Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (Episode 57) – Eternal Leave

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood Title

Greed and Fu try to bring down King Bradley, while Olivier and Izumi interrogate a general to determine their plan. Meanwhile, Edward and the others find an alchemist protected by the failed members of the Fuhrer project.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (Episode 57) – Eternal Leave

What happened?

Fu seeks to avenge his granddaughter, Lan Fan and flies into action gainst King Bradley. Even with Greed’s help though, they are no match for him. Bradley manages to get Fu’s sword and it gets even worse. He cuts him down in no time, but Ling saves him at the last second. However, Fu is badly injured and breaks away from Ling, telling Greed to protect his body.

Fu charges at Bradley and grabs his head, revealing four explosives attached to him. Before they can explode, Bradley slices the fuzes off and Fu in two. Fu can’t believe he is going to die a failure. However, a sword appears piercing Bradley’s abdomen. Buccaneer drove it through Fu and into Bradley, seeing it as their only chance to go down fighting honourably. Greed takes the chance to attack, slicing through Bradley’s eye!

Izumi Curtis and Olivier Armstrong have found themselves a general and he’s willing to spill all, which isn’t a good move. His troops resign and join forces with Olivier. With the soldiers closing in, they head underground. Izumi explains to Olivier the great taboo of human transmutation and what she lost.

Edward, Scar, Mustang, and Hawkeye enter a small underground room and find a strange alchemist drawing a transmutation circle. Before they can attack he summons some backup. They are the failed members of the program that created King Bradley and are all very strong. They keep everyone away long enough for the process to begin. As soon as it does, Edward, Alphonse, and Izumi are broken down and taken through the portal.

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood Episode 57 Izumi Curtis taken into the portal

What did you think?

We have a transmutation circle the size of the city, but that’s just the start. Eventually, it’ll be the size of Amestris. This episode was intense and wouldn’t let us relax for a second. The fight between Bradley and Fu was amazing and I loved the way Buccaneer jumped in there to save Fu’s honour and land a hit on Bradley. I’ve got to wonder if Bradley doesn’t have a healing ability the way the other homunculi do, especially as he ages and was created from a human, although so was Greed…

Regardless, that was exciting and heartbreaking all at once. I really enjoyed the discussion between Olivier and Izumi although did Olivier just say that Edward would be the only person she would consider breaking the taboo for? Did I hear that right? Surely not! Anyhow, I found the fight scene with the inspiringly named Gold-toothed Doctor to be infuriating. We saw Mustang burn up an entire room of immortal mannequins without hurting anyone else, but he couldn’t do anything about the crazy old guy drawing on the floor?

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood Episode 57 King Bradley killed Fu

What have you learnt?

I’m a big believer in the power of characters and how if you get them right, the rest is golden. One aspect of that is making the characters’ actions consistent and believable. They can absolutely do stuff that may seem insane at that moment, but I feel like there needs to be a good reason. The fight scene with the Gold-toothed Doctor (they couldn’t have just not given him a name) failed in so many ways.

It did answer one thing and that was what would happen if Hawkeye shot the doctor. The subordinates would jump in the way and take the bullet. I’ve already mentioned how Mustang could have and should have finished everything pretty quickly, but what about Edward and Scar? We’ve seen Edward make walls of rocks jump out of the ground in an instant. Are you telling me he couldn’t have crushed the transmutation circle in this manner? Scar has been able to tear apart all sorts of obstacles, but not this time. I understand that plot can dictate how things go, but this was a lazy spot in the story development.

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood Episode 57 King Bradley hit by Greed

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What did you think?