This episode was truly mind blowing. Since it is the penultimate episode, we were expecting something big. And it was indeed awesome! It ended Grisha’s story in an existing way and certainly fulfilled its mission of getting us hyped for the last episode of this season.
The episode started with a beautifully animated scene of « the Owl » in his titan form destroying the Marleyan’s ship. The poor Grisha was just looking at him getting out of his titan after killing those soldiers and you could guess from the look in his eyes that he had a lot of questions to ask. After showing Grisha that, « the Owl » introduces himself properly. His name was Eren Kruger and he is one of the nine titans of Ymir, « the Attack Titan. » But Grisha wasn’t really interested in knowing that at that moment. He was just sitting there, feeling guilty for what happened. All he wanted to know for now was why was he the only one spared. But Kruger’s explanation was satisfying enough. It seems that he saw a lot of himself in Grisha, since both of them suffered the pain of seeing their people die in front of them or even sacrificed for their sake. That really reminded us of how much this show can make us pity and feel sympathy for former villains. We don’t even know for sure if anyone is a villain since Kruger himself said that each side sees history as they want and we can’t be sure if either of them is right.
Another shocking news popped up in this episode: it seems that those who bare the powers of Ymir’s titans have only 13 years to live. That is indeed one of the reasons Kruger needed Grisha to inherit his titan power since his 13 years were up. He wanted him to take his power and go inside the walls to absorb the founding titan’s power. The time limit was a huge announcement since it didn’t only limit Grisha’s life but also Eren and Armin’s. The person who couldn’t accept this news the most was Mikasa. Even though Eren and Armin didn’t seem that depressed over their expiration date, Mikasa was denying that and she didn’t want to accept it. We all know that Mikasa was mostly triggered by the fact that Eren only had 8 years to live. It was a nice reminder of her feelings for him that weren’t that present in this season.
Grisha ended up accepting the mission that Kruger gave him even though he was convinced that Dina would have been better suited for this role because of her royal bloodline. But he soon understood that Kruger made the right choice because she would have been exposed to the risk of being discovered and taken advantage of for making more children baring her bloodline. It is obvious that it’s better to live on as a titan than to become a baby factory for the Marleyans. Now Grisha had to turn all his guilt from the moment he ruined his life by crossing those boundaries into strength to start a family over again inside the walls. We can notice that Grisha named Eren after Kruger and that shows how much their encounter impacted his life.
Back to the present, Queen Historia is finally back and we even get a throwback to her failed love story with Ymir. Historia receives a letter from her lover, and what happened while she was reading it was intriguing. She started seeing brief scenes from Ymir’s past but we don’t really know why that happened. This is what is interesting about Attack on Titan, the show is able to transform even a simple love letter, a goodbye to a former lover into another mystery.
We then see a whole council talking about Grisha’s books with a lot of people from the military forces in general. They started discussing the fact that Eren has the power of the founding Titan and that he once used it even though he wasn’t part of the royal family. While they were talking, Eren figured out a way he could possibly use that ability but he decided not to share it with all those people because he was concerned about Historia’s safety. It turns out that he could use that power because he touched a titan who carried the blood of the royal family. That would be his father’s first wife who was also the titan who devoured his mother. And when Eren was concerned about all of this, Hange was explaining his strange behaviour by him going through a “phase” since he was 15. This funny part reminded us of how young Eren was because everybody tends to forget that he has been through all of this at such a young age. But it also showed us how clueless Hange could sometimes be!
The most shocking moment in this episode was definitely this last scene. Before Kruger gave Grisha the injection, he was talking to him and he suddenly said something very interesting. “If you want to save Mikasa, Armin and everyone else, you must complete your mission” is what Kruger said to Grisha. And neither of them knew a Mikasa or an Armin which makes us think that this is linked to the future where Eren inherits that titan. Now it seems that this memory link goes even further than showing the past of it’s holders, but those past titans have apparently been triggered by Eren’s wishes in the future. Now did that influence Grisha’s choice of picking Eren as his successor. Did he remember those last words of Kruger and decide to pass this power down to Eren or did he just do it because he was his son? A lot of questions still waiting for answers.
This thrilling episode was a great ending to Grisha’s story and a great preparation for this last episode which will be titled “Beyond the Walls.” Apparently, they will explore this outside world in the next episode and will taste this freedom that they were fighting for for so long. What will they think about its truth? This final episode will definitely be awesome!
Ines Aouadi
JET Press Team
