Overlord S03E05 Review: Goblin Power

Overlord, Season 3, Episode 5: Two Leaders

Holy shit, that actually ended pretty well for everyone! No one died! I can totally see Overlord going pretty dark and having Lupusregina let everyone be killed other than the three she must protect, but not only does the little sister survives,  so do all the goblins and all the named humans! Actually quite happy for that, honestly, and I'm glad Overlord actually made me care so much about these damn goblin bodyguards protecting their 'ane-san'.

The episode is honestly an extended, tense action scene, as the monsters in the jungle start attacking the village. We get the nice little payoff to how the villagers have been practicing all this time, leading first to a pretty cool bit where the human villagers' archery manage to hit enemies outside the fort, and then they manage to trick the enemies to get in through an intentionally weaker gate that leads to a maze-like barricade where the Carne-allied ogres and goblins can kill them like a kill zone. It all goes well until Zombie Gu shows up, and that's a threat that ends up occupying the attention of all the goblins.

We don't actually spend too  much time with this part of the cast, though, because after that initial "stand your ground!" bit by Jugem, and a brief confused observation later on by Jugem that the troll has seemingly lost its ability to regenerate, we cut away almost entirely to Nfirea and Enri.

Enri and Nfirea are apparently on evacuation duty, but while running around, they end up witnessing a living troll climbing in through a different part of the Carne Village walls, and we get a pretty fun bit as Nfirea and Enri run around with cloaks to fool the troll, and it's clear that neither of them have any sort of abilities that can bring down the troll. The most they can do is buy time until Lupusregina or the goblins show up, and the latter is caught up fighting Zombie Gu. We get some genuinely fun moments like the two of them making use of ogre smell to fool the troll  into thinking that there are more of them, as  well as using alchemical tinctures to block the troll's sense of smell.

Nfirea ends up engaging Enri alone, and we get some genuinely cool bits as Nfirea goes "I have to protect the woman I love" an shoots off Acid Arrow. Nfirea gets kicked in the gut by the troll for all his troubles, though, and nearly damn well dies if Lupusregina didn't make a dramatic entry, and then just one-shots the troll. Off-screen, too, while Nfirea and Enri are going "oh my god I thought I lost you".

It's a simple battle against a bunch of nobodies, but I do think that the episode is genuinely tense due to me not knowing if Lupusregina would actually honour Ainz's orders, or if she will overestimate the humans' survivability. At the end of the episode, Nfirea and Enri are basically together and totally in love, Jugem the goblin boss ends up getting Gu's magical sword... and then Nfirea, Enri and little Nemu gets invited for a super-duper fancy lunch to Nazarick. We get some genuinely fun bits like Nemu running around being genuinely excited about everything in Nazarick, and Ainz, concurrently getting almost as excited to show the little kid around the dungeon he built -- eventually adding Nemu to the list of names that he wants Lupusregina to protect.

Another fun bit is Enri apparently discovering sugar for the first time, and hilariously gets over-excited as she goes "DO YOUR BEST TO LEARN HOW TO MAKE THIS" to Nfirea. And then Ainz gets to give his hilariously long super-fancy menu, all of which just kind of flow over Nfirea and Enri's heads. The episode and this little mini-arc closes with Ainz strengthening Carne Village's loyalty to him -- although arguably he already has it, and the troll attack is just kind of unnecessary. At least we do get a lot of fun moments from Enri, though, and the final shot of Nfirea and Enri together is a pretty nice one. Overall, this little Carne Village arc has been surprisingly mellow and tense at the same time. Definitely up for a bigger arc next episode, though.