At long last, we come to the first season finale. Here's hoping we move through the second a lot faster. It's only half as long, so that should help.
Not surprisingly, the finale goes big with an all out brawl between the two enemy titans. It's an appropriately jaw dropping set piece as humanity's inner sanctum is (not surprisingly) pretty much left in ruins as a result.
Unlike a lot of sequences that involve devastation of this level, the episode actually goes out of its way to remind you that, yes, people are in these buildings. It dissipates as the fight progresses and the devastation becomes more extreme, but I still thought it was a nice touch. It sounds odd, like I'm saying "yay, large numbers of people are being hurt or killed!" but it adds realism and weight to what we're seeing.
For the most part, the humans take a back seat on this one. They talk about helping. Armin reminds us that Eren was unable to defeat Titan-Annie last time and the scouts seem like they're going to enter the fray to stop Annie from reaching open ground, where they will be completely useless. Turns out it didn't matter as they were pretty useless anyway.
The only two who do something of note are Mikasa and Levi. The prior cuts off Annie's fingers when she tries to climb the wall to escape and the latter pulls Eren out when he tries to eat Annie after finally vanquishing her titan form.
While the day seems to be won, the plot takes something of an emotional downturn as the people realize that, despite all of this, they haven't accomplished anything. They're unable to study Annie, as she encased herself in crystal just in the nick of time.
The scenes were presented in dour fashion, but it was nice seeing those in charge try to hold people responsible for the consequences of their decisions. Usually, that sort of thing gets glossed over, but the show doesn't seem to be doing that.
Ultimately, the episode does end on an optimistic note. Those in charge believe that there are other human titans who can be used to turn the tide and save humanity. They vow to find every titan within the walls before the episode cuts to credits.
In a post-credits twist, we see the body of a titan within the wall itself. It was a rather odd case of foreshadowing as the episode didn't bother to let it simmer. If the line had been said an episode or two back, it might have worked, but they didn't and it just seems very on the nose.
Ultimately, that's a nitpick, though. This was a fun episode. It gave us a great action set piece and laid the groundwork for some plot points to go into the second season. All in all, not a bad way to wrap up the first season.
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