I never enjoyed having to kill Sif. Every time I replay Dark Souls 1, I try to delay it for as long as possible. Orphen, however, has no problems taking out wolfy.

— The episode starts with Orphen ordering Salua to lead him to MacDougal. This makes me think the bad guy had gotten really far away. Like maybe he’s about to reach the heart of the forest, y’know? But no, MacDougal is literally just sleeping in his bed. Um… lame.

— The best part is how MacDougal just kinda dies. He just dies. His gun overheats and backfires on him. And with his dying breath, he tells Orphen that he saw something teeeerrrrrible at Kimluck Church. So teeeerrrrrible that it threatens to destroy the entire continent. But of course, he never actually manages to tell our hero what he actually saw. Great. Just great.

— Elsewhere, Claiomh tries to get the rangers to help her and her friends out, but they’d rather kill a puppy. To be fair, it’s no ordinary puppy. It’s a puppy Deep Dragon!

— The villagers start to go nuts without MacDougal. These people have never had to make a decision on their own in their entire life. They either follow MacDougal’s orders or Fiena’s orders… But here’s the thing: those two weren’t always around. How the hell did the villagers manage until those two showed up? How did they get this way? Welp, like with other plot elements in this series, you can just forget about it ’cause the anime ain’t gonna explain nothing. Absolutely nothing.

— Without marching orders, the villagers decide to just carry out MacDougal’s wishes anyway, i.e. something something heart of the forest. Seriously, this arc is about to come to a close, and I still have no clue what the bad guys intended to do with the heart of the forest. I know MacDougal thought he could find an amazing power there… but other than that? Nada. Zilch.

— But before they can commit this cardinal sin, they decide to chase Orphen around for a bit. Why? Beats me. And what exactly was Orphen’s original plan to get himself out of this mess? Beats me as well!

— Fiena feels like she should say something, but Majic tells her to leave it to his master. Um, your master doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing.

— All of a sudden, the Deep Dragon tells Fiena that it will punish the villagers for wanting to reach the heart of the forest. And by punish, it’ll just wipe out the entire village. Um, okay. I mean, like, you’re a big, bad wolf. Not only that, the villagers are supposed to worship you! They only follow Fiena’s order by proxy! So if you just stood in front of the villagers and said, “Hey jerks, knock it off! Touching the heart of the forest is bad juju,” the villagers would listen! But I guess we could kill them too. Whatever works.

— We see Orphen get chased around for a while until the Deep Dragon does show up. It proceeds to zap a few people with its magic. See? That’s the thing with gods. Even if they are real, are they really worth worshiping? Think about it.

— Our hero tries to confront the Deep Dragon, and as a result, we do learn a few things. For instance, Fiena is supposed to be dead, but the Deep Dragon resurrected her and sent her to the village as its familiar. Why? Just to keep an eye on MacDougal. But if MacDougal is so dangerous, why not just kill him? It’s not like his gun is effective against the Deep Dragon. And if MacDougal had just been killed outright, we wouldn’t be this “Oh no, the villagers are about to commit a taboo” mess. Ah well, gotta do this the hard way, I suppose.

— So once again, the Deep Dragon tries to screw with Orphen’s mind. This time, however, he realizes something: the dragons aren’t gods. They’re just sorcerers with their own form of sorcery. And for some reason, the Deep Dragon’s magic is only effective if it can see you. I dunno, man, that’s pretty weak. I don’t expect a majestic wolf to rely only on its sight. Shoulda picked some other creature.

— So anyways, Orphen tells his disciple to use that pervert magic. Apparently, this constructs an illusory wall that prevents the Deep Dragon from seeing what our hero is about to do. He then uses an overheated gun to deeply wound the Deep Dragon. Alrighty.

— Even in its weakened state, the Deep Dragon can yap. It. Just. Won’t. Tell. Us. What. We. Want. To. Know. “Ye do not understand what it means to muddle the sanctuary.” So tell us?! “The freedom thou earned is unmanageable.” Why? No, seriously, why?!

— The Deep Dragon intends to live and fight another day, but before it escapes, it still wants to destroy the village anyway. So who comes to save the day? Why, it’s Claiomh of all people! She holds the puppy up, says “Get ’em!” That’s it. The eyes start to glow, and before you know it, puppy has killed mommy. No, I don’t get it either.

— As the Deep Dragon fades away, it explains that when they are ruled over, they must obey, and this is why the puppy did what Claiomh asked… But I feel like this explains nothing.

— In the aftermath, Fiena is happy because she is now free and the villagers — what’s left of them anyways — won’t be killed. But uh, just hours ago, they were complete lunatics because MacDougal was dead and she wasn’t giving them the answers that they wanted to hear. You want to convince me that these weirdoes out in the woods will just pick up the pieces from here and live out a tranquil life?

— Even though Majic pretty much spent the last two episodes doting on some random shrine maiden, he’s just like, “Welp, time for me to go now!” Anticlimactic.

— The only solace is that the puppy has now joined the party. Orphen is more of a grumpy father than a roguish antihero.

— This series is clearly for people who have read the original novels and can thus understand what’s going on. But if you’re gonna do that, why even air this nonsense? How many non-fans are honestly watching this series and enjoying it?