Review: RWBY “Dread In The Air”

Mid-flight battles.

Overview

Weiss fights off a horde of Grimm while defending the cargo ship she’s on, Adam puts his ideology to the test, and Lionheart gives valuable information to Salem.

Our Take

Lots of Weiss this episode. Following up the events of last episode, the pilot’s hesitance to help builds up into something larger. The attacked ship ends up attracting Grimm to them, and Weiss has to fight them off. Doing so takes a lot of effort, and she ends up sacrificing half the ship’s dust in order to fight off the queen bee. As a last minute effort, she finally manages to succeed in summoning the Arma Gigas, which defeats the Grimm once and for all. Her training has clearly borne fruit, and it’s a further sign that her abilities can and have the potential to develop further. This thematically serves as more of a conclusion to last season rather than the start of this one. In the end, she ends up being rescued by Raven, who sees Weiss as an opportunity rather than a rescue.

We also see more of Lion, and how he’s being threatened by Arthur and Salem. Salem comments that people are using, and it’s important to keep pawns whenever possible. Her knowledge contrasts with Cinder’s impulsiveness, showing that Cinder has a long way to go before she becomes a mastermind.

In terms of the White Fang, we see more of Adam again. Adam stands before the high leader, Khan, and their ideologies clash. Khan believes in violence, but only as a necessity, where Adam sees it as a norm that needs to be utilized more. Extremism vs moderation, and in the end, many end up standing with Adam. He ends up enacting a coup d’etat and murdering Khan to make her a martyr for their cause. This ends up angering Hazel, who was sent by Salem to mediate conflict and intended their conversation to be a bloodless one, hinting at a possible future conflict. This is a bit of a disappointment because Khan dies in her first appearance. For a person of such power, Adam kills her a little too easily, and she leaves the stage without us having any inkling of what she’s like. There could have been more there, but there wasn’t. Khan was poorly handled, especially considering how much potential she could have had.