Episode 45, "The Promised Day"
*****SPOILERS*****
Synopsis: Greed attacks Fuhrer King Bradley/Wrath in his home, but Bradley proves too formidable, and he escapes. At the Armstrong estate, Olivier suggests that her father hand over the Armstrong property to her, but he has plans to give it to Alex. Alex arrives and Olivier suggests a duel for the right to inherit the estate. Their father, mother, and younger sister go off to take a vacation in Xing as they fight. Olivier comes out on top, ejecting Alex from the home. In Youswell, Mei encounters several townsfolk willing to help her with food and board before her trip to Xing, and touched by their generosity, plus a few words from Envy, Mei runs off to Central instead, to Envy's delight. Edward finds the safehouse Mustang and them had used, expecting to find Alphonse. Instead, Ling arrives, informing Edward that Father is waiting for "the promised day" to active the nationwide alchemy array. Greed soon takes control of his body again and Edward agrees to become his henchman, which Greed gladly accepts. In the north, Izumi gets captured by Briggs troops in order to pass along a message from Alphonse and Hohenheim. The message is passed through Roy's group as well, and everyone prepares for "the promised day".
Comments:
My colleague and I have a disagreement about which Greed is superior, the original spikey-haired fellow with the pimp coat or Greedling. Now, essentially, Greed is Greed, there's no real difference. Especially now that he's regained some of his memories. Either way, they're the same greedy as hell homunculi with carbon hardening power. However, the new one is also Ling, has Ling within him as a secondary force and has his looks. My preference is for the former, just enjoying Greed more during the Dublith arc, with his certain style and attitude. My colleague, however, prefers Greedling. I think my problem with Greedling is that he's also Ling. And while Greed is my favorite character, Ling is by far my least favorite.
This episode starts off with a bang with Greed attacking Wrath in his home, with Pride there as well (though with his cover as Selim Bradley). Greedling seems to retain some valuable memories from the previous Greed and Ling regarding Bradley's fighting skills, and uses it to avoid being disabled via sword in his neck. Obviously, he doesn't think he can quite handle Wrath on his own, so he leaves, but the quick skirmish is pretty impressive, regardless. It seemed like they used a lot of the budget on that particular scene, since parts of the rest of the episode don't look nearly as good, but at least they're spending their money wisely.
Another budget-eating scene for sure was the battle between Olivier and Alex. We didn't get to see much of this in the manga, but here we got a few more glimpses. I'm assuming that Alex didn't use any alchemy, because if he had, Olivier might not have won, but it's possible that he just didn't get a chance to. Still, knowing Alex, he would hold back out of deference to a relative. Olivier, on the other hand, looks like she's nearly killing him. Even if it's an act to get their parents out of the country and secure a base for her operations, she was taking the fight seriously. Is it possible not to love this character? One thing Brotherhood and the manga has over the original series is Olivier Armstrong. I love that they used the music from when Roy defeated Lust in this scene.
What the hell was the point of having the entire town of Youswell approach Mei at the same time? That's just obnoxious. Is this supposed to make up for the lack of Youswell earlier on? Just like when Yoki did his flashback, this is too little, too late. This was the biggest flaw with the episode. I already disliked in the manga that they kept Mei and Envy around when they had a perfect exit, but shoving in the Youswell bunch into a single scene is laughably bad. How lame.
It was good to see Izumi Curtis again, even though she's basically now just a messenger. We'll see her active again sometime later, so don't worry, but I felt like she was a bit more active in the first series. Come to think of it, couldn't they have had somebody else deliver the message? Isn't Izumi's talents better used elsewhere, since she's an alchemist? I guess since Izumi survived in Briggs before she was the best to attack.
Speaking of passing along information, why is it that they cut short the scene a few episodes with Roy and Riza at the mess hall, but kept the entire info-passing bit in this episode? It got a little annoying, too. We get it, they're being secretive. It's too bad we won't be seeing Jean Havoc again for a while, he's my favorite in Roy's crew.
Everyone's preparing for the next phase of the story. This was sort of the end of a "chapter" of the series. The first part ended with Greed's first death, the second... eh, the clip episode with Hohenheim, perhaps? And this is the end of the third part.
Overall Score: 4 out of 5
