Sasha and Connie go to their home villages in order to evacuate them from attack. During this journey Sasha remembers her past and has to put her skills as a hunter to the test in order to defeat a Titan. Meanwhile Connie returns to his home and discovers something truly shocking.
Tropes:
- Accent Adaptation: Sasha and her father's rural accent is given a mixture of North American country twangs in the subtitles.
- Accent Relapse: Sasha switches from her perfectly enunciated Japanese accent, which she has been using since joining the army, to her natural accent in order to get the young girl moving.
- A Day in the Limelight: This episode focuses almost exclusively on Sasha returning to her home village, detailing her past, and trying to protect a young girl from a lone Titan.
- Armor-Piercing Question: In her first flashback, after Sasha says that she's going to stick with the Good Old Ways she was taught and refuses to help the war effort, Sasha's father asks her what she's going to do if she gets attacked by Titans since, if she's not willing to help others, she shouldn't expect others to help her.
- Be Yourself: During Sasha's second flashback Ymir is shown harassing her for using a polite, enunciated, accent over her natural rural one since she's embarrassed of it. While she does it in a backhanded way Ymir tells Sasha she should speak her own native accent proudly although Krista notes that Sasha should do what makes her comfortable and that they will like her either way.
- Brought Down to Badass: Sasha, due to having her ODM gear confiscated from the previous episode, is all alone without any escort, her horse runs off on her, and she's left with nothing but a bow and four arrows to fight off a Titan. Thankfully she still has her years as an expert hunter on her side and she's able to disable the Titan long enough for her and the young girl to escape.
- Cerebus Retcon: Sasha's infamous potato incident and her love of food is given a darker context in this episode as it's revealed that the reason for her scrounging of food is that her hunting village started losing productivity after Wall Maria was smashed down and more resources had to be taken and given to the refugees in order for them to survive making Sasha and her family go hungry.
- Chekhov's Gun: Due to the slow way that the Titan was eating the girls mother it ended up getting her blood spattered all over its front. Sasha is able to use said blood to slip out of the Titan's grasp at the end of her fight and escape.
- Chekhov's Skill:
- Both Sasha's skill with a bow and her ability to track footprints come into play as she arrives home.
- The grapple manoeuvre that Sasha uses to escape the Titan's grasp is the same one she was shown using in her first flashback against her father.
- Doomed Hometown: Both Sasha and Connie race back home to their villages to check for survivors. While Sasha's hometown is thankfully intact, as everyone save the unnamed girl and her mother made it out safely, Connie's hometown is shown to be in shambles.
- Double Meaning: The episode title, for both Sasha and Connie. One is overjoyed and proud to be home, the other is horrified and desperately looking for his town's survivors.
- Establishing Character Moment: For those who forgot about Ymir and Krista's characterization in between seasons, Sasha's flashback re-introduces them and their polar opposite attitudes.
- Eye Scream: How Sasha disables the Titan chasing after her and the girl since she can't kill it without her gear. She fires an arrow into one of its eyes and stabs the other one out with her last arrow.
- Good Old Ways: Younger Sasha seems to be stubborn about sticking to their hunting roots, while her father seems to realize it's time to move on.
- No Sympathy: Sasha, as shown in her flashback, used to be very ambivalent to the suffering of the people from Wall Maria saying that they shouldn't have to provide relief to people who make fun of her and her families lifestyle. Her father has to point out that the people from Wall Maria lost everything and many of them died horrible deaths.
- One Bullet Left: Sasha grabs a bow with four arrows before leaving the village. Over the course of her fight with the Lone Titan she fires one arrow into its neck, misses with the second, and hits the third one into one of the Titans eyes. Sasha briefly has a moment where she realises that if she misses with her last arrow she and the girl won't be able to escape so, in order to ensure she can't miss, she stabs her last arrow directly into the Titans remaining eye.
- So Proud of You: Sasha's father congratulates her at the end of the episode after she comes back as a full-on soldier and saves the girl from a Titan with her archery skills.
- Wham Shot: Connie returning home to find a Titan laying on top of his house.
