Review: RWBY Vol.7 “A Night Off”

After the feverishly constant missions and vigorous training sessions, the kids finally get a night off to relax! But attending a political rally may not be the most leisurely activity since Ruby Ren and Nora choose to go at the election party for Robyn’s side with security provided by Robyn’s Crew and Penny & Marrow from the Atlas side, But during the election montage scenes of people waiting in line, we also see the proverbial stranglehold Jacques has over the people by forcing them to vote through under-handed means from the last episode. It’s also the most I’ve ever heard Ren talk as he’s made some keen observations lately and I rarely see him ever argue with anyone let alone Nora. At most, the argument itself kinda feels like meta-commentary towards the way some fandoms perceive and popularize Blake & Yang’s implied relationship as something possibly romantic, but let’s just say Ren & Nora’s way of resolving things happens without words.

We also are told that Weiss has tagged along with Oscar & Jaune to see a movie, while Blake & Yang go to a dance club with Team “FUNKI” but the focus here is at the election and Weiss kinda makes a point about the people of Mantle declaring premature victory without knowing who will be the surefire winner, and Ironwood barely makes an effort, nor does he have the desire to be diplomatic as he doesn’t really care how the people of Mantle view him and will only speak to Robyn if she wants to back as we see tensions rise consistently between Robyn’s faction and the Ace-Ops.

And of course, before we’re even told who said winner is, shit goes down in the worst way imaginable in the form of Tyrian embarking on a murder-spree with the help of Dr. Watts who both proceed to pin the incident on Penny despite her best efforts to stop the sadistic bastard whose plan would’ve went smoothly if he didn’t flaunt his robotic scorpion tail for Ruby to notice, but what Tyrian does also feels very symbolic since Penny is now in the exact same position as when Yang was falsely accused of Injuring Mercury during the Amity Tournament or when Phyrra during a misunderstanding where she accidentally killed Penny the first time with her magneto-like semblance which was both things that happened during Vol 3 which caused most of the mistrust & civil unrest against Atlas and it’s military powers in combination with the widespread panic and negative emotions which consequently summoned the Grimm in the first place, but without spoiling too much the episode ends when we do get a clear winner…

Our Take

Aside from this weird foreshadowing in regards to the unusual things Ruby’s Speed semblance can do which could serve as a “Chekov’s gun” of sorts, I have a feeling things won’t be the same once again as now the dystopian shit-hole at the far end of Atlas called “Mantle” seems to be suffering the most from everything that’s about to happen, It’s also unclear if the 1-percenter side of Atlas will face the same problems as Beacon or Mantle did more than before now that the press will have a field day with the shit Dr.Watts is pulling behind the scenes.

I can understand if they wanna stretch things for later episodes by focusing on other characters, but where the fuck was Qrow during all this? We know where Team RWBY and Jaune’s Team are but what was Qrow doing when this shit was going down? And finally, I can’t be the only one to notice this but, I’m gonna need to know who the fuck at Rooster Teeth exactly thought it was a good idea to make Volume 7 an allegory for something extremely obvious in regards to the “election” sub-plot because the outcome along with the proceedings of it are about as subtle as a brick to the head…