©2022 Kore Yamazaki/MAG GARDEN-Mahoome Partners
Rub. Damned.
After weeks of construction, it’s finally time for the 10,000-pound elephant in the room to crash through the walls. We, the audience, knew something was up the moment Morrigan and her fearsome steed showed up at Elias’ house to ask about Chise. There’s never a great time to have some old Celtic god specifically looking out for you, but having Cernunnos breathing down your neck at Yule is especially ominous. The winter solstice is traditionally a time for death and rebirth, when the darkness of night is greatest in the hemisphere before gradually receding until summer begins, so it’s fitting that Our slow conflict has finally reached its climax.
The wild part is that we still don’t know exactly what’s happening or why. It is implied that Philomela has been fighting a curse all this time, a curse that has been trying for months to motivate her to absorb the magic of every student and teacher in the school, an urge that she He’s actively trying to fight back. However, it’s still not entirely clear and it’s hard to say what the curser’s ultimate goal is. The obvious suspect is Lizbeth, but the Headmistress’s nonchalant attitude at the end of this episode, combined with her deliberately lax defenses, suggests that she is in on the plot. His machinations in the background. Lord knew Philomela was not a coherent source for an answer, since the closest she came was that she wanted to leave school and say hello to her parents. [cô ấy]who are waiting in hell.” Knowing this program, it is impossible to say whether it is metaphorical or purely literal.
Yet all those questions only add to the horror of Philomela’s transformation. After countless pressures gnawing at her, inside and out, something finally broke, and it was both fascinating and terrifying to witness. It is said that the last drop was just a knock on Veronica’s door—a cold, monotonous, almost robotic reminder of the forces in her life that had kept her locked up and anxious for so long. In a sense, her transformation is almost cathartic, allowing her to finally express the seething anger she has suppressed for so long. The way she criticized Rian before draining his magic was terrifying. Yet this is also our first glimpse of Philomela’s rage, of the resentment that her kind nature and abusive upbringing have managed to suppress for different reasons. . With or without an explicit curse, this is a breakdown that was always going to happen—but Philomela now has the ability to take down others with her, and she’s exhausted the energy to stop it. Given the much more common visual allusion to vines, it’s probably coincidental that the mass of tendrils growing from her resembles exposed nerve endings, but it fits nonetheless. Philomela’s pain is now on display for all to see.
Of course, there are still mysteries to be solved and conflicts yet to come. We’re still waiting for the werewolf’s return, not to mention everything with Lucy’s family and the full intentions of the parties involved need to be answered in the remaining episodes. Still, this feels like the climax of this season, when all the simmering tension rises to the surface and explodes in all its disturbing glory. Tense, gripping television and I can’t wait to see it all pay off in the coming weeks.
Rating:
Bride of the Ancient Magus is now streaming on Crunchyroll.