Fate Apocrypha – Episode 10 Review

I know the feeling, man. You had the best Servant.

The tenth episode of Fate Apocrypha opens with Sieg facing against Mordred, who promptly nearly kills him until Astolfo intercepts and calls him an idiot. Rightfully so considering he was shaking in his boots and Mordred pretty much flattens them both. What ultimately saves them both is the timely arrival of best girl Berserker, who gets the drop on Mordred and goes in for a good hit on Caules’ command.

Then we cut to Jack the Ripper, who has basically taken several homunculi apart for their magical energy. A golem moves to crush her, but she takes it apart with contemptuous ease despite the fact that Assassins are supposed to be the weakest Servants in terms of sheer power. She then decides to stick around to see how the battles go from here on, rather than going home to her Master/Mother’s side and skips off to watch the fireworks.

Back with the best girl, Berserker’s hits do jack-all against Mordred. Eventually, she just blows Berserker away and stabs her while she’s down to show the others just how screwed they are. Yet, Sieg runs in and stabs Mordred successfully through a crack in her armor, earning her ire enough that she decides to plow her sword through his chest next and pretty much put hims down.

So, the one Servant army that is Mordred then turns to deal Astolfo. The latter is quite upset at Sieg’s death, but Mordred manhandles him and gets ready to finish him off too, only for her Master to ask if she made sure Berserker was death. She wasn’t, taking the chance to get the drop on Mordred again and attempt to suicide-bomb her using her Noble Phantasm at maximum power, combined with the boost from her Master’s Command Seal….

Unfortunately, it didn’t finish off Saber and thus her death appeared to be in vain. At least until one of the bolts of lightning restarted Seig’s heart that belonged to Siegfried and thus it forged a connection to where he talks with the fallen Servant and gains his power through a Command Seal. Thus, Sieg was reborn as  a (fake) Servant and challenges Mordred.

The Red Faction’s masterminds, Shirou, Semiramis, and Shakespeare , look on at the events with mild surprise. Shirou clarifies that its closer to possession, only possible because he’s a homunculus and that at best he’ll last a few minutes.  Semiramis offers to take him out now, though Shirou declines, and Shakespeare feels that its a legend in the making that he wants to see through to the end.

Mordred’s actually being challenged now, so her Master burns a Command Seal to increase her power. Thus the fight from the first episode plays out as Mordred and Sieg begin to use their Noble Phantasms to go all out. Thus the episode ends.

Okay, review time.

This episode was a serious turning point in the status quo. Rather than cover the vast battles from before, it focuses on the participants in this skirmish involving Mordred, Astolfo, Berserker, and Sieg. And the end result of it is the scenario we witnessed in the first episode when some of the battle’s highlights were being shown.

Mordred’s strength was unmatched up until Sieg transformed. Berserker did next to nothing until she used her sacrificial Noble Phantasm and that damage got patched nearly instantly. Yet, you can tell from the tone in Mordred’s voice when she asked Sieg if he was a homunculus that she was bothered by it to an extent, no doubt considering her own origins. Yet, she does give him the barest amount of respect after he stabs her and she returns the favor tenfold.

As for Berserker (Frankenstein’s monster), she’s the second Servant to fall, depending on if you consider Sieg’s transformation to be a different thing than the actual Servant. For her to have only been with Caules for a short time, they truly had a connection in which Caules laments not being able to do anything for her as a Master. I actually felt bad watching her die like that, with the only payoff being Sieg coming back stronger as a result.

We also get some introspective into Shirou’s mindset. He saw Sieg allowing himself to be possessed as foolish, citing that even though he would live a short life of a homunculus he was the perfect existence beforehand. It actually gets him irritated enough that the two Servants by his side notice, which is telling considering that nothing has really shaken him from his goody-persona until now. That speaks volumes about what he desires and sets up animosity between him and Sieg, albeit one-sided, that will no doubt come into play in the future.