First of all, I want to clarify that I am not a die-hard fan of the series. It's personally hard for me to feel hyped for a monthly manga. That means, I read the chapter, but don't really do anything else beyond that such as going on reddit forums, discussing, and watching youtube reviews (not that college allows me to do anything much beyond quickly reading a chapter anyways). So my memory is a bit fuzzy, even as far ten chapters back.
I absolutely love finding about the history of the titans. I was a bit mind-blown to find out that all this time, the story took place on a small island and that the Titans killing the people inside the walls were pretty much transformed humans with the same ancestry aka the Eldians. Isayama has pretty much shown that he has written the main outline of the story from the get-go and didn't just make things up along the way (like other shounen mangakas U_U). It's kind of funny b/c didn't he say that he was originally planning to kill everyone off...?
I also am very glad that we finally got to find out about the truth, that is Reiner's, Berthold's, and Annie's reason for destroying the walls. Truth be told, I think at this point, Reiner is a better developed character that Eren. I don't like Reiner at all, but I think he is just giving better characterization. Several of the side characters in this manga are better developed and more interesting than the main character at this point. Sorry, Eren.
As for chapter 96, I enjoyed it. It was an interesting to see this chapter paralleling the first few chapters of the manga. It was a bit nostalgic. The smiling titan though... Dina really couldn't handle Grisha getting a second wife, lmfao.