This is the season that takes the show you thought you were watching and hands the moral high ground to the people you spent five years hating. You will find yourself cheering for Reiner, a man who wants to die, and for Annie waking up from four years in a crystal to eat a potato, and for Pieck and Magath fighting side by side while Eren becomes the thing the walls were built to keep out. The craft peaks in the Paths: Grisha screaming at Zeke to stop his son while Eren walks through his father's memories, and then Ymir Fritz choosing, after two thousand years, because Mikasa will one day make a decision she cannot yet imagine. Gabi at the Blouse dinner table, being fed by the family of the girl she murdered, is the single cruelest kindness this series ever wrote. And when the Wall Titans step out of the crumbling stone and the Rumbling starts, the sound design alone will flatten you. Hange smoking on the cart with Levi half dead beside her, still choosing to save the world nobody deserves.

The Jaegerists have taken control of Paradis, and the war now closes in on Shiganshina. Reeling from a surprise attack led by Eren, Marley moves quickly to strike back. Zeke's true plan has come to light, and whether Eren means to carry out his half-brother's wishes or pursue his own goal remains unclear. Reiner uses his power to try to hold back Eren's forces, while the young Eldians Falco and Gabi fight to stay alive. Mikasa, Armin and Eren's former Survey Corps comrades, jailed and shaken by what he has become, still believe he means well and join the fight to save him.