Oh I say, a Rooster Teeth pre-where-the-titles-would-be intro. How decadent, even if it's pretty minimal.
Open on a snowscape. After a couple of views of it, over which we get some movie-style production intro cards, we meet a train in motion. It is accompanied by rather a lot of flying Grimm attempting to land on it, which Team RWBY are doing their best to dissuade and/or kill.
Further forward, past at least one deck gun (trains sure are metal here), Team JNR are trying something similar. Have the animations of Nora's grenades improved, or have they just not been seen for about as long as Blake spent on Menagerie?
Oscar, further forward still, shouts that a tunnel is approaching. This starts a mad scramble to get off the top of the train. Which is weird, because the tunnel has to have clearance for the deck guns, which have got to be a metre tall, so hitting the deck would suffice. Weiss gets clipped by a fireball from presumably a Grimm of some new and terrifying description; Ruby rescues her, before Semblancing them both (with definitely far improved animation) to safety just as they reach the tunnel. I think (it's difficult to tell) the deck guns have folded down to half a metre, which would be a much more challenging fit.
(Yes, Weiss wouldn't have fallen to her death given her own Semblance, but the train would quite swiftly have left her behind.)
At the White Fang throne room, Adam has lost control of the situation. No amount of killing those who disagree with him will make the others fall in line, so now he's killed them all. And now he's lost control of himself, destroying the throne in a fit of rage.
And now, a train station. I'm startled to see the number of trains to Shion (†) listed on the departure board, especially given they're not annotated as out of service like the ones to Vale are. Wait a minute, isn't Vale on a different entire continent? How does that work?
Anyway, Qrow narrates that the official story is that the attack on Haven two weeks ago was thwarted by the Menagerie militia, with assistance from a visiting Hunter and students, and the headmaster, the latter of whom was unfortunately killed in battle. Those responsible for planning the attack were not apprehended.
Qrow, it turns out, is narrating-writing a letter to General James Ironwood. Obviously he's not writing down anything really juicy, but in case the letter arrives before they do, they aren't
just bringing bad news.
Ruby is exasperated by Qrow's lack of haste. She then hastes through the station to the rest of Teams RWBY, JNR, and Oscar (except Blake). Turns out she's incredibly excited to have visited the gift shop. Weiss is not impressed. Yang is.
The only one more excited than Ruby is, of course, Nora, who is looking forward to reaching Argus on the northern coast of presumably Anima. "You think it's too early for beach season?" she asks, summoning a daydream of such intensity that the real Ren briefly finds himself holding a beach ball. Actual comedy.
(I have just remembered to turn the subtitles back on. Still way out of sync. Is that where they've been getting the extra animation budget? Or are they just still
being Qrow'd?)
Weiss isn't looking forward to going back to Atlas. Ruby promises "Team RWBY won't leave your side for a second", so for Comedy™ purposes I give it five until Ruby and Yang run off somewhere else.
...I was wrong, the next thing that happens is a couple of randoms turn up. Apparently they're the train security. I'm guessing the start of the episode was a flash-forward, from which I am not confident in these two at all. Yep, here they are soliciting bribes. Ugh. Qrow arrives to tell them off. "Looks like Mistral's really scraping the bottom of the barrel these days," he says, and knows full well it's true. He follows up by informing them they left the caboose wide open, which is probably characterising these two as idiots, but I can't rule out Qrow making it up or even doing it himself.
«I do hope those weren't Beacon graduates,» adds Ozpin in the safety of Oscar's head. Actual comedy. But also, Ozpin, you ought to have known that's where Team CRDL were probably going, so what stopped the CRDLs of past years? (Possibly nothing, that's what.) Oscar, out loud, reinforces the comedy:
"You know, sometimes the burden of saving the world feels overwhelming. But then people like that come along and make me grateful that it's our job and not theirs."
None of them laugh. As a computer of great intelligence and questionable wisdom once said, it would be funny if it weren't so sad.
They're just waiting for Blake now. Blake is just farewelling Ilia, who has accidentally become part of Mistralian leadership of Ghira's replacement organisation, not to mention a civil rights icon. It's not fun for her to say goodbye to Blake again, but they both know Blake's got a world to help save.
Also, here's Sun for the farewelling. And here's Neptune to reveal that Sun almost overslept it. When did we even last see Neptune?
(checks) V03E11. That was ages ago.
Neptune reminds Sun they've got their own trip to plan, and immediately gets distracted, leaving Blake and Sun to chat as an incredibly transparent excuse to go flirt with Ilia. Blake and Sun reckon he'll eventually work out Ilia's guaranteed not to be into him. Sun explains they're going to Shade Academy, Vacuo, to avoid the absolute chaos surrounding Haven at the moment, because Sun hailed from there originally, and also he's realised he's not been a great team leader what with not having even seen his team between the battle of Beacon and the battle of Haven. Character development?
Blake was somewhat getting used to having Sun around. "I go where I'm needed!" declares Sun. "And... you don't need me anymore." Well, there are some things that are true - she's back with her own team - but could be phrased better. Anyway, they part amicably.
Neptune, who got Ilia's memo at some point, doesn't like the sound of his battle-hardened team leader preparing them for the wastelands of Vacuo.
And now, the train. The deck guns appear to retract nearly flush with the surrounding roof, which makes the mad scramble to get below for the tunnel make more sense.
Bunk beds! And Team RWBY didn't even have to build them!
It appears today's little conflict moment is Blake treating Yang like somewhat of an invalid. Or perhaps Blake's trying to seem useful because she thinks she has to compensate for her absence. Either is saddening to see. Fortunately Team RWY pull her out of it.
Qrow also showed up at some point. He has a cocktail in hand, but loses it when the train shakes to herald the start of the Grimm attack.
Yep, there's a few of them. One of the train security, limited to a melee weapon, charges in like an idiot and is immediately carried off to his death.
Holy cow, those Grimm looked way smaller without a scale reference. Blake asks Ruby what the plan is. "Don't let anyone else die," plans Ruby, and with that they deploy. That's not a plan, that's a goal, at best.
Oscar tells Ozpin he (Oscar)'ll keep control, then runs into Team JNR who don't quite know the situation yet.
Yep, these beasties spit fireballs. Team RWBY and Qrow deal with a bunch of them as the surviving security ("Dudley"), finally having a moment where he neither has to flee nor panic, is able to activate the train's defenses. Armour covers all vulnerable portions, and the deck guns deploy.
Unfortunately, the Grimm (okay, there seem to be two kinds, one much larger) are smart enough to target the deck guns. Two of them are already down by the time Team JNR and Oscar reach the roof (as flashed-forward). Qrow directs Oscar to get the deck guns shut down; they might be able to repel light attacks, but here they're presenting tasty targets for the Grimm that are close enough to the passengers to induce panic when struck, which is just making things worse. Oscar, with the lamp hanging from his belt (seems unsafe), reaches Dudley, but can't convince him to shut the guns down - they seem effective from here.
Oscar pleads with Dudley that the Grimm need to be lured to the back of the train, but Dudley isn't doing that without an explanation, which I'm also interested to hear. Before anything can be explained, the Grimm all bail. The explanation is the tunnel. Oscar hits the deck; Dudley tries to get in a side hatch, but isn't fast enough. He's really,
really lucky not to have been given the full Yang treatment by the tunnel entrance at the speed they were going, escaping with only a broken arm. (On reflection, I'm not sure how much his Aura did or didn't help here.) Qrow tries to intimidate him into shutting down the guns; Dudley isn't interested in yielding his authority on the train's security.
Meanwhile, Ruby can see the Grimm entering the tunnel on foot. With Qrow having been bad cop, Ruby brings Jaune to play good cop, with added bonus quick-healing. This works better.
Nora and Ren hatch a plan to have Jaune amplify Ren's Semblance (that's a thing that Jaune's does - we must ensure that Qrow is never wounded) so Ren can mask everybody on the train. With no gunfire and no detectable emotions, the Grimm won't be able to track them. Ozpin requests control and explains the one surprise complication to this plan: the Grimm are tracking the Relic. "Oz, are you serious?" asks Qrow. I'm with Qrow on this one - that would have been a great thing to explain, like, two weeks ago.
New plan, courtesy of Ruby (who stops the recriminations on Ozpin before they start): they'll divide the train. Team JNR will stay on the front part with all the passengers and get them to Argus under masking; Team RWBY, presumably Qrow and Oscar, and the relic will stay on the back part and fend for themselves. I'm loathe to split the party, but last time went okay. On the other hand, it mainly went okay because they rejoined...
Preparation are made, the guns are shut down, and Blake decouples them (complete with flashback Adam). Has a single train been depicted reaching its destination in one piece in this entire show? ...I get it, it's called the Argus Limited because a limited amount will make it to Argus!
And here come the lyrics! Not subtitled, though. How come the sound effects get subtitles but the lyrics don't?
Team JNR mask the front part of the train. Oscar, at the head of the back part, is busy watching them pull ahead and nearly gets stomped by a Grimm.
Team RWBY have gotten pretty good at Grimm-fighting. At one point they use the about-to-disintegrate corpse of one Grimm as a missile to dissuade another one from cooking Oscar. Qrow is also here, and does tank a fireball.
Eventually they work out they need to ground the biggest (and last surviving) one. Just like old times. Yang and Blake get to opposite sides of it and pass Blake's weapon-ribbon around it in order to bind it to the carriage roof; it's now unable to avoid Weiss, on glyphs travelling alongside the train (...okay then), freezing its wings and shattering them off. It's not happy about that, but there's a limited amount it can do about Qrow and Ruby bisecting it at the waist. That's instant death for Grimm as much as it is for humans (and faunus).
But not instant! The disintegration travels outward from the death wound, and the head manages to spit one last fireball before vanishing. The fireball does not vanish - it arcs over the front of the train and destroys the rails about one second ahead of them. Weiss, doubtless thinking something along the lines of 'Not again...', doesn't even try slowdown glyphs, instead anchoring them all where they are so they get thrown around as little as possible in the imminent train crash.
Yep, that's a train crash. The glyphs failed at the last moment, but the results were survivable.
What! A passenger we saw a couple of times - elderly, very elaborate glasses - avoided the evacuation and somehow survived everything since then. Is that a skull shape on top of her walking stick.
While we're left to wonder what's going on there, title sequence! Still two-and-a-half minutes left in the episode... No lyric subtitles here either, did they hear me last Volume and give up? (Of course I look for the YouTube version moments before posting and it has subtitles. Make a foll of me, why don't you.)
- Dramatic transformation sequence of Crescent Rose. Now here's Ruby, wielding it. Now here's the rest of Team RWBY joining her on this featureless snow plane.
- Title card. Its background is either the new moon or a snowball. Now it's the shattered moon.
- A remarkable absence of percussion instruments as Team JNR, Oscar, and Qrow sit on benches at the train station.
- Ruby and Weiss are having a lot more conspicuous fun on a train than Blake and Yang are. Which is odd - you'd expect Ruby and Yang to be having the conspicuous fun. Oh I see, Blake and Yang are hallucinating Adam's reflection in the window. Camera pulls back (return of the percussion instruments) to reveal the train they trashed already this episode, not trashed yet.
- Ruby and Qrow are in the snowy forest around the crash site. So is our mystery elderly lady. Camera dramatically enters one of her eyes, then does the same to one of Ruby's. I'm sure that means something, but not enough information yet to know what.
- Qrow, still outside there, has a drink, then gets abducted by a forest of Grimm arms.
- The same fate comes for Ruby, underground somewhere. She fares better with the aid of Crescent Rose.
- Some absolute random walks down a crowded street somewhere, their face in shadow. Roman Torchwick's hat blows past them?
- Adam stands in the White Fang throne room, wordlessly insisting he's not owned! he's not owned!
- Tyrian and Watts now get screen time alongside Team MEH. Their image is in a crystal-ball Grimm, which Salem looks up from. She's mad about something.
- Blue mist transitions us to some woman standing in front of a statue. Almost five seconds (forever in the titles) of screen time on this one shot, so it must mean something... {{Yes. Yes it does.}}
- Multiple men stand in a white room. The camera glides past them to focus on the last: Professor Ozpin. So probably past reincarnations. Ozpin fades to Oscar, who looks unprepared. Now Jaune's here, but angry with Oscar. Uh oh.
- Qrow fights the Grimm we met on top of the train, on top of the train.
- The shadowed random fights with apparently nobody in a darkened room that looks like some kind of eatery.
- Team RWBY fight the Grimm on top of the train.
- Weiss helps Ruby stand in the snowy forest, with Blake, Yang, Team JNR, Oscar, Qrow, and mystery elderly lady all standing behind them. Cut to creator credit.
I swear the title sequence gets longer every Volume.
This song takes the prize from V4's for most abrupt ending. Overall lyrics assessment: Still overall hopeful. (I nearly didn't have amateur lyrical analysis for you because it's not subtitled and reading a lyric sheet just isn't quite the same.)
Almost as many voice credits as V05C10, owing mainly to the subordinates Adam soon killed. I swear the credits get longer (by playtime) every Volume too.
The Rooster Teeth post-credits outro has been retooled for their fifteenth anniversary; its RWBY scene is Ruby ordering Checkmate on Hazel (V05C14).
Next time: Two can keep a secret...