Once upon a nine p.m. dreary, while Qrow pondered, drunk and weary, over many a quaint and curious World of Remnant lore; while he nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, t’was someone gently rapping, rapping at his chamber door. “‘Tis my sister,” he slurred, “tapping at my chamber door - only this, and nothing more.”

In the spirit of the past week, for this recap I’m thankful that my recap’s version of Taiyang almost turned out to be hilariously close to canon, and that Raven came back so I could use some of the jokes I’ve been saving up for two years. Previous recaps can be found at the RECAP MASTERPOST, but to join me on a journey of more Edgar Allan Poe references, click the KEEP READING below…

Hey all. Important question: how’s everyone’s Pokemon Sun/Moon playthroughs going? I’m doing a Nuzlocke run in Moon where all the Pokemon are named after Shakespeare characters, so, y'know, it’s at least fitting when they die. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are still alive for now, but it turns out Juliet the Alolan Diglett, despite being a Steel type, could still die to poison thanks to a Salandit’s Corrison ability. And alas, poor Yorrick, I barely got to know him before Kahuna Hala’s Crabrawler dropped a critical hit on his head. So that’s my weekly Pokemon Recap, thanks for stopping by! … Oh right, also got the RWBY thing to do.

Now, as we’d all hoped, it’s time to start another episode checking in on Farmboi, Incorporated, accompanied by his strangely overlarge pitchfork (that weirdly doesn’t have any guns attached to it).

His evening plans of watching Wheel Of Fortune are delayed by something in the mirror catching his eye, and then comes a familiar voice, louder than usual because reception in the spirit realms is just terrible.

With that voice comes the truth behind Farmboi’s potato farm. Get your tickets, we’re boarding the Ozpin “reincarnation or whatever” train! Probably. It’s sort of an Orient Express situation, where anything could happen because there’s mysteries on it. It may not even be a train, but, like, a boat?

Mirror mirror, tell me something: who is the penis chairiest of all? As well he should be, Oscar - his name a reference to the Wizard Of Oz’s whole name (Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman et cetera in the OZPINHEAD acronym) - is suitably shocked by the storyline he’s found himself in.

Big things ahead for Oscar there, but what exactly? Some kind of passing of wizard-y power from vessel to vessel? Or something else, like the actual callback to Blake’s book from V1? A man with two souls, each fighting for control… Intrigue abounds, either way, and Oscar’s going to be facing down some challenges and maybe an exposition scene or two in the near future. Although, I kinda hope the next episode we see him he’s just going about his day trying to ignore the voice in his head telling him to drink lots of hot chocolate and say cryptic things.

Speaking of challenges, let’s check in on how Yang’s doing.

That good, huh. Doing his best Freddy Krueger impersonation, Adam Taurus menaces towards Yang, who, even when fully armed (in both senses of the phrase), is powerless to stop him. Her gauntlets leave her, then her arm, then her hope; Adam closes in, a smirking predator winning another battle against his sleepless prey…

And while we unfortunately don’t get the classic double nightmare fakeout where Blake shows up, turns into a freaky spider crab thing and then eats Yang, we do see that someone went to the trouble of taking her robot arm out of its box and putting it on her bedside table, presumably just to torment her. Probably Taiyang. Classic dad joke.

Personally I’m hoping the arm can turn into a chainsaw, because Yang embracing her Ash Williams side would be groovy. That’ll have to come later, however, for there is laughter in the Xiao Long household for a change, and Yang goes searching.

In the kitchen, Tai is entertaining two familiar guests that I thought I wouldn’t be seeing anytime soon: Professors Port and Oobleck. Or Poobleck for short. … Or just Port and Oobleck will do.

This unlikely threesome are talking about the glory days, as old folks are wont to do, but you can’t say these glory days aren’t actually glorious, for they involve Team STRQ, a team that manages to feel more incestuous than actual incest.

Real talk, that theory doesn’t have to die (as great as that’d be), it just needs to stop being preceded by “I have a new theory.” every time. Like, every time. No seriously. Every time.

(Every. Time.)

Reminiscing on the halcyon pre-pregnancy days of Team STRQ - and learning more about Qrow’s remarkable legs - is briefly interrupted by Yang’s soft laughter, and her two former Professors try to regain some Professor-y composure.

And that’s how Yang found herself at 4am hanging out with a teacher who made a pass at her first day of class, another who once tried to sell her for a bag of Vacuoan Roast, and her father, whose character in this recap speaks for himself, really. After a quick status update on things at Beacon - Glynda Goodwitch is leading the cleanup, no doubt putting her skills as Tetris Grand Champion 2010 and 2012 to good use - the conversation creeps back to the RWBY’s equivalent of the Marauder’s Era.

And with that era comes sensitive topics Taiyang’s spent years keeping from Yang: Summer secretly being a werewolf, Qrow ending up falsely imprisoned in Azkaban, Raven generally existing, et cetera.

Port’s sure Yang can handle a couple of intimate details here and there, like that one time he caught Tai and Raven conceiving her in a janitor’s closet at Beacon, but Tai puts his dad shoe-clad foot down.

Yang, of course, considers herself mature enough to hear a couple of stories, no matter how dirty (and they would be. This is Taiyang and Raven we’re talking about. The thing with the ping pong balls alone…) but to Tai, there’s a vast difference between “adult” and “adult who’s able to handle the real world.”

You can kinda tell this sort of behaviour isn’t new between them - Tai’s scars over Lenore and Annabel Lee run deep, and Yang’s state after her injury has put him in Super Overprotective Dad Mode overdrive. Yang, meanwhile, can only take the cracking of eggshells Tai walks on around her for so long, so this sort of outburst was always coming. Poor Port and Oobleck just happened to get caught in the middle of it.

Ahhh, getting into arguments with parents in front of visiting family friends. Classic.

Ahhh, telling a horrific joke to help ease the tension, but in the process creating the most painful five seconds in the show’s existence where we’re forced to think, “Wait what” and “Did he just” and “What the fuck” in rapid succession before Yang finally laughs. Double classic. The reaction videos for this episode are going to be GOLDEN.

And instantly, you remember these two are family. Family that has bonded through some tough times, family that understands each other, are comfortable with each other, and can just cut through the bullshit.

Jokes also have the effect of knocking even the darkest of events off of a pedestal. After all, some of the best jokes are told at a wake, because they have to be. When bad things happen, sometimes you need something as mundane a a laugh to remind yourself the world’s still spinning on. Yang doesn’t want to be defined by her injury, doesn’t want to be a “less than” for it, and Tai’s joke helps defuse the tension enough for them all to finally address the mammoth in the room: why she won’t put on her fancy new robo-arm.

Her fear makes sense, of course. She can’t just go back to being normal knees, like Ruby. Or, well, her knees can be normal but her elbows can’t. Stray thought: you know how some people can lick their own elbows? I wonder if Yang can lick her own stump. She has to have tried by this point. And probably failed, but anyways…

Yang is scared of this new normal, but Tai’s been around the block a few times, and knows what it’s like to adjust to new normals, so he reaches out. She can’t pretend losing her arm didn’t happen, but it can’t be an excuse that stops her from becoming everything she could still be. She doesn’t need both arms to fight her own fears, just a reason to fight. The promise of a sunrise, a delicious caramel sundae, the next season of iZombie… So many reasons.

Also she’d probably need a fuckton of actual therapy and prescription medication. Either way, whatever it takes, Taiyang will be there for her.

And so will Port and Oobleck, if only for access to Taiyang’s wine cellar.

She’s been maimed and framed, beaten, robbed and mutilated, but they still can’t keep her down for long, and she can still laugh. Resilient one, that Yang. Probably survived getting dropped as a baby by Raven at least a dozen times.

Later, Yang returns to her room to face her robotic arm-shaped demons -

- while outside, Port and Oobleck are saying their goodbyes.

Oobleck and Port ask about Ruby, who hasn’t been in touch (oh Ruby), and if there’s any imminent plans to come bring her home.

There isn’t, because Tai has his hands full helping out Yang, who overhears the conversation from her room… We’ll get back to her later. For now, speaking of Ruby, let’s check in.

Ahh, the best time of the week: Mighty Morphin’ Power RNJRs time!

Where last we left our intrepid heroes, they were leaving destroyed towns and broken hearts in their wake on the road to Mistral, their next destination a town called Higanbana, or, as the locals call it, High Banana.

Recent events have left their toll, but it’s not all bad. Not like there’s any Grimm hanging around…

The reason for that soon becomes clear: some local drunk madman has been massacring the lot of them. Somebody stop him.

Qrow, as predicted, has been on the trail of his niece’s gang for a time, no doubt humming the Batman theme to himself for six to eight months while waiting for evil doers to reveal themselves to the natural-born plot magnets that are Ruby and Jaune. Also drinking. A fair bit of drinking.

A mysterious black bird bodes as well as the heavy rainfall in High Banana, and as Qrow watches RNJR turn in for the night, brooding over his drink, we’re reminded of the beginning of every noir detective novel. All we need now is a dame with eyes filled with secrets.

The waitress bringing him an extra drink, while dame-y, isn’t all that secretive. And her drink comes courtesy of a mysterious red-eyed individual… Is it… Is it happening? Is it finally happening?! Branwenbowl 2K16?!

Mark my words, the ongoing saga of Qrow and sexy barmaids is going to come back and bite us in the end, like when one of them kills him and it’s sad.

Drink in hand, Qrow ascends to the balcony, and like Arthur Gordon Pym spotting something on Night’s Plutonian shore, he beholds his twin sister.

Yeppppppp. It’s happening people. I’ll admit, not only did I not expect Raven to be back so soon, I also didn’t think it’d be Qrow she met with first. Honestly figured it’d be another dramatic reunion with Yang or something, but this is perfect. It’s a twisted family dynamic to contrast Yang and Taiyang’s, it furthers the Team STRQ backstory already on our minds from earlier, and since the twins both know why Raven left, the writing can dance around it and whatever she’s been up to without outright explaining it.

The Branwen Wonder Twins - shape of a drunk, form of a bad mother - are cordial, but not overtly warm. Makes you wonder how long it’s been since they talked. Somehow get the feeling it didn’t end on good terms, and the only time since then was that time they awkwardly bumped into each other at a Costco.

Qrow doesn’t sit until she removes her mask from sight, which is probably a thing - it is a Grimm-y mask, kinda smells bad, has some icky juju, probably doesn’t help anyone’s mental state if Adam’s an indication of anything, but they get down to business soon enough.

On that note, I’m digging Raven’s design. She looks like a proper savage mess, like full-on tribal bird-y hair. When she stands up later she also looks weirdly short, which I hope is an actual thing and not a perception trick - the idea of Yang inheriting her height from Tai would be hilarious. Oh, and I noticed Raven’s still wearing the same necklace as Neo and Coco, so shoutout to that whole late Volume Two debacle amirite.

Right off the bat, Raven upsets a dozen “she’s working for Salem” theories by asking after the Wicked Witch’s hunt for “it”.

The “it” is probably the “relic” aka probably Ozpin’s cane aka probably something also linked to Oscar’s little adventure. Lotta probablys in these here parts…

There’s also a lotta Qrow refusing to take Raven’s shit about a family catch-up, rightly throwing her abandonment of Yang at her, mentioning Yang’s recent amputation and Raven only saving Yang the once back in V2C11, et cetera.

It’s cathartic, and vocalises many of the fandom’s own thoughts I’m sure.

Meanwhile I’m sitting here intrigued as hell. How could you not be, at this point? We’ve been waiting for something like this for years!

And I’m also wondering if in ten volumes we’ll be looking back on this and laughing. Or sobbing. If Raven turns out to be the Van Hohenheim of the series I swear…

Raven doesn’t let Qrow talk back to her for long. No matter how she tries to hide it by pretending it never happened, abandoning her daughter is a sore spot, especially when she just came for a business lunch.

Now Raven, when you say “I told you” do you mean you just figured it’d happen or we talking actual psychic powers here…

The reason Raven wants to know about the relic, despite not being part of Ozpin’s Scooby Gang, is that she needs to know what they are up against. The they, and more intrigue abounds, are a tribe that raised her and Qrow, are now led by Raven, and also responsible for the devastation of Shion Village… Yeahhhh.

Okay. This is a lot to process, and gives me all sorts of notions. A nomadic tribe in Remnant would only get this far by being the strongest around, or having some magical tricks up their sleeve - either the bird transformation or the portals, I’d wager. The Branwens were raised by it, so what brought them to Beacon? Either refinement of actual combat skills, some circumstance separated them and they got roped into it by Ozpin being a meddling meddler, or… Something (“raised” is the word, so not “born”? Returned to the Kingdoms to reconnect with family history?). Certainly explains that earlier comment about the Branwens being “interesting” students, too. Bird twins, raised by nomads, killers and thieves, forced to go to school - that’s a slice of life anime premise if I’ve ever seen one.

This also brings to mind like a dozen new possibilities for the circumstances behind Raven leaving Yang. Was the call of her tribe, the tribe that she would one day lead, too strong for Raven to want to stay in the kingdoms? Was she torn between her future with the tribe and the life she could lead outside it? Qrow seemed comfortable enough not to go back, but that could’ve been anything from better alcohol in the kingdoms, to his belief in Ozpin’s mission, or just staying because Raven left (for Yang’s sake, and, after Summer died, Ruby’s). Did Raven believe Yang to be a representation of her own weakness away from the tribe, and saw leaving her as a way to regain her strength for the sake of the tribe’s future? Did she leave Yang because she knew was going back, yet didn’t want Yang to be raised by the tribe like she was? Was she outright forced to make the choice at some point? Threatened? Or was it just pure callousness? Hatred, disgust, regret, guilt, at herself, at Tai, at the child, a mistake, anything? Goddammit Raven you Rubix Cube of mystery.

As a side note, I’m also intensely curious about the when and how of Yang being abandoned by Raven. Like, did Tai even know she was pregnant or did he just wake up with a baby in a basket (no lightning bolt scar, sadly) on his front door step? Was she the reason there’s no longer a Beacon Academy Prom Night? Or dumpsters?

A tribe that respects strength, has magic-y stuff and Welsh mythology names involved, is introduced by killing a town full of people, and has personal connections to multiple main characters? It’s going to be a thing. Especially this mention of the Spring Maiden, with that possible hint she could be being used by the tribe… Throw in the potential Ren and Nora’s backstory connection, and boy do we have some great story ahead of us. And mark my words, for all that the tribe is going to be an antagonistic force in some storylines, there’ll be some need for unity by the end of the series if they’re going to beat Salem, and it’s going to be deliciously messy and awkward after everything that’s happened. All of a sudden another faction’s thrown into the mix, and it fits too well, I love it.

Unfortunately, all such possibilities are going to have to wait a while. Raven came, she saw, and now she’s off to conquer.

She leaves much like how she did way back when - back to the camera, walking into a glowing red vagina that’s a bit too close to the portal that Cinder used to summon a bug Grimm for comfort, and scaring the shit out of local wait staff.

She didn’t even leave a tip, did she. That’s so Raven.

And, to finally end this heavy duty recap, we return to Patch. Taiyang’s busy watering the plants - something something fertilisation joke? - when a wild Alolan Form Yang appears.

Hope she’s not as buggy as every other Alpha… I’m proud of her, though, because she knows she has a long road ahead and it’s better to start sooner rather than stay stuck forever.

She’s not instantly fine, of course, no more than Blake’s issues disappeared after the V1 finale, or Jaune’s insecurities after his arcs, or Weiss’s after hers, or… Point is, long road ahead. Wish her luck, she’s gonna need it.

Phew. That was a fun one, huh? I think I wrote the word “abandon” like eighty times. Shoulda busted out the thesaurus…

So last recap’s predictions I absolutely nailed Qrow coming back this episode, so time to play it safe and keep my prediction winning streak up. Next episode, which will run anywhere between zero and infinity minutes, will feature The Fellowship Of The RNJR’s ongoing quest to Mordor (unless it doesn’t), a continuation of Weiss and Blake’s storylines (unless it doesn’t), and/or the first baby steps of The Million Dollar Yang as she tests out her new arm (unless it doesn’t). Safe. Playin’ it safe. (By the looks of the preview pics Gray posted, it’ll actually be a heavy Blake and Sun episode, which’ll be fun. Looking forward to it.)

Four down, eight remain, so thanks for reading, and here, have one last butchered Edgar Allan Poe passage before I leave:

And the Raven, always maddening, still is abandoning, still is abandoning, the Yang Xiao Long that which through her womb she bore. And her eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming, of gleefully abandoning her daughter once more. Quoth the Raven, “Never Yang.”