Episode 51, Thunder Spears

This episode was a bit of a slow burn. I liked that. While the scouts rest atop of the wall, the Beast Titan and the other titans wait outside the Shiganshina District. Reiner Braun begins to climb the wall behind the scouts. While he does so, Erwin deduces the motives of the Beast Titan. Erwin orders the scouts to avoid the Armor Titan. He concludes that the horses are a major target for the Beast Titan. If they can take away “the scouts only means of escape.” He orders the Dirk Squad and Marlene Squad join Klaus Squad to protect the horses.

He orders the Levi Squad and Hange Squad to defeat the Armored Titan, using the Thunder Spears. However, Erwin orders Levi to protect the horse and when possible take down the Beast Titan. When Reiner gets to the top of the wall, he contemplates his options. Eren transforms forcing Reiner to choose between killing the horses or capturing Eren, he goes with the later. Eren successfully baits Reiner into a fight. Once the fight begins Eren hardens his fingers and they fight in the town Eren grew up in.

As the scouts rush to kill the small Titans, Levi and Erwin notes that the scouts have gotten weaker. Meanwhile, Eren takes the lead in battle against Reiner. We get a detailed explanation from Hange of what the new weapon the, Thunder Spear. Reiner is thrown off by Eren leaving him exposed. Hange and Mikasa fly towards Reiner and use the new spears on his eyes. They exploded, blinding him. The rest of the Levi and Hange squads fire the spears into his back, destroying the armor around his nape. His neck now exposed the scout send multiple spears into his neck and it explodes.

If the scouts are able to create and use new weapons they could gain an advantage in the war against the titans. Most titans are not that intelligent so it would be necessary to waste these weapons on them. However, with special titans like the Armor or Colossus they could benefit from more sophisticated weapons. I’ve mentioned this before, but I think Erwin is going to die here. His backstory only confirmed this. Furthermore, Armin is perfect to replace his mind and Levi is a better fighter at this point.

The biggest question right now is, did Reiner die? It would be implausible if he didn’t. The weapon was designed to kill him and he was largely defenseless against it, plus Eren is still around. There’s now way he can survived right? He did manage to survive the attack from Levi by transferring his mind to his body. Will he get lucky again?