directly against them as they struggle to ascend.

Just as they're recounting what Izumi told them about the time she spent here doing survivalism as part of her own training and wondering if there are any bears around, they hear something massive approaching from behind. They turn around, ready for battle, but discover that the something is actually a someone. A very big and unfriendly someone in an Amestrian uniform with a combination chainsaw/autocannon grafted to one arm.

Well, this is actually pretty fortunate I think. Meeting a guard at close quarters like this means that they'll have a chance to explain themselves before getting shot at.

Unfortunately, Edward does the dumbest thing possible and refuses to surrender and be taken into custody. Thus convincing the soldier that they're either Drachman agents, or something just as bad. Cue totally unnecessary fight scene. I guess Kimblee isn't the only one who's fumbling his INT checks in this episode.

And, something - either just the extreme cold, or a more exotic effect - causes Edward's automail arm to slow down, allowing the soldier to seize it in a pair of clawlike extensions of his arm blade and hold it in place while the diamond saw gets to work. So, this guy's own automail is purpose built for catching and tearing apart enemy melee weapons. Clever design. Edward tries to transmute the armclaw (which the soldier identifies as an "M1913-A Crocodile." Surprised Edward doesn't know about this, if it's a standard design. He seems like the type to geek out over the latest weaponry), but it doesn't work. It seems to be made from an unusual alloy, specifically to thwart alchemists who are expecting steel. Again, clever. Alphonse is forced to wedge his own helmet in there to let Edward get his arm out before its sawed in half.

Also, the music for this pointless fight is way too dramatic. I think this might actually be the same theme that played for some of the haemonculus battles, lol.

They manage to start overwhelming the soldier, but by then they've been surrounded by a squad of riflemen who must have been following just behind him. Then, the blizzard dies down, and they realize that they've already marched right up to the fortress walls. No wonder they got jumped!

The woman who we know to be the "Northern Wall of Briggs" calls down from a scaffold and demands their surrender. When the brothers finally do so, she addresses their attacker as an unfortunately named "Captain Buccaneer," and he salutes her in turn as General Armstrong. Figured as much.

Apparently, Edward has already heard of an officer named Olivier Armstrong, and knows that she was the Major's older sister. He hadn't realized that she was quite as high ranking, or that she was stationed out here. Also, she doesn't look very much like him aside from the hair color. Maybe they're only half-siblings, or something.

Edward identifies himself as the Fullmetal Alchemist, and claims to be here on behalf of the younger Armstrong. Olivier is skeptical that a state alchemist on legitimate business would have come here unannounced and on foot, and tells her men to search them and keep them under guard until she can confirm their identities. Reasonable enough.

When a soldier finds her brother's letter and delivers it to her, though, she rips it apart and throws it away into the wind without even opening it. Even after recognizing his seal and his handwriting on the outside (wait, it says "Dear Sister" on it? How could the brothers have not noticed that? Fucking hell...). That's much less reasonable.

She orders them to be brought inside, and warns them that this godforsaken fortress is no place for the weak. I have a feeling that the base's internal culture has suffered from the insufficiently frequent rotations. These guys are coming across as almost cult-y. Also, unlike some of her troops, she seems unfazed by Alphonse obviously being an empty suit now that his helmet is off. Considering the most likely way for her to have become accustomed to the idea of golems like him existing, that's a very bad sign.

Edward does like the design of the fortress itself though, once the snow clears a little more and he gets a good view of it before being brought inside. I am again, though, surprised that he didn't already know about this fortress. It seems like a fairly important one.

Roll credits. The stinger shows Dr. Marcoh and May finding their way to the old broken-down cabin indicated on the map Scar gave them, just a little ways outside of the fortress' restricted zone. Digging up the floor, they find the hidden research notes.

I suppose we'll find out more about that alchemy/alkahestry fusion research, including the impressive-sounding universal constructor array that he never quite finished, in the coming episodes.


This one was...okay? It still seems like we're just getting the characters to the next actual plot point without much of interest or consequence happening in the meantime, at least until the last couple of minutes, and there were enough pointlessly drawn out scenes to make it feel filler-y. They should have condensed this down to fit more plot stuff into the episode instead of puffing it up to fill one. Edward also seems unusually daft in this episode, about things that he normally isn't.

Speaking of daft though, man was I right about Kimblee not seeming up to the task being set for him. Why did Envy think he was qualified for this job? To be fair, his recklessness might have gotten worse during his time in jail, and he did do some excellent work when it came to finding Scar, but...god, that train scene was just plain embarrassing for Sin Inc, and - while I know others disagree - I just don't find Kimblee charismatic enough to enjoy watching him fail. The haemonculi set a very high bar when it comes to villainy, and this guy just doesn't measure up.

Anyway, it's not a bad episode, but it's not really a good one either. Hopefully things will actually start happening again now that destinations have been reached.