Overlord S02E04 Review: Warcraft

Overlord, Season 2, Episode 4: Army of Death

Well, that's... that's an interesting episode. It's the fourth episode and the penultimate episode before presumably next episode marks the end of the Lizardmen arc. And it's hard not to at least sympathize with the Lizardmen characters, as one-note as they honestly are -- I do think that while it's a bit of an odd decision to move the focus away from Ainz and company so early in the series and for so long, I do like the chance to see the rest of the New World setting.

Oh, and Rororo the Hydra survives, which I am happy about. We also learn that, in yet another thing that borrows from D&D, Frost Pain's ability can be used a couple of times in a day, which I thought was a nice touch.

This episode finally focuses a lot more on Ainz and company, though, with the past couple of episodes just showing bits of Cocytus, and mostly just the mindless, soulless armies of Nazarick. More importantly, we get to see the guardian of the eighth floor, Victim, who's... who's a floating cute little embryo-thing with deer horns growing out of  his back, and has some sort of dual-layered echoed voice. Apparently, this is the first time Victim has met any of the other Guardians? Shalltear had a flashback to seeing the other Supreme Beings arguing, so presumably they remembered what happened during the Yggdrasill days. Interesting. Victim apparently has some sort of post-death ability that was put in place, but this cute little floating fetus is apparently happy to serve and die. Ainz notes that they'll use Victim's ability, but we don't see it in this episode.

Demiurge, meanwhile, has succeeded in his attempt to acquire a renewable source of scrolls, made from some sort of two-legged Abelion sheep, which Ainz notes as some sort of chimaera. I didn't catch this at all the first time I watched this episode and only realized when I was typing it out... Demiurge probably is harvesting humans or some humanoid race, isn't he. I'm not sure how dark Overlord is going to get (it's marketed to the Seinen crowd, so it can) and I'm actually genuinely curious. Also love just how subtle this is -- I'm not sure if this is a better thing or not, because it actually genuinely highlights just how easily Demiurge's offhanded mention about some exotic breed of sheep can be easily forgotten in-between Victim's introduction and the tense Cocytus/Ainz talk.

(Speaking of other random side-things, Shalltear's punishment is to be determined at a later date)

Meanwhile, Cocytus is absolutely disgraced at his mistake, but is keeping it cool and will gladly accept any punishment. As Demiurge hinted in the previous episode, though, Ainz isn't angry at all, but asks Cocytus: "how could you have won?" Cocytus actually seems taken aback and starts to think, and notes that he needed to have more intel, and should've sent in the commanders in earlier in the battle where they could've managed the mindless lesser undead from the frontlines. It's actually a stark contrast, really, how what's essentially a failed tutorial mission for Cocytus was a life-and-death near victory for the Lizardmen tribe. Ainz notes that this was the desired result -- one of his Guardians learning something. Ainz gives Cocytus the not-really-a-punishment of "mop up your old mistakes" and wipe out the lizardmen to the ground...

And Cocytus ends up, after a tense bit of pause and fidgeting, asking Ainz of showing mercy to the Lizardmen. It's actually a pretty interesting idea for Cocytus to flaunt this -- the Lizardmen are clearly weak compared to the residents of Nazarick, but Cocytus is clearly impressed with their sheer zeal and desire to succeed despite all costs. And considering how utterly fanatical Cocytus was in the first season, refusing to aid Lord Ainz even in a fight that clearly was favoured against him, having him make a suggestion contrary to a direct order? That's definitely progress.


Ainz's actually shows that he's not entirely just a good benevolent ruler to any other race outside of his people and those he has met, though, and as much as he likes Cocytus having an independent thought, Ainz does ask Cocytus an important question. "What's the benefit to Nazarick?" Especially because, well, even with Cocytus's admiration of their guts or whatever,  they are pretty weak and barely amounted to a simple disposable Elder Lich, of which Ainz straight-up dismisses as a disposable minion he can summon daily.

It's Demiurge that ends up 'saving' his buddy Cocytus, and I really do like the subtle relationship between these two shown in the past couple of episodes. Demiurge suggests that Ainz would perhaps be interested in using the low-risk Lizardmen tribes in an experiment in governing a vassal state, and Ainz readily accepts this suggestion. And notes that Cocytus will gover "with a carrot, not with a stick", which gives the audience hope that everything will end reasonably happily for the Lizardmen characters. Demiurge then goes "oh no, Ainz-sama totally has thought of this, and he's just waiting for Cocytus to think of it".

Which... which, as we find out as Ainz retires to his bedroom, leaving a swarm of awed Guardians, he just plops down on his bed, all human-like.... because he didn't actually have any sort of goal along those lines. Yes, he did want to see if Cocytus can actually grow and think for himself, but the real goal isn't to have Cocytus make the suggestion of governing the lizardmen. No, it's basically just to see if the Yggdrasil characters are beholden by Yggdrasil rules, and could they grow beyond the maximum level cap they have. And Cocytus growing confirms that, yes, they can. Ainz is then struck with the question... does this hold true with the absolute loyalty that his minions have? After all, as mentioned above, Cocytus did raise objections to a direct order.

(The question begs, of course, if one of the Guardians would actually straight-up betray Ainz or have goals of their own. After all, that opening was... pretty spoilery)

And then, the next day... as the Lizardmen hang around, and are clearly unprepared, Ainz and his forces arrive. It's a far larger army than before, someone amongst Ainz's forces shows off sixth-tier weather controlling magic, and all the undead this time show up with even the most meager troops with magical weapon and armour.

And then Ainz Ooal Gown himself shows up, and with a simple wave of his hand, freezes the entire swamp solid. And then even more badass armoured undead forces show up. And then the other unseen Floor Guardian, Gargantua, shows up, and he clearly is, well, gargantuan. A giant rock golem of some sort, Gargantua's waist reaches above the treetops, and he lobs a gigantic cube into the frozen lake... and then all the undead troops walk up, and to the lizardmen's horror, all of that -- the giant walking mountain, the frozen lake, even the entire army of undead, was just so that Ainz and his little party of generals, can walk up and sit on a throne.

And then Ainz just summons a dozen of the same screaming legion-balls of faces that had warned the lizardmen in episode 2, have them fly over the lizardmen to demand a representative to negotate with Lord Ainz... and then Ainz kills them all without a blink just to show off his power even more.

In video game terms, it's like beating the first level 10 boss in the starter area, and then getting thrown straight to the final endgame boss. And the lizardmen know just how utterly outclassed they are. Zaryusu and his brother walk up to negotiate, but before they can get a word out, Demiurge basically demands that they prostrate themselves before the mighty Ainz Ooal Gown, and the two just have their faces smashed onto the ground with what I think is some sort of an equivalent to D&D's Suggestion spell.

Ainz notes that he is here to rule over the lizardmen, but will give them a chance to "taste defeat", because being ruled by an army they had defeated before would cause them to feel rebellious. Shasruyu immediately attempts to surrender, but Ainz cuts it off, noting that "don't be boring", and that they will have the chance to battle just one of his guardians -- Cocytus. It's perhaps a pretty mean-spirited thing to do, because the lizardmen were clearly surrendering, and you could argue either way. Perhaps this was a way to show utter dominance and that they won't be soft, but basically demanding the lizardmen to send some warriors to die is pretty damn evil.

And as Ainz and company leaves, this leaves the lizardmen with a quandry... and a pretty neat way to snuff out the bit of hope that they had when Cocytus asks for mercy for the lizardmen -- sure, the species would survive, but some of the named characters will die. And the chiefs basically note that the suicide squad will be the chiefs and Zaryusu, with Crusch Lulu being exempt because she's going to take care of the others as a pillar for the survivors. Something that Crusch isn't exactly happy about, but after an argument decides to accept. One condition, though: "Impregnate me", she says to Zaryusu. Welp!

I don't hate the lizardmen characters, and if nothing else, I really sympathize with them for having so much shit thrust onto them especially after we just see them go through the archetypal hero's last stand. But I can't lie in saying that all the stuff with Ainz, Cocytus and Demiurge is genuinely a lot more fascinating to me, and the sheer, utter (and admittedly mean-spirited) badassery as the titular Overlord actually flexes his figurative muscles and shows off the sheer amount of power in his fingertips? That's a pretty goddamn badass moment. It's just different and leads me to feel conflicted (in a nice way) because this time around, the target of Ainz's ire isn't assholes like Clementine or Nigul, but a bunch of genuinely nice guys.