We got a big fight between humans, a big fight with people’s consciences, and a game of “Who wants to be a Titan?” All on this week’s AoT episode that’s also filled with blood, crying, and something I will call “Titan Juice.”
As Rod joins Historia and the still chained-up Eren, he tells his daughter that Frieda isn’t entirely dead, as her memories still live on. She can see her, but they need to get something first. Rod takes out a case that has a syringe and a bottle in it. Eren knows what it is, as it shows memories of his dad injecting him with what’s in the bottle.
The door to the cave’s entrance is kicked open, as Squad Kenny gets on alert. Kenny’s Right Hand (Again, no name, so I’m going to call her “Right Hand” from now on) looks and sees not people coming down the stairs, but barrels.
Levi and co. enter, and Sasha has burning arrows on her. She fires at one of them, and it explodes. The barrels are filled with gunpowder and have bags of oil attached to them, making a big smokescreen. Levi and Mikasa go through the smoke as the enemy tries to shoot them down. However, the others start shooting green signal flares that make an even bigger smokescreen. Levi counts 35 Squad Kenny members on pillar benches as both sides decide to start the fight.
Sasha keeps shooting the barrels, making more smoke so the enemy can’t see Jean coming from behind. A tutorial from Armin about the Anti-Personnel ODM gear’s weakness shows the gun’s line of fire and anchor trajectory fire in the same direction. Basically, anything behind them is full game after they shoot, and the enemy can’t react quickly enough. Jean slices the dude’s throat. 2 members of Squad Kenny see Connie, and they aim at him, but the green smoke gets in the way, having Connie hide in it and avoid their shots. He attacks from above and gets one of them. The other has an open shot on him, but she gets shot down by one of Sasha’s arrows. Another person tries to take out Hange. He shoots, misses, and has to reload. This is where Armin tells of their greatest weakness: When they fire two shots, it takes awhile to reload. Because of this, Hange stabs the dude easily. Right Hand can see this isn’t good, as others try to shoot down Mikasa. In a beautifully fluid, animation sequence, she takes out 3 dudes and kicks in the face of another.
Right Hand knows she has to get rid of her, but 3 of her men behind her get taken out by Levi. He’s about to get her, until Kenny comes in and stops him. He doesn’t want Levi to have all the fun, as both get into a fight and attack with their weapons, with Levi dodging bullets and broken shot-down benches. Plus, Right Hand gets attacked by Mikasa, as she barely dodges her sword. Kenny and Levi are basically in a stalemate, as Kenny uses his knife to cut Levi’s face. He shoots at Levi once more, but Levi throws a bag of oil from the barrels to make it explode into flames. He attacks Kenny, who defends with his knife, but to no avail. Levi cuts Kenny good in the gut, but it doesn’t kill Kenny, who gets away with Levi following.
Right Hand escapes Mikasa but has Hange on her tail. She fires two rounds at Hange and completely misses. This was a decoy as she gets on a pillar, fires her anchor right into Hange’s right shoulder, and flings her right into another pillar. Hange bloodily collapses onto the ground, and Squad Levi can’t believe it. Right Hand tells the others to regroup at their final defensive post as they all take off, with Levi having no choice but to fall back to Hange. They enter a new spot in the cave where another member cuts down a night to block Levi and co. Kenny is already on his way to the ritual area.
Sensing the others are close, Rod has to hurry with this, as Eren struggles to free himself. Rod believes Eren knows his fate: his stolen power will go inside Historia, and now it’s time for a history lesson. Rod tells us this cave was built 100 years ago by the power of a certain Titan, along with the 3 walls we all know. Those walls helped protect humanity. The Power of the Titans touched people hearts, along with altering their memories. As stated in my last article, several bloodlines were excluded from the altered part, but those descendants have no memory of the world from the past century. Only one person, Frieda, knew of this past world and how it came to be. 8 years ago, she got it at 15 years old from her uncle, Rod’s younger brother (who she ate), as it shows her sticking the needle in and becoming the Titan that ate him, with the rest of the family watching in horror. She inherited the “Founding Titan” powers and the memories of the world. This has been done for 100 years, being passed down like this by each generation.
If Frieda used her powers, they could’ve exterminated all the Titans by now. Grisha interfered, so now they have to take the powers from Eren. Only a person with Reiss blood in them can use the powers fully, so the hell will continue if Eren is the vessel.
Kenny arrives and heard all of this. He now knows that if even he turned Titan and ate Eren, he wouldn’t become the King. Knowing this, he grabs Rod and puts the gun to his head. Kenny’s been waiting his entire life for this day, and even though Rod isn’t lying, Kenny is pissed Rod used him this way. Rod is thankful to him, even if his younger brother, Uri, took Kenny in. Kenny doesn’t like him insulting Uri. Historia grabs the gun, but Kenny easily throws her away. He tells her that Rod only wants to turn Historia into a Titan to eat Eren, and yet Historia knows that’s her duty so she can bring Frieda back. She has one role now.
She’s serious too. Even so, Kenny still threatens Rod by putting his knife in his mouth and cutting him. He knows Rod forced his brother and daughter to do this because he didn’t want to. Rod grabs said knife and tells him he can’t become a Titan as he tries to make Historia believe him. Historia is shocked by all that’s happened. Eventually, Kenny lets go of Rod, and Rod lets go of Kenny. As in, he releases Kenny to be a free man and find his purpose in life. Kenny thinks that will bore him to death. Instead, he walks up the stairs and goes right to Eren. He undoes Eren’s gag and tells him the new plan. Kenny won’t interfere in Historia becoming a Titan and will watch both her and Eren fight. If Historia wins, they’ll have peace. If Eren wins, all remains the same. He slices Eren’s forehead easily to help him transform.
Rod gives Historia the syringe. All she has to do is bite Eren’s spine and consume his spinal fluid. Yum. Kenny steps away, as Historia has the needle on her arm, trying to comprehend all this. She looks at Eren, who still hasn’t transformed. She knows what will happen if she turns into a Titan and he remains as such. What does Eren do? Looks at her and cries. He says this all shouldn’t have happened, because if his dad didn’t interfere, Frieda would’ve killed the Titans and many people wouldn’t have died. He then lists some of the names of people who died in his battles, most of whom I’ve forgotten about (Except for Hannes and Marco. LOL Poor Marco). He knows all his dreams and that training he went through shouldn’t have happened either. So, as Historia remembers her mom and how it left her crying, Eren just wants her to eat him and save humanity.
Historia does thank Eren for calling her a normal girl back then, because it made her happy. After remembering Ymir as well, she hesitates. Rod tries to talk her into it, so she asks him the important question: Why didn’t the Reiss family in those 100 years of knowledge not eliminate the Titans and save humanity with this power then? Because it was the First King Reiss’ (who built this world) wish to be controlled by the Titans. He thought it was the only path to true peace. Rod doesn’t know why, as he and his brother both pleaded throughout to their father to learn this mystery. He had that power and wouldn’t share it at all. When the power got passed down to Uri, Rod saw his brother’s look and knew it was the same as his dad. Basically, his brother became God, and it’s Rod’s duty is to bring God back to this world and offer them prayers. As in, he wants Historia to become this God.
As she’s about to do it, Historia remembers Ymir’s words on how Historia should live her life and be proud of the life she lived. This causes some rockin’ Engrish music to start, and she smacks the syringe away, breaking it and shocking Rod. He grabs her, but Historia takes her Scout training and throws him down with a counter, breaking his left shoulder. She can see through his manipulating BS and has had enough. She grabs the bag and runs up the stairs to Eren, pleasing Kenny with all of this. She takes out the keys to unlock him, but Eren tries to make her stop. He still wants her to eat him, but Historia punches him, as she’s also done with Eren’s crying. She’s had it with killing Titans! She’s had it with humanity! She now wants the Titans to wipe everyone out, as she becomes humanity’s biggest enemy; The worst girl to ever live! She’ll destroy everything in her path.
One problem, though: Rod can still move, and he goes to the … ummm, let’s call it “Titan Juice,” and remembering all his family who died for this, licks the …. Titan Juice himself. He starts to transform, as a giant skeleton starts to form and knocks down some of the pillars.
This episode was a pretty fun one. We got a whole lot of girl power in this one, if you want to call it that, with Mikasa and Hange kicking ass all throughout, along with even Right Hand throwing down counts. Historia had that whole speech at the end that made her snap or awaken into a new her. Having her smack Eren is something some of us may have wanted to do for a long time, as his screaming and shit can get to the best of people. The whole fight between Squads Kenny and Levi was bloody fun, and the animation was on point here with all the deaths.
I should point this out too. Reading this in the manga made me laugh at times, not just because of all the badly drawn facial features, but what happened at the time that made me burst out in laughter. One of those times was Eren’s crying fit with Historia finally not dealing with this bullshit. The anime delivers that just as well, especially with the sort-of-but-not-really fitting J-Rock English music we got to signal Historia’s turn in all this. The music was pretty on point throughout as it has been through the series, but as I was taking notes, I really couldn’t stop busting a gut over this. I know this is supposed to be dramatic and all serious in this moment, but Attack on Titan sometimes has a way to deliver comedy where there shouldn’t be for me. Yes, it is different for others, as they take the horror aspect for granted. I’m not like them though, so I take what I can. Seeing a scene that looks pretty over dramatic will do this.
Overall, this was a fun episode that lead us to the final act of this arc: Big ass Rod Reiss Titan. This should be fun seeing this be animated, along with getting to point out how different it was in the manga. Oh man, his Titan in the manga was … well, either find my tweet about a “roasted chicken” or just wait until next time.
Attack on Titan Season 3 is licensed by Funimation. New episodes can be seen on Crunchyroll and Funimation at 2 PM ET Sundays. The dub version can be seen Saturdays at 11 PM ET on Toonami.