Armor-Piercing Question: While everyone is celebrating finally reaching the ocean, Eren somberly asks if they kill all their enemies across that ocean, if their people will finally be free. Nobody has an answer to this.
Beach Episode: Unusually for anime, the Survey Corps finally reaching the ocean is very plot-critical, though everyone but Eren and Levi take the chance to goof off once they're there.
Bittersweet Ending: The Return to Shiganshina arc comes to a close on a victorious yet somber note. The Warriors were driven off or killed, the Mindless Titans on Paradis were exterminated, and the Walls were fully reclaimed by its people, but at great cost to the Survey Corps. Not to mention the revelation that the outside world exists and wants to exterminate the Eldians, which makes the future even more uncertain for our heroes.
Brutal Honesty: Floch, again. He admits that Marlowe, like everyone else in the suicide charge, regretted it in the end. He also calls out Armin as the inferior choice to give the injection and everyone that enabled that decision or did nothing to stop it.
Character Development: Eren's clearly changed since from before the Shiganshina arc. For one thing, he has the foresight and wisdom to keep to himself how he activated the Coordinates' powers, due to the consequences for Historia. For another, once he's learned the Awful Truth about Mindless Titans, he no longer shows hatred and anger towards them, but muted pity.
