Review: RWBY “So That’s How It Is”

And that’s the way it is. (Walter Cronkite quote or Celine Dion quote? You make the call!)

 

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Yang is outraged upon learning that Salem cannot be killed, as well as everything else Oz neglected to mention. Even worse, he has no concrete plan going forward. Everyone, even Qrow is livid with how hopeless things seem now, so Oz retreats into Oscar’s mind. Before they start to attract more Grimm, Maria takes charge and leads them to a path, but this won’t be so easily shaken off. Eventually, they end up at a seemingly empty farm.

Meanwhile at the Legion of Doom, the team from the fight in Haven returns to Salem sans Cinder. Explaining their failure is hard enough, with blame going on Cinder (who they learn is still alive), but even worse is informing Salem that Ozpin is leading them, meaning he still isn’t dead.

OUR TAKE

This is the shortest episode of the season thus far, pretty much entirely about the two sides reacting to their own respective shake-ups. Makes sense after the last one was so long, but even something short like this makes use of its time surprisingly well for this show. It’s not about dumping new stuff into the story to see how it mixes, but for letting things settle and seeing how everyone, good or bad, chooses to go from here.

Continuing the apparent theme of being Volume 4 2.0, we reach the point where everyone is given new information to chew on like in V4 E8, only this time it actually has an impact. I had my own thoughts on the lore dump last week, but what I was interested in seeing here was what would be the main point of contention. Turns out, it’s the fact that Salem can’t be killed, which is an understandable thing to get frustrated over. Obviously, that doesn’t rule out other ways of defeating her, but that’s something to get to later. And while I don’t really understand Oz’s reasons for needing to almost attack Ruby to keep her from learning it, I can understand him not explaining this. An enemy with no apparent means of defeat would be a near impossible sell for any group, but then again, it would be impossible for him to HAVE a plan for that at the moment, even with all the time he’s had.

This is the kind of moment I’ve been really hoping for in this show: something that will shake and test the resolve of everyone involved, including Ozpin. I’ve seen many people in the fandom ready to call him on the implied crap he’s pulled (of which there is many), but the story has picked such odd examples like giving Qrow and Raven consequence-free bird powers. This time it’s something that can actually be interpreted as bad. I understand the problem the others have with hiding it, but I also understand his reasons FOR hiding. It’s a complex situation where I’m on everyone’s side instead of an overcomplicated situation where I don’t side with anyone, and the former has been long overdue in this story.

I expect Team RWBY will eventually shake this off since they still plan to get the Relic to Ironwood, but what I’m more surprised at is Qrow, apparently knew nothing about this and I guess just kept going on blind faith. Seems Raven actually had a point when she left but never bothered to share things properly. This does give us a chance for Qrow to return to being the snarky drunk realist that we all fell in love with in V3, which may finally give HIM a reason to stick around.

We also can’t not talk about most of the villains getting their first appearance in the season. I’m still annoyed as hell by Tyrian (though not as much as keeping Adam around), but we do see Salem be legitimately intimidating for once. The big thing I took away from last week was that she’s pretty much a giant child who throws a fit when she doesn’t get her way, and that seems to hold up here. She’s good at keeping her minions in line, and already has plans for the Relic in Vacuo, though I am curious on how she thought Cinder was going to be able to kill Ozpin in V3 when she knows he reincarnates. And hopefully informing Emerald of Cinder’s continuing life won’t lead her to make a break for it, though then they’d at least be doing something interesting with Emerald.

All in all, a short but effective cool down from last week.