By Dustin Cabeal

Admittedly, I’ve fallen behind on reviewing this show. I still haven’t quite figured out what day it releases because I’m just watching it on Hulu. Fuck I wish they were getting more simulcast titles now that I’ve gone commercial free. Anyway, I would have bunched a few of the episodes together for review, the 27th episode was character driven, and the last episode just had too much going on. I will probably just talk about it on the podcast and call it a day.

As for this episode, let me start by saying, WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON IN THIS WORLD!!!?!!?!?!??!??!

Here I thought they’d dick us around and reveal next to nothing and instead they’re just changing the rules of the game and adding two questions for every reveal they have. This episode stays with the group at the castle for the entire time which is for the best… because some fucked up shit happens.

We do backtrack a bit and get some more context for the strange scene in the last episode between Reiner and Ymir. What’s annoying is that we don’t get closure to the scene because it still ends with the Titans attacking, but it was interesting none the less as Ymir can read a language that none of the others can understand. At this point, I had to kind of wonder if there was something else going on with this entire fucked up world. Like there was more outside of the walls that maybe didn’t match this weird steam inspired middle ages.

There’s some pure poetic tragedy to this episode and it just shows how fucked up everyone is while living in fear of the goddamn Titans. One of the characters eventually meets her doom after the Beast Titan hurls fucking rocks at them and as she’s dying she screams to her father, who is obviously not there. It revealed a tragic backstory for this character we hardly knew, which made the final sequence all the more shocking. Not because you couldn’t figure it out before it happened, but because the character that it involves waited until no one else could see what was happening. That alone was enough to make me hate this character. No matter what their backstory is in the next episode, I will never forget that they let four people die needlessly before doing something.

By now, if you’re watching the show you know what I mean or have probably had it spoiled on the internet. I’m not going to spoil it, but I will say that something isn’t adding up with what we saw in the first episode and what’s begun happening in this episode. Again, more questions than answers at this point, but I’m hooked and can’t wait until the next episode.

We’re not done though because the animation needs to be addressed. I think we’ve all waited for too long for this second season and while I have noticed marked improvements in the characters and their action, this still fucking shots of the Titans is ridiculous. First, there were the CG horses for no reason and now still pictures of Titans that just pan and scan while people talk. It’s super annoying and disappointing and keeps this from being a perfect episode in my opinion. I will be dollars to donuts that the home version will have this cleaned up and looking good, but since it’s all uploaded into streaming services as is, we’re stuck watching this shit for as long as the show remains popular. Just don’t tell me they didn’t have the money, they had the money, and they had the damn time too, so there are no excuses.

Will I be back for the next episode? You better believe it. Again, I’ve never been a diehard of this franchise until the ending of the first season. For now, it’s winning me over in a big way, and I’ll continue to enjoy it while it does, but we’ll see if they can maintain this level of interest. Having so many reveals and continuing a mystery at the same time is a lot of work and even more to work if you want to keep the audience. We’ll see what happens, but for now, it's living up to the hype and one of the top shows of the season, at least for now.

Score: 4/5

Attack on Titan E.029