Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-4141313-20181208003742/@comment-10390252-20181208190147

That was an interesting episode. What stood out the most for me is this:


 * It's now clear that Salem has always had Dark Huntsmen and Huntresses in her service to do her will without having to dirty her hands personally;


 * Maria seems more and more like Yoda to me with every passing episode now, right down to the implication that there is no further training that Ruby really needs, that she knows all that she needs and shouldn't lean on a generation of failures;


 * If Cinder is smart, she'll not trust Neo further than she can spit a Goliath; meanwhile, if she's smart, Neo will realise that, to Cinder, she is an expendable weapon to use on Ruby, nothing more and nothing less;


 * The lesson on the attack on Maria for me? Salem does consider SEWs intrinsic threats and has them destroyed as quickly as she can, so the likelihood that Hazel murdered Summer has just jumped upwards in my mind. Also, members of Salem's Cabal tend to end up dead in the end and imagining any other fate is foolishness for them;


 * I also love how Maria keeps on making it clear to Qrow that he should stop moping and get on with it. I particularly like how she waspishly announced that she's a failure and Qrow is doing a good job of emulating her in that area at least.

It seems to me that the easist way forwards for the girls is for Weiss to try to contact Winter. She may not have the access and power of the SDC behind her any more but if she can get a message to Ironwood via her sister, things might change. It seems that Jaune's sister-in-law, who clearly has access to the local CCT Tower, might be a lot of help.

For some reason, I was expecting Ruby to introduce Maria to Nora as 'Master Huntress Maria Calavera, my new Master' but that's just my inner Warsie talking. That said, the simplest thing to do is for Qrow to alledge that Maria is another professor from Beacon; with the CCT system on the fritz, no-one will ever be able to confirm her credentials until they're all on Solitas and I suspect that Ironwood will consider the old woman's effective rank to be beyond question.