Welcome back to World War Titan! The time has come to end things. We are finally watching the final season of Attack on Titan, divided up into three parts. Things our looking pretty grim for our cast of troubled heroes. If you are new to our coverage, this is the part where I explain to you that I’ve never been what you’d call a regular anime watcher, but something about this strange and at times horrifying show has continued to captivate me. I hear the Rumblers a-rumblin’ so let’s talk Attack on Titan season 4, episode 22, “Thaw.”
1. The Rumblers Rumble
So let’s talk about these Rumblers. That’s what I am calling all the titans that emerged from the walls. A cool thing about the titans has always been their look, right? They look as different from each other as human people do. And their weird way of moving, their weird vacant smiles… these Rumblers are not like that. They have a much more uniform design, skinless with weird little pinheads. Instead of herky jerky motions, they march in sync, a determined look on their face. Though we don’t see much of the Rumbling itself- I have no idea if they’ve reached and destroyed other lands. But they are a constant presence, always marching in the background, never letting you forget quite how fucked everyone is.
The cold open holds on Eren’s new psychic demonic shadow king visage. Eren is so powerful and psychic and evil now, it’s effecting the TV, causing staticky snow to creep around the edges of the image. It is actually… pretty scary.
2. Bad-Way Reiner
Reiner is in a bad way. He’s been getting the shit beaten out of him since before the season went on break, and there hasn’t been a single episode of reprieve yet. In fact, he’s been beaten so badly, he can’t armor up as a titan anymore. At first this just seems like exhaustion, but by the end of the episode, we know it’s something more sinister.
Meanwhile, Gaby is on a quest for redemption. If she could just find Falco, she’s decided to desert, the two of them on the run together. Gaby doesn’t find Falco this episode (more on that in a second), but she does rescue Sasha’s family. Sasha who Gaby killed. Man is that little girl a prolific murderer. She reconciles with that in this episode, realizing that she’s just as much a devil as the people she is warring again. “There’s a devil in all of us,” Sasha’s brother says. That’s why there is always hate and war. Gaby seems to draw comfort from this knowledge.
3. Connie’s lost it
So where is Falco anyway? The surviving Scouts have him captured. There’s not too many of them left. Armin, Mikasa, Jean, and Connie. And that’s it. There’s a debate as to what to do with Falco. Should they let him go, or use him as a bargaining chip? Jean points out that they can use Falco, just like they used Bertholdt. His first suggestion is to feed Falco to Pyxis, so they can have their experienced commander back.
The talk is all well and good (or actually, extremely cold-blooded), but Connie disagrees. He grabs Falco and deserts! It’s seemed like Connie has been ready to snap for a long time, but maybe it’s already too late. Turns out, he’s been visiting his mom ever week for the last four years. If you recall, Connie’s mom got turned into a titan way back in season 2, and has been trapped unmoving in their house ever since. Connie’s gone rogue to sacrifice Falco to save his mom. At this point we are so beyond good and evil, I don’t even know how messed up that is. Is it more messed up than anything else that’s happening?
4. Jean’s Counter-Offensive
My love of Jean Kirstein is no secret. I love that guy. On a team of hyper-driven extremists, Jean is the normal guy. The mortal. If this was the fellowship, he’d be Boromir. If this was the Justice League, he’d be Batman. When the going gets tough, you can always count on Jean to offer comfort to someone; he gets their fear. Today, though, Jean is kicking ass.
With regular titans rampaging around the city, Jean springs into action, rallying the troops and killing hundreds, if not thousands of titans. And the show is letting him have his moment. The music gets incredible, the thunder spears glow with a rainbow aura, and Jean gets backup from Keith Motherfucking Shadis, the hardest man left alive. It’s truly a spectacular sequence of animation.
The crew even encounters Dot Pyxis, and Armin manages to put him down gently. He flashes back to their meeting and thanks the old man as he kills him.
5. Oh what a world, what a world
OK, it’s the end of the episode. The Scouts have found civilians hiding in a basement with Gaby, and they all start comparing notes. Armin notices something about the way Gaby talks about Reiner’s useless armor powers. The timing seems off. It was the exact moment Eren melted down the walls to free the trapped titans. Eren has taken the hardening powers from all the titans. Including one that they’ve all forgotten about.
In the basement, a little wet, a little confused, but otherwise looking exactly like she did last time we saw her, Annie Leonhart emerges from her crystal prison. Hell yeah! Now the fighting can really begin.
