WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Season 4, Episode 13 of Attack on Titan, "Children of the Forest," now streaming on Crunchyroll, Funimation, Amazon Prime and Hulu.
As events on Paradis Island continue to slide further and further out of the military's control, "Children of the Forest" deals yet another devastating blow. Episode 13 focuses mainly on the drama that unfolds at Nicolo's restaurant as Gabi is brought face-to-face with the rage that her murder of Sasha sets in motion.
But what appears to merely be a plot-adjacent family drama slowly morphs into something even more insidious when Eren and his militant Jeagerists turn up, and a horrifying deception orchestrated by them, Yelena and (presumably) Zeke comes bubbling up to the surface. With so much still unknown, one thing is clearer than ever -- Zeke and Yelena will stop at nothing to get what they want.
Eren, Zeke and Yelena have been kept under close watch by Paradis' military since returning from the Liberio raid. Eren and Zeke have been kept at a far distance from one another while the military wrestles with whether or not it should go ahead with Zeke's plan to test the Rumbling after losing trust in the Jeager brothers. Meanwhile, Yelena, who is the defacto coordinator of the Anti-Marleyan Volunteers and captives on the Island, has been under similar suspicion -- though about what, Pixis had yet to be put his finger on.
Episode 13 of Season 4 confirms Dhalis Zachary's successor was right to be concerned about her. Yelena does indeed appear to have a link to the Jeagerist sect responsible for assassinating Zachary and, in this episode, taking Hange and other veteran Scouts hostage at Nicolo's restaurant. In Episode 12, Hange had started to wonder why Yelena had been so insistent on placing the volunteers in seemingly innocuous places -- such as restaurants. In the latest episode, an angry Nicolo attempts to club Gabi with a bottle of wine reserved for high-ranking officers only for Falco to take the hit instead. The remorseful chef advises Hange to wash Falco's mouth out, leading the Commander, wide-eyed, to ask what exactly is in the wine -- other than wine -- but by now, both Hange and the viewers can put the pieces together.
For greater context, at Episode 13's start, Levi grills Zeke in the woods about how he transformed the villagers in Ragako into Titans in Season 2. Zeke explains he used a gaseous form of his own Titan spinal fluid to infect them but he lies about a detail that turns out to be crucial: Subjects of Ymir, he reminds the Captain, will freeze up after consuming spinal fluid. In the restaurant, Hange realizes with horror that the wine that has been served to the military's elite -- and now Falco, by accident -- is laced with spinal fluid. As the Commander questions why those that drank it didn't suffer from paralysis, Floch, the Jeagerists' leader, points out the simple fallacy that helped Yelena and Zeke cover up their rouse.
Eldians with Zeke's spinal fluid inside them are essentially transformed into sleeper agents, waiting, unknowingly, for Zeke to activate them as Titans via the Path connection that all Subjects of Ymir share. As we saw in the Ragako experiment, the Season 4 premiere and during a flashback in "Children of the Forest," Zeke has been successfully using this infiltration method to score major military victories for Marley for years -- weaponizing a nations' own citizens against them. The fact that he and Yelena carefully selected their victims on the Island may mean they plan on holding Paradis' military hostage in order to clear a path to Eren, rather than incite chaos. Or, it could be much worse.
We've long-known of Zeke's callous cruelty, but for a brief period of time in Attack on Titan's final season, it seemed as though the older Jeager brother might have merely been playing along with Marley's plans for domination in order to help liberate Paradis. This new twist once again throws his and Yelena's true motivations into doubt. It's possible that Zeke could really be a double-double agent, plotting to bring down Paradis from the inside. He's certainly enough of a master manipulator to pull it off, which explains why someone with Yelena's poker face is the perfect henchwoman for him. But, the more frightening answer might be that, like Eren, the only thing that Zeke is loyal to isn't Marley, Paradis or the New Eldian Empire -- it's himself.
