In the previous season, we left off on the closest thing RWBY has yet had to a cliffhanger ending. It should come as no surprise, then, that Volume Eight kicks off exactly where we left off, and it really doesn’t let up off of the gas for the majority of its runtime. It’s all-out-war in Atlas, after all!
Let’s take a look at how the climax of the Atlas arc shakes out!
Episode One – Divide
Salem receives the Lamp of Knowledge relic, and then uses her powers to send a terrifying new Grimm, the Hound, to hunt down Oscar (who knows the password to the relic). Ruby and her friends have an intense disagreement over what to do next. Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Nora, and Penny hatch a plan to sneak into an Atlas military compound to help launch Amity Colosseum as originally planned. Yang, Ren, Jaune, and Oscar stay behind in Mantle to help the city’s citizens fend off Grimm attacks. Ironwood demonstrates his ruthlessness by killing a dissenting councilman.
I’m going to try not to repeat myself too much through this article, but Volume Eight is just really solid across the board. It’s a part-two that gets to lean into the previous season’s fantastic setup to charge fully into the action, drama, stakes, and chaos of a war against the Grimm and Salem, and in-fighting with Ironwood and the Ace-Ops. This season premiere basically establishes that by hitting all of the notes you expect, and getting you excited for what is to come. My favorite scene is probably Ironwood just straight-up executing that council guy. It’s shocking, it’s horrifying, and yet it’s also a natural evolution of the very slippery ‘ends justify the means‘ path he’s on now.
Rating: 9
Episode Two – Refuge
Qrow wakes up in prison alongside Robyn, Watts, and Jacques Schnee. He struggles with sadness over Clover’s death, and rage towards Ironwood. Weiss helps Ruby and their team sneak into the military facility, while Yang and the others in Mantle try to convince the citizens to cooperate and work together. The Hound attacks, and manages to capture Oscar while demonstrating the ability to spontaneously mutate. It also speaks, something no Grimm has ever done.
It’s only a B-plot in this season (and the season has a ton of those to balance), but I really like everything with Qrow and Robyn, and their stuff kicks off here. It helps that I just enjoy both of them to begin with, but I still really enjoy the focus on Qrow wanting to take his sadness and fuel it into anger, and Robyn having to be both a voice of reason and also seemingly the only person to realize how far the Atlas higher-ups have fallen. Otherwise, my second-favorite part of this episode is hearing the Hound talk for the first time. Really chilling stuff.
Rating: 9
Episode Three – Strings
Ruby and the others use the invisibility power of their ally, May, to sneak into the Atlas military facility. They hack a confidential terminal that preps Amity Colosseum for launch. The group is then attacked by Harriet and the other Ace Ops, who launch an ambush. Penny faces them alone, but is overwhelmed in the 4-v-1. Nora channels electricity to save Penny, permanently scarring herself in the process. Harriet steals one of Penny’s swords, which they plan to use to remotely hack her.
If you asked most RWBY fans what the funniest season is, the majority would not pick Volume Eight. I wouldn’t either, but I do feel that it is important to note that this season does not completely lack humor either. Ruby and friends sneaking into the military facility is filled with a ton of great jokes, and is also just a compelling scene to begin with. Sure, the standout moment of this episode is Penny’s fight against Harriet and the other Ace-Ops, which is as frenetic and action-packed as you’d want it to be. Nora’s big electrically-charged hero moment is great too. I still come back to this episode for the funny moments, though!
Rating: 9
Episode Four – Fault
After a lengthy chase, the Hound manages to escape with Oscar despite the efforts of Yang, Jaune, and Ren. Oscar is tortured by Salem and Hazel, who try to beat the password for the lamp relic out of him. Ren explodes in anger at Jaune and Yang, feeling as if he and the others were never prepared to be professional huntsmen and shouldn’t have been promoted. Jaune argues that, in spite of that, he chooses to keep fighting. Yang chastises Ren for not processing his emotions in a healthy way. Ruby and the others hide out at the Schnee mansion, while Cinder plans to attack Amity Colosseum. Harriet confronts Qrow and Robyn in prison, blaming them for Clover’s death.
This is my least favorite episode of the season, and the biggest reason for that is because about a third of the episode is devoted to a chase scene that I don’t think is particularly exciting. And the heroes fail the chase anyway, with the Hound getting away. Not that I think a ‘pointless‘ scene like that is bad by law (they can be done well), I just don’t think this one was. However, the tense back-and-forth that Ren, Jaune, and Nora have afterwards is some great character drama, and Harriet confronting Qrow and Robyn is a scene that I really love. I adore how Harriet comes within an inch of just throwing hands before her teammate talks her down.
Rating: 8
Episode Five – Amity
Penny plans to connect herself to Amity Colosseum in order to broadcast a message across the world. Cinder, Neo, and Emerald attack, resulting in an all-out brawl between the protagonists and the villains. Penny just barely manages to defeat Cinder, though Emerald holds her in a stalemate and escapes with Cinder and Neo. The damaged Amity Colosseum then requires Penny to use her own power to keep it afloat, and a message of hope from Ruby is broadcast across the world. Penny is then remotely hacked by Watts, causing her to short-circuit and plummet back to the ground.
It’s rare to find an episode that can do excellent character work and emotional drama alongside crazy battling, yet here comes this episode to blow most of its competition out of the water. The hectic brawl between Penny and Maria versus Cinder/Neo/Emerald is such a kinetic clash that hardly gives you a chance to breathe, and does an amazing job leveraging the unique environment of the Amity Colosseum. The music is stellar too. And then Penny giving it her all to deliver Ruby’s speech to the world is a touching moment, and the part where she gets hacked is heartbreaking. Her voice actress really nails it in this episode.
Rating: 10
Episode Six – Midnight
Cinder’s backstory is revealed, showing her to be an orphan who was adopted by a cruel woman who treated Cinder as barely better than a slave, even locking her into a shock collar. Cinder befriends a huntsman named Rhodes, who helps to train her how to fight so she can leave her abusive family behind for a huntsman academy when she’s old enough. However, when her stepmother discovers her weapon training, she attacks Cinder, causing Cinder to finally snap and murder both of her stepsisters and her stepmother. Rhodes, by law, tries to bring Cinder in, and she defeats and kills him in a fight too (because he shows mercy in the fight’s final moments). In the present, Cinder is tormented by Salem, and then Salem’s whale Grimm spews a horde of Grimm into the city of Atlas.
While you could argue that it took a little too long to finally get around to Cinder’s backstory, it definitely delivers now that it’s finally here. Befitting her identity as a twisted version of Cinderella, Cinder’s backstory is suitably dark, but with a few glimmers of hope throughout. The way it all comes crashing down is chilling, though, and it’s both haunting and depressing to see a young Cinder murder her abusive family and genuinely think her life will get better from that point, ignorant of the crime she just committed. And then the parallels of the abuse young Cinder faced alongside the torment she receives in the present-day? Man, Cinder is such a good character.
Rating: 10
Episode Seven – War
Ren finally attunes with his own emotions, evolving his Semblance and helping him to realize that the Ace-Ops and Winter are each conflicted about following Ironwood’s orders. Oscar decides to trust in the inherent goodness of humanity, earning the trust of Hazel by flat-out revealing the truth about the lamp relic. Emerald overhears their conversation, and grows distrustful of Salem, but she’s rebuffed by Mercury. Weiss’ brother, Whitley, calls a doctor to help Nora, earning Weiss’ respect, and the two siblings hug.
Despite the threatening name of this episode, it’s actually an episode mostly focused around healing, forgiveness, and trusting in others. It’s a pretty uplifting episode, serving as a nice cathartic beat after some of the more intense previous episodes. Oscar placing his trust in Hazel, Weiss bonding with her brother for potentially the first time ever…it’s great stuff. I think my favorite scene is Ren finally processing his own emotions, and in turn unlocking the ability to see the emotions of others. The fury of Harriet, the calm of Vine, the complicated storm that is Winter…it’s some very neat insight.
Rating: 9
Episode Eight – Dark
A power outage strikes the Schnee mansion, and in the chaos, the Hound reappears to capture Penny and attack everyone else. Ruby, Blake, and Weiss try to stall the Hound, while Penny (still being remotely hacked) struggles to stay in control of herself. Ruby eventually is able to use her silver eyes to stun the Hound, and reveal it to be a silver-eyed man forcibly mutated into a Grimm (hence why it could talk). The Hound is then killed by Weiss’ brother and mother burying it under a statue. At the Atlas prison, Cinder breaks in and frees Watts.
RWBY‘s second go at a horror-leaning episode, this one taking some very direct cues from the velociraptor scenes in Jurassic Park. It works, for the most part, but it’s not quite as spooky as the apathy zombies from Volume Six. Still, it’s not something I’d take points away from my rating over, because it’s all still fun within the scope of the show. Blake struggling against a random bug Grimm is a weird beat, but everything else that goes down in the Schnee mansion is still tense and exciting. And obviously, the reveal of the Hound’s true identity, plus his decisive death-via-statue are great closing moments for this episode.
Rating: 9.5
Episode Nine – Witch
Jaune, Ren, and Yang sneak inside of the Grimm whale fortress and reunite with Oscar. Oscar has befriended Hazel, and a loyalty-wavering Emerald tags along as well. Before the group can escape, Salem attacks, effortlessly subduing all of them. Ironwood readies a massive bomb, tasking the Ace-Ops to detonate it inside of the whale. Before they can use it, Hazel sacrifices himself to stall Salem, and then Oscar burns through the magic inside of Ozpin’s staff to blow up the whale and eviscerate Salem (delaying her until she eventually revives).
It took a bit to build up to this (since it was mostly the B-plot until now), but everything finally bubbling forth in a confrontation with Salem is exactly what viewers have wanted since the first time she appeared in the show. She’s fiercely powerful, she’s threatening, she’s terrifying, and until Oscar uses the power in Ozpin’s staff (expending it in the process), she’s all but unstoppable. Salem taunting Emerald and Yang are both great moments of tension, and the ultimately-futile smackdown with Hazel is a visual treat too. The fade-to-white ending is a bold choice as well.
Rating: 9.5
Episode Ten – Ultimatum
The Grimm whale is completely destroyed, allowing our protagonists to escape. In the chaos, Neo escapes with the lamp relic. In Ironwood’s office, Harriet betrays Winter be revealing that she let the heroes go earlier instead of arresting them, provoking Ironwood’s fury. Ironwood then realizes the bomb was unused, and he now plans to use it as blackmail to force Ruby to hand over Penny, or else he will blow up Mantle. Qrow and Robyn escape prison, Cinder is berated by Watts and forced to reconcile with her own failures, and Emerald officially (though tenuously) joins the protagonist team.
It’s a short moment of the episode, but seeing Ozpin’s cane exploding from the perspective of everyone outside of the Grimm whale is a great start to this episode, and it’s visually amazing. But that’s just the intro to this excellent episode. The scene where Harriet stabs Winter in the back (figuratively) by throwing her under the bus with Ironwood is one of the most frightening scenes in the whole show, because us viewers have seen what he’s capable of. Almost as scary is Ironwood’s titular ultimatum, threatening to bomb all of Mantle if Team RWBY doesn’t hand over Penny. It’s sad to see how far he’s fallen, but he is a Tin Man who lacks a heart, after all.
Rating: 10
Episode Eleven – Risk
Marrow, of the Ace-Ops, officially quits the team, and is saved from execution by Winter, who also defects (in secret). Robyn tells Qrow that he can’t give in to his hate towards Ironwood because it’ll blind him to their real goal of saving people, and she tells him that it was Clover’s own flaws that got him killed, not Qrow’s actions. Ren and Nora make up and reaffirm their love for each other. Ruby teeters on the edge of despair by presuming that her mother must have also been turned into a mutant Grimm by Salem. Team RWBY temporarily save Penny from her remote hacking, and begin crafting a plan to save the day.
It’s a small moment, but I really love that I was able to find a screenshot of this episode of my exact favorite moment of the entire episode. I don’t know if the image does it justice, but the animation when Ruby starts crying her is wonderfully subtle, and makes my eyes grow teary each time I see it. That moment (and Ruby’s whole conversation with Yang aside), I really like Qrow and Robyn’s prison break and their conversation by the elevator, and the scene where Winter saves Marrow’s life is a wonderful moment of clever writing with how it conceals character’s true goals under their surface actions.
Rating: 9.5
Episode Twelve – Creation
Emerald uses her hallucination Semblance to trick Ironwood, and Winter officially betrays him, subduing him after a battle. Qrow, Robyn, and Marrow stop the other Ace-Ops from flying off in an airship with the bomb. Team RWBY reaches Atlas’ relic vault and they access the power of the Staff of Creation, using it to give Penny a real human body and also to construct a magical portal room that will allow the citizens of Atlas and Mantle to flee from Salem’s forces. Unbeknownst to the heroes, Cinder has snuck into the portal room as well.
Enjoy the victory-after-victory in this episode, everybody, because that feeling will not last for long! Still, it’s a fun ride while it’s going on. The heroes ambushing Ironwood is one of the most cheer-worthy moments in the show, from Emerald’s tricky hallucination powers, to Winter’s super-cool sword slash finishing move. Marrow freezing Harriet and the other Ace-Ops in place is also a really empowering beat that makes you want to pump your fist. And then, while it slows the pace down a bit, Ruby and the others using the Staff of Creation to make the big portal room is a well thought-out plan that almost tricks you into thinking everything will go swimmingly from this point on…
Rating: 9.5
Episode Thirteen – Worthy
Watts hacks Atlas systems to cause chaos, resulting in Harriet being able to escape Marrow’s trap. She boards an airship with the bomb, intent on carrying out Ironwood’s orders, and Qrow gives pursuit to attack her and stop her. Cinder launches an attack on the portal room, forcing Ruby and her friends to try and both defeat her and save the citizens. Neo reveals herself as well, and knocks Yang off the platform and into the abyss. The heroes and villains fiercely fight each other, while Emerald and Oscar escort the frightened citizens through the exit portal.
Let’s not beat around the bush with this one. The decision to have Yang get defeated by Neo and knocked into the abyss? It’s such a bold, shocking, and jaw-dropping moment that immediately makes it abundantly clear that this season’s ending is not going to pull any punches. It’s almost impressive how quickly things begin to go wrong with just a few little twists thrown into the mix. Harriet breaking free of Marrow’s control, stealing a ship, and arming the bomb? Yikes. Cinder causing chaos in the portal room, wreaking havoc? Double yikes. Finding out the exit portal is one-way, reducing the number of heroes left behind the fight the villains? Triple yikes!
Rating: 10
Episode Fourteen – The Final Word
Qrow fights Harriet to a standstill and manages to finally get through to her, though Vine, another Ace-Ops member, has to sacrifice his life to envelop the already activate bomb inside of a shield to prevent further destruction. Cinder betrays Neo and manages to knock Neo, Ruby, and Blake into the abyss. Weiss, Jaune, and Penny mount a final offensive, but when Penny is gravely wounded, she begs Jaune to kill her so her power can pass to Winter. Jaune does so, and Penny’s Maiden powers pass to Winter. Winter uses her powers to defeat Ironwood, but can’t save Weiss and Jaune from falling into the abyss too. A recovered Salem arrives to destroy Atlas for good, while Cinder kills Watts to tie up loose ends. In a post-credits scene, those who fell into the abyss have seemingly arrived in a strange new world.
Everything that was amazing about the previous episode continues on into this one, and then some. Qrow and Harriet’s intense and desperate duel for control over the bomb, Vine’s sacrifice and death, Winter and Ironwood’s violent duel, Penny’s dramatic death at the forced hands of Jaune in order to pass the Maiden power to Winter, Winter kicking butt and fighting Cinder, more of our heroes falling off and into the abyss, Cinder backstabbing Watts and leaving him to die…it’s hard to have enough space here to talk about all of the drama and chaos that plays out here. And with amazing voice performances and soundtrack moments alongside all of the action!
It’s the sort of episode that leaves you breathless by the time it ends, especially when the fate of Team RWBY and Jaune is left up-in-the-air!
Rating: 10
SEASON CONCLUSION
Volume Eight was listed as my second-favorite volume in the entire show back when I did my original ranking article. I might actually swap it to third place and move Volume Six up, but my actually overall opinion of the season still hasn’t changed. I love it a ton, and I think it does an excellent job paying off the buildup that Volume Seven set the stage for. It’s writing quality isn’t quite up to the level of the previous two seasons, but it’s still got too many thrilling moments, fun character scenes, and emotional beats to dislike.
There actually is a bit of controversy with this season, in particular with regards to its ending of the heroes losing, and rather badly (though it’s not a universal defeat, such as Qrow stopping Harriet to buy time for Mantle’s citizens to escape, and most of Atlas’ citizens surviving through the portal room). I can see people’s argument, but it still doesn’t bother me. I think the strongest stories offer a give-and-take of the heroes fighting against evil, being knocked low, but still getting up to keep fighting!
Rating: 9.5
But hey, that’s just my opinion!
The Contrarian Corner 