Happy Pumpkin Month errybody. And RWBY Day too, sure. To celebrate I’m going to offer y'all this everytime unlimited offer of RWBY Recap for just $49.99! Or free, whichever works. This lovely product not only comes with a free set of steak knives, but features Ruby running circles around her interrogators, Weiss showing off her linguistic abilities, and Ozpin hedging his bets on the end of days. And CFVY! Hallelujah it’s raining CFVY. I hope it’s not fresh ‘cause that might hurt… Anyways. Last week’s showcase - that one came with the free juicer - can be found here, and the rest of our stock at the Recap Masterpost. After you’re done waiting four to six weeks, click the Read More below to get to enjoying your product.

Eight episodes down and out, four undefeated heavyweight champs remain. Any Red Vs Blue fans among y'all? Dat finale, amirite. So cool. Howsabout that X-Ray and Vav teaser, too? Do Jaune and Mercury know?! Can’t wait. Probably going to start airing after the RWBY V2 finale, and there’s three episodes before that, so bit of a ride left on our RWBY hype train before we switch tracks. All the more to recap! Good ol’ recap. Thanks again to all those sticking with me. Best of luck with this one, 'cause the caps get wordy. Aces.

PREVIOUSLY ON RWBY :: Hours into the dance, our favourite blonde disaster learns from Ruby that Weiss came alone, and he sets his murder-happy sights on Neptune. Pyrrha being sadface distracts him, and they have their twelfth chat outside at night at a place of vertically gifted architecture. P-Money reveals that she came alone, because being the popular girl isn’t always like being in the jungle what with all the fun and games, and she leaves Jaune with the knowledge that she wished she was at the dance with him. Neptune shows up and Jaune grills him over standing up Weiss Motherflipping Schnee, and Neptune drops his own honesty bomb: he can’t dance, and didn’t want to risk not looking cool by revealing this fact. Jaune sets him straight and sends him packing, and then lives up to his promise two episode earlier: wearing a dress should Pyrrha show up alone. Yes, it really happens. Team JNPR dance number ensues. Yes, it also really happens. While everyone’s distracted, Mercury and Emerald give Cinder the go-ahead to go beat up somedat guards and hack somedat computers. Ruby, having spotted both Cinder and then the unconscious guards, shows up and gets in a little tussle with Cindy Cind. She escapes when Ironwood arrives for reasons unknown but possibly related to protecting whatever asset Cinder just accessed. And as the clock strikes midnight, Cinder’s little virus or whatever in place… Dun dun dun.

And now, on RWBY, we start on Ozpin regretting his life choices.

On either side, James Oaksteel and Glynda Badwizard are arguing about Cinder’s sneaky sneaky sneak spyness. James is rather put out by the whole thing, understandably.

Very understandably. His ranting and raving - not that kind, it’s not Saturday - is cut short by a new arrival.

Miss Rose here shows up late on account of pushing all the buttons on the elevator - my favourite pasttime - and tries to start off with a bit of levity regarding her bad guy catching record.

Spoiler: if that big word scared you they’ve already won. Dust bless Ruby for trying, though. Ironwoody approaches and throws off everyone who predicted he’d blame her for the incident.

Probably for the best he didn’t. Would’ve made things awkward when Penny brought home her best friend. Hmm, I do wonder if Ironwood does know about Ruby via Penny at all… It’s a rather sweet moment for the general, either way. And segues to Ozpin and Glynda beginning their interrogation.

Ruby didn’t recognise the assailant and never heard her talk neither.

Someone’s ears must be burning…

Ruby has made note on how Cinder fought: she used glass - good ol’ Cinderella references - weapons and stuff. The use of fire-y stuff reminds Glynda of her dustup with a certain mysterious woman way back in the first episode. Man I bet if Cinder goes to any classes taught by Glynda she’d be laughing inside forever.

When Ruby puts together that they’re thinking the masked woman is linked to the White Fangstle and Kentucky Fried Torchwicken, she decides to sneakily give them some intel.

This is a pretty awesome move on Ruby’s part. It’s kinda like Peter Parker providing pictures of Spiderman. Takin’ advantage of the superhero side business and all. Ruby is able to claim that Cinder dropped the location of a White Fang hideout, but we know it’s the one Blake and Sun infiltrated. Hilariously, Glynda picks up on Ruby contradicting herself, but Ozpin allows it.

Ozpin thanks Ruby one last time and tells her to be discrete.

Solid talk.

Of course he’s probably thinking on Dumbledore-y wavelengths at that moment, 'cause he’ll figure Ruby’ll tell her team everything just as Harry would tell Ron and Hermione. Smash cut to the RWBY dorm where WBY awaiteth.

We skip that offscreen explanation and head back to our favourite power trio of authority and sexual tension. Ironwood details his plans to send troops to the southeast hideout and kill everything in his way. Glynda argues against it.

And hehe she almost says dicks. Somebody please think of the children.

Ozpin intervenes on account of not wanting to roll with Ironwood’s solution. Cinder’s plan is like an onion in that it has layers upon layers and may end up with us crying. The plans may spread further than Vale, and so going full military-y could start a panic. Or even be what Cinder’s expecting. Bit of chaos from Ironwood plus a bit of chaos from her equals hilarious times for all. Ozpin wants to wait and see what her next move’ll be.

Yeah the others aren’t havin’ it. In fairness, waiting and seeing doesn’t always seem like the best idea. Like hey I’m standing in the middle of a road and there’s a truck coming for me. Do I move? Pfft. I'mma wait and see. And get hit by it probably.

It’s highly probable Oz’s got a bigger plan going on, but if someone in my recap’s universe is going to be the one to support the darker side of fandom’s thinking, it’s going to be him. For this chapter’s recap only probably 'cause I can’t hold a joke too long unless it involves ringing a bell.

Still hilarious. Actually Ozzy Ozpourne makes a cryptic statement about sending in either flag bearers or scouts to battle first. Speaking of one of those things, let’s go back to Team RWBY.

The moment is lightened by Yang revealing she’s got mail from her and Ruby’s father. Now we sit at the edge of our seats in anticipation: what is in the mail tube? Schematics for weapon upgrades? Helpful intelligence on the location of Yang’s mother? Cookie recipes?! Wait for itttttttttt…

A dog comes out of the tube. Somewhere Ozpin is getting a bad feeling.

His name is Zwei. He’s pretty adorable. Corgi or something. Iunno, I’m not a dog person. Given all the various pics of Monty snuggling with corgis, we should’ve seen it coming. Bit of a random addition at first blush. No doubt has a part in this mini arc, or may even become the permanent group pet. But I can totally see his existence basically boiling down to Monty or someone saying dogs are cool and others going, “Why not?”. Still adorable, so screw it. Team pets can turn out useful sometimes, look at Dresden Files’s Mouse! And Ein from Cowboy Bebop of course, who may’ve served as the name inspiration as Ein is German for “one” and Zwei, who looks same-y enough to Ein breed-wise, is the German word for “two”. Good times. Zwei is voiced by someone making barking noises. Maybe even an actual dog. It’s a mystery!

It’s the same time for everyone in the fandom too. C'mon guys it’s just an anime-y pet. No reason to freak out; I mean we’ve had Jaune for a while and he’s basically like one, haven’t we? Yeah he’s not as potty trained as Zwei is, but still.

Yep, roll like someone in the deep. Yang says her father does stuff like this all the time. Quirky of him. Losing two loves like he did could’ve made him go to dark and depressing places, but I’m happy he’s decided to be the weird whacky dad instead. I bet he tells all sorts of dad jokes.

Weiss isn’t convinced of the dog’s existence in canon having any point, and perhaps more realistically just doesn’t want to deal with a pet dog in their cramped dorm. Unless Zwei has a semblance - some are speculating he has one 'cause it’d make a funny reveal and he does have a soul probably - involving vanishing his own droppings, it’d be messy.

Stare off ensues.

But Zwei’s a convincing little guy. It doesn’t take long for Weiss’s heart to melt quicker than butter - or ice, I don’t know why my mind went for butter - and she wants him to stay forever.

Blake, who’s becoming quite the butt kitty of this season, doesn’t want Zwei near her or her stuff. As an announcement comes over the intercom for first year students to assemble, logistics set in. They can’t leave Zwei alone in the dorm for a week. Yang upends the rest of her tube of its canned food and an opener, while Zwei torments our poor sad kitkat.

Not that Weiss actually said that, but it’s an idea we’ve latched onto. Poor Weiss with her hilariously lonely childhood. I bet even her imaginary friends abandoned her.

Oh, and we also we learn Papa Xiao Long’s name is Taiyang. Overall his name translates to “Supreme Sun Little-Dragon”. Aww and he essentially named his first daughter Junior. His little sunshine. The reason he sent Zwei to his daughters was because he’s leaving his island for a few days. Given that later we learn that the first years on their first mission are shadowing a professional Huntsman, I would laugh if it turned out JNPR got to hang out with Taiyang. Imagine all the stories he’d tell 'em… Blackmail material! But for now the gang heads off for assembly, and Ruby is left with Zwei to ponder over abandoning him for a week so soon after seeing him again…

Cue the sneaky smile. She’s just making like sneaky all over the place.

Yeah, we cut to the amphitheatre and Ruby’s got a big bag. Gee, I have to wonder if Zwei will end up being a complication in the mission mini-arc. My predictions will cover a bit more, but yeah.

Ruby joins everyone else as the speechifying starts up.

Lovely to see our main eight gravitating to each other like a swarm of locusts. Also I wanna note that this is the first episode Sun and Neptune don’t appear in this season. In fact, Sun’s appeared in every episode since his first appearance back in V1. Weird to think, huh. Must have a hell of an agent to get that contract locked in. Ozpin’s cane could learn a thing or two, haven’t seen 'im for a couple of episodes.

Ozpin thanks everyone for coming, school by school. First off, Mistral:

Then Atlas, Shrugged:

Then Vacuo aka Casual Fridays: The School:

The views of Ozpin are not shared by this recapper. Hufflepuff foreva. Pottermore put me in that house and dammit I’m proud to be there. Go badgers. And finally, the home team.

This unity of four kingdoms comes at an anniversary of the great war. Aka the one Jaune’s great grandfather fought in? Seems like. Different from the Faunus liberation stuff? Probably. But it was nearly eighty years back. It involved the oppression of individualism, by destroying ideas of self-expression. My guess is that it was a product of humanity being safe within their kingdoms for too long. Cabin fever, basically. Not every person had to fight for their lives against the Grimm anymore and had to keep themselves occupied somehow. And someone decided to control people from expressing too much, possibly using fear of the Grimm striking back as a motivator to get others to fight for them. And it could’ve even been that the artists and the expressionist types were rallying with the Faunus against oppression, too. Upsetting a status quo that people had fought for generations to achieve and rich old folk in power wanted to keep even if it was morally icky. Man, it would’ve been messy.

I gotta be honest: I didn’t actually expect an in-universe reason for the character naming colour rule. Every character has to have an association with a colour in their name was what Monty, Miles and Kerry are trying to follow. As a fan I just chalked it up as a cool random thing to make the show’s world feel specific and unique, and it worked, so I had no complaints. But that this war led to people naming their children colour-y names? That’s a pretty goddamn neat explanation. But here’s the real kicker: if you read that document I just linked, notice that Monty specifically points out that Ozpin does not follow this rule.

Word of God’s told us here and there that Ozpin is old. Very old, I’m getting. Older than Glynda and Torchwick et cetera. So why not older than literally everyone? Because this war reveal makes for some good possible explanations as to why Ozpin breaks the colour rule. Like he could’ve even fought in the war. Could explain some things about him, like his patience and his worldliness. At that age he’d be pretty knowledgeable. Very Dumbledore-y. And hell, when he said last year that he’s made more mistakes than any man, woman or child, it could be because he’s had like an extra hundred years on any man, woman or child. The other theory is that he breaks the colour rule for reasons such as Ozpin not being his actual name and he chose it to remind himself of what the world could be without his Hunters fighting for humanity’s right for individuality, or his parents could’ve been involved with the oppressors and thus his family were like pariahs and so he had to work hard to overcome that by becoming a perfect defender of humanity…

Ozpin’s speech moves on to being about Huntsmen and Huntresses. Peacekeepers and stuff, the usual.

The mission the first years will be going on has them shadowing an older Hunter. Solid plan.

And so the speech ends. I’d rate it as my second-favourite Ozpin speech, right behind his at Blake earlier this season. This time six seasons from now we’ll have like fifty speeches to rank won’t we.

Team RWBY makes plans to basically get a mission in the southeast and ditch their escort immediately.

They make their way over to the holographic mission boards. There’s missions and stuff on them, go figure.

We get an idea on what kind of work Hunters do, which I love. It’s very RPG sidequest kinda junk. Kill some Grimm in this area! Rescue a kitten from a tree! Collect twelve Ursa pelts! One day the show’s going to be basically a whole season of various mission hijinks, isn’t it. Can’t wait. For now we see the gang try and fail to get assigned to a Grimm hunt by the southeast.

First years are unable to take it, so why put it there in the hall with all the first years going to select their missions? Ozpin you troll lord.

And you gotta love Ruby’s first idea is to mail themselves there. Runs in the family, eh.

Ozpin shows up to explain that the Grimm concentration is too dense for first years. Then he makes a sly dig about how Team RWBY are no doubt headed in that direction anyway.

Sick burn.

And I bet Ruby told her team that she planted that southeast seed like such a boss, too. Way to undermine her authority, Oz.

Ozzy goes on to talk about previous Team RWBY adventures. Last year’s finale, the White Fang hideout, and the giant robot fight - why he said it happened in a dance club instead of under a highway or even just near a dance club we’ll never know.

Beacon’s esteemed headmaster then decides screw it. Let it happen. Bend the rules, hack the computer, let the team go on the mission. And also someone’s ears are burning again.

While Ruby assures that she won’t let him down, Trollzpin makes a little point about how it’s hard mode outside the kingdoms. Nah, not worried. Maybe like one extra minute worth of fight scene to kill the Grimm Of The Day, so in fact it’s a bonus! A lot of folk have been wondering why Ozpin would seriously allow this to happen, but hey, maybe he’s hedging his bets.

Or maybe his semblance is the allowance of plot to progress. If we can roll with Zwei, we can roll with this..

I like to think Oz’s now going off to prepare JNPR as a backup main hero team, just in case. Gotta be smart.

Back outside, the team is heading to meet their Huntsman.

A commotion kicks in and a student pushes through them, because… because… did he just say-?!

He said CFVY! Hallelujah!

Team CFVY. Hilarious-ist way to make a Team Coffee name ever, but it works. They are Coco, Fox, Velvet and Yatsuhashi, and were first glimpsed in the V2 opening. They’ve been teased to high hell because of them being Velvet’s team, and we’ve only known their names thanks to tweets along the way. They look so cool, man. We all want more of these kids. I mean c'mon look at Coco and her beret and her ammo handbag. And a little theme for their names is that they all represent sweets: Coco as in, y'know coco (Mmm Coco Pops), Fox as in Fox Hunter pie, Velvet as in red velvet, and Yatsuhashi as in a Japanese confectionary of the same name. And now that we know they’re upperclassmen? Spinoff potential. And Fox has a little mouth scar, ooh. Moaaaaarrrrrr.

Their return brings a crowd, a little because they’re a week late and mostly because they’re amazing even if we barely know 'em. Blake goes to chat with the member of the team we’ve met before, a fellow Faunus of whom now we all imagine having little book club meetings with Blake or something.

Velvet Scarlatina. Little rabbity princess lookit her. Originally a bit-part player introduced last year as the target of Cardin’s bullying, her general look made people want more, and more we got. Her combat outfit is the end result of a costume design competition Monty ran, after a little colour change, and her weapon is a complete mystery that sits in a mysterious box. She’s described as a mage, so the box has like rabbits in it probably. Velv’s a reference to the Velveteen Rabbit, and her last name’s a common name for Scarlet Fever. Both references are a bit morbid, but there’s also that red velvet thing! Which is bad if you’re allergic… Hmm. Anyways, Velvet’s return is marked by a surprising amount of people not realising she’d had spoken before last year. Or even had a last name. But she’s voiced by community member Caiti Ward, a fellow Australian who helped organise RTOZ meetups back in the day. Cool chick. Frontrunner for my country’s invasion of America, via Roosterteeth… Shouldn’t’ve said that. Dammit. Also, if the rest of Team CFVY turns out to be Australian or even British - accents are close enough - that’d be fun.

So yeah. CFVY’s been away for a week longer than expected. Their mission got pretty super hard mode. Lots of Grimm. Grinded a bit of EXP out of it but decided to come back to play some Triple Triad before the next story mission.

Velv mentions Yatsuhashi was looking out for her, so we can assume they’re partners. Or they’re a cutie cute couple. Or they’re friends. Or just allies that don’t really like each other but they’ll watch each other’s backs. Or they’re related. Or they’re somehow all of the above. Anyway, she assures RWBY that they’ll be fine 'cause they’ll have professional Huntsman with them.

She then leaves our lives just as quickly as she appeared, taking the precious spark of CFVY with her. Aww.

Welp. Until next volume, then! Or whenever. So RWBY, despite getting multiple warnings, aren’t phased.

More ears burning. Dude should get that checked out.

But yeah. RWBY? They’ll be fineeeee.

I mean, they’ve got a genuine Huntsman comin’ along with them.

And now we wonder: who’s it going to be?

A grizzled badass new character? Someone we know of like Taiyang or Qrow?

I had no idea going in who it’d be. Was rooting for someone that we didn’t really know that much. Especially if there’s fight scenes ahead. Oh hey look RWBY’s reacting to finding out who their Huntsman is.

Bodes well. Professor Port?

Close enough. Professor Bartholomew Oobleck. If Sonic the Hedgehog, Speedy Gonzales, Jason Statham’s character from Crank, Quicksilver and The Flash all combined their powers to make a speedy Captain Planet who dunked his head in a vat of green goop, you’d get this guy. We first met Oobleck as the history professor at Beacon, but I know I last saw him at that one Coffeeholics Anonymous meeting. He is a reference to the Dr Seuss story Bartholomew and the Oobleck, the oobleck being the substance that causes some trouble and is also roughly the same shade of green as our Oobleck’s hair. We are unaware of Oobleck’s semblance or weapon, but hoo boy are we about to find out. And, as teased in the V1 DVD commentary: it’s a doozy. Oobleck is voiced by double gold enthusiast Joel Heyman, who also voices Caboose in Red Vs Blue and most recently skipped out on a Vegas trip that the VAs for Junior and Cardin went on, prompting them to name the trip Super Fun Happy Minus Joel Vegas Trip 2014. Those kids.

And so the episode ends with the gang looking horrified. Pfft. If only they knew the hijinks that will ensue…

Good times. So the set-up for the mini-arc to come seems pretty clear. Yay kids go out and deal with some Grimm. Then oh no there’s suddenly too many Grimm! Then yay Oobleck’s weapon is revealed and he demolishes them. Then oh no everyone realises Zwei’s in Ruby’s backpack and ruh roh that’s a complication! Then yay it’ll be cool, Zwei is probably superdog. Then oh no a realistic consequence of the team’s actions will be felt somehow while investigating the White Fang hideout! Then yay we might see Neo again or Team CFVY comes to save the day. Then oh no we might not see JNPR’s own adventures with whoever they’re with, be it Port or Taiyang or whoever. But in the end yay because there’ll be a set-up for the finale two. No earthly idea. Could go big, could go small, could go somewhere in between. Eight to the left of me, four to the right. Stuck in the middle with the rest of y'all.

That’s about it from me. Thanks for joining me on this wonderful ride, as always. We’ve laughed, we’ve cried, we’ve shrugged and considered gone back to playing some Fire Emblem. We’ve also probably made plans to bounce off the walls 'cause Smash Bros 4 is out at the end of this week. We may also just want to hang out at all places where the wild RWBY things go, such as the always classic Roosterteeth forums (General discussion and the RWBY Vol. 2 thread), the RWBYForums, RWBY Wiki, the r/RWBY subreddit, the RWBY TVTropes page (And hey this recap even has a lil’ page of its own, which is awesome), and the main tumblr tag. Sexy.

Until next week, memory is the key. And the key is sometimes a sword that unlocks people’s deaths. And we need the key to go into the lock and then we’ll have the thing locked inside. And probably the lock too…

Also, Sonic Boom.