Memories of the Future

Zeke Jaeger walks Eren through Grisha's memories, expecting the tour to expose a father who groomed his second son as a weapon. The evidence keeps contradicting him. Grisha cradles baby Eren with genuine joy despite everything he lost in Marley. Years before Wall Maria falls, he traces the Founding Titan to the church above the underground chapel, finds the hidden trap door, then closes it and goes home to hug his boy, postponing the mission he crossed the sea to finish. Watching memories of a nine-year-old Eren, Zeke concedes there was no brainwashing at all, which only deepens his confusion about why his brother betrayed him.

Eren answers at the memory of Mikasa's rescue from her kidnappers: he has never needed anyone to teach him to fight for freedom, and anyone who tries to take it will lose their own first. Stranger things follow. A sleeping Grisha stirs at his desk and stares straight at the bearded Zeke, and at the family dinner table he addresses the present-day Eren rather than the child beside him. The dead man is perceiving his sons across time.

The brothers then witness the night Wall Maria falls. In the chapel beneath the Reiss lands, Grisha begs Frieda Reiss to unleash the Founding Titan and save the people being eaten outside. Bound by the vow renouncing war, she refuses, insisting Eldians must accept the world's hatred as atonement. Grisha declares that memories flowing backward through the Attack Titan's future inheritors guided him to this spot, and that he will end the royal line, yet when the Reiss children scatter in terror he drops his scalpel, unable to murder them. It is Eren, speaking through those future memories, who orders his father to stand up, invoke his dead sister and first wife, and finish it. Grisha slaughters the family, sparing only Rod. Fleeing the ruined chapel, he senses Zeke nearby, embraces him in tears, apologizes for failing him as a father, and begs him to stop Eren. Zeke is thrown back into the Paths, where a chained Eren gazes down at him with total calm.

Zeke's attempt to prove Grisha indoctrinated Eren collapses; Grisha raised his second son freely and even stalled his own mission out of affection.

Grisha demonstrates awareness of both brothers inside his memories, reacting to Zeke at his desk and speaking directly to the adult Eren at dinner.

The truth of the Reiss chapel massacre is revealed: Grisha faltered before the children, and Eren, using the Attack Titan's link to future inheritors, pushed him to kill Frieda and take the Founding Titan.

Eren confirms he learned these details after kissing Historia Reiss's hand following the Battle of Shiganshina District.

Grisha tearfully reconciles with Zeke, calls himself an awful father, and pleads with him to stop whatever Eren intends next.

This is the 20th episode of season 4 and the 79th Attack on Titan episode overall, animated by MAPPA. It aired in Japan on January 31, 2022 and in the United States on March 6, 2022, adapting the manga chapters A Fleeting Moment and Memories of the Future within the War for Paradis arc.

Kouki Aoshima directed from a script by Hiroshi Seko. The Rumbling serves as the opening theme and Akuma no Ko as the ending. The episode's informational segment describes the Coordinate, the intersection point of all Paths where time is simultaneously instant and infinite. It follows Two Brothers and precedes From You, 2,000 Years Ago.