WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Season 4, Episode 11 of Attack on Titan, "Deceiver," now streaming on Crunchyroll, Funimation, Amazon Prime and Hulu.
A series as weighty as Attack on Titan means that even an entirely Titan-free episode can be a substantial one. Season 4's "Deceiver" is one such example. And in fact, it's not only empty of Titans but most of the anime's core cast, too -- giving over much of the screentime to newcomers like Gabi and Falco instead. With Eren and Co. much older and higher-ranking by now, the younger generation is starting to come up behind them, stepping into an ever more complex and morally-blurred world. And, as this episode demonstrates, their worldview and experiences are starting to impact the present-day.
A century of peace on Paradis Island was broken at the start of Attack on Titan when Bertolt's Colossal Titan kicked a hole in Wall Maria, changing Eren, Armin and Mikasa's lives forever. Though we've witnessed the effects of this traumatic event -- and the others proceeding it -- on the trio, and their allies, over the course of the series, there are those that have been surviving on the fringes. These are the people who Marley's Gabi and Falco stumble across in Episode 11 of Season 4. After their jailbreak on the Island, the two captives flee into "the sticks," where they're soon taken in by a rural community that just so happen to have been aided by the very person Gabi killed in cold blood, Sasha Blouse.
Specifically, Sasha saved a young girl called Kaya from a scarily short Titan who ate her mother alive four years ago. So, naturally, Kaya has to be the person to grant the two Marleyans food and shelter in the most recent episode. The two are shocked not only by her kindness to two complete strangers -- having been taught that all Islanders are "devils" -- but to discover that other Marleyans, aided by Zeke's collusion, are well-integrated into Paradis. Forced to quite literally break bread with her enemy, Gabi is also forced, by Kaya, to come to terms with the brainwashing her motherland has wrought on her. At the site of Kaya's mother's death, the girl -- having revealed she knows where Gabi and Falco are from -- asks Gabi why her mother had to die.
Gabi tries to sell the distraught Islander the party line: that the Eldian Empire's old atrocities have to be atoned for, which is why the bloodshed continues. But when Kaya points out that her mother committed none of the sins their shared ancestors did, Gabi is at a loss. The plotline brings two different kinds of damage done to both Marley and Eldia's youth to the fore. While the Island is filled with children orphaned by Titan attacks from Marley, Marley's own sons and daughters are either being used as part of that slaughter (as Pure Titans) or raised to endorse it without question.
Meanwhile, among the Survey Corps' younger regiments, descent is festering thanks to the Corps' treatment of Eren. Led by Floch, new recruits leak the details of Eren's detainment to the press to put pressure on the military to release him. Floch's band of followers, including a young woman called Louis who idolizes Mikasa, are ardent that Eren is some kind of messianic hero; the only person who can restore Eldia's lost Imperial glory. Floch, as viewers may or may not remember, was the sole survivor of Erwin's legendary, suicidal charge at the battle to reclaim Shiganshina. It's understandable that he'd flock to an extremist like Eren in the aftermath of such an extremely horrific event.
Hange's dismissal of these demands only makes the Commander realize that they're starting to appear more and more like the corrupt generation of leaders they overthrew in Season 3. All of this is a pressure cooker waiting to explode for the Scouts, who are already harboring a ticking time bomb in Eren and his arsenal of Shifter powers.
Though Eren and Zeke's partnership might decide the fate of Attack on Titan's world, there's power, too, in the hands of these younger characters who have similarly been chewed up and spit out by the series' hopeless environment. Their decisions might not affect whether or not the Rumbling happens, but the trauma they bear can shape whatever is left in its wake -- for better or worse.
