We begin the episode with a random, unimportant scene of Marco.
Ok to resume where we left off, Eren summons his titan form, albeit partially, to defend against the cannon attack. Mikasa and Armin are somehow inside the carcass, while Eren is buried inside the still existing flesh part. That is, until he breaks free himself.
The smoke from the transformation and cannon attack acts as some kind of visual shield for them, and they discuss inside the carcass what exactly should they do. The leads they have so far whatever Eren managed to remember from his dad, which is largely that there’s something inside their basement.
Eren plans to go solo and make a beeline through titan land to search his basement. Remember, that part has already been occupied by the titans. But of course, Mikasa wants to tag along, being the ever loyal friend / sister / mother / wife / bodyguard. Seriously, they need to have The Talk. Anyway, as expected, the two banter about the plan, while Armin… well, Armin has been emo and useless for quite some time already.
But no, Eren somehow gives him a push. Eren mentions that he has two possible plans. The first one is to escape on his own and hopefully reach his basement. The other is for Armin to somehow convince the army that Eren is not an enemy, and that they can actually use him as an asset. And thus Armin reaches an epiphany. He’s not useless. His freakin’ monster (and I use this loosely but for both) friends trust him with their lives.
And so he mans up, walks out of the smoke screen, and makes his case that Eren is an ally and an asset, engaging the local commander in a battle of wits.
And oh boy, that commander went down so badly. It didn’t help that he gave up thinking logically from the start. Anyway, he won’t listen and intends to fire the cannons again, that is until the big one, Commander Pixis, his superior, shows up and says he’ll handle things from now.
And so Pixis gets a heart to heart conversation with the three kids, and hears of Armin’s plan of using Eren’s titan form to pick up a boulder and seal the hole in the gate. Sounds legit, but largely a Hail Mary plan. But hey, what other options do they have?
And so Pixis asks Eren: Can you do it? No, will you do it? And obviously, yes. Yes, he will.
And yes, dear friends, there’s hardly anything happening in this episode, which makes us want to scream and rally for more developments. But is it good? Yes. But is watching this painful? Yes. And thus we’re all a little bit more masochistic after watching this episode.
