Review: RWBY “Alone Together”

The people you left behind.

Overview:

Yang admits that she’s still bitter over Blake’s running away to Weiss. In the meantime, Ilya calls out Blake to discuss future happenings.

Our Take:

The center of this episode largely revolves around Blake and her constant running away. Surprisingly, it doesn’t always feature Blake herself, but more the fallout of her actions.

The first one to be heavily affected is Yang, who was very shaken up once Blake left following her arm getting cut off. Blake left thinking that she had to protect her friends from Adam, but Yang just felt like she was being abandoned. Yang’s entire life has been one of abandonment and being forced into a responsible role, and now it’s clear that she’s resentful towards Blake for doing that to her once again. She vents her frustration to Weiss, saying how she doesn’t understand why Blake didn’t confide in her.

The second is Ilya, Blake’s old friend turned extremist. As it turns out, she wanted to be close to Blake, even romantically, but Blake never noticed her. Blake trusted her enough to be a friend but didn’t trust her enough to actually see what Ilya was like. She thought the best of Ilya, without looking at how she really felt. Ilya says that she was always this extreme, believing, in the end, justifying the means. While she still doesn’t like hurting people, she believes in results— and violence has been giving her results.

It’s clear that Blake, at the end of the day, doesn’t trust many people. She leaves for their safety, or for her own safety, but she hesitates to trust anyone. To let people in is to make them vulnerable, or to make herself vulnerable, and she can’t afford that. It took her a long time for her to warm up to Sun after all, and that was because they can release as fellow Faunus. She has yet to really trust people, and so she has yet to mature in being able to gauge what people are truly like. She’s getting there, but she still has a lot to learn.

Score
8.0/10