After an intense last episode, this episode of Attack on Titan was explosive and made of action packed epicness, but it was heart wrenching .  Here are my thoughts from Attack on Titan Episode 29: Soldier.

This episode starts at Utgard castle with Nanaba, Gelgar and the rookies trapped in the castle tower.    This castle has two towers and one is being used by the Scout regiment.  In the distance, the Beast titan has climbed on top of Wall Rose.  The seasoned Scouts are just about to take on the titans.  The episode then jumps back in time by two hours, and we see the events that lead up to the attack.  There were some telling details in this.

The flashback starts with the seasoned soldiers and rookies getting much needed rest.  Gelgar finds a bottle of alcohol left from an abandoned campsite.  It seems they are not the only ones who have used the ruins as shelter.  He can not read the language on the bottle which is strange in itself.  He really wants a drink, but doesn’t take one as he is on duty.

Connie is asked about his village and he revisits the horror of the titan lying on his house.  He says aloud what he has been thinking all along: that the titan on his house was actually his mother.  He is interrupted by Ymir, who makes fun of Connie saying that there was no way his parents could be titans if he is so short.  It seems cruel at first, and I can see by the other character’s faces that they also think it was a bit cruel, but it seems as if she is trying to distract him.

The next time we see Ymir she is in the corner digging through a box of old goods.  Reiner comes up to her to thank her for distracting Connie as he thinks that Connie shouldn’t be alone with these sad thoughts.  Ymir suggests that Reiner is not interested in girls which he does not deny (though I was certain he liked Christa), and he throws that shade right back at Ymir saying she is not interested in men.  As fans we know that Ymir has a special interest in Christa as well.

As Ymir is searching, she comes across some canned food which she says is herring.  Reiner wants to see the can as he wants some as well, but when he gets it, he realizes that the can, like the bottle of alcohol, is in a strange language he can’t read, but Ymir can.  Reiner is about to say something about Ymir, but we never find out what that something is because the lookout comes to warn them of a titan attack.  We are now back to the events that ended the last episode.

The four seasoned Scout soldiers are the only ones with ODM gear which means they are they only ones that can fight.  The rest of the rookies look on from the rooftop completely helpless.  Even if they wanted to fight, they can’t.  But the four Scout members (Gelgar, Nanaba, Henning, and Lynne ) are very capable soldiers.  They take out many of the titans including some of the bigger ones.

Everything seems to be going all right until Henning takes out a titan and sees that the door to the tower they are in has been broken in.  She rushes back to the top and warns the rookies to barricade the doors.  Reiner takes the lead.  He tells the rest of them to look for things they can use to make a barricade or fight with while he takes a torch and searches for how far the titans have come.

Reiner walks down a flight of steps and opens a door leading to the lower part of the tower and is surprised by a lurking titan on the other side.  He slams the door and bars it as the titan tries to get in.  It starts to break down the door.  In this moment, we see a rare flashback into Reiner’s past.  We see a younger Reiner with a his friends, one of which is Bertolt.  A titan is attacking them and Reiner’s friend pushes him out of the way and is eaten by the titan in his place.  This was an interesting look at the back story of Reiner as all we know about him so far is that he wants to go back to his home town with Bertholt.  That is why the tragedy of Connie’s village really affected him.

Reiner seems like he may be in trouble as the titan rips apart the door, but he gets out of the reach of the titan.  Bertholt then comes flying at the titan with a pitch fork.  Together Reiner and Bertholt stab the titan through the face and stop him.

At the top of the stairs, Connie, Christa and Ymir have found an old cannon.  They push the cannon down the stairs towards the titan.  The cannon takes out the titan and the door.  Everyone thinks they are safe until, in one heart stopping moment, another titan comes through the door.  It comes straight for Connie, and we think we are going to watch another favorite character die.  But Reiner jumps in and pushes Connie out of the way of the titan.

The titan chomps down on Reiner’s forearm and it looks like Reiner is again in trouble, but that is not the case.   Reiner pulls a muscle man move by picking up this smaller titan on his shoulders, carries him up the stairs and plans on throwing himself and the titan out a window that is in the tower.  Instead,  Connie jumps in with a small knife he found in the tower and cuts the titan’s jaw.  This releases Reiner from the titan and Ymir kicks the titan out of the window.  They bar the door. The rookies are saved for now.

Christa patches Reiner up and uses a piece of her skirt to do it which Reiner really likes.  He even thinks to himself that he wants to marry her one day.  Connie tells Reiner that he owes him and he thinks that Reiner is really brave.  Reiner mentions he was only doing what a soldier should do.  Connie asks Bertholt if Reiner was always like this.  Bertholt says that Reiner used to be a warrior.  This seems unimportant, but it does have relevance later in the story line.

Meanwhile, the senior Scout members have taken down most of the titans attacking them, but they are running low on blades and gas.  Henning and Lynne fly up the tower to check on the rookies.  As they are on their way up, they hear the sound of something flying at them.  Two horse bodies hit the ground near the tower.  Another bombardment of horses comes and it hits Henning and Lynne at the top of the tower killing them instantly.

Gelgar and Nanaba pull their bodies to the top of the tower as the rookies arrive as well.  They witness in horror as a new horde of titans rush the tower.  Connie points out that the beast titan threw the horses from the wall and Nanaba  notes that it seems like this was all a strategy all along.

Nanaba and Gelgar are all that is left to fight the titans coming at them.  Yet they keep fighting despite the odds against them.  They fight until Gelgar is out of blades and gas.  He loses consciousness and starts to fall into the horde of titans.  Nanaba risks her life and saves Gelgar who ends up being thrown into a hole in the tower (into the very room they had been patching Reiner up in).  Gelgar finds the bottle of alcohol, but in a cruel twist of irony, the bottle is empty.  A titan finds him as he trying to have one last drink and he is killed.

Nanaba is in just as bad a situation with broken blades and completely out of gas.  The rookies watch in horror (and the fans) as Nanaba is ripped apart by the titans.  This scene was horrible to watch as I really liked Nanaba, but this season has not been shy in its brutality.  In fact, I think this season has been more brutal than season 1.

The rookies are really in a dire situation.  One of the towers is down and the one tower they are on is crumbling.  The senior scout members are all dead, and the tower is surrounded.  Things look really bad for the rookies and they know it.  Ymir knows it best.  She asks Connie for his knife.  She then reminds Christa that she needs to stay alive and live a life worth living.  Ymir then runs and jumps off the roof towards the horde of titans.  She takes the knife and slices her hand.  Fans watch as Ymir turns into a titan and attacks the other titans.

This episode was well written and action packed.  It was also heartbreaking as well as we see the death of Nanaba and the senior scout members.  I also think this episode made Reiner shine and gave us insight to his past.  He was really the MVP in this episode.  I can’t wait to see what happens in the next episode.