Review: RWBY: Mountain Glenn (Chapter 10, Season 2)

Spoilers Below

This episode continues off right where the last episode ended with the girls settled into the wasteland of Mountain Glenn. It also picks right up with the major theme of the last chapter as well as Weiss, Blake, and Yang are still mulling over what Oobleck asked them about why they wanted to be Huntresses. This once again really helps us understand the three girls better and how they view things.

We get a look of how Weiss views her family’s company. She admits they aren’t on the up and up and that is why she wanted to be a Huntress. She wanted to do something good and uphold the family name, despite what her father has been doing. This shows that while she is well off, she’s no trust fund kid bowing to Daddy’s wishes. She really does have a noble streak inside her and wants to make her family name known for something than shady Dust dealing. She wants change and taking some desk job wasn’t going to change anything. This scene really gave Weiss a human character and separated herself from the prissy, above everyone attitude and character she initially gave off to her fellow students.

Blake’s motivations are also shared. She talks about always running away from things. She tells about once having a partner and running away when she found out that his idea of a perfect world really wasn’t perfect (there is a back-story we need to explore)., and when the others found out she was a Faunus she ran away again. Big inner moment for her as we find that she wants to be able to stand up and not run away anymore, along with hints of a background we still haven’t had reveled to us yet.

Yang, like she said last week, is looking for adventure. She’s always gone with the flow and was looking for different things and not lead a boring life and that is why she is here. She also talks about Ruby wanted to be a fighter most of her life and trained really hard to be at her level, especially at her age. Really shows the differences between the two sisters as Ruby has set out for this as a life goal and Yang seems to just kind of wandered into it as something she decided to do to lead the life she liked.

However all three girls come to the realization is that being a Huntress is a job about protecting people first and not about what they wanted. It’s then we see Oobleck with a smile on his face as we see this is what the professor had been trying to get the whole time. They had these romanticized ideas of what a Huntsman or Huntress does, but they have to face the reality of what they must do from here on out.

This episode wasn’t just about introspection though. Thanks to Zwei doing his doggie business Ruby stumbled upon two White Fang guards.  However, Ruby literally falls into what was going on right under their noses as the street crumbles open and she falls inside the underground civilization. Zwei runs back and gets the others and brings them back. It’s then Oobleck freaks out and tells the other part of the story of the settlements failure. Essentially, the people of Mountain Glenn fled into an unfinished subway system as a chance to set up a settlement, things started out well until a blast unleashed a large group of Grim who slaughtered everyone in town and the whole thing was sealed off as a giant tomb. Meanwhile Ruby is dragged into the base and there and brought right to Torchwhick himself.

Character wise this episode is wonderful. Here we are how many episodes into the entire series and the producers of this show still have new things to unveil for these characters. This stuff isn’t random stuff either but deep motivations of what drives these characters. Seems both Blake and Weiss have more back-story to tell later on down the line that hasn’t been explained yet and I would love to hear it. We even got a little more into Zwei, as we can see the little dog isn’t a thoughtless mutt but seems to be a pretty smart little doggie. Great stuff.

Pacing was done well as like many other parts to this series there were two distinct parts to this episode but the flow from one to the other was great and didn’t have to rely on quick jump cuts, flash scenes, or any tricks. This series is very good and keeping a good flow of things and this was another example of that ability they use so well.

Animation looked good this week as well. Nothing huge jumped out at me like last week, although some of Ruby’s movements did seem a little clunky, but nothing major. Sometimes things are at their best when you don’t notice things and this episode’s animation was just fine.

This episode had a little bit of everything. It was a great continuation of what the older girls were thinking about without it being this really awkward and forced realization. They were asked a question, thought it over, talked to each other, and figured it out. It wasn’t the life and death scene a lot of shows would make similar things appear. The idea that the enemy base was found while Zwei needed “walkies” was great and fit perfectly with the flow of the series. The cartoonish actions of Ruby as she was sneaking around, even using Zwei as a look out was hilarious and part of what I like about this series. It had humor and more importantly it knew where it should be placed. Once again this show has me wanting more and sucking me into the story. You know some major shit is about to go down and we will see how the others are able to get into the base, let alone how they will try to get Ruby back. It’s taking a great pace in leading things up to that point and isn’t rushing to get everything out, but isn’t dragging ass unnecessarily to build up the suspense. Great work.