Hagane no Renkinjutsushi – Fullmetal Alchemist Ep. 23
鋼の錬金術師 FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST Episode 23
Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood – 23

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Another grenade going off allows Ling with Lan Fan on his shoulder to escape out the window. Bradley seems impressed with the skill but he and Gluttony are quickly in pursuit. Ling knows that they are in trouble as does Lan Fan, who is bleeding from her arm injury. When Bradley senses Scar nearby, he dispatched Gluttony to deal with that while he continues to follow the blood trail being left by Lan Fan. He follows the trail until he finds Lan Fan’s arm, only it has been tied to a dog as she had cut it off to help them lose pursuit. Bradley is impressed with the skill of his prey to elude him while Lan Fan painfully makes her way through the sewers.

Ed has the military escort Winry away as Al and Scar fight. Ed joins the fight but that comes to a halt when Gluttony arrives and attacks. Scar gets a transmutation attack on Gluttony, but it does little as Gluttony quickly recovers and slams Scar into a wall, driving the point home. Ed and Al attack Gluttony when Ling arrives from the sewers, forcing a grenade down Gluttony’s throat which then explodes in his stomach. As Gluttony begins to regenerate, Ling has Ed and Al create very strong, thick metal cables with which he binds Gluttony’s body so that once fully regenerated, Gluttony cannot escape.

Riza arrives in disguise and capping Scar in the knee, she takes Ling and the bound Gluttony away from there, signaling to Ed not to give away her identity. She leaves and agrees to pick up Lan Fan for Ling. This causes her to drive past the area that King Bradley is in, where he detects Gluttony’s presence and sees that Riza is involved.

Meanwhile, Ed tells Al that they can trust Mustang and go after Scar again as the military police move in. Mei Chan and Xiao Mei arrive, attacking Ed and Al and defending the injured Scar. Seeing the are seriously outnumbered, she tosses five kunai into a nearby fuel train tanker car and five more into a train coal car before rapidly drawing a transmutation circle in the dirt and tossing five more kunai onto the star tips in the circle. Using her form of alchemy, she is able to not only activate her transmutation circle, but also is able to cause transmutations in the two train cars, causing a great deal of smoke and dust to emerge which allows her to escape with Scar though she accidentally leaves Xiao Mei behind.

Xiao Mei has been picked up by Al and comes to respect him due to his armored body. Al ends up hiding him inside his armor as the military escorts the brothers to meet with Winry. They are shocked to see King Bradley is having a hot beverage with her. After Bradley leaves, the brothers take Winry back to the hotel, where they tell her the whole story of her parents. Winry gets a call from Garfiel, where there is a great demand for her services. As such, she books train passage back to Rush Valley, thanking Ed and Al for keeping her from killing Scar. As the train leaves, Winry looks back at the station and Ed and realizes she’s been in love with him all the time.

At a safe house out of the city, Dr. Knox works on Lan Fan’s injury to stop the bleeding. Roy introduces himself to Ling, as Riza keeps watch outside. With Ed and Al there as well, they discuss the captured Gluttony and Ling reveals that Bradley is also a homunculus. This is shocking news but Mustang realizes that now he has a better opportunity to remove Bradley from the throne. However Gluttony, having heard Mustang’s name and knowing he killed Lust, gets angry and swells against his bindings. His gut opens like a mouth, revealing an eye inside and begins to suck in everything.

Thoughts/Review:

Whoa! I totally didn’t see Gluttony opening his gut like a mouth and there being a giant eyeball in there. I guess with that, he’s going to try to suck up everything around him. I wonder why he hasn’t used this ability before unless it is because it activated instinctively due to his rage at hearing Mustang’s name and knowing Mustang killed Lust. Regardless, it is a very interesting twist.

Man, Lan Fan went up in the charts with this episode. It was one thing when Ed took off his automail arm and used it as a decoy/bait to snare Lan Fan, but for Lan Fan to cut off her own injured arm to foil Bradley, that is something else entirely. Assuming she doesn’t get killed in Gluttony’s rage, I’m guessing she’ll be seeing Winry pretty soon for an automail arm.

It is about time that Mei Chan returns to the story. She really is quite skilled, isn’t she, both in terms of her alkahestry and her fighting skills. For one so young, that is impressive to me. I guess that by having Xiao Mei taken by Al, the table is being set for Mei Chan to now encounter Ed and Al. From a writer’s perspective, I’m always wondering how things will be established since when Mei Chan was introduced, it was clear that she wanted to meet Ed. Well, she met him and has briefly fought him and Al. I wonder what she will think when she learns the truth.

Speaking of Xiao Mei, I had to chuckle when the mini-panda placed Al at the top of his ranking triangle. *lol*

Bradley having seen Riza and knowing she had Gluttony strongly suggests that he will have to make a move on Mustang and his team. The homunculi killed Hughes when he got too close, but would they kill some of Mustang’s team or even Mustang himself? So far, Mustang has been kept alive for some purpose the homunculi have so it seems that he will still be kept alive but on a chain of some sort. Since Bradley saw Riza, he knows for sure that Riza is up to her neck in things and so might do something to her to keep Mustang in line. I was going to say that they might kill her, but that would only enrage Mustang further. So she’d need to be captured in such a way that Mustang knows it but can’t do much of anything about it.

There was just a ton that went on here and all good stuff. I can’t wait to see what’s next. ^_^