Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (Episode 4) - An Alchemist’s Anguish

After returning from their previous assignment with no philosopher’s stone, Roy Mustang offers to introduce Edward and Alphonse to a bio-organic alchemist who may be able to help them…

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (Episode 4) – An Alchemist’s Anguish

What happened?

Roy Mustang takes Edward and Alphonse to the home of another state alchemist Shou Tucker. He specialises in bio-organic research and is the leading chimaera expert. At first, he’s a little cautious but agrees to let them see his research if they are willing to share there’s. It’s the first law of alchemy – equivalent exchange.

Shou first gained notoriety when he was able to create a chimaera that could understand human speech. Unfortunately, all it would say was “kill me”. It refused to eat and gained its wish not long after. Still, it was a remarkable breakthrough in bio-organic alchemy. Edward and Alphonse would visit his house daily to read from this library and attempt to uncover something that will help them return their bodies to normal.

While there, they got to know Shou’s daughter Nina and her dog Alexander, even taken time out to play with them. However, Shou’s assessment was coming up and unless he could show significant advancements he may have his state alchemist status revoked. This was something he was not willing to accept.

The next day, Edward and Alphonse came to Shou’s house and found him in his lab with a new chimaera. He confidently announced that he had done it again and created a chimaera that could talk and understand human speech. Edward was amazed, but then the chimaera said something that gave him cause for concern. He asked Shou where Nina was even though he already knew the answer…

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood Episode 4 Shou Tucker

What did you think?

Well, this episode was a bit dark!!! I used three exclamation points there so that I didn’t have to swear, but I’m not sure that’s going to be enough. Fuck, Shou Tucker! There, I got it out of my system. I’m not new to the world so even without seeing Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood before, I knew who Shou Tucker was. However, even if I didn’t the clues were all there. All you can do is watch this unfold before your eyes and it’s not pleasant.

The real kicker was when the chimaera was asking Edward why he was hurting her father. This was a truly sad and shocking episode and I can only thank the alchemist murderer for going in there and taking care of Shou. It’s a little disappointing that he couldn’t have got there a day or so earlier, but at least it’s over now.

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood Episode 4 Edward is Furious

What have you learnt?

I’ve read a lot of dark stories and written several myself, but there’s always a line that I don’t like to cross. Those involve the deaths of children and dogs. Well, this episode just smashed through that line. It probably can’t even see the line from where it is anymore. I want to say I enjoyed the episode, but that would convey the wrong sort of emotion. This was an impactful episode, but very little of it was enjoyable.

I hope that there was more of a reason to it than just showing the difference between Edward and Shou. It was laughable that Shou tried to claim they were the same, but Edward was a child when he tried to revive his mother. Shou took his own flesh and blood, his own wife and daughter to move his experiments along. Surely, someone should have looked into the process by which he created his first chimaera and realised what had happened. Where was the peer review? And they claim to be scientists!