Review: RWBY Vol.7 “Cordially Invited”

After getting an invitation to a dinner party by Weiss’s father Jacques to flaunt his victory in winning a seat in the council, Team RWBY decides to accept the invite despite knowing that something isn’t right. As an added bonus, under Ruby’s suggestion, they put their trust into Weiss to infiltrate and find out what’s really going on knowing that she wouldn’t be questioned if she went to several places within her old home. Upon entering the house along with everyone else who got invited, Weiss is even more shocked that their family butler Cline is now gone heavily implying that her screwed up brother Whitley may have had some level of involvement which raises the question, if Jacques is rich, and can afford new butlers, why can’t he afford any kind of security for his giant-ass mansion after the recent shit that went down? Or does Ironwood’s Ace-Ops even count?

A decent portion of this episode is focused primarily on the Council meeting between the people within Jacque’s circle along with Robyn unleashing all sorts of verbal hell on Ironwood and the series of questionable decisions he’s made that have put him on the spot in the worst kinda way. We get a few moments of repressed humanity with Winter and the way you find yourself feeling bad when Penny is spoken about like a “Thing” and not a person, but it really hammers home how the military structure within Atlas is super fucked up for both Penny and Winter who even went as far as to make an Outburst towards Jacque’s words which only added more fuel to the fire. Also with what’s been previously established, you’d think with Robyn’s Semblance, which was recently revealed to detect lies, wouldn’t she make an effort to hold Penny’s hand and ask her some legit questions to establish her innocence? Or does Robyn’s semblance powers even work on Robots? This is never explained!

What’s easily the highlight of this episode would have to be the long-awaited introduction of Weiss’ mother Willow Schnee (Voiced by Caitlin Glass) and as Weiss has previous described, she’s what you would expect from someone who’s stuck in a loveless and lonely marriage. She’s tired, has isolated herself from the world, and is barely sober when Weiss sees her in Jacque’s office drinking (right from the bottle no less. Poor mom). However, she seems to be on Weiss’ side in her own unique way, even going as far as to encourage her kids to leave the damn household compared to Jacque’s claim that she “drank herself in worry” As Weiss asks where to access some information within the household, the least her mom can do is reveal that she had the resources to set up a hidden camera network in the house, however, what caught me completely off guard while telling Weiss about a stranger who visited the household, is Willow also telling Weiss that whatever happens to the house to look out for Whitley whom despite Whitley himself coming across as a sadistic tool, is an implied abuse victim whom her mother points out that both her and Winter didn’t bother making an effort to help Whitley break away from this twisted 1-percenter lifestyle and wants Weiss to not give up on her shitty brother. The episode ends on a “chilling” (pun intended) note when Dr. Watts proceeds to sabotage Mantle’s heating systems which most likely means that unless Team RWBY figures out what’s actually going on, It’ll be a race against time as Mantle now has a few days left to live unless they can put a stop to Watts and Tyrian’s plans.

Our Take

While it was refreshing to see Team RWBY have some level of fun during these serious proceedings, there’s a certain level of irony about how Winter is a human who tries to act robotic by hiding her emotions and feelings while Penny is a robot who acts like a human since she openly shows her emotions. It really makes for an interesting dynamic between the two. Also, I can’t be the only one who probably saw this, but the imagery at the conference table was spectacular. And based on observation, Penny is the only one starting to realize the screwed up nature of her situation compared to Winter’s outburst of anger towards her father which was quite warranted, And despite Winter’s years of military discipline, she did all she could to maintain composure, but in the end, all the hardship Jacques put her through in her years and repressed rage towards her father got the better of her and only played into her father’s hands. Manipulative bastard got just what he wanted out of her by simply having her within his vicinity…

The very ending of this episode was particularly ominous and baffling. The city’s systems were apparently putting out enough heat to turn snow into rain…which means with Watts shutting it all off, Mantle can add “freezing to death” to its list of problems.