Hagane no Renkinjutsushi – Fullmetal Alchemist Ep. 36
鋼の錬金術師 FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST Episode 36 review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Hohenheim remembers what caused him to leave home (discovering Father’s plan combined with a desire to become immortal) and he remembers taking the lone family photograph he holds. In Briggs, the troops sent to investigate the tunnel are killed as General Raven offers immortality to General Armstrong. Raven has Armstrong place Sloth back into the tunnel and have the hole leading to it sealed so that Sloth can continue working. Armstrong complies but eventually kills Raven when she has no further need of him.

Kimblee encounters the “imprisoned” Ed and Al and is still being escorted by Major Miles. Upon receiving word, Miles reports to Kimblee that Raven has gone missing, which delights Kimblee as he has specific orders of what to do should something happen to Raven. As Dr. Marcoh and Mei Chan work, Scar takes out some Briggs soldiers who’ve found their hideout. Meanwhile, Armstrong readies another expedition to the tunnel while Kimblee pays another visit to Ed and Al, this time he has Winry who has come to see them and upgrade Ed’s automail. Back in Central, Mustang receives word from General Armstrong.

Thoughts/Review:

I knew it. In episode 34, I mentioned that I smelled a visit from Winry and sure enough, here she is just in time to be used as a pawn against Ed and Al. Naturally, she’d be unaware of being used. Still, once all is said and done, how do Ed and Al let Winry know the danger her life is in? Just telling her straight out would seem to be the best course, but I’m sure they don’t want to cause her undue worrying about her own life to say nothing of theirs. ‘Twill be interesting to see how things play out.

I’m going to say that we saw Pride down in the tunnels considering that General Raven seemed to know that Pride had been communicating with Sloth. I wonder what Pride’s humanoid form is. I’m guessing it is someone we’ve met before but just whom that would be, I couldn’t say. I suppose it is possible that Pride has taken form within Briggs.

I was surprised to see that General Armstrong decided to kill General Raven. I suppose from her perspective, that was her only choice as she wouldn’t want to be replaced at Briggs and she wouldn’t want to sacrifice her men for the plan the homunculi have for the country. Considering the harshness of the terrain and the winter conditions, finding a cover story for Raven’s going missing won’t be hard, but it seems that Kimblee and Bradley expected Raven to be killed and thus brought Winry into play.

I half expected Major Miles to be killed by Kimblee in this episode. Things seemed to be edging that way in the conversation between Miles and Kimblee before news of Raven’s going missing came out and Kimblee started his other plan.

Sending some more people down into the tunnel seems like a very bad idea to me. They’ve already lost one group of troops and I understand the desire to learn exactly what happened but if Pride is still down there (and why would he not be around?), it is just bad ju ju for whomever goes down. Still, the writer in me says that Armstrong needs additional information and so going down with some sort of escape for those who go down into the tunnel would seem to be in order.

As expected, the alliance between General Armstrong and Colonel Mustang is formed. Having General Armstrong’s entire army (to say nothing of Falman who’s in that army) backing him makes Mustang’s job a lot easier should things come to an armed coup. As I see it, there’s no other way to resolve this. The Central Army cannot be trusted, nor can the top brass. They are going to have to be eliminated unless they switch sides. However, it seems the top brass are all down for the homunculi plan and they likely won’t switch sides.

Nice to learn more about Hohenheim though I do have one question — if he knew Father was planning something bad, what has he been doing for all these years? Just wandering aimlessly? I know he’s supposedly looking for a way to become mortal but it doesn’t seem like he’s done much.

Speaking of Hohenheim, I guess he’s a homunculus or at least a type of one. For him to be immortal and for him to address globs of his blood (which looked like liquefied philosopher’s stones) by name says that he is. Obviously he has a connection to Father since they look alike but what is it? If Hohenheim is a homunculus, how did he reproduce when Bradley and the other homunculi cannot? What is he having his blood do? Interesting how he treats them vs. the other homunculi.

So, another really good episode. Man, this series way surpasses the original one by miles.