Midnight Train

In the wake of the Fort Slava victory, Theo Magath admits to General Calvi what the near defeat made plain: reliance on Titans has left Marley's conventional forces underdeveloped, and advancing aircraft will soon render Titan warfare useless. Zeke Jaeger proposes reviving the Paradis Island Operation, retaking the Founding Titan to buy the years Marley needs to rearm. With only a year left on his own term, Zeke wants to erase his failure on the island before Colt Grice inherits the Beast Titan. Magath presses him on the thirty-two ships that never returned from Paradis; Zeke reasons no lone Titan managed that, so multiple inheritors of the Nine must defend the island alongside the Scout Regiment.

The Warriors sail home. Porco Galliard needles Reiner, arguing his brother Marcel's death traces back to Reiner winning the Armored Titan nine years ago, and that Ymir's inherited memories show Reiner posing as the dependable man Marcel actually was. Pieck, two months out of her Titan and still relearning to walk upright, sends Reiner off to reassure the worried Warrior candidates. On the night train to Liberio, Falco questions whether Reiner accepts Gabi inheriting his armor and the thirteen-year sentence that comes with it. Reiner answers with a rehearsed warning about loyalty, then quietly asks Falco to outcompete her so Gabi never has to bear it.

Home in the internment zone, families reunite. At dinner, Reiner recounts his years on Paradis in the language his relatives expect, a parade of hopeless islanders: a potato thief, an idiot, an insincere jerk, a single-minded boy and the chumps who followed him. Yet his summary that the island held all sorts of people snags Gabi's attention, since devils should not warrant such a phrase. Later, Zeke gathers the Warriors for tea and lays out the next move: the Tybur family, keepers of the War Hammer Titan, will publicly announce the Paradis invasion at an upcoming festival in Liberio attended by foreign dignitaries. Marleyan officers eavesdrop through a hidden phonograph, and Reiner alone seems to sense the surveillance.

Magath concedes to General Calvi that the age of Titan supremacy is ending, prompting Zeke's proposal to reclaim the Founding Titan as a stopgap while Marley modernizes.

Zeke deduces from thirty-two lost ships that more than one of the Nine Titans now defends Paradis, and reminds Colt that inheriting the Beast Titan will one day expose his secret.

Galliard confronts Reiner over Marcel's death and the persona Reiner borrowed from his brother, drawing on memories seen through Ymir.

Reiner's dinner-table account of Paradis, framed as propaganda but built from real affection, plants Gabi's first suspicion that his loyalties are complicated.

Zeke reveals the Tybur family will use the Liberio festival to sell the world on war with Paradis, while Marleyan brass secretly monitor the Warriors' meeting.

This is the 2nd episode of season 4 and the 61st Attack on Titan episode overall, marking MAPPA's early run on the series. Japan aired it December 14, 2020; the United States followed January 17, 2021. It adapts the Marley arc chapters Midnight Train, The Boy Inside the Walls, and Liar.

Daisuke Tokudo directed the episode and Hiroshi Seko wrote it, with My War opening and Shock closing. The informational segment explains the Eldian armband system, the mandatory markers separating the so-called devils of Ymir from other peoples in Marley, with colors varying by class and by military or civilian status. A blink-and-miss detail has Falco assisting a shell-shocked soldier whose armband sits on the wrong arm, the audience's first disguised glimpse of Eren Jaeger in Marley. The episode follows The Other Side of the Sea and leads into The Door of Hope.