Good God, I feel like I just sat through "A Good Man Goes To War" all over again. I half-expected the Paternoster Gang to show up, though I imagine with how heavy the drama was this outing, Strax's comically serious attitude would have seemed out of place. Still, this felt very much like the first part of a two-parter, ending on a wham of a cliffhanger. The deaths of two villains and one promising new character, the introduction of a powerful new player, the revelation that the Black Rose has more reach and influence than hinted at and that the rot in the White Lotus went deeper than it seemed, the return of a wayward character and what seems is the ending of a romance (I'd say two, but Wakaba is the forgiving type), and then the final wham when we realize that the whole battle has been a sleight-of-hand while the real target was where we couldn't see them. And that's not including all the emotional fallout that all those events will bring with them.

The icing on the cake was Lin's introduction in the post-credits. I've debated a couple times with asking if we'd ever see her in UF, figuring you had something up your sleeve. Glad to see my patience was rewarded.