The Dawn of Humanity

Traveling toward Odiha with the group hoping to stop Eren, Mikasa turns the past over in her mind, asking herself whether Eren changed or was always the person he is now. Her memory drifts to the Scout Regiment's first journey across the sea. Disguised as civilians, the Scouts gawk at automobiles, sample ice cream, and thoroughly fail to blend in. When a young pickpocket named Ramzi lifts Sasha's purse, Levi catches him, then improvises a cover story to shield the boy from a mob eager to maim an unwelcome immigrant. The ruse collapses and the Scouts flee, with the boy escaping, Levi's money in hand.

At Kiyomi Azumabito's estate, the group learns that improving blood tests keep exposing Subjects of Ymir abroad, and that fear of Eldians will make diplomacy brutal. Armin insists they try anyway, since abandoning peace means accepting Zeke's plan to sacrifice Historia and her children. That night Eren slips away to gaze at a refugee camp, and when Mikasa follows, he presses her on why she cares for him. Is it rescue, family, or something else? Flustered, she answers that they are family. The Scouts share a warm evening with the migrants, but the next day's forum turns Paradis Island into a target of hatred, and Eren walks out. Mikasa marks that as the day he left.

Eren's own recollection fills in the rest: hearing the euthanasia plan from Yelena, telling Floch the truth about his intent to destroy the outside world, failing to convince Historia to run rather than accept being fed Zeke, and asking Zeke about Mikasa's headaches. Zeke dismisses any Ackermann compulsion; in his view, Mikasa simply loves Eren. In the present, an allied fleet fires on the swimming Wall Titans and is annihilated, and Eren's forces reach Marley's coast.

Mikasa's flashback covers the Scouts' undercover arrival in Marley, the Ramzi incident, Kiyomi's warning about worldwide blood testing, the night among the war refugees, and the Subjects of Ymir Protection Group forum where the speaker damns Paradis as the true enemy. Eren's departure from the Scouts is fixed to that moment, and his later letters claim he will trust Zeke's plan.

Eren's flashback confirms he told Floch the euthanasia scheme was only a pretext, that Historia chose to accept the Military Police's plan rather than flee, and that he offered to wipe her memory of it all after gaining the Founder. His stated wish to Zeke: with four years left to live, he wants his friends to outlive him happily. In the present, the Global Allied Fleet fails to stop the Wall Titans, whose body heat chars ship crews before the vessels are thrown aside, and the Attack Titan is sighted making landfall.

Episode 87 closes season 4's 2022 run, produced by MAPPA, directed by Hidekazu Hara from a Hiroshi Seko script. It adapts the manga chapters Island Devils and The Dawn of Humanity, airing in Japan on April 4, 2022 and in the United States on May 1, 2022. No opening theme plays.

The framing quote belongs to Mikasa, who wonders whether anything could have gone differently had she answered Eren another way that night above the refugee camp. Depending on the release, the story continues in either THE FINAL CHAPTERS Special 1 or its episodic counterpart, The Rumbling.