User Reviews

The action sequences these last few episodes have been incredible. Really, it's been a marvel to watch. The buildup to whatever comes next has been extremely powerful. It's a perk I feel like the show has been lacking for a few seasons. The positives of this episode are fairly general, which is overall, a good thing. The cons are smaller, but still important. Some of the character decisions haven't made as much sense as they could. I guess there was some kind of romance that I missed between Qrow and Clover. Qrow's reaction to Clover's death felt over the top, especially since it wasn't clear that there was any extraordinary bond between them. Also, the fight did not feel like it was set up in a way that really made sense. Qrow and Clover's decision to fight each other, rather than focus on Tyrion, did not feel in character. On a plot note, it does bother me how one sided the show is being. It's obvious that the RWBY side is going to be right in the end, but it would be better if we didn't know that. It would be far more interesting if the tough decision (Ironwood) and the kind decision (RWBY) were not seen as so black and white by the writers. I get it... it's the battle between orders and personal feelings (a little cliche), however, it doesn't feel like Ironwood's huntsmen are just following orders. It seems like they actually believe in that course of action, so it's a bit unfair to say that their decision to back Ironwood is mindless. Overall, this was a good episode. Not as great as the one that came before it, but it was good. The problems mentioned are relatively minor in the grand scheme of season 7.

Most of the volume was amazing, up until this episode. This shows main goal ever since Monty's death was to create a story of death not being the end. A story of people being able to move past tragedy, find that life has meaning with those who are still around, and to let the love for those you've lost drive you to keep moving forward. This death had no meaning, no build up and no resolution. Clover was killed off purely for his connection to Qrow, destroying the healing arc Qrow was partway through. They created a character to perfectly compliment his negative aspects, and then decided to trash any hope Clover may have given Qrow by killing him in the most gruesome way this show has ever done.

Besides the characters having to go extremely out-of-character for any of these actions to work (Qrow teaming up with a serial killer to fight his friend, Clover forgetting all his professional hunstmen training and letting a serial killer run wild, etc), there's also the problem of what kind of relationship was destroyed here. This was the first hint of gay representation that this show could have canonically had. They knew what they had been doing as well, with the staff making teasing tweets about the relationship and having many parallels to another almost-existing relationship in the show. Clover and Qrow flirted, back and forth, many times. The creators claimed they knew better than to "bury their gays" and follow the tragic tropes gay relationships follow, yet they still betrayed their MLM fans with, again, the more gruesome on-screen death that has ever been on this show. They built up a healthy gay romance with some amazing potential, only to destroy any bit of hope their LGBT+ fans had left for them. THey've been dangling hints of LGBT+ characters in front of their fans for 7+ years, yet they have never canonically delivered.

TL;DR This story of hope died with this episode, gruesome and unfixable. RT does not care for their LGBT+ fans at this point and the writers had to force the characters into the most OOC they have ever been just for some "angst."