Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-4141313-20181229081856/@comment-10390252-20181229175210

The pace of this volume is definitely accelerating in various subtle ways. This episode is dominated by just three major things but they're all important in different ways:


 * Tyrian breaks it to Emmy and Merc that it's kind of late in the day to have second thoughts. It wasn't explicitly stated but I interpreted his comment about not wanting them to leave as meaning that there was no way out of Salem's service whilst still being alive;


 * Ruby is finally done with Qrow's broken attitude; if he can't lead anymore, she will. I'm expecting a bizarre 'plan' from her and Jaune that gets all of Team RRAYNBOW arrested and handed over to Winter who just happens to be in the area; either that or that Umbridge-like troll is going to turn out to be an agent of Salem's and bringing her down will bring Team RRAYNBOW to Ironwood's attention at last;


 * Then there was Jaune finally confronting his guilt for Pyrrha and the choices that she made. There was a lot of emotion in that scene but the important thing, going forward, is this: He feels that his responsibility to make Pyrrha's actions worth anything is to keep helping Ruby and keep pushing on, no matter how hopeless the situation seems to be because that's exactly what Pyrrha would have done.

I'm genuinely not sure who the Red-Headed Woman was. However, she looked so much like Pyrrha and the use of Jen Brown's voice leaves me with only two possibilities. Either it was Pyrrha's mother or it was her ghost. Given that the character was not named in the credits, either CRWBY aren't sure yet or they're keeping it a secret the same way they hid Salem's identity since v1e01.

Finally, we have Oscar who, like everyone (except Qrow) has decided to push forwards, no matter how hopeless it seems. I like his new costume, which resembles Ozma's costume during his second incarnation a little but with Oscar's own unique touch. I wonder if that's a sign that he's integrating the Wizard's memories and personality into his own, now that Ozpin has chosen to no longer speak for himself.