Review: RwBy “Never Miss a Beat”

Picking up where Lessons Learned left off, Team CFVY gets their asses handed to them due to a Fixed “Doubles” Round by Cinder manipulating the Coliseum backdrop with her computer virus followed by her teen brigade taking them down with a cutthroat ruthlessness, Ruby & Yang get some Info about what’s new with their Uncle Qrow and what he’s uncovered in his Missions along with some odd occurrences he’s discovered, And Weiss finally received some much needed sisterly support & wisdom from Winter about learning how to perform “Summoning” techniques with her Glyph semblance Powers and the importance of walking her own path without leeching off her father’s fortune.

And now Spoilers…

The episode opens with resident android Penny accompanied by a relatively new character Ciel Soleil at a “Doubles” round gleefully disposing of Two Douchebag CRDL (Cardinal) Members Russel & Sky Lark with sword throwing manipulation skills that maybe mistaken by the Crowd for a “semblance” power but in reality are part of Penny’s robotic attachments that she can control and be thrown at her will. (Akin to Lamda-11 from the Blazblue videogames.) While her partner Ciel doesn’t really do anything other than reminding Penny of their schedule as the latter runs amok with her swords and incredible strength and then finish them off lifting stones off the ground and slamming them causing the Impact to make CRDL instantly lose.

After the fight Ruby comes to visit Penny in which Penny cartoonishly proceed’s to hug-tackle her which is a comedically fun & cute moment. After buying a literal minute from Ciel to talk with Ruby proceeded by this fun exchange of banter between them both:

Ruby “So is she your friend? or..”

Penny: “Well… in a way, She’s like Blake. But if Blake is ordered to spend time with you.”

Ruby: “Oh, So Weiss.”

Penny:”Precisely!”

Penny Also tells Ruby that ciel doesn’t know she’s a Robot and by her Father’s wishes doesn’t want the public to know either.(Which is now revealed to be General Ironwood.) But briefly mentions that there was an “Incident with a Magnet” that almost blew her cover which cuts to a fun random scene where a magnet was hidden in a hat she was wearing. 😛

Penny reveals to Ruby that she wants to stay at Beacon, and although Ruby is fully aware Ironwood would never allow it, Penny says to Ruby she has a plan to make it happen and before revealing said plan Ciel says her minute is up and she has to go. It’s a short conversation that’s sweet enough to convey “Diabeetus Blvrd” before what happens later on…

While Ruby & Blake watch afar in the crowd, The next match in the Tournament this time is Weiss & Yang partaking in the “Doubles Round” with Weiss making the poorly hilarious assumption that their Atlas Opponents are the strict, stoic, militant types only to have her expectations comedically shattered by possibly the most unique & fun character designs in this episode in the form of Team FNKY. (Funky, Get it?)

Representing FNKY’s Doubles Round is Flynt Coal who looks like a Fedora-wearing Hipster that has a Trumpet with Dust powers and possibly the most colorful of the two, Neon Katt (An Obvious reference to the Nyan Cat meme.) who struts around with a glowing rainbow aura trail and fights with Blue Glowstick Nunchakus laced with Dust. who’s a Cat Faunus dressed like a Pigtailed Raverchick on rollerblades and the two stand speechless with this reaction.

Flynt at first introduces himself to Weiss which starts off sweet & formal before revealing that he has a grudge against her father for putting his father out of business and before Yang can tell him off she gets interrupted by Neon who shockingly speaks like a rejected Valley-Girl speaking character from the movie “Clueless” and proceed’s to make overly judgmental & obnoxious jokes that are equal to the drivel an Internet Troll would say which gets under Blake’s skin and Ruby in the crowd looks with a comical sense of dread knowing how Yang will respond.

The Tournament Backdrop changes to four different sections this time with the molten rocks, geyser crystals, desert mountain and a ruined building and the battle begins with Flynt unleashing a shockwave with his Trumpet which knocks Yang out of the way for him to go toe-to-toe with Weiss while Neon gets under Yang’s skin with more insults while moving at a blindly fast speeds and hitting her in multiple directions. 

It’s even more interesting to point out how all of Neon’s insults/comments to Yang are the kinds of things unmitigated assholes on the Internet tend to say to pretty girls to objectify or demean them – you need to go on a diet, you’re pretty when you’re angry, etc – and it was obviously very much striking a chord with Yang and gives you an idea into the kinds of comments she might be used to getting as a pretty blonde girl with a “significant chest”.

Neon uses the ruined building to roller blade herself using her speed to hit Yang in multiple directions before turning on her Glowstick Numchuku’s which reveal to have ice powers and freezes random body parts of Yang before Neon pushes her buttons again by calling her “Bottom-Heavy” which leads to Neon gaining momentum by jumping and grinding on parts of the building before knocking her with a tackle into a wall after freezing her arm.

Yang of course isn’t having it and she proceed’s to knock the Ice off her hand while we cut back to Weiss vs Flynt who is equally getting under Weiss’s skin with a bunch of “rich girl” jokes before unleashing wind battle and then Flynt reveals his semblance power in which I can only describe as a “Multiple Shadow Clone” Technique like he’s fucking Naruto and makes copies of himself represented by the different color ties each copy of himself wears and they each perform a catchy Trumpet solo which amplifies his powers blowing Weiss nearly out of the ring which according to Oobleck is a technique called the “Killer Quartet” before reverting his copies back onto himself.

As displayed in this Gifs, It’s a wonder to behold, plus the music is catchy in a classic 1930’s Jazz kinda way.

We finally cut back to Yang geting progressively even more pissed off at the drivel Neon is spewing out before she goes borderline Skylar White by screaming “Shut up!” in rapid succession while they cut back to Weiss struggling to get up and Flynt is about to use that same technique on Yang before Weiss tackles him saving her and knocking them in the magma section in the process nearly killing them. (Seriously, Who thinks these backdrops are combat friendly?)

As the smoke clears from the magma explosion, Flynt revealed to be standing and Yang gets pissed off going full on Super Sayian with her eyes glowing red and proceed’s to take them both on together while playing in the background is a surprisingly smooth jazz version of Yangs theme song “I Burn” which compliments the awesomeness of this scene.

Yang jumps towards him redirecting Flynt’s Trumpet back at him knocking him on the ground while Neon out of happenstance falls into a Geiser knocking her up in the sky where Yang gets a clear shot with her Shotgun Gloves and in the process burns her in a display of fireworks.(She survives of course.)

Some people within the RWBY Fan community are saying Yang got lucky, but actually when Yang was solo she was very proficient. Those attacks she aimed at the ground while airborne were deliberate to force Neon onto the rocky terrain, slowing her down and setting Yang up to take down Flynt and deal with Neon later, who was stuck on difficult terrain where her roller blades frankly didn’t work.

As displayed also in these Gifs, It’s a pretty damn good scene.

 

Yang afterwards comes to Weiss to see if she’s ok and Weiss coughs and says “I may not be singing for a while.” and strangely Neon takes it gleefully with Rainbow Diamonds in her eyes and Weiss’s Respect from Flynt is earned calling her actions “Gutsy” and says “I dig it” and the rest of the team comes to check on Weiss as she’s injured and cartoonishly covered in grey ash.

We cut to Cinder and her Teen Brigade who’s made an interesting discovery while looking into Ironwood’s files. (A minor call-back to It’s Brawl in the Family since Ironwood’s Phone got infected with her computer virus.) She discover’s a file regarding Penny which reveals that her name is spelled in acronym form and says to Mercury & Emerald:

Cinder:”We’re making an alteration to the plan.”

Mercury:”What does that mean?”

Cinder:”It means this will be even Easier than we thought”.

Yes Cinder! Please. Explain. Give us even the slightest Idea of what you shady individuals even want, My God, It’s been 3 motherfucking seasons and we don’t know why you, Roman and your “Teen Brigade” are even causing chaos to begin with!

Just to make things even more infuriatingly vague we cut to Ozpin talking with Qrow about whether or not Ironwood has a heart.(An obvious Wizard of Oz In-joke.) and Qrow asks if he’s found his “Guardian” and Ozpin responds saying to him “Maidens choose themselves, I simply believe I found the right candidate, ever since I met her I’d have a feeling she’d be the one.” which at first me and possibly the rest of the audience thinks he’s referring to Ruby while At the same time, Pyrrha is seen presumably heading to Ozpin’s office giving a sinister smirk before the elevator closes and it cuts to black.

(At the time of this review, many fans speculate it’s Neo in disguise as she’s displayed a shape-shifting ability in Round One because the scene gives off some foreboding music.)

Overview.

The episode was short but still fun to watch. Good music. Good development of the characters and story. I’m guessing Cinder is planning to use her virus on Penny during a match. If teams are allowed to pick any member they want for each single match, my bet is Penny and Ruby are going to fight when Cinder takes over Penny. I still think Ruby is the guardian Ozpin is referring to and that showing Pyrrha was just a slight of hand trick.

I think people need to understand the gravity of Weiss’s move. That stunt of hers brought her Aura all the way down to zero. Based on how Aura is stated to work in World Of Remnant, that means she has nothing protecting her from additional hits and based on how she looked afterwards, that stunt of hers could’ve gotten her seriously injured, perhaps permanently if her eye-scar from her White trailer is anything to go by.

I was actually surprised they used Flynt Coal for his name since they already used it for X-Ray and Vav, must be freaky for him since they’re a comic book in RWBY. I liked his weapon since, like other weapons this Volume, it doesn’t have to be an over-the-top transforming weapon, though I wish we saw more uses of Dust from him. Though, his Semblance seems like a better version of Sun’s Semblance, from what we’ve seen, which in turn is, I wouldn’t say better but similar to Blake’s Semblance. Basically, I find it odd that there’s so many people with Body Double types of Semblances.

The choreography between the music and the fight was the best I’ve seen this season. The jazzed up versions of “Mirror Mirror” and “I Burn” was spectacular, especially when they started scat singing. While I did wish that we got to see more of Penny’s fight, the focus of this episode was where it should be. I have to admit when I saw the episode length I was disappointed at first, but after watching it I felt that every second of it was amazing to watch and more than made up for it.

There were some things that popped into my head while watching that I’d like to discuss which were minor annoyances:

1. So why wasn’t Cardin in the first match? I mean I know that the leader of the team doesn’t have to move on, but he seems like the kind of guy who would want to move on. I hope there is something later on in the season that explains why he wasn’t in the fight.

2. I was hoping that Yang would win by punching and destroying the ground which would cause Neon to lose ground balance. The way it happened made it seem like they won only because of luck or because of Neon’s arrogance and made a huge mistake which may very well be what the creators were going for. Though we did get to see that Yang has great accuracy with her shots. And we did get to see Neon literally turn into a firework. There wasn’t even a body that fell to the ground.

And finally 3. While part of me knew the moment Penny was introduced as a robot, I kinda knew that she would be hacked at some point and bend to a Villain’s will. Like the infuriating drivel of Joss Whedon’s writing, or an episode of that awful & talent-less show “Arrow” It feels almost like contrived emotional manipulation to simply start with Penny’s upbeat & fun attitude only to just put her in danger not 10 minutes later. (It’s exactly something Joss Whedon or George R.R. Martin would use to forcibly evoke emotions out of their audience.)

Every week, I ask myself how RoosterTeeth is going to top the previous episode. And every week, they Crank that awesomeness & plot-consistency all the way up to 11 (If not 50) I can’t wait for the next episode! This was so worth the build up over the last two volumes. The best part about all this is the fact that Team RWBY is still in their first year at Beacon which leaves us wondering how much things will develop for them and the other characters in the second year.

For a 13 minute long episode it was surprisingly short but let’s see where this goes in Episode 6.