Another amazing episode of Attack on Titan is back, and a lot happened. Here are the highlights and my thoughts on episode 28 called Southwestward.

This episode was really intense and was jam packed with important info and scenes.  So much happened in this that was important even if it didn’t seem important.  To be fair, I have read ahead in the manga, so I know what is coming and the significance of some of the seemingly unimportant stuff.  I will do my best to leave out spoilers. Here are my thoughts on the episode.

The episode starts where the last episode ended in Connie ‘s village with the lone titan laying on his house.  Connie is devastated by the prospect of the death of his entire family and village.  No one knows what to make of this giant titan lying on Connie’s house or the haunting lack of bodies and gore.  If the titans had attacked, wouldn’t there be more of these gruesome details?  Gerger, the leader of the Southern group, takes note of the curious way the houses looked like they exploded outwards, and how all the village horses were still calmly stabled.  Things do not look good for Connie’s village, but they also don’t seem normal either.

As they are saddling up and getting ready to leave the village, Connie is alone with the female titan laying supine on his house.  As he turns to gallop away, the titan whispers to him, “Welcome Home.”  This clearly shocks Connie as new ideas of what happened starts to stir in his head.  Reiner comes back to a shaken Connie to tell him that Connie is falling behind the captain and that they were leaving.  It is only when Connie asks Reiner if he heard the titan speak that Reiner stoutly says he didn’t and that they have to get going.  Their new mission is to find the breach in the wall.  Connie leaves his village doubting himself.

Now what was really interesting about this scene was Reiner’s reaction to all this.  Reiner seemed visibly shaken and emotionally distressed when Connie talks about how his village has just been completely wiped out.  And then there is the way that Reiner was trying to dismiss what Connie says about what Connie thought he heard.  Is Reiner trying to distract Connie from this tragedy or is something else going on?  We shall have to see.

But the Scout regiment is not the only force taking on these unexpected titans.  Fans get to see a small Garrison regiment squad holding a line of defense against titan attack.  In an epic scene, we see a titan chasing a garrison member to a farm where the garrison has set up a canon.  The canon wounds the titan and Captain Rico takes it out.  It seems that the Garrison has some strong soldiers in their ranks as well, but Captain Rico makes a valid point: the line will not hold if a group of titans attack at once.

Fighting the titans is only a stop gap. The regiments have to find the hole in the wall.  So teams of Scout and Garrison soldiers run along the wall to find the hole to report back.  Hannes is on a team checking as they check their part of the wall.  The Southern team run by Gerger (with Connie, Reiner and Bertolt) check along their side of the wall while the  Western team that Nanaba, Ymir, and Krista are on are checking their side.  Nanaba makes the decision to ride south along her part of the wall to check for the breach which Ymir is not happy about as the South is the hot zone and Krista and Ymir have no gear to fight with.

Fans get a terrifying night scene as Gerger’s team is making a harrowing journey in the darkness with only torches.  They know that titans don’t attack or really move at night, so the darkness is a perfect cover.  That still doesn’t make this trip any less terrifying as they search for this hole by the power of torchlight.  Gerger’s team does not find a hole and instead runs into Nanaba’s team.  They make the shocking discovery that neither team has found a breach in the wall.  The mystery of the sudden titan rampage deepens.  Too tired to continue searching, Nanaba spots the abandoned ruins of a castle and both teams decide to take refuge in the ruins.

The episode then switches to Hange, Levi, Pastor Nick and the Eren trio on their wagon ride to a Scout controlled fortress.  Hange is playing around with a rock which we soon find out is the hardened skin from Annie’s Titan.  It has not dissolved or disappeared as the titans bodies tend to do once the nape of the neck is cut or the person inside is pulled out of the titan as Annie was.  Hange also explains that she compared this piece of the female titan’s hardened skin to the wall and noted that they were practically identical.  The walls are made of titans skins hardening.  Pastor Nick seems disturbed that Hange figured that out, but he still remains silent.  Hange continues with her theory that maybe they can use Eren’s ability to turn into a titan to seal up the holes in the walls.  They now know that the plan to seal Wall Maria is not a distant pipe dream, but could actually be a reality soon.

They arrive at the Scout fortress in the Ermrich district, but they are not the only ones on the move.  Rivers of refugees are flooding in, and Pastor Nick sees first hand the devastation of the titans.  Levi says he can change it if he talks, but Pastor Nick still remains silent about the secrets he knows.  Yet I could even tell he was affected by the tragedy happening in front of him.

Pastor Nick can not reveal all his secrets that he swore to protect, but he does give the Scout regiment some hints.  He tells of a person who the church was supposed to monitor, someone very important.  In a meeting between Pastor Nick, Levi, Hange, Eren, Mikasa and Armin, the Pastor reveals that name to the group, but we do not hear it said aloud.

It is at this time that Sasha comes barging into this meeting with a scroll for Hange.  She has absolutely no idea what is going on, and comically tries to give her message to Hange who is otherwise distracted.  We soon get hints from what Eren, Armin and Mikasa say as to who Pastor Nick was talking about.  He says that this person may have important information that they need.  Eren says she is the smallest girl in the 104th, Armin calls her cute and Mikasa states the most important detail: that she is always with a girl named Ymir.  Of course it is Krista they are talking about, but Ymir’s name catches Hange’s attention in an important way.  Ymir’s name is mentioned in an OVA called Ilse’s Notebook.  I would suggest watching this OVA to understand why this is so important for Hange to hear now.

The scene returns back to the abandoned castle where Krista, Ymir, Reiner and Bertolt are staying for the night.  Something happens between Reiner and Ymir though we do not know yet what has Reiner so upset with Ymir.  Before we can get any answers to this, the lookout tells everyone to get to the top of the towers.  The castle is surrounded by very active titans which perplexes everyone as titans don’t usually move around at night.  Fans are just as confused until we see the Beast titan walking in the distance.  The titans start to attack the castle.

Connie points out the Beast titan to the group, and we see a very terrified Reiner and Bertolt.  Interesting.  We now know why the titans are active at night due to the power that the beast titan has in controlling other titans.  As the titans are attacking the castle, the beast titan scales Wall Rose and goes over to the other side.   This does not stop the titans from attacking the castle.  The rookies are really helpless because they are still only wearing their street clothes.  They have no ODM gear to fight with.  This leaves the handful of seasoned Scout members to take on this horde of titans.  Nanaba makes an awesome little speech and then they epically jump down to fight the horde of titans.

Back with Levi, Eren’s team is given the task to find Krista.  Hange decides to take the Scouts to an abandoned castle in the Southwest where they will have easy access to the wall.  The castle is called Utgard castle and it is the very castle under siege by the titans.  And that is how this episode ends.

Though some people may have thought this episode was slow because it did not have a lot of action, I would say the opposite about it.  I thought this episode was an intense build up to a crazy next episode.  There was a lot going on, some of which were very subtle hints of what is to come.  I thought this was a very clever, intelligent, info packed episode.  A lot was covered in twenty minutes, so I was very impressed with this episode.  I can’t wait to see what comes next.