And thus it begins. Everything is just starting to bubble over until it implodes. There’s been a lot of build up to this moment by showing the strain between several groups within Paradis, especially with Eren and his followers. Things are just spiraling out of control with the now named “Jaegerists” having just blown up the head of the military and Eren himself having escaped from prison. Though we all knew it was only a matter of time that Eren would escape as he made it pretty clear that he is allowing himself to be detained and could leave whenever he wanted.
Yelena is just turning out to be more and more shady with each passing episode. Considering she is not afraid to put people down if it meant furthering her goals or showing her loyalty to Zeke. No wonder Floch took to her advice, both of them are just EXTREME. We find out that she had been conspiring with Eren or at least has been talking to him so that at least he would “know her name” almost like she wanted to slide into his good graces so that she could make it big someday. Kind of like using someone high up she knows to get something. Not only that, but she seems to have strategically placed Marleyans in specific places. Particularly in restaurants. Hmmmmm….
The state of things is definitely a difficult one as I can understand why people are siding with Eren. It’s like, what can you really do in this situation? Paradis is stuck between a rock and a hard place and they view Eren’s actions as justified for their path to freedom from oppression. The whole world wants them dead, why wouldn’t they follow someone who promises them the world in a sense? Though I can’t help but feel uncomfortable with how the scene was portrayed with all the civilians chanting “give your hearts.” It honestly felt like they were twisting and tainted Erwin’s words. And as much as I love Armin, him constantly saying that they should talk things out to reach a conclusion just doesn’t seem like it’s going to work. Especially since Eren seems very set in what he’s doing and doesn’t seem like he’ll change his mind after a chat. And if we take in account that he most likely can see the future due to paths, he’s definitely not going to be swayed.
At this point, I do think Pixis’ plan of action may have been for the best for now and surrender to Eren’s group. Especially since he even states that flushing out the traitors would cause way too much bloodshed and probably escalate the already out of control situation. They aren’t surrendering and forgiving them for what they done, but basically just sucking it up and biding their time until they can figure a better way to go about it since it was their decisions that lead to the uprising in the first place. And while it seems like this uprising is the same as the one the scouts did in season 3, they are condoning killing and violence while back in season 3, they only killed out of self defense. So there is a bit of a difference between how they are carrying out their uprisings.
I definitely feel really bad for both Armin and Mikasa since they have to witness their dearest friend commit such atrocities. Especially since both of them just want to be given the chance to talk it out with him, even though it feels futile at this point. But it’s very evident that they’re starting to realize that what Eren is doing is not alright. Eren has always been a character that has been out of reach for the both of them, whether it’s because he’s always running ahead of them or gets taken like Princess Peach. And it feels like this situation is no different with him going on and looking ahead, even if it means leaving them behind. Which further supports the notion that they won’t be able to reach him with their words.
I also want to take a moment and talk about what happened at the start of the ep because it’s definitely been a minute since we’ve seen Hitch and man, she looks very different from when we last saw her. She’s definitely not as antagonizing as she was and seems to be more playful in a much gentler way with her teasing Armin over Annie. And despite their short time together, it seems she still viewed Annie as a friend of sorts considering, like Armin, had been coming down to talk to her every so often. Which is sweet. And it may be because she views Annie as the only surviving friend she had in the Military Police after the death of Marlow. While she’s still as lazy as ever, she’s definitely a lot nicer than she was when we first met her.
And then the Armin and Annie scene… heh. I’ll just leave it at that for the time being.
I honestly cannot wait for next episode because stuff is about to go DOWN. Especially since the cycle is just going to continue because freaking Pieck was already there, which means that Paradis is about to be attacked very similarly to how they attacked Marley at the start of the season (again). Not to mention that Gabi and Falco along with the Braus family have arrived at Nicolo’s restaurant. Hoo boy…
