October 23rd, 2009 
AstroNerdBoy Hagane no Renkinjutsushi – Fullmetal Alchemist Ep. 28
鋼の錬金術師 FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST Episode 28 review
Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood – 28
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Gluttony takes Al and Xiao Mei to their lair where Father resides. About that time, Gluttony goes into agony and soon the beast form of Envy as well as Ed and Ling emerge. After Ed and Al are reunited, Ed confronts Father after realizing that this is not Hohenheim despite their similar appearances. Father seems pleased to see Hohenheim’s children and heals Ed while repairing Al, all without following the normal rules of alchemy. When Al tells Ed that Father created the homunculi, the fight is on but is soon ended when Father removes their ability to use alchemy.
Father initially is going to have Gluttony consume Ling but then has a change of mind and decides to make him a homunculus. Ling is in favor of this since he came here to achieve the Philosopher’s Stone and immortality. Father is impressed and deposits a “stone” in Ling. As the change begins, Ling finds himself facing Greed within his mind. Ling agrees to give himself over for the sake of the kingdom and Lan Fan, declaring he wants more power. Greed likes what he hears and Greed is reborn in the body of Ling, though this Greed has no knowledge of having met Ed or Al previously.
Scar and Mei arrive and Scar realizes that Ed and Al are not working with the homunculi as they are captives. After Mei is reunited with Xiao Mei, Father’s and the homunculi are surprised when both Mei and Scar can still use alchemy. Ed and Al still cannot use their abilities so Ed tells Scar the truth of how the Ishval War started with Envy’s actions. Scar goes nuts and begins doing damage to Gluttony and Envy. Father is curious about Scar’s ability and to Scar’s horror, a direct attack on Father failed. Scar just manages to disengage before Father effortlessly attacks, which would have killed Scar.
With Mei injured in the fight, Al saves her and Xiao Mei and flees with Scar. Soon, they are trapped by approaching chimera as well as Envy and Gluttony. Al decides to leave Mei and Xiao Mei with Scar despite his personal feelings towards Scar. Scar agrees and using alchemy, he turns some water into hydrogen and ignites it, allowing him to apparently escape with Mei and Xiao Mei. However, this attack has taken the last out of Gluttony, who is now dying.
Back with Father, Greed-Ling is ordered to attack and fights Ed, during their fight, Ed attempts to get Ling to wake up. When he mentions Lan Fan’s name, Greed-Ling fails to armor his face, allowing Ed’s punch to connect. However, Greed-Ling still wins the fight as Envy brings in the dying Gluttony and the captured Al. Father removes what’s left of Gluttony’s stone and re-absorbs it, promising to bring Gluttony back to life complete with his memories.
Thoughts/Review:
Last episode, I was asked about the new OP sequence by Garik. I had skipped it in the name of time but since it has now been mentioned to me, I’ll speak of it. ^_^
For starters, I care nothing for the tune, but that’s not what Garik was talking about. Instead, he mentioned how spoilerific the OP sequence is. Egad! He was right. As someone who’s not read the manga, I saw something 
incredibly shocking in the OP sequence — Ling joins the homunculi and becomes one of them? What the…?! That’s just bad form on the part of the anime production team. I guess they are assuming that the only people really interested in seeing the anime are manga fans. That may be but I imagine there might be some who haven’t seen the series. At the very least, have certain characters or things obscured until they are revealed story-wise.
Still, my rant aside, at least I didn’t have long to wait to see Ling become the new Greed. Completely didn’t see that coming though I have to say that the setup with King Bradley’s story was quite good. Unlike King Bradley, I take that what saved Ling’s personality and life was simply accepting the Greed aspect. The fact that Ling’s persona still lives means that Greed is now a wild card element in 
Father’s arsenal. This whole aspect is a very interesting twist on things.
Father speaks of recreating Gluttony, who has now been killed. Does he do the same thing he did with Ling or no? I would guess not based on the OP.
Also, why hasn’t Father recreated Lust if it is that simple to recreate a homunculus?
Another question — why does Father look like Hohenheim? Clearly Father knows Hohenheim so they have some kind of past together. Also, Hohenheim seems clued in on the activities of the Homunculi somehow. Curiouser and curiouser as the saying goes.
More questions — how does Father perform alchemy without 
following the standard rules? Why are Scar and Mei able to use alchemy? Or is it alkahestry they are using? I know Mei does so maybe that’s the answer. So how is Father able to control one but not the other?
In the end, this episode just smoked by and actually made me more frustrated by the weak episode last time out. I’m really looking forward to seeing where this story goes.
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@Astro, at least some of your questions would be answered (I haven’t read the whole manga yet, so I’m not sure if all would be answered eventually). Of course, I can answer them… or someone else could do it, but I don’t think you want us to spoil everything. Just have patience… and continue to ask questions. 😉
In Lust’s case Father hasn’t recreated her because her stone was destroyed before he could reabsorb it.
The original Greed was destroyed, but his Philosopher’s Stone wasn’t. Father drank it, so he was able to pull it out and put it into Ling. And Gluttony’s in really bad shape, but his Stone isn’t completely gone yet, so he can still be restored. Lust’s, though, was completely annihilated by Mustang.
OK, that makes sense about the stone not being destroyed being the reason to bring back a homunculi. That said, it still seems to me that a whole new Lust could still be created unless a whole new stone must be created.
A new stone does need to be created in order to form a new Lust, as her stone was completely destroyed by Mustang.
My point is that at some point, there was no Lust. Then, Father created this homunculus with a stone. As such, it seems that with a new stone, a new Lust could be created.
This might be a spoiler, but…
Well, as you said in an earlier blog post, Father expunged the sins from himself.
He doesn’t have any extra of those sins to use, unless he reabsorbs their stones.
Ah. So having expunged Lust once, that’s that. Interesting.
That ‘expunging’ is also the reason why Father in Hohenhiem’s dream and memory had a distinct personality while the current one is kind of direct and strange.
And, I can’t tell you anything on why Scar and Mei could still transmute because we still don’t know. The manga seems to be nearing conclusion, but how soon is very questionable. A LOT still has yet to be answered.
And the only thing changed was the scene with Gluttony having Envy and people being forced out, where, in the manga, he only screamed in pain and the belly eye reappeared and started rolling back and bleeding as if crying. But the more dramatic version wasn’t much of a change, so that’s fine.
Father didn’t follow alchemy rule b/c he has, like, tons of philospher stone inside his body XD
False, not the reason for Father’s power. Philosopher stones wouldn’t cause him to ignore the flowing energy rule (movement to transmute).
And so they finally get to the big revelation with Ling. I was wondering when they’d get to it at the rate they were going.
I personally liked Ling a lot better prior to this, but he still remains one of my favorite manga/Brotherhood-only characters.