After a week off due to the Hokkaido earthquake, Attack on Titan rattles back into town with another mythology episode.  I don’t think anyone officially knows where the series is going from here – I mean, it’s a given it will continue as an anime (even with their huge dropoff sales were still good enough for that), but when?  It seems unlikely the season will just continue after next week with no announcement by now, so maybe it’s a split cour, or perhaps another case where a few seasons will pass and we’ll see Season 4 in 2019 or 2020.

I might not have cared much last time – after all, I was pretty close to dropping Shingeki no Kyoujin after the second season.  But I must confess I’ve enjoyed this one more than any run of eps since the first cour of S1, which is kind of ironic as they could hardly be more tonally opposite.  We’ve had a lot of “reveal” eps this season, and they’ve been less BS-driven than usual – rather than tease, we’ve actually gotten information more often than not.  The histrionics have been toned way down, Eren has been a side player and Mikasa virtually a rumor.  I know a lot of fans don’t love that the focus has been less on titans and more on politics and intrigue, but I’m pretty sure I like AoT better that way.

With Kenny dead (I could finally say it now – but now I don’t have the heart to) a new bit player assumes the spotlight.  It’s Keith Sadies (Mogami Tsuguo), another member of the “remember him?” contingent.  Eren does, eventually – though the man he remembers had hair.  Sadies was of course the commander of the cadet regiment that Eren and his mates went through training in, and he was an acquaintance of Grisha Jaeger.  More than an acquaintance, in fact – a close friend, and in love with Eren’t mother.  And at one time, commander of the Survey Corps.

I couldn’t help but LOL when someone muttered “no one on Erwin’s team died” as a rebuke of Sadies – just you wait, good sir – but overall, Sadies account of Grisha was rather interesting.  There’s still a lot we don’t know about Grisha, such as why he was outside the walls when Keith and his men found him, and why he’d lost his memory.  The whole bit about who was special and who wasn’t was a bit overwrought, but anything that helps fill in the blanks with Grisha is welcome at this stage of the game since he seems to be at the heart of the entire mystery.

If indeed we are headed towards a season finale cliffhanger, it seems it’s going to be the beginning of the attempt to retake Wall Maria.  With Eren’s hardening ability in their arsenal, that becomes a feasible stretch goal for the new regime – though it’s obvious that it puts quite a strain on Eren’s constitution.  Seeing Eren and Historia make googly eyes puts a strain on Mikasa’s constitution, but Historia has other things on her plate and I don’t think Eren is capable of a romantic thought, so that’s a sidebar I suspect isn’t going to be a factor anytime soon.