The episode starts out with a condensed recap of the previous season which is helpful if you haven't had time to rewatch the series. It picks up after the events of episode 25 with the aftermath of Eren and the female Titan's climatic battle. This episode is interesting in that it follows two parallel narratives at once. Zoe is holding things down back at the wall and she makes an incredible discovery that gains the interest of a priest from the Cult of the Wall. Meanwhile, the 104th training squadron at an outpost has to deal with a roaming band of Titans.
With all the issues that the first season has with pacing, it was refreshing to see that this new one was tightly edited. I'm hoping that because there are only going to be twelve episodes in season 2 that it will eschew much of the filler and tell a good story. As per usual the action scenes have wonderful animation, but I was slightly disappointed the quality of the animation during the story scenes. There also seemed to be more of a reliance of CGI as well, which didn't quite mesh as well as I had hoped. If you are a fan of all the blood and gore in this series then you won't be disappointed. The music is still fantastic and I like the new opening song Dedicate All Your Hearts by Linked Horizon (who did the OP for the first season). Overall, this is a strong start to the popular franchise and hopefully it can keep up this pace to a satisfying conclusion as the season progresses.
--Michelle Kisner