Episode 59 (2009 Anime)

Mustang appears to bend to the doctor's demand, but he is honoring Hawkeye's plea instead and refuses Human Transmutation, calling the doctor's sacrifices far graver than his own. The tables turn when the doctor is snared in the saliva of Jerso, hanging in chimera form from the pipes overhead. May and a transformed Zampano drop in to strike at the undead soldiers, freeing Mustang and Scar, and Darius later fells another attacker from the ceiling. May reaches the wounded Hawkeye and uses alkahestry to stem her bleeding, warning that a real doctor is still needed. Hawkeye wakes to thank Mustang, who admits her expression told him she would have shot him had he opened the Gate.

King Bradley resurfaces, having survived his fall by swimming through the sewers, and pins Mustang by staking his hands to the floor. Pride arrives, absorbs the Gold-Toothed Doctor into his shadows to seize the man's alchemical knowledge, and rings Wrath and Mustang with a forced transmutation circle. As the eclipse begins, the two homunculi shove Mustang through the Gate against his will, taking his eyesight as the toll. Scar, May and Jerso realize Wrath is only a distraction while Father and the sacrifices lie directly beneath them.

Delivered to Father's chamber, the blinded Mustang joins Ed and Izumi. Pride's own face flakes away from the strain of the transmutation, though he judges it worthwhile since Mustang's flame alchemy would have been the deadliest threat. Meanwhile May wakes Al's body while Al's mind stands at the Gate before his failing human form. Rather than reclaim a body too weak to fight, Al chooses to remain in the armor and returns to his friends, a decision his human self warns may steer the world toward despair. With that, all five sacrifices are present and Father is satisfied.

The episode draws on the manga chapters "The Fifth Human Sacrifice" and "Before the Portal," and its title card shows the flame alchemy sigil from Roy Mustang's Gate. The takedown of the Bradley candidates is softened for the anime, with May and Roy landing non-lethal blows while Darius and the other chimeras finish them off. The scene of Al being drawn back into his metal shell deliberately echoes Edward's encounter with Al's body in Episode 26, with each brother promising to come back for him.