Episode 16, "That Which Is Lost"
*****SPOILERS*****
Synopsis: Armstrong plays bodyguard for the Elric brothers on their way back to Risembool, where they're going to get Ed's arm fixed. On the way there, a packaged Alphonse gets dropped off and Ed gets off to look for him. Meanwhile, Lust and Gluttony appear where Marcoh is staying and he's unable to hold them off. A boy finds Al and, thinking he's just a suit of armor, plans to use him in a fight, but Al tries to convince him not to. While looking for Al, Ed gets knocked out by a girl who wants to give his automail leg to her father. Edward talks to the man, who lost his leg in the Ishbal war and doesn't want an automail replacement. He argues that he would rather be as-is, as a reminder of that conflict, something Ed doesn't understand. Ed and Al reunite and Armstrong arrives to get them to the next train before it leaves.
Comments:
Hm. Well, okay, this episode is... not nearly as good as the last one. In fact, most of it is pretty worthless. But as unnecessary as it feels, it's actually not a bad episode in itself, so I don't dislike it, I just feel it's a bit of a come down from the quality of the previous episode.
What felt strange is that the episode tried to run with the dark attitude of the previous episodes. Edward's hostility towards Armstrong, who was part of the massacre in Ishbal, his desperation in trying to find Alphonse, his meeting of the war vet who lost his leg. That's all fine and dandy, except we have this subplot of Alphonse getting put on as armor by the kid who wants to prove himself as a tough guy and comically trying to warn him off of it. The two plots meet at the end when we find out he's the son (grandson?) of the vet, and Edward finds Alphonse a few moments after leaving the house, but it feels a little out of place. I feel like talking somebody out of killing is something Alphonse would do, but we don't actually need to see it. It seems like a needless subplot for moralizing to the viewer.
The part I liked best in the episode was Edward's failure to understand why the man would continue living with his leg missing when he could get automail instead. From Edward's point of view, if you lose a limb, you get it replaced, or you try to get it back. He's trying hard to find a way to get his arm and leg back, so the man's preference for keeping thins as-is is an affront to the way he's been living for so long. It even angers him that the man suggests that he gained something by losing his limb. Edward lashes out because he felt like he gained nothing when he lost his limbs. Edward refuses to believe that there was any Equivalent Exchange in what happened to him and his brother.
But out of this, he seems to see that things are more complicated than they seem, and that's probably why he welcomes Armstrong's help at the end of the episode.
Overall Score:
3 out of 5
