The second part of the final season of Attack on Titan continued with episode 19, ‘Two Brothers’, and episode 20 ‘Memories of the Future’. So, let’s see how they went…
Episode 19 was an odd one for me, I must admit. I really enjoyed the continuing battle that comprised the first half of the episode, and in particular, the major story beats that played out. Dot Pixis turning into a Titan was only touched on briefly but felt impactful due to his importance in previous seasons. Falco being turned into a Titan was far more tragic though, even his devouring Galliard means he’ll now be the Jaw Titan. The big shocker though was the sorrowful Gabi using a high-powered rifle to literally shoot Eren’s head off his shoulders. Honestly, it all felt like the early stages of a brutal but suitable climax to the series.
Then, we ended up back where the paths connect, with a chained Zeke talking to an Eren that has apparently recovered from his beheading. Now, I did enjoy seeing them both double-cross each other, as well as the added wrinkle of Zeke not abandoning Eren even with his betrayal. The whole thing of Eren surviving felt tonally off for me though. Attack on Titan has always felt high-stakes, and this scene kinda nullified some of that for me. It’s a shame because Eren coming to a shocking end like that would have been far more in keeping with the spirit of the show up until now.
In a way, that continued with episode 20. I thought this was a more consistent episode tonally, though it was still a very different feel to the previous ones. The whole interplay between Eren and Zeke as they sift through Grisha’s memories, each trying to demonstrate why they believe their way forward is the correct one was really interesting though. Learning that Eren has been in control the whole time actually does a lot to keep him on the path of being the antagonist, at least to some degree, in my opinion. He’s essentially an evil mastermind at this point, pulling all the strings as he goes.
Poor old Zeke too maintains the idea that he isn’t strictly a bad guy. His steadfast refusal to abandon his brother was a nice tough, and you can see several times where he begins to realise that his views on Grisha were wrong, but he can’t figure out why the man did what he did. That is until he witnessed it with his won eyes. At the same time though, I did have an issue with how many times we got to see Zeke’s shocked face. It felt very immobile and seeing the same expression several times in the same episode really brought that to my attention.
All in all, though, I did enjoy both episodes. You can feel that we’re moving towards the end game now and people’s true roles are beginning to fall into place. We’ll see how this mini-arc ends and what it kickstarts soon, but in the meantime, what did you all think? Did you enjoy these two episodes too? Let me know in the comments below.
Matt Doyle Media 