Overlord S03E06 Review: A Royal Problem

Overlord, Season 3, Episode 6: Invitation to Death

Around this point in the previous season, we had an episode that focuses all about life on the Re-Estize Kingdom, dealing with Climb, Brain, Blue Rose, Princess Renner and the general state of politics of Re-Estize. This time around, we have Momon and Nabe show up in a completely different one, the quasi-Roman-inspired Baharuth Empire, and we get to meet a lot of the major players there.

The first scene we see is one with a long-bearded archmage, identified later in the episode as the master of the Empire's ministry of magic, Lord Fluder Paradyne. He apparently has a Death Knight (is it the same one that Ainz makes?) chained up in a very secure basement, and he's attempting to subjugate the Death Knight to his control. Perhaps the episode could stand to show this effort a bit more, though, because for all the buildup, it's just Fluder going "Death Knight, obey me? No? Okay then." Also, and not that Ainz needs it, it really puts into perspective just how powerful Ainz is -- one of his weaker throwaway summons is apparently this monstrous, uncontrollable beast in the eyes of one of the Empire's mightiest magicians.

Fluder's also apparently someone who really wants to surpass the other powerful magicians of the world like Rigrit (the old lady that is buddies with a dragon in the season two 'prologue'), and apparently have been experimenting on how to create more undead by... by having skeletons till a field with corpses planted below? Okay, that's an unusual way of experimentation.


We then cut away to Momon and Nabe as they arrive in Baharuth to enact the "next stage" of Demiurge's plan (which Ainz seems to not know the full scale of but is too embarrassed to ask), and while Nabe is as unimpressed and cold towards humans as ever, we do get a couple of exposition, both from Momon and some other Baharuth denizens. Basically, the "Bloody Emperor" Jirciv Rune Farlord El-Nix (the hell with these five-word names) is known to be ruthless, but his reforms are backed up with power and is good for the people, and he's been deposing all incompetent nobles in favour for competent commoners with talent. So clearly a nice sort of Emperor, even if he does act a bit douchey at times.

We then cut to a scene with Emperor Jirciv himself, who is surrounded by his bodyguards, the "Four Imperial Knights" whose names I won't bother to remember because they're likely to just be fodder. Fluder's there too. The whole Jaldabaoth incident has reached Jirciv's ears,  and he wants to investigate this mysterious Jaldabaoth further. Noting that something similar apparently "happened in the past". Jirciv tells his troops to stand down from their annual war with the Kingdom. How... how do you even schedule a war? And why do you have them annually? It's just such a bizarre bit of random line that makes me go "what?", and I'm not sure if they cut out a huge swath of explanation from the source novel, or if it's a mistranslation.

Speaking of the Re-Estize Kingdom, we get to check in with the Kingdom's royal family, and I believe this is the first time we've seen them in this season? The King is still a doormat, while Renner, Zanack and Raeven are clearly in cahoots with each other, and presumably they all have their individual plans. The unseen first prince finally makes an appearance here, and he's called Barbro, which is a name I can't take seriously, bro. Barbro is just kind of an asshat, and he just wants to take the war to the Baharuth Empire, and is rude to everyone present.

We also get Brain and Climb still training with Gazef. It's a short scene, but I'm happy they get that scene.

Earlier on during Momon's speech, we learn that the Baharuth Empire employs Workers, which are basically black market adventurers that aren't bound by the Adventurer's Guild. And one such Worker team ends up being the spotlight of nearly the final ten minutes of the episode. This focus, and their presence in the opening, makes it clear that they're going to be kinda important. We're quickly introduced to the members of Team Foresight -- generic nice guy team leader Hekkeran, his love interest the drunkard elf Imina, stoic cleric man Robberdick (HA!) and one of the deposed nobles' children, Arche.

I'm sorry, if Barbro is a funny name, then fucking ROBBER DICK is probably the most unfortunate name in the entire series. Yes, the subtitles romanize it as Roberdyck, but it's no less funny.

Anyway, out of all these, Arche ends up getting the biggest spotlight. She's noted to be a prodigy with a Talent that allows her to use her magic eyes to scan the magical capacity of others. However, her parents (which we meet briefly in a scene) are horrible people who refuse to work, are deeply in debt, but still waste their money buying random super-expensive works of art. Arche's father is clearly deluded that all they have to do is to keep living like nobles until their status and wealth are restored, while Arche just wants to do one last job to run away with her little sisters and build up a new life. Oh no! A 'five minutes from retirement' character!

Again, these characters aren't super developed, but the episode uses what little time it has to make them likable. It gives Arche great motivations to succeed and survive, Hekkeran and Imina are quickly established to be lovers and Robberdick is just a nice friend to his buddies. They discuss how some noble in the Empire wants to hire them to investigate a certain tomb in the jungle...  which tomb is this, then? The Fake Nazarick or the Real Nazarick? And is this a minion of the Emperor and Fluder, or is this part of Demiurge's machinations? It's not quite clear, but whatever it is, the Workers are definitely walking into a trap.

We get to see Team Foresight gather with three other Worker teams, including one led by a dwarf that speaks formally, a jackass that's apparently on the level of Brain Unglaus but keeps elven slaves (much to Imina's chagrin) and this old dude with Sun Wukong-esque armour. They just quickly go through these names, before their sponsor  shows  up with a bunch of Sleipnir-pulled carriages (apparently Sleipnirs are just a species here) to bring them to the Tomb,

And as they all discuss what's going on, their Adventurer bodyguard shows up...  and who else would it be but Momon and Nabe? And Ainz's voice actor manages a pretty great job of delivering a thinly-veiled anger that still sounds like a stern person asking a question, because Momon asks the Workers just what their motivations are to raiding this tomb. They all shrug it off "well, money of course", which clearly gets Ainz riled up, leading him to end the episode with "forgive me, I have asked a WORTHLESS QUESTION". Clearly Ainz isn't happy with the prospect of his precious Tomb of Nazarick being attacked by people, but this is hardly a legitimate way to gauge intentions -- no one's going to go "oh yeah by the way I need the money because my family is shit and I need to feed my two little sisters" to a stranger. And depending on whether the Workers were manipulated by Demiurge or not, they are just unfortunate pawns that honestly don't deserve to die (except the elf-slaver, of course). But I can totally see  where this arc is going next... we're building up a bunch of sympathetic characters who are going to face off against Ainz's bloodthirsty minions. It's definitely an interesting setup, and I'm curious to see what's going to come of this.