Friends

A dying Kenny Ackermann anchors this episode's long look backward. Decades earlier, the young killer met the first person he could not overcome: Uri Reiss, who pinned him with a partial Titan transformation before he could strike. Rather than execute the intruder, Uri knelt and begged forgiveness for the persecution the Ackermann family had endured. That gesture from a man holding godlike power stunned Kenny into loyalty. He joined the Royal Government as Uri's confidant, ended the hunt against his kin, and tracked down his sister Kuchel in the Underground, only to find she had died and left behind a boy named Levi. Kenny fed the child and drilled survival into him, knife work and street sense included, but never saw himself as a father. After watching an older Levi win a brawl, he walked away without a word.

Uri eventually confessed that illness and age were claiming him, musing that violence seemed inescapable even as he dreamed of building a paradise. His spirit lived on in Frieda Reiss, whose warmth so mirrored his that Kenny could see the man behind her eyes. Wondering whether overwhelming power was what let such people speak of compassion, Kenny formed the Anti-Personnel Control Squad two years after Wall Maria fell, telling his recruits their true purpose was chasing strength to rival a god.

In the present, Levi digs through the collapsed Underground Chapel and finds his uncle mortally wounded. Kenny produces a Titan syringe lifted from Rod Reiss's bag, admits he craved power because everyone he ever knew was enslaved to something, and finally answers Levi's question: he was Kuchel's brother. He presses the injection kit into Levi's hands and dies. In Capital Mitras, Dhalis Zachary crowns Historia queen, and she seals the moment by playfully punching Levi in the arm, drawing a rare smile and a word of thanks from the captain. Far away in ruined Shiganshina, Bertholdt pulls an unconscious Reiner from his battered Armored Titan while the Beast Titan declares that the Coordinate remains their target.

Kenny's history with the Reiss family comes to light: Uri spared his life, bowed to him in apology, and turned a serial killer into a government agent, which lifted the persecution of the Ackermanns.

Kenny is revealed as Kuchel's brother and Levi's uncle. He raised the boy in the Underground before abandoning him, judging himself unfit for parenthood.

Before dying of his injuries from the chapel collapse, Kenny gives Levi the Titan injection stolen from Rod Reiss, choosing not to use it on himself.

Historia Reiss is formally crowned queen of the Walls, her legend cemented by slaying the Titan at Orvud District. Zeke's Beast Titan claims victory over Reiner in their duel and reasserts that recovering the Founding Titan takes priority over rescuing Annie.

The episode adapts the manga chapters Friends and A Dream I Once Had, closing out the Royal Government arc. It premiered in Japan on September 24, 2018, with the English broadcast following on October 28, 2018. Shintaro Ito and Aiko Sakuraba directed from a script by Hiroshi Seko, with Wit Studio and Production I.G producing.

Alongside Trust and Sin, this is one of only three episodes to carry a TV-MA rating during its Toonami/Adult Swim run in the United States; the rest of the series aired there as TV-14-DLSV. Kazuhiro Yamaji and Phil Parsons voice Kenny in Japanese and English respectively.