Episode 50 of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood takes us back to Mustang and his group. The lot of them have been rescued from the military, for the moment, anyway, but that is not the worst of their troubles. Mrs. Bradley begins to wonder why all of this has come about and if her husband has abandoned her. Despite knowing the truth, Mustang decides it is best not to tell her about her husband’s disappearance, or rather, the fact that he is a Homunculus. To unleash such news would be devastating to their plan and Mrs. Bradley as well. Mustang continues his tirade through Central, only injuring the military personnel he comes across and not killing them.

All the while, as the city is up in smoke and flames, Olivier sits taunting the higher ups in an attempt to get under their skin. Because of their failures, she asks them to put her in charge of the army for a while, but the suggestion is quickly shut down. She is reminded that she is only there under Central’s control; not the other way around. A quick jab is made at the Briggs soldiers, which strokes Olivier the wrong way. Her men are strong, capable and will stop at nothing when it comes time to win. The alarms sound and Olivier simply laughs it off. The Briggs soldiers are have come to join the fight!

Meanwhile, somewhere in town, Mustang has taken a break in order to replenish his supplies when from out of nowhere an ice cream truck arrives. Rebecca, Hawkeye’s friend, pops out of the back. The Calvary has come with more ammo! Not only that, but much to Mustang’s surprise, the mysterious hooded driver reveals her identity. Remember Second Lieutenant Ross? Well, she’s back from Xing and with a boatload of supplies to help with the fight. When they get a chance to move out of the city, Mustang wishes to thank the individual who has supplied them. He gets another surprise to find out that it was Havoc.

Back in the forest, Ed and his group can see that Central is under fire. It is decided that they must go and stop Father, but the only way to do that is to destroy his shell. Scar suggests that they use the underground tunnels to get to him, but they will leave behind the injured Heinkel, fugitive Dr. Marcoh and helpless Yoki. Before taking off, Ed returns to the dome to tell Al that he will be leaving, but little do they know just what is going on. Remember last week when I mentioned to keep in mind how important Selim banging on Al’s head was? Well, he’s been communicating via Morse code, sending out a message to Father—the sneaky little bastard!

While this is happening, the scene switches back to Olivier who is now quite obviously being held as a traitor. The higher ups want her to surrender, to tell her troops to back off, but like the stubborn, bullheaded woman she is (gotta love her for it), Olivier retaliates by stabbing one of the men in the arm and turning a gun at the other. After taking one out with a shot between the eyes, she is now free to leave; that is, once she gets passed the two military dogs she’s alerted – hardly a difficult task. I feel more pity for those who cross her path.

With the city aflame, smoke rising from every corner, Major Armstrong has come in with relief efforts. Sergeant Brosh, however, arrives to discover what the chaos is all about. Of course, he doesn’t understand why this is happening, but he will very soon. To make things worse, as old man Fu makes his rounds about the city, he cannot sense where Greedling has gone; the energy all around him, mostly underground, has spread even wider than before.

We skip around back to Ed and his group who are trying to find a way into the tunnels. Unfortunately, their path is blocked by some soldiers, so they must look for another way inside. Ed creates a diversion in order to get into the Third Laboratory research center, much to everyone’s surprise. When they manage to get down there, the group decides to split up. Hoenheim declares he’ll go one way with Lan Fan and Scar and Ed must go the other. Despite the old man’s perverted jokes, Hoenheim has split them up knowing Lan Fan is on the hunt for her master. Once they are far away enough from the other group, he tells her to go look for Ling and the two go their separate ways.

As a result of the chaos and now that things are no longer in their favor, one of the Generals has decided that their losses have become too much. He’s barged his way into the laboratory intent on setting the dolls loose, despite their unfinished experimentation. He doesn’t seem to care much and activates the dolls against one frazzled researcher’s warnings. This part is pretty creepy. As the dolls awake, they emit a high-pitched shriek and there are thousands of them. The shrieking can be heard, although muffled, by everyone in the tunnels. It sounds like a massacre.

Whew! Despite the episode being a little all over the place and boring in some parts, it all seems to come together near the end. There is no extra after the credits, only a preview for the next episode so you don’t have to worry about missing something if you didn’t bother to finish watching. I know, the shrieking dolls scared me, too!

~Blogged By Dee