The fifth episode of The Mighty Nein picks up right after the cliffhanger of the last episode, and boy, it's a doozy... and we learn a whole lot about Caleb.
From a storytelling perspective, this episode is possibly the finest of the five episodes released so far by Critical Role: a parallel flashback/story of today united in a deep exploration of who Caleb is, how he became that person, and chose to be something else. Throughout it all we begin to see our characters become more closely knit, and discover a few surprising connections.
In one way, the story’s fairly simple. It picks up where the last episode left off, with Owelia going after our haphazard team. They somehow manage to overpower her together – although Fjord is gravely injured in the process – and drag her off to an abandoned house in the woods. Caleb and Beau begin to question Owelia, and Beau is really fantastic in this scene, with Caleb getting scarier and scarier, and Beau rightly questioning the strange connection Owelia slowly reveals she has with Caleb. It was such an odd reversal – with Beau at first thinking she’d be the bad cop, while Owelia clocks her as an amateur, needling Caleb so badly in the process that he winds up losing it. Beau may be physically tough, but she’s also an idealist and in some ways an innocent.
This all alternates with flashbacks to Caleb’s childhood. We learn that Caleb is actually Bren, a Zemnian who had an incredible amount of natural magical talent as a boy, a young person with a sweet nature living an idyllic country life. He was found by Ikithon and given a scholarship to the S – academy – which turns out to be the Volstrucker Training Center. The process of becoming Volstrucker is horrifying, and Bren is turned into a ruthless killer in the process, showing a deep natural connection with his own powers. In the end, Ikithon manipulates Bren into killing his own parents and the cat we see in the first episode (I’m not sure I like Caleb anymore! Maybe he's on a redemption path, but... wow.) The scene with Bren holding the hands of his fellow Volstrucker and sobbing as he watches his parents’ home burn. It suddenly becomes clear why he was running from the Volstrucker, why he was so desperate to see the ghost of his own cat.
What hasn’t been fully visible in previous episodes was the extent of Caleb’s natural powers. He is easily a match if not more powerful than Ikithon. When Owelia escapes, Caleb freezes the rest of the team with a rune, follows Owelia into the woods, and literally fries her to death, trapping her on a tree. Owelia, needling Caleb still more, manages to make him angry enough to turn that fire into a firestorm; even her skeleton is charred. It’s Nott, who’s continuing to earn credit with me in every scene she takes, who manages to escape Caleb’s rune and catch his body as he falls unconscious to the dirt. Later she reveals to Beau how she feels about him, telling her “He’s my boy. And one day he’s gonna do great things.” Honestly, this scene took my breath away in a way few animated series have ever managed to do.
The other characters don’t play much of a role in this episode. Fjord spends most of it throwing up, after being attacked earlier by Owelia. Molly and Jester have a few interesting moments; Molly keeps needling Jester about her relationship with the Traveler and probably rightly so – Jester is still sweet, and I gave her points for her desperation to save Toya, the Vivid Voice, in the last episode. Something just seems so fake about her, however; she’s lost her home, her “mother,” and the Traveler seems to have, well, traveled away. She’s still perky and living in a half imaginary world, and looks ready to do some more pranks at the drop of a captain’s hat. Molly is clearly avoiding something about Molly, but I love the whole "seize the now" thing so much I'll let it pass. It’s Nott, and Beau to a lesser extent, who truly shine throughout this episode; Nott, for all her goblin scariness, is proving to be a truly caring person, tending for Fjord, finding his cure, and bringing Caleb back to the group. Three cheers for Nott. And Beau is too much of an investigator to let the clues popping up get past her, not one tiny bit. I think even Owelia was impressed.
Mighty Funny
There’s not much ha-ha funny in this episode. There’s still some mysteries. Ikithon’s desperation to get Caleb back, for example. Do these two have a real connection we’ll learn more about in the future?
Also, why isn’t Fjord’s sword kicking in? Because the poison is magical?
Nott shares a story at one point about an alchemist. Fjord calls it a goblin alchemist, and says that’s weird, but... is it really? Nott doesn’t confirm.
The flashbacks tell us why Owelia is so insanely determined to go after Caleb – at one point, he humiliated her in front of Ikithon.
Molly keeps talking about how some things are better left in the past. I think there’s a lot to learn about Molly as well, and wonder if the show plans to do deep dives like this one with each of the characters.
Early in the episode we see Caleb/Bren sending up a note with fire, which presumably goes to the academy. Towards the end Owelia writes his name on a piece of paper, which burns; is it conveying a message?
In this episode, the name Bren means spark or fire. In our world, one meaning of Bren is "little drop of water."
Overall
This episode raised the bar for the series; I’m giving it a ten, and maybe going back to revise my ratings for earlier episodes. I really can’t wait for more.
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