Overlord S02E12 Review: Bluff Checks

Overlord, Season 2, Episode 12: The Final Battle of the Disturbance

The penultimate episode of Overlord II, and we start off with a bang. It's pretty clear that neither Ainz nor Demiurge really understand fully what the party is doing, but also quickly recover and play-fight each other to keep up the illusion of "Jaldabaoth" the evil invading demon and "Momon" the adamantine-class adventurer and protector of the land. All for the benefit of Evileye. All the while, Evileye is kind of crushing pretty hard on the heroic Momon that swoops in to save the day and bravely challenges this mysterious, masked demon in a dapper orange suit.  The fight scene is pretty neat, with some quote-unquote "villain monologues" as Jaldabaoth proclaims his goal -- to recover a mighty item that can summon more of his kind. And while it's clearly Demiurge trying to sort of proclaim his cover story, Evileye actually ends up assuming that Momon is just that good at gathering information from the enemy. Credit where credit's due for Demiurge to play along with the "yes, brave adventurer, I, Jaldabaoth, am a great demon lord and you have forced me to retreat temporarily!" bit.

The fight scene is pretty neat, too, with Demiurge's claws, Ainz's giant swords and Evileye's crystal spells all being pretty neat, and I kind of find the moment when Momon picks Evileye up and she gets this hope spot of "kyaa I'm being picked up like a princess", only for Momon to just grab her like a piece of luggage to be funny. Evileye herself is sort of a flat character through all this, mind you -- definitely not my favourite character in all of the happenings.

Meanwhile, we get Brain, Climb and guest party member Lockmeyer (one of Marquis Raeven's adventuerer mercenaries) going into the Eight Fingers facility to rescue Tuare, only to be blocked by Zero. And apparently the "Tuare" they rescued is apparently... Succulent in a maid's outfit! That's hilarious. We get a couple of neat scenes, like Brain figuring out that Tuare is an impostor due to how "she" keeps trying to get behind one of them. Climb ends up fighting Succulent, and with the aid of some gas bombs from Lockmeyer, Climb ends up showing off a trick he learned from Gazef...  a kick while swinging his sword... straight in Succulent's balls. That's pretty goddamn hilarious!

Meanwhile, Brain does battle against Zero, who's revealed to be a monk. Brain unleashes his "Field" and prepares to fight Zero, and the two change taunts, with Zero scoffing at Brain's declaration that Sebas has already killed the other members of the Six Arms. Actually a bit of a shame that Brain and Zero doesn't actually get to fight, because the effect of Brain's "Field" is pretty cool and I kinda want to see him do a badass attack on Zero... but I guess he's got character development instead?

"The truth is often a surprising thing", Sebas says as he shows up, and he's apparently already rescued Tuare off-screen. Refusing to believe Sebas is that strong, Zero unleashes various buffs that channel the power of animals, and unleashes a mighty punch... that leaves Sebas completely unscathed.

And then Sebas just brings his leg down to Zero and squishes his head. Well, the opening lies, they don't go to a hand-to-hand combat! Still, pretty badass on Sebas's part.


Anyway, as Evileye and the adventurers "Momon" and "Nabe" watch while Demiurge unleashes a gigantic wall of flame, the Gehenna Flames, that sequesters a good chunk of the city. It's actually a pretty neat scene when Evileye offhandedly notes how she and her allies totally beat up that bug monster, causing Ainz to clench his fist and honestly, I totally buy that if Evileye had actually succeeded in killing Entoma, Ainz and Narberal would've killed Evileye then and there. Of course, things get straightened out pretty quickly, allowing Narberal and Ainz to play along as adventurers again.

Meanwhile, as the adventurers and other assorted Re-Estize troops all get ready to fight the huge hellfire wall, we get a fun bit of Ainz's monologue. While he tells Narberal to make contact with Demiurge, we get a brief flashback to Ainz's version of events. He's just called in on request to slay the Eight Fingers on request from Marquis Raeven (alongside many other high-ranking adventurers) and it's just sheer happenstance that he dropped in between Demiurge and Evileye. Hell, he jumped off the floating force-carpet thing out of simple excitement!

Meanwhile, Evileye is trying so hard to impress Momon and hang out with him through all this -- something that Momon tries to worm out of (and he actually suspects that Evileye is suspecting his real identity) while Narberal totally knows what's up.

The rest of the episode is the Re-Estize forces preparing to breach the flames of Gehenna (which are false flames, apparently). Highlights here includes Gazef giving Climb a ring that he got from some old lady that believed in him -- presumably the same old lady in the season prologue that is buddies with the dragon. Oh, and while Zanac and Raeven question Renner if she's alright with sending Climb into such a dangerous mission where he might die, we get the full scale of Renner's psychopathy -- she's completely fine with Climb dying, because, hey, that's a good way for him to go, she's going to resurrect him while he's all weak, and he's going to be even more dependent on her. God damn Renner you're scary.

Overall, we've got a couple of different plotlines running around in this episode, and the whole Sebas/Tuare/Brain/Climb/Zero subplot ends up being sort of played out as kind of an "eh, okay, good guys win" shrug. The highlight of this episode is clearly just what Demiurge's real end-goal is, and just how Ainz/Momon is going to be able to improvise and make it look good for both Ainz Ooal Gown as the overlord of these bad guys, while simultaneously also look good as Momon the adventurer. Overall, it could've been framed better, I think, but it's not bad at all.