Overlord S02E13 Review: Rolled a 20 in Deception

Overlord, Season 2, Episode 13: The Ultimate Trump Card

So the episode does feel a little fast-paced, and I do wonder if this whole 'attack on the Re-Estize capital' battle wouldn't have worked better if they gave it half an episode's worth more of screentime. I dunno. I suppose it does work out to show just how hectic everything is?

We start off with Prince Zanac running around telling people not to be afraid and being inspirational as a member of the royal family that actually takes to the field. Definitely didn't expect it from him -- when Zanac was first introduced, I thought he was your typical "fat asshole prince that doesn't do anything". We also see that the soldiers that go past Demiurge's Gehenna flame are met with these monsters like hellhounds, gargoyle-like things, and "Overeating", who is this big green frog-thing with a sad face that, after eating a human, will cause that human's screaming face to appear on his body like a wart. Yeah, pretty nightmarish. Also Momon one-shots it and acts all cool to rally the adventurers and soldiers.

Meanwhile, as the battle goes on, Brain ends up finding Shalltear, who's... who's dressed up with a wig, a full-face mask, and a genuinely fancy white dress. Honestly, I'm genuinely not sure how Brain identified her. Shalltear acts like she's forgotten who Brain is, and Brain zooms in and does battle with Shalltear, panicking that there are two god-tier demons running around the city... and Brain manages to break Shalltear's nail! The man just straight-up is overcome with joy while Shalltear is hilariously confused with "um... you pass as a nail clipper?" Can't fault Brain for finding just so much joy, though, because, as he said, as  far as he's concerned, he's reached unattainable heights for an instant.

This particular fight ends up being kind of aborted as Brain escapes, ends up next to Climb... and Shalltear leaves the two alone. In the chaos of the fast-paced episode it's a bit hard to notice and you'd be forgiven to think that Shalltear just lost interest, but Demiurge did instruct everyone to not kill a certain person. So that dude is Climb, presumably? So it seems Demiurge is conspirating with Princess Renner, or he's trying to use Climb as an eventual leverage against Renner. Interesting.

Meanthile, Momon, Nabe and Evileye face off against "Jaldabaoth" and his minions, the masked battle maids, and we have the most adorable non-voiced bit as the battle maids are arrayed against the adventurers and Entoma just raises her kimono hands angrily. Not even any creepy bug noises or centipedes or spider legs or anything, it's just her frilly kimono sleeves in a grr grr posture, and Yuri Alpha has to put her hands on her shoulder going "not now".

Also hilarious is Momon's yell of challenge at Jaldabaoth. "Come at me Demiu- DEMMoon yes demon!" That's funny.

And as the great adventurer Momon and the demon invader Jaldabaoth fights off and creates explosions all around, "Nabe" fights three of the maids, while Evileye has to face off against Yuri Alpha and CZ Delta. (Pronounced "Shizu", apparently)

The actual fight scenes are pretty fun, if short,  with more shots of Ainz and Demiurge clashing in their guises, as well as the genuinely cool crystal walls and blasts that Evileye summons, while Yuri Alpha just bashes through everything with her giant cactus gauntlets and... and CZ Delta just has... a god-damn fucking gun. Not a dark-ages "we have just discovered gunpowder" gun either, a straight-up futuristic space rifle.

Um...

Um....

Okay, yeah, I mean, sure. Why not? Apparently robot maids with machineguns are a thing in Yggdrasil. It's not just an average fantasy RPG, because apparently you get paramilitary cyborg maids with laser machineguns. CZ is the one maid that I don't think ever got any screentime at all -- all the others have been prominent or at least name-dropped.

Yeah, why not.

Meanwhile, we cut away to Gazef Stronoff arriving and using his sixfold martial arts skill to slice up another Overeater. Gazef and his troops are supposed to be the guards of the king, but apparently the king took a page out of Zanac's book, and decided to ride into the battlefield itself so that Gazef and his forces has an excuse to "protect the king". Considering we haven't seen much of the king, it's a pretty badass move for sure. Oh, also, Gagaran and Tia are resurrected off-screen, but with huge penalties to their current fighting capabilities. In D&D terms, level losses.

Meanwhile, in a pretty badass and well-done moment, "Momon" and "Jaldabaoth" take their fight to another part of the city, and explosions totally rock the town thanks to Mare manipulating the earth, giving the impression of a titanic battle taking place.

Ainz and Demiurge now sit face to face, with Ainz once more trying to bluff his way past Demiurge's plans. And Demiurge, for his part, just seems smug instead of actually mocking Ainz although who knows? The man has two expressions -- smug smile and smug smile with teeth. It's hilarious to see how Ainz bluffs, too. Demiurge says that he has four objectives, and Ainz immediately goes "Oh? I thought there were only three, you have exceeded my expectations" "Ufufu you are too kind."

Demiurge describes the goals as first stealing the funds from the Eight Fingers (which we saw two episodes ago), to cover up the fact that Nazarick forces are attacking several parts in the city (which they were ordered to do so by Ainz to save Tuare), and to provide a narrative and a cause for "Jaldabaoth's" attack, Demiurge is going to pretend to fail to obtain a powerful demonic artifact that he's going to leave behind in Eight Fingers' possession, thereby implicating them even further.

The item in question, by the way, is an actual powerful demonic artifact, Armaggedon Evil, a powerful weapon that Demiurge's creator Ulbert had made. As smart as Demiurge is, why would you leave that in human hands? Ainz gives Demiurge a failed, inferior prototype that Ulbert made way before then, which ends up looking like this huge boon to Demiurge, allowing him to keep the precious item that Ulbert left to him. (Maybe don't use that precious item for what amounts to a cover story, then, Demiurge?)

Demiurge then continues with the final stage of his machinations, which is to take all the humans within the Gehenna flame wall, and kidnap them for the good of Nazarick. In a pretty cold line which really shows just how Ainz is actually starting to slowly lose his humanity, Ainz tells Demiurge that he has no affinity for humans if they die for Nazarick's benefit -- just as long as Demiurge doesn't make them suffer. So is Ainz slowly becoming the mask of this undead overlord, then, instead of trying to change how Nazarick's people behave? "Where's my soul" indeed.

And then, of course, Demiurge and Ainz notes that there's now another advantage to their little plan -- the great evil Jaldabaoth that threatens humanity can be driven away by Momon, increasing the reputation of Ainz's human adventurer guise.

Cutting back to said adventurer's partner, "Nabe" is actually just hanging out with Lupusregina, Solution and Entoma behind some rocks and gossiping. Among them, apparently Lupusregina don't mind humans all that much (she is assigned to Carne Village, right?) while Solution actually remembers human names (is that before or after Tuare?). Entoma's voice shocks the other three maids, so they've apparently not heard it before?

And then "Momon" and "Jaldabaoth" shows up again, with a lot of badass sword-throwing, spellcasting, jumping, including a scene where Jaldabaoth melts a huge chunk of Momon's sword... and then Momon pulls out Frost Pain? Poor Zaryusu! Apparently this display of icy magic causes Jaldabaoth so much "distress" and I thought that for someone who's actually been acting pretty well throughout this arc, Demiurge's "we are making our retreat, yes? Retreat! UNFORTUNATELY WE LEFT AN ITEM BEHIND." bit to be hilariously transparent if Evileye isn't so intent on fangirling over Momon.

The next couple of scenes is just a little victory montage for the adventurers and soldiers of Re-Estize for bringing down Eight Fingers and driving out a mighty demon... although they did lose a whole lot of civilians (it's implied the only ones they managed to save is the warehouse Climb found). Momon gains the thanks of the kingdom's nobles, and Evileye is totally in love with Momon and we get to see her full vampire face. So this was what she meant when she told Climb to not give up his humanity, then?

Far more unsettling, though, is the revelation of what Mare and Aura have been doing to the Eight Fingers leaders. We last saw Mare breaking the leg of Hilma, and apparently in the meantime, Mare tortured Hlima with some dude called Kyohokou who continually ate Hilma from the inside out, causing her to sell out the other remaining leaders of the Eight Fingers... and thus putting them all under the mercies of Aura and Mare. There's just something about seeing two kids merrily threatening people with horrendous, "eat your innards" torture and bending them to their will that's just so wrong compared to when it's Demiurge or Ainz that does it.

We get a couple of scenes showing a couple of scenes, like Climb reporting to Renner in such an innocent scene. We have Tuare being trained as a maid under the cares of Sebas and the dog maid Wanko, we get the requisite scene of Ainz sitting on a throne presiding over Nazarick's residents, with all aspects of his rule being made stronger after this whole Re-Estize arc (while possibly losing even more of his humanity? Is that going to be the huge theme of this series?).

And then we get the final scene being this Roman-style Emperor talking to his advisor, an old Gandalf-esque character with a huge beard, presumably the rulers of the Baharuth Empire, investigating both the adventurer Momon and the mysterious mage Ainz Ooal Gown. Season three teasers!

The whole "Battle in Kingdom's Capital"  definitely could've been paced a lot better, I think, and I'm not sure if we needed so much Evileye in it considering she essentially doesn't do much other than her action scenes. I do understand the importance of having another high-level adventurer that can at least pose a challenge to Ainz's minions, but after beating Entoma, she ends up being a one-note joke delivery system for being a fangirl to Ainz. Also, for being such a prominent character in the previous arc, Sebas's storyline ended up with a pretty bland little sidequest where he just walks in, kicks Zero and it's over. Still, it is a pretty exciting arc where most of our characters got something to do (poor Albedo, though) and I, for one, enjoyed myself.

Perhaps the biggest and most fair criticism for Overlord II is how little Ainz himself is in it, but I think that's the whole point of the season. How the world views Ainz, the main who is supposedly this untouchable Overlord (with no one aware of the true mentality of the human soul from the 'real' world). We get to see Ainz from the viewpoints of the denizens of this world being oppressed and conquered by him during the Lizardman arc, we get to see Ainz from the viewpoints of his retainers in the Sebas arc, and in this arc we get to see how his other guise, Momon, is viewed by other adventurers. And simultaneously have this whole "oh my god, you're such a better conspirator and master planner than I am" bit from Demiurge. It's an interesting writing style to focus on how others perceive your main character, and I have to say, I do think that for the most part it works out. Next up... Overlord III!