RWBY S6E4: “So That’s How It Is”

What the fuck is wrong with you people?


This is the episode directly after the historical special on Boston, Massachusetts that I reviewed just about a year ago. Which, in turn, was only two episodes after I gave up my initial watchthrough of RWBY a couple years before that. I didn't do reviews of any season 4 or 5 episodes, but I watched them just to see if there would be any signs of improvement before I gave up. So, I'm missing the first two episodes of season six. With that in mind, if I have trouble making sense of what I'm seeing and have no idea why anyone is doing anything, it's probably because it's RWBY.

Where I kinda sorta left off, the gang had liberated a sacred artifact from the vault that the villains were trying to steal it from. The guardian of said vault has proven herself...shall we say...unreliable, in an "I was psychopatch-ing before Yang even had a complete set of chromosomes" sort of way, so the good guys didn't have much choice but to take it. The artifact that they're now carrying had a genie in it, who narrated the backstory episode after they awakened her. That's pretty much all that I know about where we're jumping back in. So, let's jump back in.


Like I said in my last RWBY review, season 6's intro sequence is better than some, worse than others. Darker and moodier, both in palette and in subject matter, with fewer action sequences and more of characters staring hauntedly at statues and holding their heads in their hands. There is one very video-game-like (even by RWBY standards) fight scene on the top of a moving train that actually does look pretty smooth and well directed, at least in these short clips. Still not my cup of tea when it comes to fight scenes I enjoy watching, but if this was a game trailer I'd be pretty hyped to play through a battle like that one. Song is...just kinda okay. Not memorably good or bad, just decent for the sequence it's accompanying.

The episode proper begins with the members of Team RWBY and the others they have with them - I can't remember who all is in the gang now, and they're not all in-frame at once, but it's a pretty large group at this point - reacting to the news that Boston can't be killed.

As the end of the previous episode indicated, Boston's immortality is something they're taking to mean that their battle is hopeless. I don't ever recall killing her being the one and only victory condition, though. She's been active for all of their world's recorded history, and has definitely been defeated before. There's nothing to suggest she can't be imprisoned, or depowered, or the like, at least for a decently long time. So, while them not being able to create a reliable, permanent solution to this problem might be a pain in the ass, I don't think it warrants this kind of despondency.

Especially considering that these characters are ostensibly from a world where infinitely spawning monsters are always attacking just as a fact of life. You'd think they'd be better at us, rather than worse, at facing the prospect of a problem you can only ever keep under control without ever truly solving.

Yang's reaction is to turn to Oscar - the kid that Ozma/Ozpin is currently possessing - and yell at him, asking why the hell he'd keep this information from them this whole time. I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but Yang is 100% in the right here. Then, Ruby asks him what his plan to defeat Boston ever was to begin with, and he...after hesitating and looking shamefacedly away...says that he never had one.

...

Okaaaaaaay. Where to begin with this?

This...might...actually be a brilliant subversion. Maybe? Probably not. But it at least has the potential to be.

The framing of seasons 1-3 was that Ozpin Is Always Right, even when it doesn't seem like he could possibly be, even when all evidence pointed to the contrary. He was written as a particularly obnoxious take on the Sensei-sue archetype I've often complained about. Constantly condescending, always holding information over people's heads without good reason, other characters (and implicitly the show itself) always taking his side even when his positions were clearly insane, etc. Disobeying the all-knowing and all-benevolent Ozpin was treated as a moral failing for the characters that did it. The consequences of (mostly) Ozpin's fuckups were laid - both textually and metatextually - at the feet of Ironwood the dissenter at the end of season 3.

And now we're being told that he never had a plan. He just pretended he did, and made everyone go through with his baffling decisions for no good reason. Explicitly. Textually. Self-admittedly.

So, what does the show actually want me to think about Ozpin? And, more to the point, what did it want me to think about him during seasons 1-3?

Was I actually *right* that entire time? Was I getting the authors' intent? Was the only real flaw in how they wrote him during those seasons just a failure in subtlety? If so, then that legitimately makes the entire Beacon arc significantly better. It doesn't solve all the problems, or even most of them, and Ozpin's handling was still poorly done. But, it was poorly done for much different and more forgivable reasons than I thought at the time, and it actually had a positive message in it about the dangers of personality cults and blind faith in the perceived authorities. One of THE major things in early RWBY that struck me as actually disgusting rather than harmlessly stupid might have just evaporated.

Key words: might have.

First, just to get the salt and pettiness out of my system before trying any deep analysis: I recall being virtually bombarded by angry RWBY fans because of my assessment of Ozpin. It wasn't the thing I got the most hate about (hi there Yang it's nice to see you again), but it was definitely in the top five, maybe even the top three. If this was the direction the authors actually had in mind all along, then that means that I am unironically a better RWBY fan than all of the people screaming at me. I actually got the point, and they didn't. Amazing.

With that bit of shameless autostimulation out of the way now, let's look at Ozpin in light of this new information and try to make sense of him. If he didn't have a plan to defeat Boston, what WAS he actually doing this whole time? Why was he calling the shots, keeping vital information secret, and using extended chess metaphors if there was never actually a plan? The literary inspiration is pretty clear - the Great Oz is a humbug and so forth - but there were REASONS for Oscar Diggs from Nebraska to be in the Emerald City pretending to be a wizard. What are Ozpin's reasons in this story?

Well, it seems like he did have a plan. It just didn't innately have anything to do with Boston and her (presumably ever-changing cast of) mortal henchmen. He was entrusted with the four artifacts by Creator. He built vaults to secure them in, and placed (poorly vetted, but still, his intent was clear) guardians to watch over each of them as the heads of the Hunter academies. That much makes perfect sense. The secrecy is also understandable. You could argue about whether or not keeping the existence of the vaults, artifacts, and brother gods a secret from the public was the best strategy, but either way it's a strategy that I could understand someone settling on.

But...why did he keep Boston and her organization a secret from all but a select, poorly-vetted few?

Why did he take it upon himself to act the part of leader to those select few, when he didn't actually have anything he was trying to accomplish?

I could attribute this to him just being a control freak with a messiah complex, but that doesn't hold up either. With his power and immortality, he could just make himself king of somewhere with a bit of work. Hell, he's done exactly that at least once in the past. If hunger for power was his motive, you'd think he'd have gone for ruling openly as a god-king. So, that's probably not it.

Some sense of responsibility, perhaps? A mix of guilt for his unintentional role in sending Boston down the path to villainy making him feel like he needs to at least go through the motions of fighting her, and his pride not allowing him to admit he's not up to the task? I guess that makes more sense than anything else I can think of. It's possibly an even more unflattering read on him than the "just plain power-hungry" take, but it's psychologically realistic.

Except...

I don't think I actually was "getting it" when I called out Ozpin's bullshit in the early seasons. And I don't think his defenders were actually "missing it" either.

I don't think there actually is a psychological reason for Ozpin to have been pretending to know what he was doing all along.

I think he was written as an unironic Sensei-sue, until the creators decided not to write him like that anymore. Either because the Mystery Box caught up to them and they realized they couldn't come up with something to retroactively justify Ozpin's actions, or (more likely, with these writers) it never occurred to them that an explanation was needed. Either for the masterplan behind his actions in the first place, or for him to have been pretending to have a plan when he didn't.

I could be wrong. If Ozpin not really having a plan and leading everyone off a cliff because of this was the authors' intent all along, then his handling in these next few episodes should make that clear. If they changed their minds about Ozpin's competence sometime between the end of season 3 and now, and are retconning in a new characterization for him, that should also become obvious fairly quickly.

If they never intended anything at all, before or after the fall of Beacon, and are just slamming their heads on the keyboard, then these questions will be left completely unaddressed, and Ozpin will be simultaneously treated as a wise allknowing mentor and a contemptible snake on and off for the foreseeable future until the next giant retcon that changes everything yet again.

I'm placing my bet now. Feel free to make your own. We'll see how it turns out.

...

Qrow, ever the gentleman, kicks Oscar across the clearing they're in and slams him into a tree.

If that body were *just* Ozpin's at this point, I wouldn't blame Qrow. Innocent kid Oscar is still behind the wheel half the time and feeling everything it feels last I knew, though, so...well, it's not like this changes my opinion of Qrow from what they already were. Qrow is at least characterized consistently, which counts for something.

Qrow gives this big angsty speech about how Ozpin was the one who gave him a place in this world and made him think he might have the potential to do some good, but it turns out it was all a lie, and that meeting him was the worst piece of luck Qrow ever had. Right, it was revealed in season 4 that Qrow has some kind of extremely poorly defined bad luck curse.

...

It was also revealed in season 4 that Qrow and his sister Raven were initially sent to Beacon to infiltrate the Hunters and learn their tactics on behalf of their nomadic raider tribe, for the purpose of being able to kill them better. Ozpin, in his infinite wisdom, decided he could turn these infiltrators, and brought them into the deepest level of his organization, after which one of them did exactly what she was always supposed to do, went back to her raider tribe, and proceeded to murder Hunters left and right. Ozpin kept this under wraps, because of course he did. So, I guess by "giving him a place in the world" Qrow means "a place other than being the chieftain of a bandit tribe," which, okay, fair. Just, there's so little sense to be made of Ozpin's treatment of those siblings to begin with that I have to slow down and rewatch anything related to it a couple of times just to be sure I'm following.

...

Ozpin sullenly admits that Qrow is right, and then gives control of the body back to Oscar. Fuck, poor Oscar. And I thought Ling Yao had it bad. Weiss demands that Oscar give Ozpin control again because "we're not finished with him." Um, yeah, really persuasive line of argument there Weiss, I'm sure Oscar would just love for you to do that, especially with Qrow still standing right there. Oscar desperately tells them that he can't do that. Ozpin has retreated into the deepest recesses of his mind and completely walled himself off. Oscar can't even communicate with him himself anymore.

Oscar, seemingly about to cry, says that he hates this and just wants it to be over. I was joking from season 4 onward about Oscar being cursed to have the world's biggest douchebag living in his brain, but now that the show is actually acknowledging the truth of this it...becomes really sort of tragic.

Well, hopefully they can purge that shitstain from Oscar's cerebrum and put him in a more appropriate host body, like a tapeworm or something.

A little old lady with cybernetic eyes who I guess joined the party sometime in S6E1-2 then totters up to the others and tells them that they should start moving for shelter. It'll be night soon, and they're all just radiating negative emotion right now, which will make for a hazardous number of random encounters during their next long rest.

God...fucking...

...

I never had the chance to comment on this, but season 4 was positively FULL of people angsting and brooding about things while traveling through the wilderness. Not even trying to cheer themselves up with guessing games or drugs or whatever. Just...the sheer wasted potential of the worldbuilding! I know, I know, every other YouTube culture critic in the last half a decade has already talked about this at length, but this is one of those moments that really highlights the extent of the failure.

A world in which feeling anger, sadness, frustration, etc is actually dangerous unless you're in a secure, well-defended environment. That's such a fertile premise for a truly unique and fantastical world, if only RWBY gave even the smallest shit about its own lore instead of just whipping it out once or twice a season and otherwise completely ignoring it.

A world where people have to go out of their way to stay happy and placid whenever they're in the wilderness, unless they're going out with the specific intent to thin out the grimm population. Where the smaller and less defended a town is, the more seriously they have to take the business of maximizing everyone's happiness. Where children are taught tricks for keeping themselves happy regardless of their surroundings from an early age. Where governments have to take into account the possibility that social unrest and discontent will cause the functional equivalent of a natural disaster on top of the usual consequences.

I want to see a story set in that world. That world is fascinating.

OH FUCKING WELL.

...

Anyway, they pack up whatever camp they had set up and start moving, hoping to reach a town before nightfall. Sad violin music playing. I feel like the scene calls for a more cautiously optimistic tone, personally. On one hand, learning they can't kill Boston makes things more complicated, but on the other someone finally managed to get Ozpin to shut the fuck up for a while. Should balance out to a slight positive at the worst. Ruby hands Oscar Ozpin's trick weapon (at least, I think that's what that thing is), which just reminds him of the existential horror of his position. "I'm just going to be another one of his lives, aren't I?" Oscar asks her. Ruby starts to give him a cheerful platitude about how he's still his own person.

For now, I guess.

Maybe she's hopeful that they really will find a way of removing Ozpin/Ozma/whatever from his host without killing the latter? There was that soul-extractor machine that they were using on the Fall Maiden back in season 3, that I think the Atlasian military had developed. If they could get their hands on one of those maybe they actually would be able to save Oscar. It's a place to start, at least, assuming the writers remember that that thing exists.

Just then Qrow walks by and tells Ruby not to lie to him, because "we're better than that." Loud enough for both her and Oscar to hear him.

Okay. Like. Qrow is the drunk cynical asshole, sure, I get it. But he's also supposed to be an experienced huntsman. One of the best huntsmen, if I recall correctly. Going out of his way to make people feel worse when the fact that they can't afford to attract too many grimm right now has just been stated and accepted by pretty much everyone in the party is just...this is basic shit that he shouldn't even have to consciously think about! This should be not even second, but FIRST nature to him!

...

Amazingly, after all that I've seen of RWBY, it *still* seems entirely possible that the "grimm are attracted to negative emotions" thing is actually just an in-universe superstition with no truth behind it.

The big grimm attack on Vale in season 3 had enough other anomalies associated with it (for instance, them not attacking their White Fang handlers even as they physically unloaded them from shipping containers without them being restrained; not typical grimm behavior) that you could absolutely read it as being caused by Boston using her dark magic to control them using Cinder's actions as some sort of ritual catalyst.

That would be a better fit for what we've seen of the setting than the grimm actually being attracted to negative emotions.

...

Cut to an aircraft descending over a jagged stretch of Massachusetts badlands. A flock of grimmrocs take wing and obligingly clear out of the way as it passes close by over them.

Since the subject of grimm behavior just came up, I don't think it's yet been explained how much control over them Boston has, or how her control really works. They consistently become docile in her immediate presence, and there's at least one type, the Arbitrarily Deadly Jellyfish, that she seems able to control from across the world using its innate telecommunication power. Here, in the area around her fortress, they likewise seem to be behaving like normal, timid wild animals, at least toward her minions (which I presume that plane is full of).

If the "attracted to negative emotions" thing actually is bullshit, then the coordinated grimm attack on Vale had to have been her doing. Which indicates that she can actually control very large numbers of them from quite far away, at least when she has human minions onsite to set it up for her. If it IS supposed to actually just be negative emotions that brought them to Vale, then that means her control over them is much, much more limited, if she needed to rely on that.

What's going on in this plane scene is the grimm just failing to attack people when they normally would (as we're about to see, the people in that plane are not in a good mood, and should be pinging pretty hard on those grimmrocs' radar). Has Boston put some sort of "mark" on her minions that make the grimm not attack them? Or is it her personal proximity at work here, keeping grimm nonaggressive out to a range of a few kilometers? The protective mark theory would explain how the White Fang were able to not be attacked when they used grimm to attack Beacon, but then...did Torchwick do something to piss off Cinder and make her tell Boston to remove the protection on him, causing him to get eaten by that grimmfin?

We know that the general baseline behavior of the grimm hasn't been changed by Boston. They were wandering around attacking people before she was born (albeit without being much of a threat, due to how powerful the humans of that era were). They were wandering around attacking people while she was being a recluse off in the woods. They are still, for the most part, wandering around attacking people now.

Season six. Early season six. And I *still* don't understand the most basic things about what "the mistress of the grimm" can and can't do with grimm. All I know confidently that they calm down when she's in the room. THAT much is consistent. Beyond that, I have literally no idea how any of this works, what protections her human minions have and why, etc.

We've had the villain backstory episode (it was the ep right before this one!), and it didn't do anything to explain this. All it had to say on the subject was that she dived into Destroyer's puddle of black shit and came out grimm-colored. Nothing about what she can make them do, make them not do, etc. She didn't even interact with a single grimm onscreen after her transformation, in that episode, except to kill a couple of them through completely conventional attack spells alongside Ozma (ie, exactly how every other character in RWBY deals with grimm).

...

That whole multi-paragraph confused ramble was brought on by a brief shot of a plane flying over some bird monsters. And I believe it was warranted. Think about that.

RWBY's failures have accumulated and stacked up so high that just any random bit of scenery can call back a series of story-ruining contradictions running through multiple seasons.

This isn't just nitpicking either. "When will and won't the grimm attack" is hugely important for understanding the stakes and consequences of almost every action scene in the series. "What can the villain make the monsters do" is required knowledge for assessing the heroes' countermeasures and knowing when to cheer for them or grimace in dread, when to appreciate their cunning and when to despair at their lack of it.

As recently as a few months ago on Discord, I told people that I still believe RWBY could become a decent show if it got better writers. Now, looking back on this last tangent I was provoked to write just from seeing a plane fly over a wasteland, I'm realizing that I no longer think so. Every tool in RWBY's toolkit is broken three times over. All the pieces you could potentially try to pick up and build something functional out of are weighed down by a hopeless, seasons-long mass of baggage. You couldn't even start fixing one problem without tripping over three others.

...

The plane lands at Boston Logan International, and Mercury, Emerald, and Hazel get out. These three were part of the failed attempt at stealing the genie artifact from the vault at the end of season 5, and are now coming home empty handed and without Cinder, who is MIA after losing the battle.

Mercury and Emerald are characters I've talked about before, having been Cinder's flunkies from season 2 onward. Hazel, the beefy, dust-steroid abusing man on their left, is a season 4 addition to the rogue's gallery. His story is that he joined Boston's gang due to a grudge against Ozpin, making him the most relatable character in RWBY.

They walk toward the castle, and are met at the gates by another season four addition, Jared Leto Joker. He bids them a sarcastic, cackling welcome, asks what happened to Cinder, and then cackles even harder when they refuse to answer. It's his thing, see. When he starts sing-song musing about what might have happened to the mission's erstwhile leader, Emerald - who has a boundless love for Cinder because she fed her once - wheels on him and pulls out her weapons. She then looks afraid of him when he seems ready to fight back, and downright terrified when he starts leaning in and making weird faces at her.

This actually does make sense in-character for Emerald; impulsive angry outbursts and biting off more than she can chew are things she's done, and later regretted, in the past. And, as much as you can say that any RWBY character is consistently stronger than any other RWBY character, JLJ is framed as being one of the deadlier fighters among the cast. When he's fighting and not standing around cackling. I think he did that once in season 4.

Mercury and Hazel step in to break this up before it can get ugly, and JLJ quickly backs off. He then tells them that he is already in mourning for the rest of them, because it appears that they've failed their queen, and that truly is a tragedy. The music gets ominous as he cackles more maliciously than ever and the other three uncomfortably move on passed him.

...

What makes this scene hilarious is that JLJ himself failed in a rather important mission for Boston in season four. He failed to kill any of the targets he was supposed to take out, and returned to base beaten, humiliated, and missing a limb. To punish him for his failure, Boston...scolded him and had her tech guy get to work on a prosthetic for the limb he lost.

It's not that it isn't in character for JLJ to try to scare his coworkers with fanciful bullshit about what the boss might be about to do to them. It's just...the way the camera hangs on his cackling form as he crows about their coming penalty, the heavy, foreboding music, and the close-ups on the expressions of dread and trepidation on Emerald and Mercury's faces....it feels like the show means for this to really be a harbinger of doom scene, rather than a "oh look at JLJ being wacky yet again" scene.

...

Jump ahead a bit to Boston having called a meeting of everyone who she currently has on premises, where the returning agents are debriefed. She asks Hazel how it can be that they failed so spectacularly. Hazel starts to give a succinct tactical summary of how the good guys outmaneuvered them, but Boston angrily shuts him up half a sentence in. What is this, is a reddit Karen story? She then "rephrases" the question, and asks who is responsible for their defeat; she wants names.

Boston, that first question you asked was a good one, and the answer he was giving you sounded like useful intel. Kinda shooting yourself in the foot here bae.

Hazel hesitates for a moment, before shamefacedly looking down at the floor and saying that he takes full responsibility for this disaster. In response to this, she telekinetically flips the long council table over and summons a bunch of grimm tentacles to grab Hazel and drag him to the floor, and yells at him for lying to her.

How dare he pretend that he could have fucked up this badly!

As he struggles on the floor, Boston menacingly approaches Emerald, and asks her to answer honestly now; who's responsible for this fuckup? It visibly pains her to do so, but Emerald looks down and squeals Cinder's name.

Boston tells her that yes, that is the correct answer. And that she wants to make sure everyone else learns from Cinder's failure here. While Hazel continues struggling with the grimm-claws on the floor, for lying about it being his fault instead of Cinder's.

It's been a long time since I watched season 5, but from what I recall? Yeah, it was more or less Cinder's failure. And she was the one leading the mission anyway. So, Boston is apparently pretty scrupulous about making sure that credit and blame go where they belong. To the point where trying to fall on your sword on a teammate's behalf like Hazel tried to do pisses her off more than failing in the first place.

I mean...its an ethos I can sort of get behind, ish? Her way of putting it into practice is over the top, but the reasons behind it make sense to me, and this is actually pretty solid characterization. She's meticulous, forthright, has no patience for nonsense, and generally wants her organization working like a machine, and it frustrates her that other people don't think the same way. That's fairly nuanced for this kind of villain.

Boston explains that, for her failure, Cinder will have to "toil in her isolation" until she re-earns her place in the organization.

As in, Cinder's still alive.

Again.

After her SECOND time being hit by a superpowerful attack and knocked into a bottomless pit during a season finale.

Are we sure that Boston is the immortal one, here?

...

Then again, I've been told that Penny apparently gets brought back at some point, which means that the grand total of characters to have actually died so far are "Pyrrha and Torchwick." And frankly, I'm not convinced that neither of them are coming back either.

Who has time for stakes and consequences when there are fan favorites to keep milking forever?

...

Another of Boston's minions, Dr. Mustache (he's the guy in the background a couple screenshots ago), asks Boston how she could possibly know that Cinder is still alive. What, did she use magic or something? JLJ of all people has to point out to him that, um, their boss is a sorceress. Jared Leto has a better grip on reality than Dr. Mustache does, how embarrassing for the latter (though to be fair, JLJ seems to have been guided to that conclusion by obsessive faith in Boston rather than rational assessment of her abilities, but whatever he's using it's more reliable than Dr. Mustache's thought process).

Boston then delivers a nonsequitor about how, while they should never lose sight of what motivates them, they also need to remember never to put their own goals ahead of hers. If they do that, they will lose everything, neither they nor she will get what they're after. I don't recall impure motivations having anything to do with why Cinder failed, but there is something else to this, possibly. She's focusing mostly on Hazel (who is STILL being grappled against the floor by tentacles) as she says this.

...

In the battle end the end of season 5, there was a scene where Hazel realized that Oscar was Ozpin's new host and started monofocusing on trying to kill him. I don't remember if that actually led to him making any mistakes or leaving his companions high and try, but it might have. Like I said, it's been a while.

So, if that rage did cause Hazel to make a mistake back then, then this is actually not a nonsequitor. Boston is pointing out another failure, albeit a lesser one than Cinder's, which also explains why he's getting tentacle-grappled.

...

She finally lets Hazel up, and rights the table again. She tells her minions that while this was a major setback, there's nothing to do for it but keep pushing forward and learn from their mistakes as best they can.

Then she starts talking about their next objective, when Hazel *interrupts her* to say he has something else to report.

After she just tentacle-crushed him.

Well...he's got guts, I guess? Not much brain, but guts.

She stops and stares at him. He tells her he has more to report. In response to that, the tentacles start slooooowly rising toward him again.

So, wait. She's NOT tentagrabbing him again for interrupting her. She only started summoning the tentacles again a moment later, when he specified that he had something else to report. And then started raising them warningly.

Does she just...not...like...information?

Is this a warning that "whatever you say had better be truthful and important this time?" A bit odd, considering that she never even let him MAKE his initial mission report.

Boston seemed like she had some real sense to her characterization for a moment there, but now she's starting to slip back into the general cloud of RWBYness.

As the tentacles menace him, he reports that Qrow and the former Beacon students are headed toward Atlas with the genie-lamp in their possession. JLJ cackles about how he's sure he can ambush them along the road north and wipe them out, even though he tried and failed to do that exact thing back in season 4 and is still waiting on that prosthetic because of it. Ignoring the edgy twit, Hazel goes on to say that Ozpin is also accompanying the party in a new host body.

JLJ reacts in surprise and dismay, saying "What? So soon?" I guess it normally takes Ozpin a little longer to infect a new victim after his deaths. Also...

Wait. Hold on a second.

Hazel knows about Ozpin's resurrection thing.

He joined Boston's team to get revenge on Ozpin.

What is he actually hoping to get? Is he just planning to keep working for her for the rest of his life and hope she gives him the opportunity to kill Ozpin as many times as possible for that duration?

Is there a specific number of kills she promised to help him get?

How is their arrangement supposed to work, exactly?

...

Speaking of Boston and her minions helping each other achieve their goals, what was hers again?

We just had a backstory episode about her, but it never explained what she's trying to do.

First, she wanted to get Ozma/Ozpin back. Then, she wanted to die. Then, she wanted to do...um...eugenics? I think? Maybe? Something like that. And now she's trying to get the four artifacts that can summon the brother gods (who she hates) back.

Why does she want the artifacts? Has she gone back to wanting to die, and hoping that the gods will kill her along with everyone else if she brings them back? We were never told that. We never even had it implied. The last time she wanted to die, it was because she was alone in the world and also pining for her lover. Since then, she's stopped being alone, and she's killed him again herself repeatedly since their reunion, so her main two reasons for wanting to die are no longer in effect.

So, what is her goal? Still eugenics? How are the artifacts going to help with that?

...

Upon hearing that Ozpin is back again already, Boston starts smoking, and the windows of the evil meeting room begin to crack.

She tells them all to leave. JLJ protests, but she doesn't make an exception for him. Hazel tells the pair of young dipshits to obey Boston and gtfo now, and he and Dr. Mustache lead them hastily to the door, followed by JLJ. They close the door behind them and keep running, all looking panicked. A moment later, Boston screams and breaks all the windows.

Ozpin being back faster than usual really, really chaps her asshole, I guess? Given that she's been contending with him for millennia, I don't know why she'd consider this to be more than a fact of life. Unless it normally takes him, like, a decade or something.

Also, do you know what would be cool here? If her minions just left her lair right now and didn't come back.

Think about it. Mercury and Emerald are only in this because Cinder brought them into it, and they've only ever worked for Boston by proxy via Cinder until now, and she's gone. Hazel has just gotten confirmation that killing Ozpin doesn't do anything, and has had Boston get mad at him for trying. Dr. Mustache...well, I don't know why he's here, but seeing their "saviour" have this childish tantrum and display her effective powerlessness at achieving these goals might make him rethink things to. And like, as a group they can set JLJ on fire or whatever. It would make total sense for them all to just cut their losses and quit after this. Boston seems to be reliant ON THEM to reach out into the world, so if she lost all of them it's not clear if she'd have the means to make them regret it.

That would honestly be an interesting game changer. Maybe force her to go out and about and use her grimm-control powers some more? You know, like, actually define what they entail maybe? She's done nothing but sit on her throne and send minions out on missions for multiple seasons at this point, so seriously, why not force her to change that up already?

I doubt that's where this is going, but it would be a cool change of pace if it did.

Cut back to the snowy forest place, where the Fellowship of the Cringe are trying to find shelter before it gets dark and their angst brings a triple helping of random encounters down on them.

They trudge along complaining at each other for a while. Eventually, Ruby hears a rusty gate swinging in the wind. They follow the sound, and it leads them to a dilapidated abandoned village.

Ohhhh, I think I heard about this. There was a clip of Kerry Shawcress bragging, with this big shit-eating grin on his face, about how proud of themselves he and Miles Luna were for copying this from Firefly: Serenity. Like, he actually said that, in as many words, on camera. That he'd always wanted to do the plot from Serenity, and that he was proud of finally having done it.

Seriously. Look it up.

So yeah, this is probably that. Maybe not, but probably. I know it's supposed to be in this season somewhere.

Anyway, the gang decides that an abandoned town is still shelter and warmth, so that's one problem down even if it's not gonna do much to deter grimm. End episode.


My analysis of this episode is that it is RWBY. That's all. There were a couple of moments with Boston that seemed like they might suggest interesting characterization and more attentive writing than usual, but come on, how many times do you really expect me to fall for that?