Attack on Titan Season 2, Episode 4 Review

In my previous review I questions Ymir’s motives and thought she was acting oddly. I had no idea what she was hiding but it was big. It turns out that like Eren, Ymir is a human-titan shifter. Early in the episode we are shown a unsettling scene between two small titans, the more energetic one pushes the other to the ground, rips its ear off while making weird panting sounds. I don’t know what the significance of that scene was but it stood out.

The episode then flashes back 2 hours as we witness what transpired before the titan emerged. Connie explains to Ymir what he believes happen to his village, she doesn’t buy his theory that his mother might have been the titan he saw. She rudely mocks him, later she and Reiner look for food and find herring in a can. The language seems to be foreign and Reiner can’t decipher it. He seems to conclude that she’s from a specific part of the country.

We return to the present, as the scouts face off against the titans. A small titan breaches the tower, Reiner encounters it in the narrow hallway. He flashes back to earlier times when he’s and Bertholdt saved by one of his friends, whom is then consumed by the titan. The unarmed scouts defeat the titan, but Connie almost gets eaten by another one. Reiner intervenes and is bitten on the forearm, he lifts the titan on his back intending to jump out the window with it.

Connie slices the jaw of the titan open releasing the grip it had against Reiner’s arm. Scouts seemed to be successfully dwindling the titans down, but the Beast titan throws a giant bolder and horses at the scouts, killing Lynne and Henning instantly. The beast titan calls for more titans, the scouts become overwhelmed. Gerger falls of the wall but Nanaba saves him using the last of her gas. Gerger appeared to be saved, however, he along with Nanaba are killed. Without anyone to battle the titans hope seems lost.

Christa begins to consider what she needs to do to “fight and die” with their comrades. Ymir chastises her for thinking about “throwing away her life.” She takes the knife from Connie and tells the other she’s going to fight with it. She tells Christa that she should remember her promise, then she jumps off the tower cutting herself and turning into a titan.

I’ll admit that the minute Ymir took the knife I figured she was a titan, it was the only thing that made sense. This season has manage to increase the intensity of each episode. The episode also played with or expectations, I assumed that Gerger was safe since Nanaba risked her life for him. Of course this is Attack on Titan, so that was naive of me. Regardless, the secrets of Ymir have been revealed and only more questions remain.

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