©2022 Kore Yamazaki/MAG GARDEN – Mahoyome Partners
Oh, thank god they announced a second cour.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed this season and this episode quite a bit. However, it’s undeniable that this entire cour has been place-setting, introducing the numerous people, plots, and powers necessary for the conflicts and character arcs to come. If we had ended this season here with no immediate promise of more, and the potential wait of another five years for continuation, I would have cracked open my spell books and set to hexing Studio Kafka myself. Thankfully, we’ll be back in October – fitting with this episode finishing up on Hallowe’en – so this season finale can exist as the transitional capstone it needed to be.
Though that doesn’t prevent the whole trip into the Waste Tower from feeling anticlimactic. There are some presumably important details and moments here. Still, after leaving last episode on the promise of a nefarious trip into a dungeon, the actual excursion is more like a field trip erroneously chaperoned by a local drug dealer. I get that it’s meant to expose the Waste Tower as a red herring and that the attacks are coming from a less obvious source, but the biggest danger anyone faces is Zoe having to ward off a couple of transmogrified sorcerers. Chise’s confrontation with Zaccheroni almost feels like an afterthought – one which allows her to assert some agency as a mage rather than a Sleigh Beggy. Still, it ultimately feels slight compared to the rest of the episode. Weirdly, the most interesting reveal is that Rian can see the magic flowers Zaccheroni is harvesting, which means he’s killed someone. That’s a strikingly nonchalant reveal, but not quite enough to make this side trip feel like meaningful story progress.
Alice also only makes a little headway when confronting Renfred, but it’s an argument that needed to happen, regardless of the results. Alice isn’t exactly the most emotionally intelligent kid in this show, so for her, Renfred’s stubborn refusal to treat her like a bodyguard is baffling. She wants to protect him, to pay back the kindness he’s shown her all these years, and can’t fathom why he’s so stubborn about it. Meanwhile, any adult watching can immediately tell why – Renfred would feel no end of guilt if he wound up taking in an orphan and inadvertently raised her to be a meatshield from magical malice. He wants most of all to see her grow into her own, to live a happier, healthier life than she would have without his care. Of course, he’s also not quite mature enough to explain all that to Alice in a way she’ll internalize, so they’re left once more at a standstill, both sides determined to show their love in their own uniquely stubborn ways.
There is some hope, though, among the Webster siblings. Their simmering drama has primarily been in the background, so it’s nice that Lucy and Seth get a chance to let their feelings out and reconnect. Like every relationship in this show, it’s a complicated knot of conflicting impulses and traumas, but after being reluctantly cared for by Chise and the others, Lucy’s finally in a place where she can accept her brother’s affection and recognize that he doesn’t hate her, nor did he choose to abandon her before the massacre. Nothing can squelch Lucy’s thirst for justice or her willingness to put herself at risk for it, but she’s at least in a spot to accept support from others now.
As lovely as those conversations are, my favorite comes from two characters we’ve barely seen all season. Yet we learn everything we need to know about Headmistress Liza Quillyn and Granny Sergeant through how they speak to each other. Every word is coated in delicious passive-aggression, the seething and polite disdain that can only come with age, always keeping tone and delivery polite enough to sound civil while making it clear that they would knife the other in the back with a smile on their face. Liza comes out the victor, cutting off Sergeant from withdrawing Philomela and sealing the entire school to keep it that way, with the useful pretense that the lockdown will help prevent the ongoing attacks on students and faculty. It’s a brilliant statement of authority on Liza’s part but also shows how much she’s willing to stake for her students. In the battle of the Crones, the cat lady and her cait-siths claim the MVP this time, and it rules.
And that is where we end things for this season. As I said up top, it’s a very good thing that more has been announced and is only a few months away. Without that coda, this season would feel wholly incomplete. For as much as I’ve thoroughly enjoyed these characters and their world, without any real resolutions to speak of, this most definitely needs a “Part 2” to feel worthwhile. With the promise of more to come soon, I’m a lot more willing to soak in the developing conflicts, let them continue to build to higher peaks, and I can’t wait for more.
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The Ancient Magus’ Bride is currently streaming on
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