I love the recurring gag of Cid just spouting off the lines he heard from Mary last episode. He even got to recite them back to her as Shadow after dramatically saving her. A role reversal from when he was saved by her in his Cid persona.

The fact that Cid dramatically finished off the final boss (he thinks) and poses for an audience of zero really tells you a lot about him. He places an importance on the aesthetic of being an Eminence in Shadow, even if nobody is there to appreciate it. Also, for as genre-aware as he might be, he is bad at guessing when the protagonist of a storyline will appear. He messed this up in the sanctuary last season as well when Nelson showed up instead of Alpha.

Finally, we get to see the ED this episode. It looks like they are keeping a similar style to last season where they have a cast member sing the ED while character art is slowly revealed. This time, I was initially confused as to what character it was, but it is actually Lambda (the drill sergeant from the end of last season) and the song is sung by her CV Ikumi Hasegawa. This seems to be a younger version of Lambda and the first time I have ever seen her with her right eye open. I hope we get some Lambda in this season. She has hardly shown up at all in the LNs that I can remember, but she is such a cool looking character.