Poor Illya… I have to admit that this episode was very difficult to watch and I ended up skipping that scene.
While there were some hints from last time that this episode will have that scene given the carnage Gil had done in the last episode, I have to admit that the back-story was very interesting. As we know in Fate/zero, Kiritsugu betrayed the Holy Grail or rather, his wife because of her warped up idea of his ideals. Because of this, he can never see Illya ever again. That also means that the spirit of her mother will try to brainwash Illya to participate in the next Grail War.
While it’s painful to see her experimented on, it seems that she just want to live a normal life (which she actually gets in Prisma Illya). After seeing the horror, she was thrown into the Grail War with the hopes of fulfilling her dreams by making a link with Berserker, whose true identity is Hercules. While she couldn’t get him to move, she escaped during a snowstorm. After being attacked by some wolves, he came to rescue her without being told to do so. To me, it seems that they have a lot in common, which can explain why he is so loyal to her.
At the end, while I obviously skipped that scene since I didn’t want to see it, there was one scene, which proves that Gilgamesh is not invincible. Although Berserker was at a huge disadvantage against him, he managed to break his chains towards the end. Of course, Gil overestimating his powers will be his ultimate downfall in the end when he is forced to face the remaining servants (excluding Lancer of course)
With Berserker defeated, Lancer is basically Rin’s and Shirou’s last hope to stop Caster. As expected, it won’t come at any surprise since the last episode already foreshadowed that Lancer will defeat her in the next few episodes.
>As we know in Fate/zero, Kiritsugu betrayed the Holy Grail or rather, his wife because of her warped up idea of his ideals.
That’s not what happened at all. The grail simply took the method that Kiritsugu knew and applied that how to end suffering in the world (his wish). It had nothing to do with anyone warping his ideals, it magnified his methods on a grand scale and showed him the end result.
Yep, you are right for the fact that the grail showed his belief in the second to last episode… It’s my mistake as it’s been a while since I finished Fate/zero.