Review: RWBY: Burning The Candle (episode 6, season 2)

 

Spoilers Below

To say this episode was driven more by emotion than any other episode this season, maybe even the series, would be an understatement. The episode focused on the school Dance we’ve been hearing about and while you didn’t see any advancement in the struggle between Team RWBY and Torchwick and Cinder’s group, you saw a lot of the personal and emotional storylines take center stage.

Jaune got some focus this episode as he tried to figure out what to do about his affection for Weiss, to which she is either oblivious too or just plain ignores. Not only did we see that he thinks the world of her, even if he admits she can be cold (Thus her nickname of “Ice Queen”) but we got to see him interact with the rest of team JNPR. He pulls Ren aside for some guy talk, and although he considers Ren a friend, they never really talked before. As Ren seems a bit of a serious studious type, that’s not too much of a stretch of the imagination. Although Ren is stammered for words, we do find out from Nora that her and Ren aren’t actually a romantic couple. That in itself is a story I hope gets told one day of what is the relationship of those two. Anyway, Pyrrha tell Juane that he should just strait up tell her he likes her and he can’t be wrong if it’s the truth. Nora tells her that she should practice what she preaches. Meanwhile Juane goes to finally tell her only to see her asking Neptune to the dance instead. Gotta feel bad for the guy.

However most of this episode focused on Yang and Blake. Blake still has those nasty bags under her eyes and has been studying nonstop it seems. When Ruby and Weiss are concerned that Blake won’t be at the dance, a confident Yang tells them she will be there. Her master plan?

A laser pointer.

She got the catgirl’s attention with a laser pointer.

If you ever had cats you would know just how funny that is.

Yang then brings Blake to an empty classroom and this scene was a doozy. Yang tells Blake that she doesn’t want her to stop, just slow down. To drive the point home Yang tells the history of her family and answers a number of the audiences questions in the process. Yang delves into her family history to Blake, explaining that she and Ruby grew up on an island close to vale with their father and Ruby’s mother, Summer Rose. One day Summer went on a mission and never returned. However Yang found out that it was the second time her father had lost the love of his life, and Yang’s mother was the first (thus explaining why the sisters neither look alike or share a last name). Yang’s mother walked out on them shortly after she was born without a reason as to why. Yang relates to Blake that she became obsessive over why her mother left and after finding some information went out as a little girl, towing a toddling Ruby in a wagon to an old barn, where they were attacked by some Grimm, only to be saved by their uncle Qrow. Yang really drives the point home by physically pushing Blake and telling her she couldn’t defeat her, let alone Torchwick in her condition. Blake takes things to heart and when we see the dance going on Blake arrives and meets up with Sun, but her first dance is spoken for with Yang.

And just as an aside Ruby doesn’t like to wear heels. Guess she should have worn slippers instead *ba dum pish*

This was a big episode in the story of RWBY, as you find out a lot behind Yang, and by extension Ruby in this. By telling this story you get to see more of what is going on in the mind’s of these characters and Yang has a lot more emotional weight she carries than she let’s on. You also finally see Blake’s behavior come to a head and see her hopefully slow down and be less single minded with stopping Torchwick and the White Fang. I’m not sure she learned the lesson that she isn’t the only one who is going to stop them yet, but maybe that is for another day. The relationship between the members of team JNPR also had light shed on it too. The story with Juane, Pyrrha, Neptune and Weiss has more to be told, as well as Nora and Ren hopefully.

This episode also showed off much of the improvements over the first season with not only the stylized animation in the flashback scene, but also in the dance as well. Where in the last season they only would have animation the main character and left the background as just black, they animated everyone to a degree inside the dancehall. Not and easy task. I commend them for both.

This episode is great. It had everything save for a fight scene and we may end up seeing some happen as Mercury and Emerald show up to the dance in the last scene. If you love this series and have emotional investment in the characters than this one will get to you. We feel Juane’s heartbreak, Blake’s stubborn determination, and most of all Yang’s pain in this episode. The pacing was great, the story it told was wonderful, it even snuck in some subtle and not so subtle humor, and most of all it still left me wanting to see what happens next. Not back for a little over 13 minutes.