Attack on Titan Episode 54: Hero

Floch cries out as Erwin falls from his horse, but Marlo urges him to continue the charge. Ahead, a large, ape-like Titan, which a man named Zeke controls, finds their efforts pitiful. He believes it a tragedy that a past king stole their memories, causing them to repeat mistakes. In frustration, Zeke crushes rocks in his Titan's hand, startling himself. He reminds himself not to get worked up like his father and prepares another set of rocks.

As Zeke prepares to throw, Marlo calls out the next volley, and the remaining soldiers fire signal flares to obscure the ape-like Titan's vision. Marlo sees the arc of the Titan's arm and wonders if this is how he will die. He thinks of a woman named Hitch and wonders why he would think of such a thing at this moment, before being struck in the head by a rock.

Zeke cheers as his volley kills Marlo and many other soldiers, but to his surprise, a few still survive and fire more signal flares. Irritated, he asks why they bother. His third barrage takes out the remainder, and he calls them "poor things" before noticing that the Titans on one side of him are now dead.

A grappling hook pierces the ape-like Titan's shoulder, and a soldier named Levi bursts through the haze of signal flares. Zeke tries to stop him, but Levi dodges and cuts a long, spiraling wound around the Titan's arm, tearing it. Zeke remembers a warning from a man named Reiner about a single soldier, Captain Levi, who could be a threat. Realizing who he is fighting, Zeke covers his Titan's nape with its hand, but Levi's next attack takes out the Titan's eyes, then its legs and remaining arm, sending Zeke crashing down. Levi taunts him as Zeke begins to panic.

Zeke tries to harden his Titan's body as Levi goes for his nape, but he doesn't have enough time before Levi tears into the Titan's form, ripping Zeke out. Levi jams his blade into Zeke's mouth, reminding him he cannot transform while regenerating. Levi considers killing Zeke but wonders if anyone else is alive who could receive Zeke's Titan power, remembering Erwin.

Before Levi can act, a four-legged Titan with a flat back charges in. Levi jumps out of the way, and the four-legged Titan grabs Zeke in its mouth and carries him away. Zeke shouts for his remaining Titans to kill Levi, believing Levi's weapons and gas must be nearly used up. Frustrated that he couldn't kill the ape-like Titan as he promised Erwin, Levi readies his last pair of blades and engages the oncoming Titans.

Meanwhile, Floch, having fallen from his horse, gets up, surrounded by dead soldiers, and wonders why he survived. He wanders through the carnage, calling for other survivors.

On the other side of the Wall, a soldier named Jean sees that a large armored Titan has recovered. He reluctantly tells Armin that escaping with Eren is their best bet. However, Armin notices that a massive, skinless Titan has gotten thinner since they started fighting it. As a woman named Hange had theorized, this Titan is weak in a battle of attrition, consuming a lot of its body mass when it uses its attacks, especially its steam emission. Given that Eren could only transform a few times, this massive Titan would likely not transform again for some time. This gives Armin an idea, and he asks the rest of his squad to draw the armored Titan away while he and Eren handle the massive Titan themselves.

Leaving the armored Titan to the others, Armin heads up the Wall and lands on Eren's unconscious Titan. He shoots his mobility gear into the Titan's body to prevent being thrown off and prepares to stab Eren with a blade. Armin realizes that if this plan works, he won't be able to see the sea, but thinking of the outside world gives him courage. He drives his blade into Eren's Titan and calls out to him, waking him up. Armin then explains his plan.

Jean leads the remaining soldiers towards the armored Titan, planning to fight conservatively and keep it away from the battle with the massive Titan. But the armored Titan ignores them and runs past in pursuit of Eren. A soldier named Mikasa declares they must kill the armored Titan and changes direction to follow it. She cripples its knee with a Thunder Spear, causing it to fall. Though Jean is initially upset, he agrees that distracting the armored Titan is no longer an option. However, their squad only has three Thunder Spears left.

The armored Titan looks around in confusion, wondering what took out its knee. Its memory of events since leaving the massive Titan on the Wall is foggy, but seeing Eren's Titan on the Wall, it decides they can still win if they capture him. The armored Titan decides to quickly finish off the remaining soldiers before helping the massive Titan.

Closer to the Wall, the man controlling the massive Titan, Bertholdt, finds it strange that their former comrades appear to be the only survivors of his explosion. He had hoped to kill everyone with his initial transformation but has gotten used to things being harder than expected. Bertholdt sees Armin talking to Eren and wonders what Armin hopes to accomplish when Eren is clearly weakened.

Meanwhile, Armin tells Eren that their success depends on how long he can hold out. Sensing Eren's unease, Armin assures him he cannot die until he sees the sea, so he will back off if things get too intense. He smiles and asks Eren if he has ever lied to him. With a final reminder for Eren to stick to the plan, Armin jumps off Eren's Titan.

The two wait for Bertholdt to approach, but part of the Wall crumbles beneath Eren, and he slides off, landing motionless by the gate. Bertholdt is unsurprised, thinking Eren probably has a concussion and cannot stand. Deciding to end it, he lifts an arm and swings at Armin. Armin dodges and grapples onto the massive Titan's body, propelling himself up to its face. Bertholdt acknowledges Armin has fought well until the very end and emits a blast of hot steam.

Mikasa sees the blast and, though worried about Eren and Armin, focuses on facing the armored Titan. Jean has a plan to finish it off. He goes in first as a decoy, leaving the armored Titan open to attacks from soldiers named Conny and Sasha, who are to strike either side of its jaw with Thunder Spears. Once its mouth is open, Mikasa can send the third and final Thunder Spear down its throat. Though it initially seems to work, Sasha is knocked away by debris from the armored Titan's attack against Jean, and only Conny's Thunder Spear hits. Mikasa is temporarily rattled but resolves she must still try to kill the armored Titan.

By the Wall, Bertholdt is puzzled that Armin has not been blown away by the steam but is still tethered, held up by the scorching air. Armin has anchored himself to the massive Titan's teeth, correctly concluding they would not be consumed like the rest of the Titan's body. While the massive Titan emits so much steam, Bertholdt is unable to move. Despite the pain from his body roasting in the heat, Armin struggles to hold on and buy more time.

Bertholdt is perplexed that getting cooked is the best plan Armin could devise, given Armin's intelligence. He wonders what Armin is trying to accomplish and if this is a diversion, but when he looks through the steam cloud, Eren is still lying unconscious, and the others are fighting the armored Titan. Bertholdt decides that if this is the end for Armin, he can at least make it quick; he increases the intensity of his steam, causing Armin's clothes, hair, and skin to burn away.

Armin holds on as best he can against the increasing temperature. As his body withers, he entrusts everything to Eren: his dreams, his life, and his hope of reaching the sea. When he can no longer hold onto his mobility gear, his burned body falls to the rooftops below.

In the battle with the armored Titan, Conny tries to get Mikasa to stop her attack, thinking it too risky. But a lone soldier arrives with another Thunder Spear and hurls it into the other side of the armored Titan's jaw. It detonates, causing its mouth to fall open. Mikasa recognizes Hange, who shouts for Mikasa to take her chance. Mikasa lands inside the armored Titan's mouth and fires her Thunder Spear. It explodes, sending the man controlling the armored Titan flying out of the back of its nape, putting him out of commission.

Now that Armin has fallen, Bertholdt moves on with his previous plan, taking care of Eren and the horses. But when he looks down at Eren, he realizes that where Eren's Titan was lying, there is now only its hardened shell.

Behind the massive Titan, a human Eren flies up with his mobility gear, blades out, and cuts into the Titan's nape. He pulls out a shocked and dismembered Bertholdt, who realizes too late that Eren was pretending he couldn't move and that Armin was a diversion so Eren could harden and create a decoy while hidden by Bertholdt's steam. The massive Titan collapses and smolders now that Bertholdt is no longer inside it.

In the aftermath, Eren drags Bertholdt behind him along a rooftop. He realizes he should have known Armin was up to something. As kids, Armin wouldn't fight back against bullies, and while he'd get beaten, he never called it losing because he never ran. That was why Eren wanted to know him.

Eren finds Armin's charred body and says he knew Armin was more of a hero than anyone else.