Released this week, episode 87 of Attack on Titan premiered titled ‘The Dawn of Humanity.’ In a span of 25-minutes, an enormous amount of plot throughout the season is covered.
Starting off with Mikasa looking out on the horizon of clouds originating from the Rumbling, we enter a flashback. The Scouts are on a mission incognito to Marley in order to gain information of the outside world and figure out a solution to avoid escalations. The group have never seen cars or ice cream before so it comes as a shock to them but that also ends abruptly. When a young refugee boy covertly swiping people’s money, Sasha becomes a victim as has her coin bag is stolen by him. Levi grabs the bag from the boy and loudly tells him that doesn’t belong to him. The crowd at the port overhears them and they believe the boy is a Subject of Ymir, soon a gross display of prejudice slowly leads closer to a lynch mob. Levi, Hange and Sasha aid the boy and try to recover from the situation as it slowly fails. All the Scouts, Oyankopon (who meets them at the port) and the boy run away out of fear. At a safe location, the boy has disappeared and the group meet up with their Azumabito contact. They explain to her about an upcoming meeting of Eldians who they believe could help to provide support for Paradis’ cause and avoid an escalation of war. During that conversation, Mikasa finds Eren outside the safe house as he explains that he’s haunted by the memories given to him from the Attack Titan powers and wonders about Mikasa’s feelings towards him. The two are interrupted as they had their conversation above a refugee camp that’s nearby and with the rest of the Scouts that went out to look for them two. Everyone ends up having a fabulous time at the camp, drinking alcohol and partying. The following day, the meeting turns out to be an absolute blame game towards the Eldians that fled to Paradis and they’re supposedly the ones who need to be eliminated. Eren leaves the Scouts at the meeting, which turned out to be the last time until later when Eren organized the raid on Marley. Returning back to Mikasa on the boat in present time, she wonders if her response to Eren that one night could’ve prevented this whole catastrophe.
Switching to Eren’s course of memory leading up to the present, we first start by the meeting between Eren and Yelena with Floch hiding nearby. That meeting explaining about Zeke’s euthanization plan with the fact that even from that point, Eren pretended to go along with it and having Floch follow his lead. We also see Eren have a conversation with Historia about the possibility of her getting eaten to have more royal Titan children, he strongly advises her against this. However, she believes in doing whatever is right for Paradis and also is vehemently against Eren using the Rumbling to destroy the whole world. Eren tells her that he’ll be able to remove her memory with the Founder to allow him to get closer to his goals. In another memory, Eren and Zeke have their conversation about the plan but also Mikasa is brought up. Zeke answers Eren’s question about her ‘Awakening’ but that power from Mikasa might actually be activated specifically because she genuinely loves Eren.
Finally in the present, Marley has assembled an enormous fleet comprising of a coalition of other nations trying to stop the Rumbling from getting closer to them. Firing volley after volley, which at first appears to destroy the titans that are capable of swimming through a large body of water. However, it doesn’t make an dent and as the wave of Colossal Titans swim under the fleet with their intense heat. Melting the sailors and launching numerous amounts of battleships high into the sky. Out in the distance on the pier, large numbers of artillery make a final attempt to take out the titans which ends in absolute failure. Those soldiers flee up towards the high ground as the Rumbling accompanied by Eren arrives on Marley’s shore.
This episode manages to answer several questions that lingered on our minds and destroy it in it’s full runtime. We learn about the Scouts themselves learning about Marley and the outside world, however Eren having inherited Grisha’s memories is indifferent. More so, frustrated because he repeatedly tries to fit in but is haunted by the future that he wishes won’t come true. We also learn from Eren’s memories about what happened at that meeting between him and Yelena, his lies and also conversations between Historia and Zeke. The episode ends in its trend of brutal gory violence as the unstoppable Rumbling finally arrives on Marley’s shores.
It earns a 4 out of 5.
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