Attack on Titan – The Final Episode – Fear and Love

Hoo boy, this was a ride and a half. I’m always a little overwhelmed trying to review a movie-length episode, and that did not change with this nearly 90-minute finale of finales of one of the biggest animes in history. There’s also the reality that the drip-drip-drip of final episodes and specials sapped a little of my enthusiasm, much as it did for iconic shows like The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and to a lesser extent, GoT.

But for now I’ll break down the desperate final mission of the now-united faction of Titan and non-Titan Scouts to save and/or stop Eren from, well ending the world. He doesn’t make it easy, nor does Founder Ymir, who is able to conjure a seemingly unlimited number of iterations of the original nine Titans to defend Eren from their aerial attack.

Reiner and Pieck are the only Titans in their first wave, with Armin holding his Colossal powder as a last resort. But as the non-Titans start running out of ammo and stamina, it’s starting to look like they have to shift to a Kill-Eren strategy, something Mikasa never wants to hear. The group gets a big boost from the surprise arrival of Annie, who decides to join the fight after all, along with Gabi, who are riding Falco—now a very handy winged Jaw Titan.

Before they arrive, however, Armin is scooped up by an okapi Titan, and after yelling at himself to wake up, ends up in the Paths with Zeke. The older Yeager believes the meaning of life is to simply multiply, and that they developed fear in order to do so with more urgency.

Armin takes a more personal tack: there are times he believes he was only put on this earth to run around with Eren and Mikasa back home, behind Wall Maria. He even accepted that there was a specific order to that: Eren leading, Mikasa pretending to trail, and him bringing up the rear.

Both men manage to escape the purgatory of the Paths when Armin finds a leaf from that tree he and Eren and Mikasa always used to run to; to Zeke, it appears as the baseball that gave him so much joy to throw back and forth. Amrin ends up being freed from the okapi Titan and caught by Annie in her Titan form. I’m glad they got to reunite, even here at what may well still be the end of all things.

Armin and Zeke aren’t alone: they called upon those former Titans who died, in order to fight the multiplying Titans Ymir was sending at the others. Zeke offers his neck to Levi, who beheads him, and the Rumbling stops just a few yards short of thousands of men, women, and children trapped upon a sheer cliff.

Armin orders the other scouts to retreat aboard Falco so he can blow up the gigantic Attack/Founding Titan with his Colossal Titan’s explosion. But while the Rumbling has ceased, a weird translucent caterpillar thing still works to get back to Eren’s Titan, which would start it back up again. It even turns everyone back at the military camp, including Gabi, into a gaggle of Titans to defend it.

Only those who are already Titan wielders and the Ackermanns are immune, so Levi and Mikasa head back to where Armin’s Titan continues to do battle with Eren’s Titan.

Then, suddenly, Mikasa wakes up, as if from a long dream. She’s with Eren at a bucolic cabin up in the gorgeous mountains. This is the life they’d have led if Eren had gone with her and left their life of fighting and killing behind.

In reality, it’s just an illusion within the Paths, but it does enable Mikasa and Eren to talk again, since the last time they were in person he said some horrible things.

With Levi’s help, Mikasa manages to break through Eren’s Titan’s teeth to where his body is located, where she beheads and kisses him while Founder Ymir watches.

Armin has his own time with Eren within the Paths, first as little kids but gradually growing older as they traverse landscapes both familiar and trippy. Eren admits to Armin that as the Founding Titan, there’s no true past or future; he sees it all at the same time.

His plan was to have him, Mikasa, and the Scouts defeat him so they could be lauded by society as the heroes who saved the earth, in hopes the conflict between Marley and Eldia could end. By attempting this plan, Eren’s Rumbling killed 80% of humanity, and left Marley in a diminished state that they couldn’t fight Paradis if they wanted to, at least not for some time.

Armin doesn’t let Eren carry the entire burden; after all, it was he who showed Eren a book about the world beyond the walls and the sea. The two embrace as brothers, with Eren telling Armin that when everything is over he’ll remember everything he told him, while Armin tells Eren they’ll suffer the consequences of what they’ve done together.

Back in the present, Armin comes to, and learns that not only him, but everyone who knew Eren had some time in the Paths with him, and only now when he’s dead do they remember those times. Mikasa heads off with Eren’s head, intending to bury it beside the tree they used to run to.

Three years pass, and we see that Historia and her child continue to live in peace, which is what Eren wanted. Marley is still picking up the pieces of their civilization, while Eldia has grown more extreme and militaristic. Armin, Annie, Connie, Reiner, Pieck and Jean have ditched their Scout uniforms for business suits, and tasked with using their status as saviors of humanity to attempt to forge a peace.

Mikasa is also at peace, having left her life of fighting and killing far behind. She visits and tends to Eren’s grave, still wearing the scarf he wrapped around her, and which he asked her to get rid of. Instead, she keeps wearing it, and keeps visiting, until she passes away.

Time goes on, both the tree and the city below the hill grow larger and taller. Over a period of untold centuries the city evolves into a futuristic metropolis, and is then leveled into ruins by weapons of mass destruction.

Who knows how many hundreds or thousands of years pass when a young boy and his dog discover a cave in the ancient tree that survived all of that history. Somewhere within its massive roots, a small stone tablet, Eren’s grave, still dwells, and his remains below it.

This final scene has an almost Made in Abyss like vibe; taking place as it does so long after everything and everyone we knew in this world had long since passed on. More than anything, it most definitely feels like a finale. This is the end; there is no more Attack on Titan.

I’ve described, with variable levels of accuracy, all the crazy stuff that happened in this movie-length episode, but it remains hard to actually put my thoughts about it into words. It was at times a hard watch, and at times an immensely joyful watch.

I guess my main takeaway is that we are all pretty much children, and our time on this earth is short, and perhaps the best way to live our lives is with as much love and as little fear as we can manage. Love can obviously instill fear—fear of loss or change—but loss and change are inevitable qualities of mortal life.

Attack on Titan never pretended to know how to answer all of the hard questions it asked about the cyclical nature of war, death, hate, extremism, and suffering that are the products of our inability as a species to achieve universal love for each other and the failure to keep fear at bay.

But simply by addressing them, sometimes awkwardly or controversially, within the limited the scope of this band of flawed, scarred, intensely human members of the Scout Regiment, and watching them grow up, drift apart, then come back together, was a monumental achievement to watch.

RABUJOI WORLD HERITAGE LIST

Attack on Titan – 88 (The Final Season E29-31) – A World of Sinners

This is it. Well…almost. This hour-long special comprises part one of Part 3 of The Final Season. The final final finale is expected to air this Fall, and then Attack on Titan will end. And would that it would end like this special began: with Eren waking up from a long dream. Mikasa asks why there are tears in his eyes, but he doesn’t know. He can’t remember.

As Eren walked through the city, he watches a poor boy getting beaten in an alley for stealing, but he doesn’t stop to help. How can he pretend to be righteous when he knows, and is resigned to the fact, that he will soon level this entire city and everyone in it with the Rumbling? He later apologizes to the kid with tears in his eyes, for what he believes can’t be stopped.

After that, we return to the present, in the midst of the Rumbling, and it’s a rough, rough watch. Just unblinking carnage among the rich and poor, men, women, and children, one of whom is the boy Eren met earlier and his brother. Like so many millions, they end up crushed under the foot of a Colossal Titan.

The Rumbling has begun, and there’s nothing the Scout Regiment can do about that, but they’re still determined to do what they can. While on Azumabito’s ship, Annie thanks Armin for talking with her while she was frozen, and he all but confesses he did it not for strategic purposes, but because he loved her.

Annie doesn’t believe she deserves such deference after all she’s done, but Armin has long ago stopped pretending he’s any “better” a person than she. The world beyond the walls wasn’t what he or Eren thought it would be (something Annie already knew), and that reality made monsters of all of them.

But as Falco and Gabi are told by Pieck that the Rumbling has begun and all their family must be dead by now, Armin tells Annie he still hopes there’s something out there, far beyond the walls, to give them hope for the future.

But again, for now, Armin and Mikasa and their meager fighting force are simply going to do what they can. That night at the port when the flying boat is being prepared for flight, Mikasa notices Annie and Armin’s thing and gets flustered herself.

She’s also resolute about bringing Eren, who has gone “far away” in more ways than one, “back”, with the unspoken “or die trying”, but is also accepting that Annie has fought enough, so she’ll fight so she can spend the time she has left more peacefully.

That said, Armin is going on this mission from which he may not return, and Annie is deciding to stay on the ship with Azumabito, Gabi, and Falco. Yelena confirms that Eren’s likely next target is Fort Salta, where the Marleyan airship fleet will no doubt be mobilized for a final assault.

Yelena also maintains that Zeke’s Eldian euthanization plan would have been preferable to the global massacre currently taking place…and Hange can’t disagree anymore. After Reiner and Annie share a heartfelt hug of farewell and apology, Armin shoots Annie one last wave look of acknowledgement before the ship steams off. He wants Annie to stay Annie.

Predictably, the launch of the flying boat does not go off without a hitch. Floch, who had stowed away on the ship, appears to shoot holes in the plane’s fuel tank, delaying the launch enough for the Rumbling to arrive. Knowing someone has to try to slow them down to give the welders time to repair the tank, Hange assigns herself what she knows will be a one-way mission.

She’s her typical happy-go-lucky and somewhat unhinged Hange Zoe self right to the last, naming Armin her successor as Scout Regiment Commander, and then flying off on her ODM gear for one last sweeping view of the port city, before blushing at the beauty of the Colossals before her.

Hange puts up a hell of a fight and brings a number of Colossals down (they’re very stupid, so they don’t dodge her attacks or even step over one another), but she is eventually enveloped in flames and falls to her death. But by the time she does, the flying boat is safely in the air, and hope of stopping the Rumbling is still alive. Hange, unfortunately, is not, and joins Erwin and a number of other fallen comrades under the blue skies of the hereafter.

The second half of the special is entitled “Sinners” as everyone from the main players of this story to their parents and parents’ parents, reflect on the lives they’ve led and how they may have contributed to the situation they’re in now, and how to make things better in the future, if they can.

Armin wastes no time asserting authority as commander in laying out their plan of attack once they get to Fort Salta and encounter Eren. Killing him will only be a last resort if dialogue won’t work. But just as they’re discussing such dialogue, Eren brings them all to the Path and declares in no uncertain terms that the Rumbling will not stop under any circumstances.

This begs the question: if he doesn’t want the Rumbling to stop, why are they all still able to use their Titan powers? He tells them he’s given them the freedom to choose. They can either sit back and watch him complete the purge of all non-Eldians from the world, or try to stop him. It’s not exactly an invitation, but Eren is well aware Armin and the others will choose the latter.

Back on the boat, Annie learns that Falco has been dreaming memories of Zeke. He still has a connection to Zeke and the Beast Titan, ergo if Annie so chooses, she can use her Female Titan power to manifest those abilities. Annie had just heard Azumabito saying she may not be able to turn back time or ever forgive herself, but she can still do what she can. Was that talk, and this opportunity, enough to bring Annie back into the fight?

Just as a train from the city being controlled by the Eldians (including Reiner and Annie’s folks) approaches Fort Salta, they see all the airships, their means of escape, have been launched in a last-ditch effort to stop the Rumbling. The fort’s commander vows to break away from the cycle of hate that caused this crisis should they somehow manage to survive.

The airship bombing run does not go well. The airships’ altitude is too high for accurate targeting, and the Beast Titan sprouts from Eren’s spine to lob lighting balls at the ships until they’ve all been blown out of the sky. All hope seems lost for the soldiers and refugees at the fort, united in their desire to survive. But then the flying boat peeks out of the clouds, running on fumes, just in time to drop the Scout Regiment right on top of Eren.

Armin, Mikasa, Jean, Connie, and Levi leap from the plane, joined by Reiner and Pieck, who transform into the Armored and Cart. The people at the fort can see what’s going on, and Reiner’s family revels in the fact he’s still alive. How long, however, remains to be seen.

As Armin prepares to get up close and personal with his former best friend, he has one more question for him: How is this freedom to him? Those colossal ribs look like nothing so much as a cage in which Eren is restrained, pulled and dragged along by what he feels to be his final fate.

But even after all the sins he’s committed and plans to commit, Armin and especially Mikasa are not ready to give up on him. They’ve sinned too, after all, as has every single living soul in the world. The time for judging one another is over. This is a fight for survival and the future, and if they lose, it’s the end of everything. Who will prevail? We’ll find out in the Fall.

Attack on Titan – 86 – A Good Time to Die

Floch’s reinforcements are already on the way when Hange, Magath & Co. finally meet up with the Azumabito. That’s when the world’s scrappy last hope against Eren learns that the flying boat usually takes a whole day to service before it’s ready for flight. At best, they can shave it down to half a day, but Hange estimates they only have four days to stop the rumbling from destroying the entire world.

Kiyomi proposes they tow the flying boat to the Marleyan coastal city of Odiha (the map of which looks a lot like Tokyo on its side) where it can get serviced faster and more safely, but they have to get to the cargo ship and get it ready. As the logistic pile up, Mikasa informs Annie and Reiner, who are just barely holding the line as it is.

The ensuing battle is a sickening Eldian-against-Eldian bloodbath, with the Titans getting battered with lightning spears as th Jaegerist soldiers are carved up by Mikasa, Hange, Connie, and Jean. It must no doubt suck to have to kill so many of their own kind, but if they hesitate they’re the ones who’ll be killed, and it will be game over.

They have to fight, and kill, and slaughter in order to get to the next step, even if they have no idea where Eren is located. That means when push comes to shove, even Falco and Gabi aren’t spared from the fighting, as the former transforms into the Jaw Titan for the first time, while the latter fires the shot that finally takes Floch down…but is he really out?

Prior to his final charge, Floch’s reinforcements are approaching on a train…which is promptly blown up. By who, we don’t know, but there’s no time to worry about it. Once all of the Jaegerist soldiers are taken out, the battered Anti-Eren Alliance limps aboard the readied ship, and they sail off to meet their destinies.

As for Magath, he stays behind to scuttle the docked  Marleyan cruiser before more Jaegerist reinforcements arrive. On the way, his life is saved…by Shadis, who followed the alliance here, his heart moved by seeing his former students think and act for themselves and for the good of the world. Shadis and Magath realize that their stories must end here, and indeed go out in a massive blast that takes the cruiser off the board.

I can’t rule out whether Floch managed to stow aboard the ship bound for Odiha (it’s hard to believe that’s the last we’ve seen of such an annoying antagonist) but one thing’s for certain: the alliance is too late to save Liberio, which means Annie’s reason for fighting is gone (though unbeknownst to her, her dad is already dead).

Hange once again demonstrates their leadership by telling Annie and the others that they’re on that boat because Magath trusted them to save people whose names he’d never know. So Annie, tears in her eyes, asks Mikasa once more if, when the time comes, she’ll be able to kill Eren, or let her kill him.

All Annie is sure of is that she’s tired of fighting—with Mikasa, even with Eren. Hopefully they’ll all be able to live to see a time when the fighting’s over and they can rest. It won’t be long now.

Attack on Titan – 85 – Coming to This

Floch and the Jaegerists have taken the port and secured the Marleyan flying boat, but haven’t destroyed it yet, despite being the only thing our new alliance can use to get to Eren. Hange posits that Floch isn’t in a hurry to destroy valuable tech that will take decades to restore with most of the world gone. Whatever the reason, the alliance needs that plane. What is everyone willing to do to get it?

Armin wants to try to secure the boat and get it repaired by the Azumabito mechanics without shedding any blood. It’s probably upping the difficulty level far higher than they need to considering the stakes. That said, they’re also trying to cling to what shards of humanity they still possess, which is admirable…as is Magath trying to wring Eren’s location out of Yelena, then bowing his head in apology for initially blaming four kids for all of Eldia’s historical crimes against Marley.

Even Magath understands the importance of not holding children responsible for the misdeeds of their ancestors in a future where everyone can co-exist. Unfortunately, we’re not quite in that future yet, and so the plan to capture the plan without bloodsheed quickly goes sideways, in part due to Floch being smart enough to consider whether Armin and Connie are traitors, and in part due to Azumabito Kiyomi not being ready to go down without a fight.

Kiyomi understands that Eren’s plan won’t save the world, only shrink it; concentrating all of humanity’s inner conflict on one island—and shrinking the gene pool along with it. No, this way will be mankind’s ruin, only faster than allowing the present system to continue. I don’t know if Kiyomi thinks Armin will do something and tries to buy time by pinning Floch, or if she’s just ready to die fighting.

The end result is the same: the Jaegerists, who can’t be reasoned with in such a compressed timeframe, must be wiped out. Mikasa bursts into the room where Kiyomi is being held and does her best to incapacitate the Jaegerists without killing them, while Annie and Reiner transform in an attempt to capture or kill Floch. I daresay I felt quite nostalgic seeing the Female Titan in action again after so many years.

But while Titans rumble towards Marley and other Titans flex their muscles on behalf of the alliance, the most compelling part of the episode happens on the pier, as Armin and Connie try to trick their former comrades Daz and Samuel into disarming the bomb attached to the flying boat and let them use it to “chase the Cart Titan”.

When Floch raises the alarm, Armin is shot and Connie held, but their comrades hesitate just enough to allow Connie to take the upper hand, shooting both in the head. Yes, he and Armin betrayed two of their old friends…but they had to. The very world depended on it.

Clinging to their humanity won’t mean jack shit if the Eren and Rumbling succeed. The alliance’s one and only mission is to prevent that, and doing so will stain their hands with far more blood than they’d prefer. It has well and truly come to this, and there’s no more going back.

Attack on Titan – 84 – Kumbaya

While lying awake in bed, Jean envisions a comfortable future in “that prime spot in the interior.” He has a wife, a kid, and all the fancy liquor he can sip. He can have it all if he simply “stays put”, does what Floch says, and allows Eren to commit global genocide unchallenged. In other words, he has to give up on being a Scout.

Jean meets secretly with Hange and Mikasa prior to the botched execution of Yelena and Onyankopon that results in the three being eaten by the Cart, so we already know he’ll choose to stop Eren. This week we learn why he made that decision. First, Hange’s three simple but powerful words—genocide is wrong. Second, Hange makes him feel the eyes of all his fellow scouts who have fallen. He won’t forsake them. He tells Hange, simply, I’m forever a scout.

Fast-forward to the big meet-up of the Paradis and Marleyan Eldians (and Magath), and while last week there was a distinct super-heroic feeling to this eclectic band being brought together, it looks decidedly shakier this week, once they all, ya know, have to sit around a fire together.

The sparks start flying when Magath and Jean argue over who started this fight, at which point Hange, stirring the stew, says none of them should be talking about a past they weren’t present for.

Then Annie asks Mikasa if, when trying to convince Eren fails, would she really be able to hurt or kill him in order to stop him. When Mikasa bears arms, Annie responds with her needle ring, ready to transform. They end up cooling down then partaking in the hot stew.

Meanwhile, the reason Yelena is alive is so she can tell Magath and the others where Eren is. She won’t tell them, but she’s happy to stir the shit by going over how many people everyone assembled there has killed, and more importantly, what they did to each other.l

Honestly, why Hange didn’t insist on Yelena being gagged in such a volatile situation is beyond me. Yelena doesn’t spare anyone, getting it “all out in the open”. What sets Jean off is when she mentions Marco, and how Reiner and Annie took away his ODM gear so he’d get eaten by a titan.

It’s not that fact, but when Reiner adds that he killed the titan that ate Marco, and begs Jean not to forgive him, than Jean basically beats him to a pulp. When Gabi gets between them, she gets kicked, but she and Falco still beg Jean to help them save their families.

At dawn, after he’s calmed down, Jean wakes Gabi and Falco up, saying that he’ll help them. There’s a crispness and clarity to the look of the morning that suggests a great many things were burned away in that campfire, or at least set aside to the point where they can all work together towards a shared goal: stopping Eren’s genocide.

Unfortunately, before they reach the port where Azumabito Kiyomi says there’s an airship for them to board, Pieck reports that the port is already under Jaegerist occupation, and Lady Azumabito is among Floch’s hostages. The Stop Eren faction is off to a rocky start.

Attack on Titan – 83 – Putting Together a Team

Levi is lucky his companion in the woods is Hange, who is able to stiches him up and keeps his wounds clean. The two are in the dark until Eren’s message to all Eldians. Hange thinks the only option is to run, but even in his awful state, that’s not how Levi flies, so the two make contact with Magath and Pieck and propose an alliance.

We catch glimpses of Jean, Mikasa, and Annie at night trying to sleep through the din of the Rumbling, while Armin and Gabi ride through the night, trying to catch up to Connie in time to save Falco. Little did I know everyone in this little sequence would not only eventually reunite, but also have a plan involving Magath, Pieck, Hange and Levi. But first, Armin has to stop Connie from doing something he’ll regret.

Connie’s lie about “brushing the titan’s teeth” is not that convincing even to a dummy like Falco, but Armin and Gabi make it there in time, and Connie gets Armin to stand down by essentially forcing him to save him from his mother’s jaws. Almost losing Armin—and almost subjecting her mom to becoming the Colossal Titan—snaps Connie out of his crazed plan, as does realizing his mom would not have wanted him to kill a friend anda kid to save her.

After a downer of a scene where Mikasa gets her scarf back from her would-be protégé Louise (who is dying of shrapnel) and another scene of Floch going full Fascist, Armin, Connie, Gabi and Falco stop in town for some much-needed food and just happen to sit at the same bench where Annie is scarfing down her first food in four years. Sure, it’s convenient, but I’ll totally allow it, as well as Connie’s not-so-nice ribbing. These guys once trained together as kids, so after all that’s happened it’s nice to be reminded they still are kids.

Back at the ruins of the fort, Floch, who believes Jean has chosen a side, prepares to execute Yelena and Onyankopon. The former has no final words, but Floch wants Jean to prove his loyalty by killing Onyankopon first, and Onyankopon, who was dealt a terrible hand in all this, has a lot to say. The camera cuts away as Jean shoots once, twice, four times, all of the shots missing…on purpose. He pushes Floch away as the Cart Titan pounces, swallowing Jean, Onyankopon and Yelena.

The four shots were a signal to “continue the plan”, meaning Armin, Mikasa, and Connie had a plan, working with Magath, Pieck, Hange and Levi. Armin and Mikasa leave the city driving wagons packed with supplies, with Connie, Annie, Gabi, and Falco all along for the ride. Annie notices someone watching them leaving, something that will most likely come up later. But it’s just thrilling watching all these characters I like teaming up.

Pieck stops by a stream to regurgitate Jean, Onyankopon, and Yelena, the latter of whom was saved because she’s part of Hange and Levi’s deal with Magath and Pieck. Jean explains to Onyankopon that he just couldn’t plug his ears and remain a part of Floch’s xenophobic Jaegerist regime. Like Connie, he held on to his pride as a soldier.

In his cabin hideout, a recovering Reiner is kicked awake by Annie, someone he probably never expected to see alive again. He’s even more confused by the odd combination of people around him: Mikasa, Connie, Armin, Annie, Gabi, and Falco. He asks what’s going on, and he gets an answer: they’ve assembled a team…to save the world. Despite the magnitude of the difficulty of their goal considering the Rumbling is already underway, in that moment, I believed them.

This is the first episode of this cour of Titan that was actually fun to watch more often than not. Turns out there are a few good guys (or the closest thing to it) in this world, who never asked Eren to destroy the world for them, and are committed to stopping the slaughter or die trying. This episode was thrilling (and at times pretty damn funny) enough that I’m content to wait for the next episodes to explain exactly how they’re going to do that.

Attack on Titan – 78 – Dropping the Ball

The incremental struggle of the two Yeager Brothers continues, with Eren stoving in Porco’s head before continuing to grapple with Reiner and Zeke finding himself wounded and on the ground. The two are so close and yet so far, and the Marleyan Eldians are doing everything they can to stop them from coming together.

But Pieck was right: they didn’t hit Zeke hard enough to keep him from letting out a roar if that’s what he wanted to do. Colt rushes to him with the news Falco had injested some of Zeke’s spinal fluid, asking for nothing more than to let Gabi take him and ride a horse far enough out that Falco won’t be affected by the roar. He has Zeke’s sympathies, saying it’s a “shame”, but Zeke lets out a roar anyway.

As a result, hundreds of soldiers who drank the wine with Zeke’s spinal fluid are transformed into pure Titans, including Falco. Colt holds him tight the whole time, and gets burned to death as a result, leaving Gabi all alone to watch in horror as the Falco Titan gnaws at Reiner’s nape. Pieck gets another shot off despite being harassed by Mikasa and Armin, but Zeke is only faking his death.

Eren senses this, crystalizes his Titan body to restrain Reiner, pops out, and continues to rush towards the still-alive Zeke hiding under the Beast’s skeleton. But what had been a short distance for a Titan to cover becomes a much farther distance for Eren on foot. Before he can close that distance, Gabi gets ahold of an anti-Titan rifle…and blows Eren’s head off.

That’s a hell of a midway point to an episode that already featured the deaths of a great many secondary and tertiary characters in short order, but it was clear this wasn’t the end for Eren. We’re taken back to when he was in the Marleyan hospital, where Zeke met with him and appears to agree to Zeke’s plan for euthanization. However, when Zeke tosses him the baseball, he fails to catch it; it lands on the ground behind him.

A 2001: A Space Odyssey-style trippy montage ensues, returning us to the present and then to a place outside of normal time and space altogether: the “Paths” of which Zeke reported dreaming in the first episode. There, Zeke is chained to the sand as a solitary figure approaches Eren, who can move freely. The figure is the founder Ymir, source of the power to achieve their dreams.

It’s only here, where he believes Zeke needs his cooperation in order to proceed and is thus at his mercy, where Eren finally tells us what Armin convinced himself into believing, and tried to convince Mikasa and the others as well: Eren was only going along with Zeke. He has no intention of carrying out the Eldian euthanization. But in revealing his true feelings, Eren screws himself over, because Ymir gives him the cold shoulder.

Eren may be free to move about this uncanny land of the Paths, but he has no authority or dominion over Ymir because he lacks the blood of the royal family whom she obeys. Zeke does, and over the “mind-numbing” time he spent in the paths, figured out a way to do away with his bloodline’s vow renouncing war. Zeke’s chains were only an illusion; they crumble at his command, and Eren is shackled by another.

Zeke doesn’t blame Eren for his Sudden But Inevitable Betrayal, but rather their horrible father for brainwashing him and involving the two brothers in this whole horrible business. But with involvement comes terrible purpose. Eren was the key to Zeke gaining the power of Ymir. He played himself into quite a predicament…but something tells me Zeke shouldn’t celebrate his victory quite yet…

Attack on Titan – 77 – A Game of Inches

Despite having been beaten up by Eren, Armin still believes their best and only move is to back him, in hopes the Rumbling can protect Paradis from being destroyed by Marley. The others eventually go along with him; though some like Connie just want the chance to slug him. As for Mikasa, she decides not to wear the red scarf into battle for the first time…well, ever.

Reiner thinks he has Eren beaten, but he should’ve remembered…this is Eren, who will only give up when he’s dead. Their wrestling match is interrupted by the arrival of Zeke as the Beast on the top of the wall, using his baseball tosses to take out the airships, Reiner, and Porco. Even Pieck and Magath can’t get a clear shot at Zeke as he rains stone projectiles their way.

As Eren limps towards Zeke, which would result in all the conditions necessary to cause the Rumbling to be fulfilled, Yelena revels in the destruction of the Marleyan airships and scattering of their forces. When Armin, Mikasa, and the others make it to her, she looks down on Armin like a hawk ready to swoop in for the kill, only to change to a tearful smile, deciding to trust that Armin’s on her side.

Colt and Gabi are running through the city when they find Falco held prisoner by Eldians. Both Nile and Falco spot them, and Nile decides to take Falco around the corner to reunite him with Colt and Gabi, declaring that this battle is no place for kids and that they should go home. While hiding, Gabi and Falco overhear their fake Paradis family talking about them.

Falco confesses that he unwittingly sent Eren’s letters to his allies, resulting in the raid on Liberio. Oh, and that he’s in love with Gabi and wanted to marry her and live happily ever after. Gabi briefly blushes, but doesn’t dignify his confession with an answer. It’s just good to hear her say the people of Paradis aren’t the monsters she was programmed to believe they were…they’re just people.

Armin, Mikasa & Co. are pinned down along the rooftops, unable to get close to Eren, while other Eldians fall for the trap of a skeleton Cart Titan, which they assume means they defeated it. Pieck is right as rain under the skeleton, while Magath is still strapped into the turret. Before Zeke can react, he puts a shot right into the Beast Titan’s neck, sending him plummeting off the wall to the ground.

Of course, that might have inadvertently helped Zeke, as he’s now that much closer to Eren, and ending all of this. The question is, is Armin right that Eren is playing some kind of long game and merely playing along with Yelena and Zeke, even going so far as to pretend to disown his two best friends? If he isn’t, what is his plan?

Attack on Titan – 76 (S4, E17) – The Paths Not Taken

The drip-drip-drip trickle of Titan’s final season resumes, and while Part 2 leaves open the possibility of a Part 3 down the road, I’m just going to assume the anime will be wrapped up sooner rather than later. That said, while this episode picks up where last March’s Part 1 finale left off…not a ton of movement actually happens this week. Instead, the episode establishes where we are and sets the table for what comes next.

It’s confirmed Zeke is very much alive and in play (his “dream” about being rebuilt from sand in “The Paths” had a haunting beauty to it), while Hange manages to slip away from Floch with the still barely-alive Levi. As for the big Marleyan strike against Eren, he’s not particularly impressed, considering their tactics “desperate”.  That said, he ignores Yelena’s plea for him to revert to human form and hide, preferring to do battle on the surface. Eren may be ostensibly on Zeke’s side, but he’s mostly on his own side.

This results in him having to battle both Porco in the Jaw and Reiner in the Armored Titans, though with the power of the War Hammer he acquits himself well. The problem is, while he’s mocking Marley for not having enough information about what he is capable of, he and the Jaegerists fall into yet another Marleyan trap.

Pieck transforms into the Cart Titan and takes Gabi to relative safety where General Magath is staging his forces. His men help her mount a new-and-improved turret, and while Reiner and Porco keep Eren distracted, Pieck gets off not one but two headshots that shut down the Founding Titan’s motor skills, leaving Eren immobile and vulnerable to being eaten.

After quite a bit of thrilling action, the final act is a lot of standing around and talking in the citadel’s stockade. Onyankopon, who insists he and the other volunteers didn’t know about Zeke’s Eldian euthanization plan, begs Eren’s former friends to help him help Eren avoid being eaten. Connie in particular has had it with his comrades betraying him, but it warrants discussion as anything is preferable to being kept imprisoned.

For her part, Mikasa wants to help Eren, but for the first time in her life, considers that merely a factor of her Ackerman blood. Armin, despite what Eren said and did to them, believes Eren lied about that, in order to maintain his uneasy alliance with Yelena and Zeke. As long as they think he’s their ally, he can move and act far more freely, even if it meant being awful to his friends. But is that really the case? Barring further extensions, we’ll find out soon.

Attack on Titan – 75 – Piecking Sides

Zeke barely survived the Thunder Spear explosion, but believes he may be soon pushing daisies until a Pure Titan arrives, cuts open its belly, and places Zeke inside; presumably to facilitate healing. Levi’s gambit failed and his fate remains unknown.

To the last, Attack on Titan is to tense, unpleasant meal scenes as Yuru Camp is to relaxing, pleasant ones, as Pyxis is forced to dine while soldiers wearing the same uniform hold a gun to his back.

Pyxis notes that various colored handkerchiefs adorning everyone—white for Jaegerists, red for those who found out they drank wine and forced to comply, and black for those who drank wine without knowing it—seem an awful lot like “how Marley does things”. But Yelena makes one thing clear: this isn’t about revenge.

In the jail, Connie and Jean want to know what Eren said to Mikasa that made Armin throw a punch at Eren, then get the shit beat out of him (though his Titan healing seems to be working fine). Mikasa doesn’t want to talk about it, Connie thinks it doesn’t matter; Eren is a piece of shit and now he’s gone mad; and Jean wonders if Eren is actually playing some kind of 4D chess.

Then Yelena arrives to tell the once-“heroes of Shiganshina” that they’re to sit quiet and behave until Zeke and Eren meet. When Niccolo berates Greiz for selling them out to become Yelena’s lackey, Greiz lays into Niccolo for falling in love with a “devil spawn whore”.

His words earn him a bullet to the head…from Yelena, who bows in apology and assures the others that Paradis “has no need for those who would call you devils”. She decides to come clean with Zeke and Eren’s true goal: the Eldian Euthanization Plan that will end the cycle of hatred.

Gabi, the rootable yet pitiable poster girl for that cycle throughout The Final Season, is visited by Eren, who asks her to help him if she wants her friend Falco to live, by calling for help on the radio to flush out her allies. Just as he’s making this not-a-request, one of those allies in Pieck slips right in, cuts the guard’s throat, and points her Luger at Eren, ordering Gabi to train the guard’s rifle on him.

Eren is unmoved. Pieck’s orders were to retake the Founding Titan, not kill him, otherwise he’d already be dead. He impresses upon her how both she and her family would be punished by Marley for disobeying orders. Pieck stands down and orders Gabi to do the same, declaring that her true goal is to free all Eldians—in Marley and around the world.

When Pieck asks Gabi what they are, she says “Honorary Marleyans”, but Pieck says they’re Subjects of Ymir first and foremost. Port Slava showed that the time of the Titans’ usefulness is nearing an end due to the advancement of military technology. When it does, Marley will slaughter the lot of them.

While Pieck tries to convince a still-thoroughly conditioned Gabi of their need to fight for their right to live, Yelena finishes explaining to the prisoners how the Jeager brothers’ plan will end the Eldians’ time on this earth “gracefully and peacefully”. Armin is moved to tears by the nobility of such a cause, apparently in agreement that the only way to end the cycle is to end the Titans.

Having agreed to point out her fellow Marleyan invaders to Eren from atop the Shiganshina citadel’s tower, they walk through the citadel. She waves to soldiers like an idol and is met by blushing faces…there’s no denying Pieck is extremely cute—and cool-headed to boot. But until Eren is satisfied she can be trusted, he has her shackled to Gabi so if she tries to transform into the Cart, she’ll kill her.

Just when Gabi couldn’t be feeling lower, Pieck squeezes her hand in hers and gives her a soft, kind smile. When Eren orders her to point out where the enemy is, Pieck turns around and dramatically points…right back at Eren. She’s not lying, nor is she talking about Eren, as Porco/Jaws blasts through the floor and snaps up everything below Eren’s waist.

Unfortunately he wasn’t able to snap his head off, gobble him up whole, and Eren simply transforms into the Founding Titan. But that’s apparently just what Pieck, Porco, and their compatriots want, as five Marleyan airships arrive right on time, with both Commander Magath and Reiner Braun on board. We get one last look at the Founding Titan’s glorious glutes before the cut to yet another To Be Continued.

That’s right: The Final Season isn’t over yet, only the first part. This actually came as news to me, but I’m also eternally grateful things don’t end here with some kind of “Want to find out how it ends? Read the manga!” message. As the minutes were counting down I had a feeling there simply wouldn’t be adequate time for an anime-original wrap-up of everything going on. But the endgame is certainly nigh, and this first part of the final season covered some serious ground and ended with Eren as the Big Bad.

Will he remain so in Part 2, or go against his brother’s plan to exterminate their race? Is his relationship with Mikasa and Armin been permanently destroyed, or will a chance at redemption present itself, possibly aligned with his split from Zeke? How many more twists are we in store for? Questions abound, just as they always do at the end of a cour of Shingeki no Kyojin—and as always, the next cour can’t come soon enough.

Attack on Titan – 68 – No Peace In Our Time

The Scout Regiment is back home on Paradis, and Armin is reminiscing on better times on a torch-lit cell, all the while with the shell he found that day on the beach in his hand. He looks back to three years ago, to when there was still a possibility things could come to a peaceful or diplomatic solution.

Thanks to Eren lifting Marleyan scout ships out of the water and dropping them on dry land, the Scout Regiment as led by Hange and Levi manage to secure the entire Marleyan crew as captives. But they have help from within: Yelena, who along with her pro-Eldian compatriots, turn on their Marleyan crewmates and accepts Hange’s somewhat kind if somewhat manic offer of a cup of tea.

Yelena and Onyankopon describe to Hange and Levi Marley’s extensive advantage in military technology. When asked why Marley hasn’t used that tech to invade Paradise, Yelena’s answer is twofold: the hordes of Pure Titans around the island meant to keep the Eldians within the walls also do a good job keeping would-be invaders away.

Secondly, after the Colossal and Female Titans were captured by Paradis, Marley’s weakness was exploited by a number of nations ganging up on them. As we know, the fresh invasion of Paradis couldn’t happen until their war with the other nations was won. Yelena and her people, who aren’t foreign secret agents embedded in Marley but a group called the “Anti-Marleyan Volunteers” are tasked with freeing the Eldian people, are led by Zeke Yeager.

Hange relays Zeke’s plan to save all Eldians by bringing about the Rumbling, which requires both the Founding Titan and a Titan of Royal Blood. When some higher-ups bristle, Eren confirms that Zeke at least isn’t lying about the Founding Titan and Royals, as he himself experienced with Dina Fritz. He hadn’t brought it up until now because he wished to protect Queen Historia.

The Scouts capture more Marleyan Scout ships as the plan is considered, but Eren doesn’t want anything to do with a peaceful resolution. As far as he’s concerned, everyone across the sea who believe they’re scary monsters who can turn into Titans are absolutely right, and should be scared.

But three years later, with Liberio in ruins and Sasha dead, Armin wonders if they could have taken a different path to get what they wanted. Jean and Connie are joined at Sasha’s grave by Niccolo, the captured Marleyan who used to love cooking for Sasha as much as she loved eating his cooking. Sasha’s parents visit the grave, and Niccolo tells them the small but meaningful way he knew and cared for their daughter, and he shakes her father’s hand.

It’s Armin’s wish writ small—an Eldian and a Marley joining hands and joining in their mutual grief. But it’s too small against the most dangerous “Titan” of them all: that generational leviathan of shared, irreconcilable hatred and distrust. It’s why once Yelena’s haul of stolen Titan serum is secured, Pyxis has the volunteers detained, while Levi stuffs Zeke in the forest, on a tight leash.

Meanwhile, in the cell she shares with Falco, Gabi chews her nails to the quick, cursing Eren Yeager with every breath, a vessel for that long-stewing hatred mixed with her own personal losses at Paradis’ hands.

Armin then says that no longer what he and Mikasa and Sasha and everyone else did or didn’t do, Eren was going to have his way; the worst was going to happen regardless. With that in mind, he believes they had no choice, no more than Reiner, Bertholdt, or Annie had a choice that day years ago. The person he’s talking to? Annie, still frozen in crystal.

As Mikasa leans against a gravestone, she repeats the words she’s lived by: “Fight or die. Win and live.” Those words are echoed by an Eren just as fully committed to war and vengeance as Gabi…just as lost: “The only way to win is to fight.”

Attack on Titan – 67 – A Few Miscalculations

Here it is, the rematch you’ve all been waiting for. Eren vs. Reiner. Attack vs. Armored…aaaaand just like that, it’s over. Reiner’s down for the count. He didn’t have much gas in the tank to begin with, and neither did Eren, who hops out of his Titan and gets picked up by a waiting Mikasa.

After last weeks Titan battle-heavy episode, I was pleased that this was only a brief struggle, with Reiner’s consolation prize being he managed to rescue Porco and Jaw. But even if Eren and Reiner are done for now, Gabi isn’t. She grabs her gun and runs after the airship. Falco follows close behind.

When Mikasa carries Eren up to the airshop, Armin is waiting there to help lift them up into the cabin, after the exchange of weary, haunted stares. I can’t help but think back when the three were just little kids running around Shiganshima laughing without a care in the world. If Armin’s a bit chilly, Levi is downright disgusted to see Eren’s face again.

Compare their thousand-yard glares to the still-strong camaraderie of the B-Team, Sasha, Connie and Jean, with Connie taking a moment to hug dear his siblings from other mothers out of relief they all made it out of this crazy operation. Indeed, we learn the Survey Corps only lost six men, against untold hundreds of Marleyans.

Of course, not only has the airship not ascended or cleared Liberio, it hasn’t even finished gathering up all of the corpsmen. One of them is Lobov, an older man but new recruit who sought to do more than he was doing in the garrison. He is unfortunate enough to be in Gabi’s line of fire.

But before that, Gabi is stopped by Falco, who tells her it’s impossible to chase an airship on foot. She tells him how Zofia and Udo died, and shocked she was by how protective of her the soldiers at the gate were despite her being an Eldian. All her life, Marleyans have cursed and spit on her, and all she wanted to do was prove Eldians could be good people.

Then tonight happened, with Paradis stomping on all of that. So yes, she’s going to chase an airship on foot. Falco tells her “we stomped on them first”, but it’s only an abstraction for Gabi, like the Eldians and Paradis themselves. To her, they’re cruel demons who deserve to die, end of story. She slides, gets a lucky shot off that kills Lobov. He crashes to the ground, but his ODM cable is still connected. As Gabi prepares to retract the cable and ascend to the airship, Falco again tells her it’s pointless and she’ll be killed.

Gabi doesn’t argue the latter part, but believes it will be far from pointless. She wants Falco to tell everyone how she fought to the end, and they’ll surely inherit her feelings. She tells him he’s a good person, then pulls the trigger…but Falco grabs hold of Lobov and rises with her, honoring what Reiner told him to do: save her from a grim fate.

When she asks why, he doesn’t say because he loves her—she wouldn’t understand—he tells her he’ll be the next Armored Titan. Of course, none of them know how the ODM works, so they end up banging against the belly of the airship. In the midst of the totally off-guard jovial celebrating corpsmen, Sasha hears their bump. But again, virtually everyone else aboard is in the midst of a celebration, before leaving the battlefield…before the battle is over.

It’s a shocking lack of discipline and training for such a dangerous operation. Before anyone knows the source of the bump, Gabi rolls into the cabin and fires the gun she’s been clutching tightly since the battle began, just waiting for her chance. The bullet goes straight through the heart of Sasha, the woman who killed the guards at the gate.

As she bleeds out, the corpsmen swarm on the two kids and beat them bloody. Floch wants to throw them out of the airship, but Jean, who is not an out-and-out monster (yet), won’t authorize it, because if he could, there would be no end to this killing. He takes them to Eren instead, so Gabi can curse him in person. The thing is, someone else they know is aboard the airship: War Chief Zeke.

Back on the ground, a recovering Pieck tells Magath she finally remembered the somewhat-“off” soldier who dropped her and Porco down a well. He, or rather she, was a follower of Zeke’s. We learn her name is Yelena, and she was wearing a fake beard when she escorted Pieck and Porco. Zeke was in on the operation all along, and to hear Eren say it, it was a victory: the operation killed the leaders of the Marleyan army, sunk their main fleet, and destroyed their major military port, and he was able to inherit the Warhammer.

While it was a tactical success, it may turn out to be a massive strategic blunder if the entire world unites against Paradis. Even so, I guess Eren demanded that the people who created the people who destroyed his home and family needed to be hit and hit hard, no matter the cost. As Hange remarks, Eren used his trust in her and the corps to rescue him, but by being taken hostage again and forcing them to attack, they’ve now lost their trust in him.

Zeke calls the sacrifices made “noble” as they will “bring freedom to Eldia.” It’s clear that unlike some like, say, Gabi, he wasn’t satisfied with Marley simply allowing Eldians to exist under their bootheels. True freedom means liberating all Eldians from the yoke of Marley forevermore. He’s willing to go, and indeed has gone, farther than someone like Gabi even believed was possible to even go. Call it the narrow perspective of youth.

Alas, there is one noble sacrifice no one in the corps was ever going to be able to bear: Connie reports that Sasha has died. Beautiful, capable, eternally hungry Sasha Blouse. She didn’t die in a blaze of glory, but by the hand of an indoctrinated little Eldian girl who was so desperate for revenge she literally chased down an airship and found a way aboard.

Mikasa and Armin race to where her body lay. Eren asks if she said anything before passing away; Connie says “meat.” Eren fights back a chuckle which twists into a grimace as Jean tells him Sasha is dead because of him. I doubt she’ll be the last, because as much as Eren cared for Sasha, her death won’t be enough for him to stop. If anything, it’ll only motivate him to keep going. Like Gabi, he can only keep going.

Attack on Titan – 66 – What You Saw That Day

Eren has Lara Tybur in the palm of his hand but isn’t able to do anything with the super-hardened crystal she’s encased in, and she initiates a last-ditch attack that immobilizes him. This gives Pieck, Porco, and Zeke a chance to rally the troops.

Pieck’s machine gun armaments are particularly effective against the Paradisians’ ODM Gear. Gabi also has a gun, and runs. Even if it looks like she’ll never be able to make the slightest dent in this chain of events, well…let’s just say that’s how it looked for one Eren Yeager many years ago.

Reiner was already begging for death before the attack began; now he’s lost the will to even wake up from unconsciousness. He was able to save Falco, but that’s as far as he’s willing to go. He’s as much paralyzed as Eren, but by choice. He was already the aggressor; what’s the point of starting the cycle over?

Eren, full of terrible purpose, tries to bite through Lara’s crystal but only ruins his Titan’s mouth. As Levi stalks the Beast Titan, Eren transfers out of the immobilized body and into a fresh Titan body. Gabi has stopped running, but still has her gun, and wants to use it. Against Eren. Against his allies. Against the demons of Paradis. Then Armin Arlert makes his appearance.

Having hidden aboard an unassuming fishing boat that drifts right into the middle of the Marleyan fleet, Armin transforms into the Colossal Titan, which we recall is a cataclysmic event in and of itself. It’s as if a massive bomb were detonated over Liberio’s waterfront.

The eerie blood-red glow calls to mind Evangelion and the God Warriors of Nausicaä—the 80s precursor to Colossal Titans. The Marleyan navy is obliterated; even the water the ships were floating is all boiled away. Armin climbs out of the Colossal, looks upon his mighty work, and despairs. This is essentially the very same sight Bertoldt Hoover saw in Shiganshima.  What’s past is prologue.

Levi takes out the Beast Titan. Sasha shoots dead one of Pieck’s gunners, then her reinforcements carpet bomb the Cart Titan. The only Marleyan Titan still in the game is Porco in Jaw, who uses his speed and agility to deliver some wounds to Eren. Only Eren uses Lara’s crystal to block one swipe, and thus Porco inadvertently teaches him how he’ll crack that particular nut.

Levi cuts Jaw’s legs off, and Eren uses him as a nutcracker. The crystal doesn’t just crack, it shatters into a million pieces; Lara is just a spray of blood, most of which Eren swallows up, thus gaining the Warhammer power. Zeke is out of commission. Pieck looks near death. Jaw himself is about to be eaten by Eren. And oh yeah, Hange Zoe has arrived via armored airship to retrieve the assault force.

All Gabi can do about this situation is call out to the only Titan left: Reiner. So she cries out to him, in an extended scene that I hope Ayane Sakura recorded in parts because it sounded painful to scream that much. Falco joins in, and their two-kid chorus reaches Reiner, even though he’d prefer if they just stayed quiet.

Reiner knows if he gets up, he’ll be giving Gabi and Falco a good chance of dying even more horribly than they might have otherwise. All the same, he can’t ignore their cries. He transforms behind Eren, interrupting his eating of Jaw. He’s not in his full armor—indeed, he already looks exhausted before raising a hand to Eren, and certainly not particularly happy to be here once more. But if certain kids won’t let him die in peace, he’ll just have to die more violently, even if those kids will rue the day they asked to be saved.

Well, that was a goddamn downer. It feels downright wrong at this point to outright root for the Paradis forces. Heck, even Mikasa and Armin look like they’d rather be anywhere else…like back on that gorgeous beach. At the same time, did they have a choice? Willy Tybur was coming for them with the full force of the Marley Titans. The majority of Eldians of Paradis don’t deserve death any more than the Eldians of the Liberio Internment Zone.

In any case, a large number of lives were going to be lost. The only question was from where those lives would be taken. There are no heroes here, and probably never were. Only warriors on both sides sacrificing their humanity to try to ensure their side suffers a little less this time around.