If the second half of season 1 and all of season 2 just kind of made me disenchanted with this show because Attack on Titan didn’t seem interested in exploring its own mysteries, the last few episodes have definitely got me back onside, even if the characters and this world remain as horrible and bleak as ever.
It is undeniably true that a large part of Attack on Titan’s screen time seems devoted to showing us the very ugliest side of human nature. After weeks of having the ‘good’ guys (or at least those attached to the protagonist), torturing, murdering, and generally being ruthless in order to survive the snares laid by those who were even more inclined to protect their own interests we finally had the coup and a rescue mounted for Eren. And yet, this episode still takes time out from explanations and reveals that literally reshape the audience’s perception of the world in order to have one of the allies from the coup shown to be torturing those taken captive for no other real reason other than he really wants to and is enjoying it. It’s a little disconcerting.
As for reveals, there are many but none of them seem fully realised yet as we’re still getting pieces from people who either don’t know the full story or aren’t yet ready to share. Still, this one episode packed in more backstory for Eren, Mikasa, and Historia than we’ve gotten in pretty much every episode up to this one combined so I guess we can’t be too critical of it.
Despite the dense nature of this episode it didn’t feel rushed and it didn’t feel like a continuous information dump. The set up over the last five episodes of this season has naturally led the characters and the audience to this point where finally information has become available and there’s enough chopping and changing going on between scenes of characters discussing events and characters preparing to join the fight to keep things interesting.
And I was wrong about Eren shouting this episode. He’s still gagged though we did hear his thoughts on a number of occasions. I’m thinking he’s just saving his voice for when he’s really going to let loose with some shouting, but in the meantime I’ll enjoy the fact that even though clearly the plot is still focused on Eren his actual presence in the story is still pretty minimal. He may as well be some enchanted ring in a magic cave the Scouts are trying to rescue given he’s done nothing in the last few episodes. Admittedly, unlike an enchanted ring, given even a little leeway he’ll probably attempt to fight his own way out so I guess we’ll see what happens next.
Previous Reviews:
- Attack on Titan Series Review
- Attack on Titan Season 2 Series Review
- Season 3 Episode 1: Why Not Add Another Faction
- Season 3 Episode 2: Whatever It Takes
- Season 3 Episode 3: Rewriting the Past Won’t Make It Go Away
- Season 3 Episode 4: A Time For Everything
- Season 3 Episode 5: Yourself or Humanity?
Thanks for reading.
Karandi James
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Haha…yeah, no shouting for Eren yet, but I guess we will get to that next week? (Or acutally this week seeing that we get the episode today). I really like the fact that this season is giving us these tidbits of information, but not enough to place all of them together yet (like the things with Eren’s father for instance). It’s also nice that I actually don’t really know who is now the “ good side” or the “ bad side” anymore. We have been thrown of balance quite a few times now, and I for one love that 😊😊
I’m certainly enjoying this season so far. And yes, we’re getting information but at the moment not quite enough to put the whole picture together but at least it feels like they are starting to address all of these mysteries rather than just piling on new ones. Definitely prefer this so far to season 2.