As Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End has touched on frequently, eternity is a pretty long time. In the series’ latest episode, “Logistics In The Northern Plateau,” we learn that many of this world’s elves have sought to blunt the enormity of their near-endless existences by chasing a goal or purpose of some kind. But what happens when that goal ends up fulfilled? Or even worse, what happens when a centuries-spanning project ends up a total dud? Before long, Frieren & co. meet someone wrestling with this dilemma.
As the gang hangs out in one of the Northern Plateau’s rare cities, where they enjoy delicious-looking steak and soft bread (this will prove important later in the episode), Frieren once again seems eager to leave for an unspecified reason. The second episode of this season, “The Hero Of The South,” taught us that this probably means there’s someone around here she wants to avoid. Enter a dwarf named Fass. He had previously crossed paths with our protagonist on her last journey. Specifically, Fass tried to recruit her group to help him find Boshaft, a legendary liquor that apparently dates back to an ancient Romanesque empire that once ruled the entire continent. This guy has been trying to find it for more than 200 years.
However, despite his passion, Frieren seems hesitant to help him, an out-of-character move considering one of her previous party members, Heiter, had also desperately wanted to find it. Usually, she goes out of her way to honor her former comrades’ wishes, even when it is incredibly inconvenient. Fass shows them the mining network he built to find the legendary liquor. He adds that while most would assume that all dwarves are master miners, this isn’t the case, and as a city dwarf, he had to learn this skill via old tomes. This seems like a throwaway line, but it embodies the show’s nuanced approach toward its fantasy setup, with the various peoples of this world not inherently defined by tropes or stereotypes (again, except for the demons).
Beyond this, these mines are a physical embodiment of Foss’ single-minded determination, so when Frieren turns down his request to open a magical door to the Boshaft that only a master mage could unlock, even the kids (Fern and Stark) are put off. The pair maintains their stance even after they learn this task would take up to three months. (It turns out that the sizable stack of gold coins Foss is offering doesn’t hurt either.)
Eventually, we learn the reason for Frieren’s reticence: She’s had Boshaft before, and it tastes like shit. As a matter of fact, she knows the elf who spread the “legend” of the drink in the first place, Milliarde. Frieren recalls how Milliarde was left despondent after her search for an unspecified life-spanning goal proved meaningless. In the flashback, Milliarde asks Frieren why most elves spend their long lives searching for something before answering her own question: “so they don’t end up like me.” Whether out of malice or something else, Milliarde carved a stone inscription declaring that Boshaft, a cheap, gross liquor, was the greatest drink ever brewed.
Frieren wanted to shield Foss from this crushing truth. Ultimately, though, it seems that Heiter’s words changed her mind. The priest, in true absurdist form, remarks that if he found out his life’s work was a farce, he would do his best to laugh it off with a drink among friends. Camus would be proud. Frieren finally unlocks the gate to the alcohol alongside Foss, but makes sure that she and her group drink the unfortunate beverage with him. Foss is disappointed, but decides to share the terrible booze with the rest of the city. Drunken revelry ensues. As many existentialist philosophers would argue, the key to confronting this type of meaninglessness is to laugh it off.
Those kinds of good spirits are much needed because, as our group heads back into the wilderness in the second half of the episode, they’re confronted with one of the great hardships of the Northern Plateau. It isn’t killer monsters like last time, but something Frieren’s blasts of Zoltraak can’t fix: Their only travel food is incredibly stale bread. Our heroine explains that the supply lines around here have fallen on hard times. An armed merchant group, the Norm Company, used to have a strong trading network in the region that ensured goods flowed freely, and it was so influential that it acted as the de facto government of these parts. Frieren assumes that the current supply woes are due to the company’s decline.
After another pleasant montage where these adventurers explore picturesque outdoors, they crest a hill, and what do you know, it’s the Norm Company’s imposing central fortress. On the decline or not, Frieren tells her pupils to avoid getting on their bad side. Of course, Frieren almost immediately ends up on their bad side. After a clerk spots a decades-old wanted poster, Frieren is whisked away to speak with the current head of the company, the grandson of the founder. It turns out the founder had graciously lent Frieren and the rest of her party funds without interest or a specific payment date because he believed this group could kill the Demon Lord. The current head of the company doesn’t seem to buy this, and an old document suggests Frieren is in a mountain of debt due to interest. After looking at the impressive but insufficient stack of gold our heroes recently earned, he very literally sends her to the mines.
The scene is mostly played for laughs, and Frieren makes one of her signature reaction faces (the one where her eyes become horizontal lines, but without the “:3” face) in response. While it’s admittedly pretty funny as she tells her allies it will take 300 years to pay off the debt in a comedically defeated tone, the scene sells this whole indentured servitude situation a bit too lightly. In this case, we have a shrewd capitalist (okay, he’s technically not a capitalist because this is a feudal society, but you get what I mean) locking up a person who helped save these lands, all because of a Kafkaesque bureaucratic screwup. Admittedly, it’s pretty clear from the lighthearted framing that this will all end up being some misunderstanding, but still, it lands awkwardly.
Eventually, it turns out that the head of the company simply wants to temporarily use Frieren’s abilities to find a silver mine that will turn around the group’s finances. I’m not entirely clear on why he couldn’t just ask like a normal person, but I suppose he couldn’t resist coming up with some convoluted checkmate move to force her hand. Classic suit behavior. Still, his actions are largely vindicated by the narrative because restoring the nearby supply lines will save those who are currently starving in the region. This will also ensure that Frieren and her buddies don’t have to eat rock-hard grain that looks like it could have been used on a 16th-century transatlantic voyage, so it’s a win for them as well.
It also helps that the moment when Frieren casts a spell to find the silver deposits is the animation highlight of the episode. Constellations appear underground as nearby workers witness a miracle, dancing blue lights marking the path forward. Both visually and practically speaking, this little segment fully sells how powerful magic is in this world, especially from a layperson’s perspective. Another silver lining is that, as Frieren is allowed to leave, she finds her downtrodden allies conspiring to free her from servitude. At least someone was taking this all seriously.
Stray observations
- • I’m dying to know what Milliarde’s unfulfilled life purpose was. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is seeding a future storyline, and I have a gut feeling it will overlap with the demons somehow.
- • Is it just me, or is Foss pretty small for a dwarf? I thought he was going to end up being a halfling or a gnome or something. Does this world have halflings or gnomes? Maybe Eisen is just large by dwarf standards.
Elijah Gonzalez is The A.V. Club’s associate editor.
