Attack on Titan is back with probably one of the best episodes to date for this series.  Here are my thoughts on the dynamic episode 31 named Warrior.

I have never been so excited for an episode as I was for this one.  Being someone who read the manga, the reveal in this episode was known a long while ago, but seeing it once again just reopened the knife wound in my heart.  I will do my best to talk only about the episode and leave out any spoilers.

But before I get into the key points of the episode, I just want to point out how well they adapted this part from the manga.  The use of the music and the pacing of the episode really did a phenomenal job in building up the tension and accentuating the actions of what is going on.

And the use of pathetic fallacy in this was so well done.  For those who may not know this little more obscure literary term, pathetic fallacy is a literary device where the author (or in this case the animators and the author) intentionally use aspects of nature, like weather, to reflect a certain mood or tone or situation in the story.¹  Attack on Titan as been particularly good at doing this, but none so ever as it was done in this episode.  The entire episode was dark as the weather turned stormy and rainy, and it was that feeling you get in the intense calm just before a storm hits.  The tension in the air with this impending storm perfectly paralleled the tension between the characters.  We then get the sharp wind ripping off the flag and we hear the dull echo of the flag hitting the wall and nothing else as if the wind was displaying that more than just the flag was going to be broken. The clouds then opened up as rays of sunlight (or the light of truth) shine down, as fans get probably one of the biggest reveals to date.  These were just some of the examples of how they used this in this episode, but I won’t ramble on much longer on this.  Let’s get to this recap.

So this episode starts with a very windy, stormy atmosphere.  A comatose, but alive Ymir is being hoisted to the top of Wall Rose on a stretcher.  All the scout members are on top or getting to the top of the wall including the rookies who survived the attack on Castle Utgard.  Krista (or as we now know her as Historia) is desperately trying to convince Hange, who is charge of the group on the wall, that Ymir is not a threat to humanity.  Hange seems interested in treating Ymir as an ally or at least as a valuable asset to get information from.  She even goes as far as ordering the Scouts to take her back to Trost for medical treatment.

Ymir is not the only one wounded as we see Reiner clumsily being hoisted up the wall with his one arm.  His other arm is still in the sling, and he gets some help from Eren.  Reiner looks shell shocked and he says that he has come too close to death too many times.  As he is talking about this, Armin is being brought onto the wall and Reiner reminds Armin of the time he almost died when he was almost crushed by the female titan.  And then we get a quick flashback of that episode and that awesome scene.

A nervous Bertholdt standing near Reiner watches the interaction and tries to coax Reiner that they should go back to their home town.  He seems desperate and nervous like he wants them to leave right now.  Judging by what happens later in the episode, I’m wondering if Bertholdt felt some guilt or doubt over their mission.  Reiner, who does not seem to be in the right state of mind, seems to take some heart from Bertholdt’s words.

We then see Conny reach the top of the wall, and Hange tells Conny that she plans to send a team to investigate what happened to his village once they find the breach in the wall and seal it.  She notes that it is curiously devoid of titans near the wall.  At this point, we see Hannes and his unit riding up to the wall.

Hannes reaches the top of the wall and announces that neither his unit or another unit found a breach in the wall.  Now it is certain that there has been no breach, but the question looms now: where are the titans coming from?  Hange orders everyone to retreat to the Trost district.  Hannes team goes on ahead of the Scouts.

The rest of the Scouts start to walk away with Mikasa, Eren, Reiner and Bertholdt at the end of the group.  Reiner asks Eren to wait as he has something to talk to him about.  Mikasa gets a few feet from them, but then stops as she turns to see what Eren is doing.  Now this is where things get really strange and a shockwave was sent throughout the fandom.  Reiner pulls Eren aside, and nonchalantly tells him that he is the Armored titan and Bertholdt is the Colossal titan.  Now when I read this in the manga, I did a double take.  I had to go back and reread what I just thought I had read and I was in utter shock.  I loved Reiner and it hit me hard when I read those words.  This scene in the anime was not only just as shocking and done in the exact same way, but it was brilliantly done.

It seems that only Eren has heard this confession and Eren is eerily calm which is not normal for the very hot headed character.  We then get a flashback to twelve hours before.  Now at this point, the bomb of a reveal was dropped.  At first, fans were annoyed by this sudden flashback, but the flashback has a lot of importance.  This flashback takes place in the fortress that Hange, Levi and Pastor Nick go to before they send a search party out of Krista.  In the scene where Pastor Nick is telling them about how the church had been watching Krista, Sasha barreled into the room as only Sasha can to give Hange a scroll.

Well in this flashback we finally get to see what was in that scroll.  Hange relays the very important information to the group of scouts that are going on the mission to find Krista.  The information had to do with Annie and what was dug up about Annie’s past.  There was not much that could be found about her, but the one thing they could find was that there were two other people who had come from the same area as Annie and they were Reiner Braun and Bertholdt Hoover.

Now Eren is very skeptical of all this information as he really doesn’t believe his friend Reiner could be a titan, but then Hange drops another piece of damning evidence.  During their first mission as scouts beyond the wall (the one where the female titan was first spotted and attacked them), each of the different parts of the formation was given different information as to where Eren was in the formation.  Reiner’s part of the formation was told that Eren would be in the right wing.  Armin realizes faster than anyone that the female titan attacked the right wing.  He then has a horrible realization.  When Reiner faced off with the female titan and was captured, it looked like he was going to die and most people would have died.  But Reiner escaped by cutting his way out of her hand.  Armin remembers the female titan looking at the palm of her hand before changing her course.

Armin then remembers that moments earlier, they were discussing the most probable and logical place that Eren would most likely be.  Armin had rightly surmised that Eren would be in the center rear part of the formation because it was the safest place to put Eren.  He told this to both Reiner and Jean.  Shortly after that, the female got Reiner and seemed to have crushed him.  Armin now realizes that Reiner had used his blades to carve Eren’s location into Annie’s palm before he cut his way out of her hand.  All of these scraps of evidence becomes more and more damning, but Eren is still not really wanting to believe it.

We jump out of the flashback and back into the very awkward and charged moment after Reiner outed himself and Bertholdt.  Eren tries to play it off as Reiner is tired, and why would he tell Eren of all people this information.  Reiner tells Eren that all this bloodshed can stop if Eren just comes with Reiner and Bertholdt back to their home village to which Eren just jokes off.  Reiner realizes what he has done and that Eren is not going to go with them.

All the while Mikasa is watching this interaction and you can see the tension growing in her.  Reiner decides that he is done being a double agent.  He takes of his sling and reveals himself healing.  Eren now knows that Reiner was not lying to him, and that he is the armored titan.  He then charges towards Eren to make a grab for him, and Mikasa comes at Reiner and Bertholdt like a deadly whirlwind.  She almost gets the both of them, but is then knocked off the wall by Reiner.  Luckily, she has her ODM gear on and she doesn’t go to far.

But Reiner and Bertholdt are both wounded and we see them begin to transform.  Armin and the rest of the Scouts are rushing towards them as they know what is about to go down.  In a truly phenomenal scene, fans sadly watch as Reiner and Bertholdt turn into the armored and colossal titan.  The blast plows the scout regiment down as a half formed colossal sits on the wall and the armored is near him.  Reiner grabs Eren as the blast sends Eren flying as the colossal snatches the stretcher that Ymir is on.

The armored titan then starts to slide down the wall with Eren.  Eren is heartbroken as he has flashbacks of Reiner as his friend.  The sorrow does not last long as Eren’s pain turns to rage.  Eren bites his hand and transforms into a titan in mid air, and that is how this awesome episode ends.

I have already said this, but this episode really impressed me and is my favorite episode so far.  Season 2 has really been just amazing, but this episode was pure gold.  Check out the scene below (video by Crafting Vegeto on youtube):

1.) Literary terms- literary term number 7