Yet another thrilling episode that was an emotional rollercoaster for Attack on Titan fans. The episode started with a throwback to the days where Reiner, Bertolt and Annie were still members of the military forces fooling everybody. It shows Bertolt and Reiner talking on the roof of a house during a titan attack about the danger of Eren plugging the hole they made. They then discover that Marco was listening. Now every person who watched season 2 must have seen his death scene but who would have thought back then that it was actually a murder!
The truth has been revealed and Reiner and Bertolt along with Annie were the ones to blame for Marco’s death. In fact after he heard their conversation on the roof, Marco figured out that his “friends” had the ability to transform into titans. And unfortunately for him, those two couldn’t let him escape after what he heard. So they chased after him and caught him. Annie then showed up and Reiner put pressure on her and convinced her to let him die to prove that she was one of them. She eventually ended up disposing of his equipment and after the three of them went to a nearby roof, a titan came up and started eating Marco who died screaming and asking for an explanation. Who would have thought of that while watching his death the first time! Now, although their act seemed pretty cruel, they did show that they regretted what they did. As they were watching the horrifying scene of Marco getting devoured, they were crying and Reiner even asked “why was Marco being eaten?” This clearly means that they are not bad guys and that they might actually have a good reason for doing this!
After this flashback that brought us back to season 2, reminding fans of really nostalgic memories, we were back on the time being and more exactly just before the arrival of the Survey Corps. Reiner, Bertolt and the man who transforms into the Beast Titan were having a talk before the attack. Bertolt was concerned about Annie, also known as the female titan who back in season 2 fought against the survey corps. It appears that they don’t know what happened to their comrade after the fight and Bertolt was worried about her. In reality, after being defeated, Annie locked herself up inside an unbreakable cristal so that the enemy wouldn’t get the chance to extract any information from her. But we could understand from their dialogue that her 3 comrades were not aware of that. And Mr. Beast Titan put an end to that conversation by reminding them that Annie is tough and asking for them to concentrate on their goal: “putting an end to this cursed history.” It is after that that a titan shows up, informing them of the arrival of the enemy.
Right after a scene of Reiner and Bertolt’s last talk before the fight, we find ourselves back to where we left the last episode. Of course we all wanted to know whether the Armored Titan was killed or not, and right when we thought that they did it, that they defeated him, and even saw people crying because of it, the titan surprises everybody with a deafening scream. It was the signal for Bertolt to come, meaning more trouble for the scouts. The Beast Titan then throws a barrel at them and Armin soon figures that Bertolt aka the colossal titan was in there. The plan was initially for him to transform in midair, and that would have caused a huge explosion that could have killed all the humans. But when he saw his friend partially blown up, he couldn’t help but go check on him. And he finds out that Reiner wasn’t dead yet!
Armin wanted to talk this over with Bertolt but he didn’t want to and told him that they all just had to die and it was because he decided so. And it eventually turned into a fight and Mikasa intervened to cut Bertolt’s ear and after that, he went away, leaving Mikasa and Armin Shocked since what he said wasn’t like him at all. Even when Armin brought up Annie in the conversation, he didn’t care. After he went away, Bertolt finally transformed into the colossal titan causing the feared explosion. It’s been a while that we haven’t seen the colossal titan and it was a pretty remarkable comeback. The explosion was insane and captivating with amazing animation that makes you dive into the action.
Since most of them were very close to the explosion, only a six squad members remained together and alive and Eren, Mikasa and Armin were part of those few. Everybody was counting on Armin to come up with a plan. They soon figured out that they couldn’t retreat and that their only option was for the few of them to defeat the colossal titan right then and there.
This episode was obviously made to declare that it is finally time for this fight to end since the collosal titan is the most feared one. If they defeat him along with the Beast Titan, the fight for humanity might be over. It also was a good way to remind us that everything in Attack On Titan is still linked to the previous episodes and that there are still lots of mysterious events that happened back then and that needed to be explained.
The preview for the next episode “Perfect Game” also supports this theory since the sneak peek announced that the Beast Titan will finally make his move so let’s wait and see what will happen.
Ines Aouadi
JET Press Team