A leopard cannot change it’s spots, so they say.  And I certainly think that’s true of a series like Shingeki no Kyoujin, which is very much a prisoner of its own limitations.  That cuts both ways of course – it’s that essential bakayaroucity that serves as the series’ main appeal.  You can always count on Shingeki to be goofy and absurd and deliver LOL moments in big situations, and to dream up the most preposterous plot twists and treat them like Shakespeare.

The flip side of that, though, is that the weakness of its characters is a heavy ballast (though not the only one) that will always prevent Attack on Titan from truly taking flight.  This season is definitely better than the second so far, but a good chunk of that has been the lack of focus on the truly awful main characters.  As Eren, Erwin and Levi (thankfully Mikasa is still mostly wallpaper so far) have re-entered the spotlight the overall level of the show has dropped.  And maybe the renewed focus on titans and a reminder of just how contorted Isayama has to be to make the central mythology hold together has had a lot to do with that, too.

Historia is an interesting anomaly, a character whose feet are on both sides of the divide to an extent.  She’s horribly written in the sense that she’s all over the map – smart or dumb, quick to decide or hesitant, demure or badass – depending on what the plot needs.  That’s a reflection, too, on how crucial she is to making the whole house of cards stay standing.  But she’s also quite entertaining in her better moments, frequently given some of the best dialogue, and actually has one of the more interesting personal stories in the cast.  The last two episodes have certainly been helped more than hurt by her prominence.

I guess Isayama is acknowledging through Hange what an annoying whinge Eren is.  I really did keep wishing for him to get eaten by somebody, but sadly it was not to be – and in the end, he takes a bite from the bottle marked “armor” and magically gets the hardening ability (perhaps it was Viagra?) that had eluded him for so long.  That’s important for a couple of long-term reasons, but in the immediate term it keeps the Levi squad alive when the roof of the cavern collapses as the Rod Reiss titan expands to truly titanic proportions.  Interestingly Big Rod shows no interest in an Eren-burger, instead crawling in a kind of semi-subterranean snake slither towards the Orvud District.  It should be pointed out that most of this extended sequence is done in really execrable CGI – just how much money does a series have to make before the leeches let the studio have enough to make it look decent in the big moments?

The choice the Levi squad discusses is pretty straightforward – let Eren get eaten by Reiss, hope Reiss turns into a human, then hope the First King’s brainwashing can be undone and his powers be turned to humanity’s benefit.  This is an incredibly bad plan, as Historia (who’s required to be in smart mode here) and Armin (who’s pretty much always smart) point out.  But Historia’s Plan B is more palatable than Eren on a cracker – use the hardening ability to plug Wall Maria and head to the Jaeger house to find out at last what dead old dad hid in the basement besides an air hockey table.  In essence, the plan calls for trusting Eren’s father’s view of events rather than her own father’s – but in this case, I think it’s probably the right choice.

First, though, there are two more pressing matters.  Levi finally tells Historia that Erwin’s master plan requires her to become queen.  Krista’s old comrades are naturally aggrieved at the notion that now that she’s finally claimed her independence, she has to take on this new burden, and indeed this is one of the more authentic character developments in the series.  But Historia reasons that if she chooses to accept, the burden is not forced on her – a subtle distinction, but I think ultimately a valid one.  Then there’s the matter of the freaky largest-ever seen titan bearing down on Orvud.  Levi reminds Historia that abandoning the Eren-ryori plan means killing her father, but while she accepts the need for it, it doesn’t exactly seem like a simple matter to kill a titan that huge.  But fear not, Erwin has a plan – and that means you can assume a lot of his subordinates are about to die horrible deaths.