WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Attack on Titan Season 4, Episode 24, "Pride," now streaming on Crunchyroll, Funimation and Hulu.
The latest episode of Attack on Titan has the main cast finally reunite with Annie Leonhart in a strange way. They find her sitting at a table scarfing down pie. Fans have mixed feelings about this moment of levity in the narrative. Some find it hilarious. Others call it bad writing. Whatever people are saying, there's something that doesn't come up often enough- Annie eating pie might be a callback.
Apparently, Annie's love for sweets was hinted at by Sasha Braus in an earlier season. This may partially explain Connie Springer's over-the-top reaction to this chance encounter. Knowing just why this scene plays out the way it does will require a better understanding of these characters and Hajime Isayama's sense of humor.
The reunion starts in Season 4 Episode 24, "Pride." As the last of the Wall Titans left Paradis, the Yeagerists threw a party to celebrate Eren's apparent victory over the world abroad. Everyone in attendance drank merrily and ate pie. Armin, Falco, Gabi and Connie stopped by this party to rest up and talk about their next course of action. As they seated themselves at a table and talked, they noticed Annie choking down a piece of pie right next to them.
The fateful meeting between Annie and her former friends was an awkward one, to say the least. The last time they met, she was trying to kill them as the Female Titan. As if to prepare for another fight, she began furiously chewing the pie in her mouth and swallowing it. Connie laughed much too hard at this whole situation and ragged on the girl for her sloppy eating.
As ridiculous as all of this sounds, Annie eating pie might be a callback to an older scene from AOT. In Season 2 Episode 6, "Warrior," Hange asked Eren, Mikasa, Armin and Sasha, if they had seen Reiner, Bertholdt or Annie doing anything suspicious during their time training together. Sasha, thinking with her stomach as always, put forth a rumor she hard that Annie liked sweets despite her grouchy disposition. At the time, this seemed like a one-off joke, but now it's finally come full circle.
As for Connie's reaction to Annie table manners, it's his coping mechanism. He tries to diffuse tense or stressful situations with a bad sense of humor. As hard as he's laughing at Annie, the grimace on his face suggests that he's suffering from terribly mixed feelings on the inside.
Connie reacted similarly to another crisis in Season 3 Episode 16, "Perfect Game." This was when the Colossal Titan sent the buildings of Shiganshina, Eren's hometown, flying into the air. Connie's response to this horrifying scene was a bad pun; in the Japanese version, he posited that one of these buildings might be "Eren's house" (エレンの家が Eren no ie ga), which sounds a lot like the Japanese pronunciation of Eren Yeager ( (エレン・イェーガー Eren Yēgā); in the English dub, Connie asked Eren how it felt to have his own roof over his head again ("GET IT!?"). He proceeded to laugh as hard as he could and Sasha bumped him on the head at Jean's request. Not only is this an example of Connie's method of dealing with pressure, but it also shows another moment he had with his closest friend whom he'll never see again.
Annie horking pie is funny, but, like the rest of AOT, it's also a little sad. The real reason the scene works is because of a beloved character who's no longer among the living. Connie's compulsive laughter perfectly encapsulates both the pleasure and the pain this moment brings.
