What secret? If you mean Eren being the one talking to Falco, it's definitely supposed to be obvious. The close-up on his face (showing his iconic green eyes) was the reveal, though you could tell from his voice alone.

A lot of people that have read the manga have been telling me for months that this season is going to be cray-cray, I can't wait until it all goes crazy. Also I'm happy we got to see Eren because I'm growing a little bit tired of only seeing Reiner =).

The story has been so casual with its major reveals that I honestly believed her myself, even though it didn't make any sense.

And speaking of major casual reveals, that Eren reveal made me shit brix too. I guess with his re-introduction, shits going to start getting real once again.

In the manga there was certainly a bit more mystery surrounding that scene. No color and no voice certainly helps. So, I wondered how they'd handle it here. Yuki Kaji's voice is pretty recognizable no mater what he does, so it looks like they didn't even try.

Don't ask me why, but I was afraid they'd cut the scene with Eren and his grandpa. I'm glad they didn't, it was a powerful scene.

Wow the Tybur family is really the Judas of the Eldians. Not only of those of the island, but those within Marleyan control too.

I see them more like the Jesus of the Eldians, seeing as how they are considered the savior of Humanity in spite of the fact they are of the very same ethnicity that everyone despises and discriminates against.

And despite the fact that they had the Marleyans do the exact same shit (war of conquest by titans) that the Eldians were doing.

Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikes, I'm not sure I even want to discuss the implicated subtext of an imperialist superpower controlled behind the shadows by a wealthy family of a race based on Jews...

Also there's an actual Japan stand in and she's of the enlightened variety. Subtle.

As for the rest of the episode, I was kind of hoping the shit would start hitting the fan sooner so the episode was a bit of a drag really. Well at least it looks like all the build up is finally over.

Eren has become quite a surprising hook in all this though. Out of all the characters he's the one I'm most interested in, and there's a lot of interesting characters on display here. I guess judging by the preview, Eren's intention is to do exactly what Reiner did for some dark karmic retribution. If that means killing civvies, I'm gonna start looking at this show a lot differently.

Imagine what it was like for manga readers. You had to wait 4 weeks, we had to wait at least 6 months (I don't remember the exact number of chapters, it's definitely more than six).

I'm having such a hard time getting invested here. Am I meant to be feeling disconnected from this setting and its characters right now? I can't even figure out who's supposed to be the focus.

I feel like this season so far perfectly encapsulates my problem with the series as a whole. It presents action without context, then a while later it spends a long period of time explaining everything out. Except because the action was presented without context at the time it feels meaningless, and because the explanation is so long-winded, it becomes tiresome and adds surprisingly little. Instead of clever, it just reeks of poor planning to me.

The times when this show was at its strongest was when it didn't rely on explanations and just presented something that didn't need context to have impact. So far that hasn't happened this season, and from the way things are going I'm not even sure if I can ever expect it again.

The season introduced a completely new cast (besides Zeke and Reiner) living in a completely different country, so it's normal to feel a disconnect from the previous seasons. That said, context isn't a problem, we have all we need. The problem is that this part of the manga, and thereby the anime, was pretty boring and we just wanted the old cast to come back. It doesn't help that the newly introduced characters in this arc never worked for me.

But as I said, you guys have it easy. The anime is going through that part pretty fast.

The next 1-2 episodes are going to be incredible I believe. As a manga reader I cannot wait to see this animated. And, Kanon is correct, it's way more boring in the manga. I was worried this part would take forever in the anime but I think they've handled it as well as they could have. I really did not think the introduction of Eren to Reiner would happen this quickly, but we're already here.

Now the hard part is I thought we were getting an episode tomorrow, and it turns out that we're not. :( This week is going to take forever.

Remember there is no episode this week.

Ironically, at this point if it there was an entire year break after this episode I wouldn't care. I don't feel like I'm watching AoT yet anyway. I feel like I'm still waiting for the season to begin.

I already read the manga and wan to try watching the anime, how close is the anime to manga? any fillers in between?

No fillers as far as I know. Isayama have treated his manga as a storyboard for the animated series. Even retooling arcs like the Coup d'Etat one.

I'm curious to read your impression on the newest episode,

you probably have realize it but in case you haven't. Marelyan is German and Eldian that is in the concentration camp are jews.

but the brainwashing of eldian to make them think that they're guilty for the crime of their ancestors that happen hundred years ago is similar to the current year americans.

next episode is going to be great. I'm fine with all the upcoming collateral damage, it's a war after all, and with WW1 tier equiplment too. Cut them some slack!