Traitor

From a ridge above the port, Hange and Magath puzzle over why the Jaegerists have left the flying boat standing; whatever the reason, Hange is sure it will be blown up the moment their group is spotted. Annie argues for hitting every enemy at once, while Mikasa, Pieck, and Onyankopon insist the Azumabito must survive because only their engineers can ready the craft for flight. Annie needles the Paradis natives, doubting they can kill former friends at all, and Reiner proposes the Scouts simply sit out the fight with the children. Hange returns with worse news before the argument settles: the Wall Titans are across the ocean, and Marley's coastal cities are likely already gone.

Magath throttles Yelena for Eren's destination and snaps her arm; she relents only after deciding she wants to live to see the ending, offering cooperation if they take her along. Cooling down, Magath apologizes for scorning the Scouts, owning his country's rot and declaring Eren's massacre unforgivable precisely because history demanded they turn away from killing. Armin refuses the offered clean hands.

Inside the port, Floch lectures a captive Kiyomi about the reborn world, gun to her temple, when Armin and Conny ride in with a fabricated story about chasing the fleeing Cart and Armored Titans, asking that the boat be prepared. Daz and Samuel, guarding the explosive-rigged aircraft, believe their old friends and disconnect the detonator. Floch does the arithmetic instead: horseback over locomotive, days of silence, and decides suspicion alone justifies killing the Hizuru engineers. Kiyomi wrestles him down mid-execution, Mikasa crashes through the glass, and Floch escapes shouting that the traitors must die.

Mikasa herds Kiyomi and the engineers toward the windowless basement, gathering Hange, Magath, and Jean on the way, while Reiner and Annie unleash the Armored and Female Titans against the rallying Jaegerists. Magath reasons that sheltering the noncombatants below frees everyone else to fight without hesitation.

At the aircraft, Samuel shoots Armin as Daz scrambles to rewire the detonator. Conny tackles Samuel, and when Daz aims at the recovering Armin, Conny remembers Bertholdt's words about someone needing to bloody their hands. He wrenches the gun free, kills Daz with a headshot, then fires repeatedly into Samuel, answering his friend's plea of betrayal with the only choice left.

The 26th episode of the fourth season and 85th overall, animated by MAPPA, directed by Teruyuki Omine, and written by Hiroshi Seko. It aired March 14, 2022 in Japan and April 17, 2022 in the US, adapting the identically titled manga chapter within the War for Paradis arc.

The information segment covers the flying boat: a Hizuru-serviced craft burning Iceburst Stone, built for intercontinental range so the Rumbling's might could be observed from afar. The episode takes its title from Samuel's relieved line about traitors, spoken minutes before the friends he doubted prove him right.