Night of the Battle to Retake the Wall

Military leadership convenes over the syringe Kenny Ackermann left behind. Hange reports that its contents resemble a human bodily fluid but evaporate on contact with air, defying study, and appear to come from technology beyond their own. Rather than waste it experimenting, Pyxis proposes deploying it during the coming operation, and the injection passes to Levi as the soldier likeliest to survive long enough to use it well.

Erwin then briefs his officers on the push to reclaim Wall Maria. Grisha Jaeger, a Titan shifter who sided with humanity and likely originated beyond the Walls, left his son one instruction: the truth waits in the family basement, holding knowledge the First King scrubbed from human memory. The operation launches in two days. Afterward, Levi corners Erwin privately and pushes him to stay behind, arguing a one-armed commander is a liability and that losing him would doom them all, even threatening to break his legs. Erwin concedes the logic but refuses; witnessing the truth matters more than his legs, more even than humanity's victory, and Levi relents.

That night the mess hall erupts when the rank and file discover meat on the menu, two months of food budget burned in one evening. Sasha has to be knocked out mid-frenzy, and a taunt from Jean about suicidal maniacs draws Eren into a fistfight that Levi ends by flattening them both. Cooling off outside with Armin and Mikasa, Eren reflects that meeting Keith taught him no one accomplishes anything alone. Mikasa wonders whether their old happiness can return once the Wall is retaken; Armin talks of the ocean, a body of salt water bigger than any merchant could drain. At sunset the next day, crowds led by Flegel Reeves send the regiment off from Trost with cheers, the first ovation the Scouts have ever received. Erwin roars back at them, then draws his blade and launches the operation. A cryptic flash-forward shows Levi punching Eren on a ruined rooftop while a tearful Mikasa draws her blade on him.

Command entrusts Kenny's mysterious Titan serum to Levi, to be used at his sole discretion during the Wall Maria operation.

Erwin lays out the theory that Grisha Jaeger's basement preserves truths the First King erased, making Shiganshina the operation's real prize.

Levi tries and fails to bench Erwin from the mission; Erwin values learning the truth above his own survival.

The pre-battle feast descends into chaos, from Sasha's meat rampage to the Eren and Jean fistfight that Levi breaks up.

Trost's citizens give the Scout Regiment its first celebratory send-off as Erwin formally launches the Wall Maria retaking operation; a mid-credits flash-forward teases the serum standoff to come.

This is the 12th episode of season 3 and the 49th overall entry in the Attack on Titan anime, produced by Wit Studio and Production I.G. Japanese broadcast fell on October 15, 2018, with the American airing on November 11, 2018. Source material spans the chapters A Dream I Once Had, Night of the Battle to Retake the Wall, and Midnight Sun, within the Royal Government arc.

Takashi Ando and Yasuhiro Akamatsu directed, Hiroshi Seko scripted, and the episode is bookended by Red Swan and Requiem der Morgenröte. Series creator Hajime Isayama personally suggested the mid-credits flash-forward, taking inspiration from the cold-open structure of the American series Breaking Bad. The informational segment explains why meat became a luxury: livestock farming collapsed after Wall Maria fell and grazing land vanished. Bystander precedes it and The Town Where Everything Began follows.