Review: RWBY “Confessions Within Cumulonimbus Clouds”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Jaune recounts how, while he fell into the Ever After last out of the group, he ended up thrust back in time after touching some sort of clock fruit. He then met Alyx and her brother Lewis and tried to keep them on the path of the story as he knew it, but once they went to the Herbalist, Alyx started turning on both him and Lewis, even poisoning Jaune. He also warns that the Cat is actually controlling beings around them and that the tree that RWBY are trying to get to will erase their being.

But before he can explain more, the group are hit by a Punderstorm, which separates Blake and Yang so they can finally kiss, and throws Ruby and Weiss into a physical embodiment of their confusion. As Jaune elaborates further about how the Cat can’t be trusted, Ruby and Weiss turn on it, so it leaves them to follow Jaune back without it. Jaune also manages to give Ruby back Crescent Rose, which she reacts oddly to. When she asks him what happened to Lewis, Jaune tells her Alyx probably sacrificed him and wrote him out of the story.

OUR TAKE

I’m only really getting a chance to say this now, but I’ve actually been really enjoying this season of RWBY for a few reasons. For one, the focus on the main four girls for once removes a lot of the clutter that previous seasons had of trying to juggle so many others, which often left the ostensible protagonists with not much time to really grow. And for another, the Ever After actually feels like a place that is meant to challenge Team RWBY both externally and internally, whereas visits to places like Mistral, Argus, and Atlas tended to just end with the group fighting unambiguous bad guys and not really learning anything from it. This first half of what seems like a truncated season has so far been pretty efficient at pushing all four to make big leaps in understanding themselves, which I’m hoping will be significant in later seasons (assuming they get there, since that seems to be up in the air at the moment).

And while I still enjoyed this episode, I do think there is some dipping back into the show’s bad habits. For example, I’m certainly interested in what we’re learning about Alyx and her brother Lewis, as well as how this quasi-Alice in Wonderland story may be at the heart of what’s so strange about the Ever After. The problem comes from how much each of the characters have been talking up its significance since the season started, but aside from a few small hints in previous seasons, we as viewers are learning a lot of this information now. Retroactively establishing seemingly important information only to then change it soon after is something they’ve done as far back as Volume 3 (remember the deadly flaw in the CCT they only mentioned in side videos just in time to exploit it?), and the same goes for only now bringing up Alyx had a brother named Lewis, as well as that Alyx was actually kind of a brat and turned on both her brother and Jaune.

Speaking of, let’s talk about what happened to Jaune. Looks like he’s ended up in a Bootstrap Paradox, where he has ended up inspiring the Rusted Knight character that Alyx would end up writing into her story, which I GUESS would inspire him to be a Huntsman, which would lead him to eventually end up in the Ever After, and thus closing the loop. Putting aside all the questions this raises about how big this book was or when in Remnant’s timeline Alyx came here or went back, this looks to be pointing to this change being permanent, which is certainly a bold and unexpected route. Assuming he’s able to get out with RWBY and maybe Neo, I wonder what this will do to impact his involvement in the story. We’re not sure how much older he is or the full extent of his trauma, but I guess we’ll explore that if there’s time.

And of course, we gotta talk about the long anticipated first kiss of Blake and Yang, fully confirming the fan favorite ship of Bumblebee. I’m not going to go into the discourse that has surrounded the two of them within the fandom because even slightly hinting at it makes me feel like my soul is leaving my body. Not to mention it’s ultimately not relevant to how I feel about it in the show. To get it out of the way, I am obviously glad to see more queer representation within animation, including this. In RWBY’s near decade long existence of ongoing production, we’ve seen so many mainstream animated shows introduce and bring together numerous LGBTQIA+ couples, such as Harley Quinn & Poison Ivy, Princess Bubblegum and Marceline, Korra and Asami, Luz and Amity, and now Blak and Yang. And the scene itself is appropriately sweet and satisfying to a degree. My only real issue with the execution here is just the sheer absurd amount of time they’ve spent waiting to get to this point. I’ve brought this up over the years as I’ve grown more confused with why they were continuing to wait, and the only clear defense goes back to a short tweet from the late creator Monty Oum, stating: “All good romance is earned.” Oum never got to elaborate on this before his passing and I don’t doubt he had plans for things to end up here, but I cannot for the life of me believe that simply waiting for ten years was their idea of “earning this”. But now that it’s out of the way, we can hopefully develop their relationship further as the story moves forward. Surely they didn’t think that romantic relationships come to a halt after the first kiss, right?

With that out of the way, we’ve got four episodes left to go in this season and still quite a bit to cover. Neo is still out there plotting some big move involving her enhanced Semblance, there seems to be more going on with Alyx, Lewis, and their journey, and if the tree isn’t how the gang is going to get back to Remnant to face Salem, they’re going to have to find another way. I’ll still be here covering the next couple episodes, so you’ll get my extensive thoughts as they arrive on Crunchyroll. In the meantime, don’t drink poison tea from evil little girls. Your insurance won’t cover that.