A combination of technical difficulties and general busyness forced me to keep this one on the back burner for a while. Thankfully, I'm in a position to get back to this series. It's especially fortuitous as the second season has started (and streaming on Hulu, which works out well for me) and I'd like to be up to speed so that I can cover new episodes when they land. In the meantime, though, let's move ever closer to the end of season one.
The plot hook for this one is simple enough. An expedition squad is sent out to go to Eren's house and retrieve whatever information may be there. I'd think they'd want a small squad to just make a B-line for the target location, but they send out a large group that fans out in multiple directions.
There is some benefit to this, as they can mark where titans are with signal flares telling other groups to go the other way.
At first, I found it odd that people were talking as if they had never confronted titans before. It is somewhat justified, though, as the humans no longer have the buildings to use for maneuvering or stealth. A wide open field puts them at a serious disadvantage.
Credit to some of the scouts, though, they still do pretty well. They don't use the trees like I thought they would. Rather, they use the titans themselves as targets for their grappling hooks. One pair succeeds by having one troop slash a titan's Achilles' tendon, bringing it to the ground so that the other can strike at the monster's weak spot.
The first half of this episode is a mixed bag. It's kinetic and fast paced enough, and there are titan encounters for some extra flavor, but there are still long stretches of time where you're just watching people riding on horseback across a plain.
The real crux of the episode comes into play later, when a new female titan appears. It's fast, smart, and straight up kills people when it wants to. Oddly enough, she also has the will to avoid the urge when it suits her. This stands in stark contrast to most titans who are purely driven to eat people. It even knows about its weak spot, so when people try to attack it, she can take measures to counter. Whether it's simply covering the back of her neck with her hand or grabbing the wires and tossing the scouts around, she is able to keep any offensive maneuvers in check.
It made for a great adversary as we see that it is capable of taking out groups on its own, but also seems to be able to organize the other titans. Suffice it to say, it results in the scouts getting largely destroyed. Granted, that's off screen and we see no proof, but it is strongly implied at the very least.
Much like L before him, Armin is able to show his smarts by pulling information out of thin air. He comes to the conclusion that this is another human-turned-titan and even deduces her motive: find Eren, just because.
I guess the fact that she didn't kill him when she had the chance lends some credence to his theory, but it still seems like he's able to put pieces together when he doesn't have many pieces to work with.
The fact that this episode focuses on a small group of people works to its benefit. We see Sasha get into some antics, but the focus is largely on Armin. Heck, neither Eren nor Mikasa make any sort of real appearance. The prior is somewhat justified as his location becomes a mystery that will likely be the focus of the next episode.
All in all, this was a solid entry. It made for a nice re-jumping on point, being entertaining without relying too much on past continuity. There were a couple of parts where it dragged and, early on, it seemed like this would be an episode where the plot didn't move forward all that much. Luckily, that didn't turn out to be the case as we got a game changer in the new titan.
While we are moving closer to the end of the season, there's still plenty of time. It'll be interesting to see how things play out as we move forward.
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