Recap / Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood E4 "An Alchemist's Anguish"

Tropes present in this episode include:

• All for Nothing: Not only do Tucker's experiments end with his death as well as Nina/Alexander's at the hands of Scar, but later episodes reveal that the Amestris military had used Tucker's previous experiments as a stepping stone to successfully create healthy human/animal chimera hybrids, meaning that even from a purely scientific perspective, nothing was gained from the suffering Nina endured.
• Asshole Victim: Shou Tucker, who fused his own little daughter with her Big Friendly Dog into an alchemical abomination in constant agony, was really asking for it when Scar kills him.
• Be Careful What You Wish For:
  • Ed and Al agree to let Mustang introduce them to Shou Tucker after expressing interest in biological alchemy and chimeras, thinking that his research could help give them a lead on how to recover their bodies. They find out how to transmute a chimera that can talk, and Ed is so furious at Tucker that he nearly kills him.
  • When Tucker expresses fear that he'll fail his upcoming assessment and will return to a life of poverty, his daughter Nina tries to comfort him by saying, "Don't worry, daddy, it's okay. If those people do tell you 'no', me and Alexander will growl at them until they say 'yes'". These exact words are what give her father his insane idea to turn her and Alexander into a chimera.
• Big Friendly Dog: The Tuckers' dog, Alexander, is huge and knocks Ed over while greeting or playing with him.
• Didn't Think This Through: Sure, Tucker, show off the chimera you transmuted using your own daughter and her dog to two guests who had developed a close friendship with your daughter while she was human. It's not like anything she says could potentially give away what you've done to her friends.
• Disappointed by the Motive: Edward Elric attacks Shou Tucker upon realizing that the talking chimera from two years ago was his wife and that the new one was fused from his dog and child. Furthering the disappointment, Shou did it in an attempt to remain a State Alchemist as he expected what he did to his family to be acceptable and rewarding. Following this incident, Shou Tucker was scheduled to be stripped of his certification and court-martialed, but Scar got to Tucker first and blew out his brains, then mercy killed the chimera.
• Downer Ending: Nina has been transformed into a Cronenbergian abomination by her own father – who, as it turns out, betrayed her mother in the exact same fashion – and the Elrics end the episode devastated that they didn't recognise Tucker's true colours in time to protect her, Ed questioning what good they are if they can't save one little girl. And then Scar murders Tucker before he can stand trial and Mercy Kills the Nina/Alexander chimera because he knows it can never be separated back into that adorable little girl and her dog. About the only vaguely good outcome is that a horrible Mad Scientist who experimented on his own wife and daughter is dead; even then, the way he died means the military can't make an example of him, and since his death heralds the arrival of a Serial Killer, every other State Alchemist in East City – including Ed – is in grave danger.
• Empathic Environment: The days that the Elrics visit the Tuckers and have fun playing with Nina and Alexander, it's clear and sunny, but the last day they visit, it's windy and overcast and later rainy after they discover what had happened.
• Evil All Along: Shou Tucker comes across as a soft-spoken, gentle and kind man, but when the Elric brothers find him in his laboratory with a canine chimera that understands human speech, and realise that Nina and Alexander are missing, it's revealed that he is thoroughly depraved.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Shou Tucker is so sick in the head that he fails to understand why the Elric brothers are enraged at him for using his own daughter and her dog to transmute a talking but primitive chimera suffering in pain from Tucker's own incompetence with bioalchemy, all for the sake of keeping his State Alchemist license^note It's later revealed that creating human/animal chimeras in healthy condition is possible, and had in fact already been done by other, more talented State Alchemists, making Tucker's desperate act to keep his license All for Nothing, even going so far as to claim that the brothers' attempt to resurrect their deceased mother via human transmutation is the exact same scenario, which fails miserably because the brothers were able to understand why transmuting humans is wrong from their experience whereas Tucker believes there's nothing wrong with toying with humans' lives and feels no remorse. When Tucker is later placed under house-arrest to have his State Alchemist license revoked, he spends most of that time bitterly wondering why "no-one is capable of understanding me".
• Evil Is Petty: Shou Tucker sacrifices his wife and daughter for a research grant.
• Eyecatch: Nina & Alexander, and then Shou Tucker.
• Fatal Flaw: Shou Tucker has two that overlap with each other: first, his Lack of Empathy causes him to willingly turn his own loving wife and daughter into chimeras because money, with no regard for their health or future; and second, his inability to understand other people's perspectives causes him to not consider that other people would be disgusted with him for his actions, assuming that any other alchemist in his circumstances would have done the same thing. Both of these flaws lead to him losing first his certification, then his life.
• Fate Worse than Death: Nina and her dog Alexander are fused together and turned into a chimera by her own father, forcibly stripping Nina of her humanity. It's left ambiguous if they are in constant pain, but the chimera's depressed, dysfluent speech pattern heavily implies that they are.
  • Two years ago, her mother was subjected to the same fate by her insane husband, and willingly starved herself as a result.
• Gigantic Moon: At the beginning of the episode right before Grand is killed, you see a moon taking up near half of the sky.
• Gone Horribly Right: Ed and Al express their interest in bio-alchemy and chimeras after witnessing what Father Cornello could do with his (incomplete) Philosopher's Stone back in Liore, and agree to meet Shou Tucker at Mustang's recommendation. The result? A traumatic realization of how talking chimeras are transmuted, and Ed falling into depression knowing that, for all his talent and alchemical prowess, he couldn't save an innocent child from a Fate Worse than Death.
• Gray Rain of Depression: The weather when the episode ends.
• Heroic BSoD: Ed goes into a depressive funk after experiencing what happened to Nina and Alexander and confronting Shou about it.
• I Did What I Had to Do: How Shou Tucker views his actions and justifies them. Ed and Al disagree however.
• Idiot Ball: Shou Tucker shows off the chimera that understands human speech he created using Nina and her dog to the Elric brothers, who had developed a close friendship with Nina. The idea that a talking chimera can, well, talk and potentially expose his dark secret somehow did not occur to Tucker, nor did the idea that the Elrics would be horrified, and it leads to his house-arrest and eventual death at the hands of Scar.
• It's All About Me: Shou Tucker willingly sacrificed his own loving family by turning them into chimeras, all for his own financial benefit. He also believes that any other alchemist in his situation would have done the exact same thing, and can't understand how anybody could think or act differently than himself.
• Knight of Cerebus: The revelation of Shou Tucker's horrific crimes behind his biological experiments was the moment when audiences realized that Fullmetal Alchemist is not for the faint of heart.
• Knight Templar: Scar's introduction has him kill State Alchemists while judging them for their crimes against Ishval and praying for their souls after he takes their lives.
• Makes Us Even: Mustang expresses disgust for owing Ed for helping out with the situation in Liore and immediately offers to introduce him to Shou Tucker as compensation.
• Mercy Kill: Scar kills the chimera made from Nina and Alexander because he knows it can never be separated and will live the rest of its life in horrible pain.
• Ninja Run: During his fight with Grand, Scar can be scene rushing toward Grand in this manner.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Tucker ends up on the receiving end of one, after Ed figures out how he transmuted a talking chimera. Al and the Nina/Alexander chimera have to intervene to stop Ed from killing Tucker.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Shou Tucker points out that Ed also misused alchemy for personal reasons and hurt someone he loved in the process. However, there is a difference; Ed and Al performed it out of a misguided attempt to save a loved one, suffered themselves, and regret what they did, while Tucker did it for a steady pay check, only his wife and daughter suffered, and he doesn't understand what was so wrong with what he did.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: While Ed has a Hair-Trigger Temper and several Berserk Buttons, he follows a strict Thou Shalt Not Kill code throughout the series, refusing to take another's life, human or homunculus. When he realises that Shou Tucker fused his own daughter Nina with her Big Friendly Dog into a miserable chimera in constant pain, all for the sake of keeping his job, he is so overcome with rage that he would have very likely killed Shou if Al hadn't restrained him, and even when he is restrained, his expression still shows utter fury. He only relents after Nina pleads with him not to kill her father.
• Too Dumb to Live: Tucker's desperation to keep his certification and failure to understand how anybody could have a perspective different from his own causes him to conduct biological experiments that are almost as idiotic as they are horribly unethical, as he would face criminal charges and almost certainly be executed—or at least sentenced to prison for life—if he was caught. To add to his stupidity, he decides to call the Elrics into his laboratory to show off the chimera he transmuted from his young daughter Nina and her dog, without considering the fact that a talking chimera could expose his dark secret to her friends, or that the brothers would be horrified by his condemning a five-year-old to life as an experimental abomination. What Could Possibly Go Wrong? Result: Tucker is exposed as a criminal, Ed is sent into an Unstoppable Rage (and would have broken his Thou Shalt Not Kill moral code if Al hadn't intervened to restrain him), Tucker is scheduled to lose his certification and be summoned to court, and is ultimately killed by Scar when he hears of his crimes. Great catching of the Idiot Ball there, Tucker!
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Poor, poor Nina.
• Tranquil Fury: After realizing the truth about the newest chimera, Edward's voice is low and chilling as he asks Shou a few simple questions.
  Edward: Mr. Tucker? When did you get your state certification?
  Shou: Let's see, it was two years ago.
  Edward: And when did your wife leave you?
  Shou: …That was two years ago, too.
  Edward: I just have one more question for you. Nina and Alexander… where are they?
  (Al gasps in horrified realization)
  Shou: …Damn brat figuring it out so quickly!
• Unstoppable Rage: Ed goes completely ballistic on Shou, beating him to a pulp until he had to be restrained by Al.
• Villain Has a Point: Shou forcibly turning his own daughter Nina and her dog Alexander into a primitive, suffering chimera is absolutely horrible no matter how you look at the situation, but later events in the series prove that he technically wasn't wrong about human experimentation being a step to progress, even though his statement that it's a "necessary" step is more debatable and he was clearly desperate to come up with an excuse for his vile actions because he is so messed up as to fail to comprehend why the Elric brothers are enraged at him. The later events in question include the reveal of how a Philosopher's Stone is created (i.e. transmuting human souls into a trapped form used to greatly enhance alchemical abilities), how Amestris itself was founded on the loss of countless Xerxians so that the Big Bad could become a living Philosopher's Stone, the Amestris Military uses alchemy for war and conducts secret biological experiments in laboratories, and that Amestris is ruled by twisted Homunculi that were themselves created using the power of a Philosopher's Stone.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Alexander, Nina and Shou are all dead by episode's end.
• Wham Line: At first, Ed and Al are amazed that Tucker was able to create a chimera that can talk. Then...
  Nina/Alexander: Big brother Ed...
• The Worf Effect: Zigzagged with Basque Grand's death at Scar's hands. On the one hand, it demonstrates just how dangerous Scar is for being able to take out an opponent skilled in weapons transmutation. On the other hand, as this is Scar and Grand's first appearance in Brotherhood, it lacks the power and impact it might have had if Grande had been introduced earlier.

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