Sun and Neptune walk along the street where they did a police brutality on Jaune a while back. (This time, the windows of the building alongside them are translucent; the Shopkeeper can be seen inside, sweeping, his other favourite activity.) It turns out this
is a callback, as Neptune declares that his "crime-sense" is going off. What horrors await us?
Sun and Neptune flail about trying to appease Neptune's crime-sense. They're absolutely right, but they're too engrossed to realise it: the reason the animators made the windows transparent is so that we can continue to see Torchwick and Neo after they slip into the building.
The dastardly duo continue to avoid noticing the ongoing robbery behind them. C'mon, Ruby had the excuse of wearing headphones.
The dastardly duo from the other side of the law freeze halfway out the door again as Neptune declares that he knows the crime. He walks over to the rubbish bin, shoves it over a little, and declares that it can't have been properly installed. Truth, but allows Torchwick and Neo to make good their escape. Was this Chibi's way of foreshadowing the main show's brutal-political-satire-in-advance?
{#12}
Pyrrha and Yang wander through the courtyard reminiscing about the dance from V2. Y'know, that event that only ever gets remembered for Cinder pwning multiple governments and Jaune changing into a dress, except nobody in-universe even knows about the former. Yang does also remember it for Team JNPR's dance routine from just after that.
Yang compliments Team JNPR on being able to spontaneously come up with that dance routine. Pyrrha sounds like she's lying terribly when she agrees with it, so cue the montage of them practicing. ...Called it.
The Team JNPR of the past does not have their act together at all. Pyrrha has not figured out how to do the start of the dance, Jaune has been flouting the dietary good-ideas necessary to fit into even the outfit he initially planned to wear (ASMR, not even once), Ren is uncompromising about any of this, and Nora has just been brought to tears and not in a good way (after an initial fake-out that it was going to be Jaune).
Cut back to Pyrrha, who is very, very slightly better at lying as she continues.
{#16}
In the kitchen, Ruby prepares to eat a cookie. Has Ruby actually ever managed to eat a cookie on this show? It went badly all three times I can remember...
(checks) There were attempts in episodes 1, 13, and 21, none of which succeeded. Neither does this one: Nora startles Ruby into discarding it.
On the bench between them is a bag of ‹REAL CHIBI BEANS›, complete with logo suggesting that it's coffee. Nora would like Ruby to give them to Nora. I'm not sure if the joke will be Nora attempting to conceal something else in her hands (currently obscured below the level of the bench) or the chibi characters having short arms.
As usual, I'm wrong. The joke is Ruby being just slightly too nice to not run through the entire process of making coffee as Nora talks her through it, rather than tell Nora to do it herself. I theorise that Ren has forbidden Nora from undertaking any step of this process and Nora is trying to squirm through a loophole. ...Someone better answer that Scroll, because
I called it.
Ren warns that Nora must not be given any more energy courtesy of caffeine. Ruby just tells Ren that "this one's on you". At his confusion, she elaborates that Nora just drank the whole pot.
Nora just shakes on the floor, accompanied by that rumbling sound. We now get the least comprehensible montage that RWBY has ever done: the camera continuously descends into Nora's right pupil to reveal a largely-identical recursive scene, except for the two people standing over her. Outermost in, stage right to stage left:
- Ruby and Ren.
- Ren and Ruby.
- Ren and Ruby, but having swapped outfits.
- Blake and Ren.
- Blake and Jaune. (By this point Ruby's somewhat melodramatic scream is fading out and Nora's giggling is fading in...)
- Neo and Roman.
- Neptune and Sun.
- Neptune and Sun again, but all (even Nora) wearing Junior Detective fake moustaches just like the Pancake Massacre Interrogation. (The giggling fades out and Ren being concerned is audible.)
- Shopkeeper and Ren.
- Ruby and Shopkeeper.
- Shopkeeper twice.
- Neptune and Jaune, both with clipboards.
- A cyan screen...
Cyan is Nora's eye colour. The more immediate concern is that, as I was told in general terms to keep an eye out for, here's the world's least-expected live-action scene: Nora is apparently so caffeinated that we now fade through white to I'm guessing her voice actor in a recording booth. Samantha Ireland continues reading Nora's remaining line, then a voice I don't recognise is audible cutting the scene as planned and Miles Luna (Jaune Arc) directs everyone to take a short break. Ireland drinks something out of a mug; I'm guessing it's coffee.
We now return (via Ireland's pupil) to our regularly scheduled programming. Nora wakes up from the floor and says
different lines, being weirded out by having "travelled through [...] parallel universes", which does match the visuals we got. Of course Ren and Ruby didn't have nearly enough caffeine to go on the trip with her, so they can't back up her story.
If you weren't 100% watching, like me, you might have missed that Ren responded to Nora in Ruby's voice, rather than Ruby responding. And here's Zwei to walk up, sit down, and ask "You doin' okay, Nora?" in the voice that Nora would recognise as Jaune's.
Nora gives up. There is such a thing as too much caffeine, and we have found it.
According to credits, the voice I didn't recognise is Kerry Shawcross (Neptune Vasilias). Makes sense.
I don't actually have a high opinion of laugh tracks. This stems mainly from Year 9 English class. Unlike most things in my life that stem from English class, there was no great trauma here; we just briefly compared a scene each from
Gilligan's Island (which did not have a laugh track) and
The Brady Bunch (which did). The consensus, at least that I remember noticing (it might have been all in my head), was that Gilligan's Island was secure enough in its writing to trust the audience to know what was meant to be funny.
I also recognise the pattern of this episode title as copied from long-running TV sitcom
Friends. Sitcoms are just not my favourite thing, mainly due to continually tripping my very low cringe threshold.
Between these two things, I'm not expecting to have a good time here. Let's find out.
Definitely parodying TV sitcoms of that era, judging by this opening narration. So not full-on canned laughter, but we do have a "live studio audience" providing prerecorded laughter. (This logic cannot work
prima facie in an animated show, so it's got to be parody.) In more visual observations, the amount of space in the middle of the Chibi dorm room is so colossal as to make a mockery of the original justification for constructing Team RWBY's bunk beds.
After giving the "audience" (c'mon, it's just as scripted and produced as anything else here) some time to settle down, Weiss finally clears her throat. The "audience" audibly anticipates. This is going to get so tiring.
Weiss keeps clearing her throat because Team RBY keep ignoring her. Eventually Ruby wilfully misinterprets it as a medical issue, cuing our first "audience" laughter. Weiss is basically parodying herself for this one, what with the amount of offense she's taking to Team RBY even silently existing across the room.
Characters playing their own parodies continues as Yang is revealed to be using binoculars to see into the male changing room showers all the way over there. That, or baiting Weiss into revealing that she'd shamelessly join in. Or maybe both. Sadly for Yang, there's only one set of binoculars, which Weiss is now monopolising.
As I was expecting, the first victim of binocular-vision is Professor Port. This is played for laughs, because exactly what else was this skit going to ever do?
Weiss goes right ahead and tempts fate, right there on the rug. Cue Jaune. Naturally, the "audience" cheers. ...Yep, here we go again. At least there's commentary by Ruby.
After striking out messily (as usual), Jaune sees Yang risking the binoculars again. Unwilling to violate the Sleepover Code, Yang just passes it off as "a long story".
Good chance we will now get a pretend ad break. Let's all brace ourselves.
Yep! First off, what's poor Pyrrha selling here? Why did I even ask, it's that cereal. ...Yep. Pyrrha has to pretend to enjoy it. She and I are both dying inside.
Next, Torchwick? What? And Neo. Ah, we're leaning all the way into the ice cream jokes. Totally not poison. /s. I'd have more trust in the cereal not being poison, because I saw someone eat it. Not saying that eating the cereal is a good idea, I'm just saying they didn't even open that ice cream carton...
Sitcom returns. The camera pans rapidly from Team CEMN (and Zwei) on the couches in the common room, manifesting about their usual personalities, to Team RWBY standing in the kitchen. Yang declares the dance, which must have happened during the ad break, to have been a success, and the "audience" (not Team CEMN, probably) finds it unreasonably funny when Yang protests that Ruby stole her line ("Nailed it!").
More "audience" cheering as Sun approaches Blake. I guess the "audience" are straight-shippers or something. Sun poses for them (or maybe Team CEMN, it's not clear) before trying a dumb line on Blake. Stop making it weird, "audience". Blake calls it "the cheesiest thing I've ever heard", which by the laws of comedy guarantees it's just worked. Yep, I'm on a roll today. Stop making it weird, "audience".
Neptune abruptly interposes himself. For comedy purposes, he has completely misunderstood Sun. Sun is dragged off by Neptune, to Blake's disappointment.
Apparently Team JNPR was meant to turn up here. It emerges that Weiss thinks that telling Nora to "bring cake" will accomplish anything useful. Weiss has committed one of the classic blunders.
Hmm, not how I thought. Not sure where Sun got to, but Neptune is at the doorway not yet seen this scene, marvelling at how it is completely blocked by pancakes. He pokes it. Cut away as it all falls on him. Team JPR are visible elsewhere in the pileup; Nora has inexplicably (the explanation is "Nora") climbed over the pile into the kitchen, crowing about having fit through the loophole Weiss left in her request.
Ren asks about using Crescent Rose to help clear the pile of pancakes. I feel he's being a bit cavalier about Team JPR+N's safety, and I also feel that that line felt a bit shoehorned. Sure enough, Ruby's response ends in an even-more-shoehorned "It's also a gun.".
Ruby segues into closing the 'recording'. Oh look, it's the "audience", I really should have expected them. I
really should have expected them to all be shadow people.
Cut back to all the non-shadow characters gathering in the common room. Oh hey, the score is a rearrangement of
We're All Chibi. I guess there's worse ways to end Chibi Season 1.
I remain indescribably disappointed at not being able to hear best credits music over the ad speech.
Reuploaded:
)
