Welcome back to my weekly recap of Attack On Titan – Season 2! Today I’ll be covering Episode 2 – “I’m Home”. After last week’s season premiere, the stakes could not be any higher for the characters, after the breach of Wall Rose and the arrival of the Beast Titan. Seeing Mike get relentlessly torn apart by Titans last week was brutal and definitely hard to watch. “I’m Home” was certainly more lighthearted, and was a welcome change from the prior episode. The episode is not like last week’s, and instead chooses to mainly focus on one character’s journey: Sasha’s. It was really cool to see her in action, and to see a bit of her backstory, because she didn’t really get much to do last season. I mentioned in my Season 1 Review that the show really struggled balancing all of the characters it had, and Sasha was one of them. I hope this season continues doing this, because I just want so much more from the characters I don’t know enough about.
Speaking of Sasha, I really like the way that they handled her character in this episode. The vast majority of the episode relied strongly on her character to move the plot along smoothly, and I’m grateful that the show took the time to give a bit of insight into what her life was like before the Colossal Titan appeared at the beginning of Season 1. Even though it was just one scene that explored her life before she joined the Survey Corps, it was a really good decision to explore her life and the relationship with her father. By having these elements collide in the episode, it truly shows how much her character has grown over the past season. Potato Girl no more!
We also got to see a little more of Eren, Mikasa, Armin, and Levi this week. They didn’t get much to do in last week’s episode, as the main narrative chose to focus on Mike and his quest to stop the Titans in the forest, as well as his horrifying encounter with the Beast Titan. This episode chooses to focus on the aftermath of the Season 1 finale and the Season 2 premiere. While we still get very little of the fan favorites, what is given is enough to satisfy fans of the manga and anime, at least for right now.
The tension created in “I’m Home” isn’t as high as in Episode 1, but the showdown between Sasha and a Titan near the end of the episode resulted in heavy enjoyment. I was also pleased with the depiction of Sasha’s bravery. In the episode, Sasha stays behind so that a little girl can run away. Sasha decides to take on the Titan alone, using her tools to her advantage. Since the nape of the neck is the only spot where, if damaged, a Titan can die, Sasha decides to blind the Titan with her arrows. She takes out one eye, and leaps into the Titan’s arms to stab his other eye. The squirting blood enables her to break free, and she meets back up with the little girl, who has brought a few citizens to help–including Sasha’s dad. The dialogue between father and daughter at the very end was written very well, and the emotion conveyed through the characters’ faces revealed a lot about their relationship, especially what wasn’t conveyed in Sasha’s flashback.
Episode 2 of Attack On Titan‘s second season was very enjoyable and fun to watch. It had solid dialogue, great emotion, and it also did a very good job at developing characters that were sidelined in Season 1. “I’m Home” earns a 9/10.
Join me again next week in reviewing Episode 3 – “Southwestward”.
