天下制覇

Pretty sure a bunch of these characters aren't going to actually be a part of any arc in this show at all.

Impressions:

This is one of those episodes where I feel like it's much more interesting to talk about what they could have done to bring itself back from the slave-wife brink. Show that the idolization and that relationship is unhealthy. Actually shake or even break her faith in him as the way of leading into the finale. There's genuine growth and rounding of the characters possible even if it eventually just leads back to the usual status quo, but we're not interested in any of that. The opposite. Painfully opposite. Merida can no longer even pretend to be a broken, put-upon, victimized girl. The ostensibly crushing despair of society and the world beating down on her is gone. She has all the advantages now, so it's time to up the challenges and/or knock her down a peg going into the finale, not fluff up how glorious her idolization of her older boyfriend is.

And all that is leaving aside what can only be laughably called the plot for this latest excursion. It's been a couple weeks since the last tournament/test, so it's time for another tournament/test. This is where similar shows like Black Bullet or Gunslinger Girl don't trip themselves up (even if they then do so in other ways). Actually engage with your damn premise; that these are desperate people in a world full of monsters, fighting for survival. It's hard to even think that at all when we're on our fourth or fifth tournament where the most dangerous thing they fight is their own self-esteem, and this episode showed no indications that the final arc is going to be changing that.