Mercy: Assault on Stohess, Part 2

A flashback opens on Eren and Levi waiting for Erwin, who arrives with news that one last opportunity to take the Female Titan alive has arisen, an operation set inside Stohess District. Armin has named the suspect, someone Eren trained beside, and the realization horrifies him. In the present, Annie Leonhart has already transformed. She tears at the escape tunnel while Eren, Mikasa, and Armin flee beneath her, her stomps collapsing the roof and killing two Scouts ahead of them.

Eren bites his hand to trigger his own transformation and nothing happens. Mikasa suspects the block is emotional, that some part of him refuses to believe Annie is the enemy, or feels something more for her. When Annie caves in another section of tunnel, Eren is buried under debris with a shaft of wood through his chest, and Mikasa and Armin climb out to buy time. Jean sheds his decoy disguise to join the fight, while Military Police under Nile Dawk hold Erwin and Levi at gunpoint for acting against the Crown.

Armin gambles by taunting Annie: leaving him alive makes her wager on Eren meaningless. The distraction lets Jean strike at her nape, though she shields it in time, and the pursuit races across the district until Hange springs the special target restraining weapon, pinning her under harpoons and a barbed net. Hange gloats that no Titans can eat her this far from the Wall, and that the Scouts will pry every secret from her instead. Annie simply kicks the apparatus apart and runs. Underground, impaled and immobile, Eren recalls Armin's words that changing anything requires sacrifice. Remembering his slaughtered squadmates and his mother, he pushes through the wood, vows to kill Annie, and finally transforms. His Titan thunders across the city and drives a fist into the Female Titan's face, hurling her into a building before charging in fury.

A flashback reveals the briefing where Erwin, acting on Armin's deduction, identified Annie Leonhart as the Female Titan and planned the Stohess capture operation.

Eren's first transformation attempt fails, with Mikasa attributing the failure to his lingering feelings and disbelief about Annie.

Annie collapses the tunnel, trapping and impaling Eren, while Nile Dawk's Military Police detain Erwin and Levi for treason against the King.

Hange's special target restraining weapon captures Annie, but she smashes free, proving conventional restraints cannot hold her.

Embracing the principle that nothing changes without sacrifice, Eren transforms at last and opens his battle against the Female Titan with a punch that sends her through a building.

Episode 24 closes the first season of Attack on Titan, a run produced by Wit Studio and Production I.G. Japanese broadcast came on September 22, 2013, with the United States airing on October 25, 2014. Crunchyroll lists it under the alternate title Mercy - Raid on Stohess District (2).

The episode adapts the manga chapters Mercy and Wall as part of the Assault on Stohess arc, with direction by Hiroyuki Tanaka and Akitoshi Yokoyama and a script by Yasuko Kobayashi. Die Flügel der Freiheit opens the episode and great escape closes it. The informational segment covers Wall Sina, home to roughly 200,000 residents including the capital, where residency is restricted to royalty and relatives, or earned through distinguished service in the Garrison or Military Police. It sits between Smile and Wall in the three-part Stohess trilogy.