OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Shinra tries scoping out Giovanni, who he knows wants to kill Vulcan, but he gets captured. What he doesn’t know is that Giovanni is also working for the Evangelist, sending Flail and Mirage (both with obvious power sets) to finish the job. With Shinra gone, Arthur is the only one with any sort of fighting ability left, though, without his uniform, his power is greatly diminished. Knowing that Vulcan constructs a goofy looking knight costume to boost his confidence, which works until Mirage shows him how dumb it looks from the other side. With that, Giovanni barges in, though not before it’s revealed that Vulcan’s lady friend Lisa has actually been working for the Evangelist this whole time as well. Their goal has been to take the key to Amaterasu, which Giovanni is certain Vulcan has (even going as far as to sabotage his business to lure it out) and knows where it is, despite him pleading that he doesn’t. Giovanni then shoots Yu, as Vulcan’s happy family life that he built for himself comes crumbling down.

OUR TAKE

Wow, I sure would be worried about Vulcan and Yu’s wellbeings!…if we hadn’t already seen them totally fine and as members of Company 8 in the OP last week. Kinda deflates the tension since these characters are not effectively shielded by plot armor, but luckily the plot around that is still plenty interesting to watch. The major surprise for me was Lisa being a mole, though I can’t say I’ve gotten nearly enough time with her to really feel any impact from that. Heck, it probably could have been Yu being evil instead with Lisa getting shot and I would have probably felt the exact same. I don’t know if this is just going too fast or there isn’t enough story, but I’m really just here to see where this stuff with Vulcan goes…and we already know before it even started. The only thing we don’t know is HOW it gets there.

Can’t say we’ve seen Arthur get to be in a fight in a while. Last time I remember him getting any focus in a battle would be when fighting someone from Company 5 back in the early episodes. I’ve never been super thrilled with his whole “I am a knight” routine, to begin with, so seeing how it ties in with his power is not what I would call the best use of my time, but I DO think this may have been more establishing things for later than this fight on its own. Which I hope is the case, because it didn’t really wow me. In fact, I’d say Shinra’s brief tussle with Giovanni got me sucked in considerably more thanks to showing how Shinra’s ability to think fast kept him ahead of the audience (or at least me) until it became clear that Giovanni was just too out of his league. But both fights both accomplished what they were trying to say relatively well, which is more than I can say for other shows that prioritize fighting, so overall I’d say they paid off.

Now that we’ve uncovered Giovanni’s real objective (and his alliance with the White Clad, which was pretty surprising for me since I thought they’d be getting a break for a bit), I think next episode will start giving us more to go on regarding how Vulcan’s father and grandfather were killed. And possibly with Lisa dying, since she seems pretty remorseless about betraying everyone. Those are pretty much all the unknowns left to ponder, since, again, Vulcan and Yu will be just fine.

Score 8/10