Spoiler Free Review:
Attack on Titan is killing it this season with the latest episode, “Friends”, being another in a long line of great episodes.
“Friends” details the backstory of Kenny in a way that makes his character much more interesting and goes even further by expanding the world of the Reiss family.
This flashback is easily one of the series’ best, delivering great emotional scenes and character development.
The friendship the episode is named for, between Kenny and another character, provides some excellent level of depth.
The animation especially helps expand these scenes, with the level of details in the eyes really standing out compared to animation of the previous seasons.
However, although I did love this this flashback sequence, I will admit it did raise a plot hole for me about what a certain character was trying to accomplish.
This did not ruin the flashback for me, as I stated it is one of the series’ best, but it was still very noticeable.
After this flashback the rest of the episode is just as good, with plenty of emotional and funny moments and one scene that had me literally applauding.
The best part of this episode though, is undoubtedly its ending, which delivers what I believe to be the best cliffhanger of the entire series so far.
It has me eagerly excited for what is coming in the upcoming Beast Titan arc.
Overall, Friends was another fantastic episode of Attack on Titan.
My only big problem with it was the plot hole it generated.
It is my third favourite episode of season three, behind “Wish” and “Pain”.
Spoiler Review:
If you are very quiet, you can hear Attack on Titan fans the world over shouting, “Oh my god! They killed Kenny!”
South Park references aside, I was saddened by the death of Kenny this episode.
He is a very entertaining character and I wish he had been given more.
I wanted to see him interact with other characters like Mikasa since they come from the same family.
However, even so, I still found his death to be rather poignant and was a great way for his arc to end.
The flashback that establishes his motives before his death was very well handled, especially when it came to his friendship with Uri Reiss.
Watching how Kenny went from trying to assassinate Uri to becoming close friends with him was very interesting to see and added a new level of depth to Kenny.
It was their friendship that led Kenny to want to try and obtain the Founding Titan’s powers, not just so he could be a king, but also out of interest of how it would change him.
Then there was his history with Levi, which was also explained.
Kenny rescued Levi from starving to death after his mother died and taught him how to survive, before abandoning him to fend for himself.
This is where I found a plot hole in the story because this does not explain why Kenny wanted to kill Levi so much.
He seemed eager to kill him in previous episodes and yet, after learning their entire history, this does not make sense.
Kenny clearly cared for Levi, otherwise he would not have given him the skills to survive, so it does not make sense for him to want to kill him.
This did not kill the flashback for me but it stuck out like a sore thumb.
However, although I did not like this plot hole I loved the scene where Kenny and Levi first meet.
Kenny learns that Kuchel did not give Levi the last name of Ackermann because she did not want him to be persecuted so Kenny continues her wish and does not reveal their last name or their connection.
It was another fantastic moment of development for him before his death.
Speaking of, as I stated his death was rather poignant and what I believe to be a perfect way for him to go out, with him and Levi almost having some form of reconciliation.
After this, Historia was finally crowned queen in a very powerful scene that had me clapping with joy.
My applause turned to laughter in the following scene where Historia tried to punch Levi, only for it to not even hurt him, which does not stop her friends from looking amazed anyway.
We even got a great moment from Levi here because he smiled for the first time in the series, if you do not count the OVAs that is.
But then we got the best scene of the episode, the cliffhanger.
And what a cliffhanger it was.
We see Reiner and Bertholdt in Shiganshina where it looks like Reiner was training with the Beast Titan for the coming battle.
This scene proved just how much of a threat the Beast Titan is because he managed to beat Reiner supposedly very easily.
Along with this we also got a pretty good look at the Beast Titan’s controller himself.
I do not know who he is but he looks to be a very intriguing villain and I cannot wait to see how he plays into the next arc.
This is, in my opinion, the best cliffhanger of the series because it sets up the next arc very well and also has me excited for what the Beast Titan will be doing in the future.
Along with this, it was good to see Reiner and Bertholdt again.
One of the big problems I have with Attack on Titan is disappearing characters.
So many characters have had to leave the story for plot reasons and some of these characters are gone way too long.
The worst offender by far is Annie, who has been gone so long I do not really care about her anymore.
I do not fault any of the episodes for this, this is just a problem I am having with the series overall.
Thankfully Reiner and Bertholdt have returned and hopefully Ymir will be back soon as well.
Friends was another amazing episode of Attack on Titan.
If it had not been for the plot hole it would have been perfect.
Predictions:
- Kenny gave Levi the Titan serum in his final moments and I am certain that this will come back in some important way. Maybe in the next arc.
- It looks like we will be learning more about Grisha next episode, which should be exciting. We see a younger version of himself in the preview.
- The preview explicitly states that Grisha’s story will come from somebody else and I am pretty sure it will be Keith Shadis, the instructor of the 104th Cadet Corps from season one, because the first shot of the preview is of him and you can see him briefly when Eren experiences Grisha’s memories in Sin.
THE REVIEW MONSTER 