#it felt very shoehorned to me unfortunately. when a) they had already built a solid and compelling potential relationship for shiro

[littlemisssquiggles]

So, Squiggles :) What do you think of the newest episode?

Hey Mizu. I’m not sure if you’re asking me for an overall review of theepisode or one that’s more in depth which potentially goes into more spoiler territory. Just to be safe, I’m going to do it both ways. I’ll give my generalspoiler-free thoughts on the episode before I go into the specifics of somethings I liked and didn’t like about the episode. But undercut for obvious spoilers.Cool?

Overall, chapter 3 was another solid episode. Similar to how V6 started off, CRWBY Writers really aren’t giving any room for downtime with these episodes as we’re immediately chucked into the meat of the episode— the mission with the Aces. I figured we would have at least gotten to seeing our heroes settling into Atlas and adjusting to their new surroundings before the big mission but…NOPE! Mission time! So I’ll at least give you that bit about the episode since it was highlighted in the synopsis for this episode.

Overall, I enjoyed CH3. It was cool and it showed everyone in action. However there were some specific things that stood out to me that I wanted to give my opinion undercut.

[Spoilers Ahead! Nuff Said!]

Rosebuds: 

First off, the brief conversation between Ruby and Oscar. With theway how the episode chucked us straight into the mission, ya girl was worriedthat Oscar wasn’t even going to be in this episode since his absence from themission has been highlighted since as early as the V7 Trailer. But thankfully,the little barn prince shared one scene with Ruby.

Turns out we were all right about Oscar confronting Ruby about her stunt in Ironwood’s office. It was a little shorter than I expected but… then again, it wasn’t the key focus of the episode so I gave it a pass.Still it is noteworthy that Ruby entrusted the Relic of Knowledge back to Oscar. This is interesting to me since it brings to light a point of concern I made in my very last theory post from this week. With Oscar now having the Relic back in his possession, I wonder if history will repeat itself with the roles reversed. 

Could this moment from the episode be a possible foreshadow to Oscar using the Relic to out Ruby in a similar fashion to how she used the Relic on Oz last season?

Could Oscar simply just threaten Ruby with the Relic leading to the two having a big fight or…could Oscar potentially end up using Jinn to show Ironwood the truth behind Ruby’s back? 

All of these are possibilities now to add to the table of events brought to you by this small exchange. It’s quite fascinating really. I don’t want Oscar to come tothis point. But for now, it’s definitely a probability with the Relic in his hands.

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Aces: 

The Ace Ops were all very, very cool in this episode. I loved their comradery with each other. I especially wanted to point out Vine and Elm’s dynamic. While I’m still unsure if they’re a legit couple, I did like how the chapter paired them off to work with JNR while Bunny Bites—Harriet and Marrow—worked with RWBY. 

Clover was also placed to work with Qrow and might I say this—I’m strangely fighting the urge to ship Qrow and Clover now. 

There is a moment in this episode where Qrow explains his semblance to Clover only for Clover to confirm what us RWBY theorists predicted. His semblance is good fortune which is excellent. 

Clover complements Qrow in a good way. Not to mention that look Qrow gives Clover after he told him his semblance while the camera literally lingers on him for a couple of frames made me wonder.

I couldn’t help but feel as it this moment sparked Qrow potentially being infatuated with Clover or…it could just simply be a respectable man-crush. Y’know a bromance. Nothing really gay about. Not that there’s anything wrong with Qrow being gay (technically bisexual). For all we know, Qrow just loves Clover…in the very heterosexual way. If you caught the reference then y’know what I’m talking about.

Anyways as I was saying about Elm and Vine, this episode definitely highlighted their strong teamwork. These two complement each other so well and the way they bounce off of one another really shines in their pair dynamic. Love it and love these two. This is, however, the least I can say for our favourite little Flower Power pair. This unfortunately which brings to light one of the things I didn’t like so much about the episode.

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Wilted Flower Power: 

Ren’s sudden change in attitude with Nora—what the f***?  I mean he isn’tbeing cold or rude to her. He just feels oddly closed off from her this episodewhich leaves me, as the viewer, asking the obvious question: Where is this coming from?

Sure we caught a glimpse of it in the first episode when Ren suddenly took off in battle while Nora sulked in the background. And while I was correct in this development in their rapport returning in a later episode; regardless, where isRen’s sudden mood change with Nora coming from?

It’s not to say that it’s been built up since V6? I mean I got the feeling that the Writers might introduce some tension between Ren and Nora given that we’re supposed to be learning more about her. But this still doesn’t give any rationale to this behaviour. If the Writers plan to have Ren and Nora break up temporarily due to Ren acting differently with Nora only to have them learn a lesson through observing Elm and Vine and come back stronger than ever as both a couple and a team partnership then…. that’s fine. Ijust wished they had done a better job at introducing this ‘issue’ inthe Flower Power teamwork if you know what I mean. Cause it feels very out of the blue; at least in my opinion.

I just didn’t enjoy seeing Nora being her usual self with Ren only for him to reply in a way that feels so uncharacteristic for him. Yes, Ren has shown exasperation at times with Nora but it’s never been to a level where he comes off annoyed with her. In spite of Nora’s big animated personality, that might tire some people, Ren has always been very patient with Nora often finding her behaviour amusing which was a big reason why I fell in love with shipping Renora. 

In spite of their different personalities, the two have always complimented each other and worked well together. Having Ren be like this with her…I’m sorry. If this is how the Writers are going to do things with Renora then I’m already disliking the execution of it. It’s not terrible. Just seems a little forced to me.

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Dem Bees: 

Another thing that occurred for this episode that I sadly did not care for was the moment between Yang and Blake in this episode where Yang complimented Blake’s new hairstyle.

Some context for the scene: Blake notices Yang staring at her from afar. Yang reacts awkwardly and says, “Sorry. Not used to the new hair yet.”

Blake then asks, while blushing, “Is it bad?” only for Yang to respond many times “No” while fumbling over her words.

This moment. Y’see this moment right here, folks. Do you know what this immediately reminded me of?

It’s like the Legend of Korra Book 4, after Korra reunited with Mako and Asami. In that series, Asami and Korra shared a moment where Asami noticed that Korra had cut her hair and our Avatar blushed at this acknowledgement.

It is literally the same energy. While admittedly an adorable exchange, as I said, I didn’t care for it. As a matter of fact, this moment confirmed my biggest concern for the development of the Bumblebee pair going forward. I was hoping the Writers would’ve taken the time to show these two’s friendship growing a bit more before introducing the potential of romance. Some fans complained about the blatant pandering in favour of actually showing Yang and Blake bettering their friendship last season and it seems like the Writers are adamant on continuing this trend.

Who would’ve expected the CRWBY Writers to take a page from Bryke—the two creative minds who practically created the first most shoehorned LGBT couple I’ve ever seen in an animated series while having the chops to puppet it around as ‘good representation’. While Bryke was praised for what they did with Korrasami since Korrasami was said to be the first LGBT couple in an animated series targeted at children, I didn’t buy into it and didn’t think Bryke deserved their praise at all since Korrasami, in my opinion, was weakly written from the start.  

As you can probably tell, this squiggle meister didn’t buy into the Korrasami romance. Not because it was LBGT (as I’ve said before—I have no issue with that at all) but purely because the showrunners didn’t develop the relationship between these two lead girls in a way that felt natural. 

Rather than watching a beautiful friendship that grew into a sweet romance over the course of the series runtime, culminating in the birth of a great couple by the show’s finale, instead I watched two characters who were barely friends for two full seasons since they were involved in a ridiculous love triangle only to suddenly become quick besties in the third season. Fast  forward 5 years for the show’s final season and now these two girls are in love with each other with their love not being apparent until the final shot of the very last episode. Good shit, right?

Korrasami felt so forced to me in the end which was made even more apparent by the finale. It seems like Bumblebee will be heading in the same direction as Korrasami. 

I’m probably digging my own grave here by even talking about the Bees since it’s practically blasphemy now given all the discourse still surrounding this pair and I can only imagine how it is now after today’s episode. But still wanted to give my views on that moment given what it reminded me of.

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 Marrow’s Semblance: 

Getting back on track with things I liked from this episode—Marrow’s semblance man. As I said on Twitter, I really loved the take on Marrow’s unique skill. It’s perfect. He’s a wolf Faunus with a semblance that causes others to listen to his every command. A trained dog treating his opponents to be subservient to him. That is freaking neat as hell. Forget all the other Ace Ops, Marrow’s semblance is the most interesting to me.

What I’m curious about is what the extent of Marrow’s powers are? Does it only work on the Creatures of Grimm since they’re technically mindless monsters acting mostly on instinct or…can it work on people too?

Can Marrow use his semblance to get make another person obey his command? That’s what I want to know. I’m guessing that there is a limit to Marrow’s powers since, we see him using his semblance on the Sentinels earlier in the episode who were probably young Grimm given how easily the group took them down.

However I’m surprised Marrow didn’t use his power on the Geist Grimm. Clover did mention that the Geist they were targeting was an older Grimm. So I figured Marrow’s power wouldn’t work on it even if he tried.

Either way, this episode just made Marrow ten times cooler to me now. The Good Boy continues to impress and he’s definitely the one that stood out to me the most from the Aces.

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No Run Forrest, Run: 

Whelp, if you saw the episode, y’know what this point means. Forrest, the dreadlocked Robyn supporter we met last episode died by the end of this episode. He was killed off by Tyrian so…RIP Forrest. 

I feel so sorry for MurderofBirds since in his last Livestream Discussion on YouTube, he said he was hoping to see more of Forrest.

But in spite of his short time in the story, Forrest’s murder did help me to realize something about Tyrian’s tactics. Since last episode, it was shown by the end that Tyrian has been killing certain people in Mantle. However I couldn’t quite put my finger on a possible pattern in Tyrian’s targets. Now I think I have an idea. I think Tyrian might be targeting Robyn Hill supporters specifically.

On orders from Watts, I think the Scorpion Fauns might be singling out those folks from Mantle who were known to be heavily involved in rallying support for Robyn as another means of turning votes away fromher. 

After all, if the supporters of Robyn are suddenly being found murdered thenit could force the People of Mantle from rallying behind Robyn and tank her chances of winning against Jacques. 

Now this is just a theory for now. Either way, it’s very, very interesting how the audience receives more and more pieces to the plot with Watts and Tyrian as the episodes go back and it’s only been three chapters.

Very interesting indeed and I’m looking forward to seeing what the next episode drops.

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And yeah, those my thoughts on the episode. I hope I answered you well enough Mizu. Thank you for your question.

And as an added point, I pray that my honest thoughts on the Bumblebee scene from this episode didn’t upset or worst offend anyone. My opinion is NOT meant to insult the RWBY ship or anyone who likes it. It’s just my opinion. 

If you love the Bees and you were absolutely over the moon with that little scene from this episode, then that’s perfectly fine, fam. Just don’t mind me with where I stand on this pairing  and how the show continues to portray the development of their ‘potential romance’.

And please refrain from leaving any disrespectful comments in my post just for sharing my opinion. As I’ll say again, I mean no disrespect and will not tolerate any thrown at me.  With that said, that’s all folks! 

~LittleMissSquiggles (2019)