New Challengers...
Written by Miles Luna, Monty Oum & Kerry Shawcross
Directed by Kerry Shawcross, Gray G. Haddock & Miles Luna
Directed by Kerry Shawcross, Gray G. Haddock & Miles Luna
Brawnz: WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A FIGHT!
Jaune: AND WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A CONVERSATION! WHAT DON'T YOU GET ABOUT THAT?!
Jaune: AND WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A CONVERSATION! WHAT DON'T YOU GET ABOUT THAT?!
It's Team JNPR vs. Team BRNZ and Team SSSN vs. Team NDGO.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Blown Across the Room: The impact of Nora's attempted Death from Above blasts her opponents to the other side of the arena.
- Blow You Away: Dew Gayl of Team NDGO can create tornadoes of various sizes.
- Catch and Return: Dew deflects Sun's thrown coconuts with her staff and sets them on fire, causing them to hit Scarlet.
- Combos: Subverted. Jaune tries using team attack codenames like Team RWBY did with against the Paladin, only for his team to get confused.
- Crush Blush: After winning their bout against Team NDGO, Sun and Neptune dance like dorks on the arena until Sun suddenly turns around to look for Blake in the audience and does finger guns. She blushes in response to his smile.
- Didn't See That Coming: Neptune's excuse for scrambling up to higher ground to avoid his side's water biome is that this is the last thing the enemy will expect. His opponents are forced to admit that Neptune is right about that.
- Dynamic Entry: Neptune distracts Octavia by shooting at her so that Sun can surprise her with a flying jump kick to the face.
- Electrified Bathtub: Non-lethal variant. Neptune dispatches of three members of NDGO by using his weapon's Shock and Awe feature on the water when the girls are standing in it.
- Feed It with Fire: Or rather, Feed It With Lightning. Nolan of Team BRNZ tries to shock Nora, only for her to absorb it and get super-charged.
- Foreshadowing: After Qrow leaves the bar, the bartender knocks a glass over with his, hinting at Qrow's Semblance.
- Groin Attack: Poor Scarlet gets hit in the crotch by a flaming coconut. And this was after he narrowly avoided getting hit by a shuriken there, and Neptune asked for them to be avoided.Sun: Nuts.
- Human Shield: Ren immobilizes and grabs a member of Team BRNZ to protect himself from the enemy team's sniper.
- Ironic Name: Neptune, named after the Roman god of the sea, is terrified of water.
- Knife Outline: Scarlet barely avoids a few dozen shuriken landing on him, creating an outline in the ground around him.
- The Load: Subverted, it looks like Neptune will be useless due to the water arena, but he eventually pulls his weight.
- No-Sell: Nora is immune to lightning and shock-based weapons due to her Semblance.
- Oh, Crap!: When Nolan shocks Nora and learns that she can absorb and power up with electricity, you can see him realize how bad a decision that was. Then when Nora is told to attack BRNZ, the leader goes "Wait What?!".
- Punny Name: The name of the bar that Qrow visits: The Crow Bar. This doesn't just pun his personal name. In his surname, Branwen, 'brân' doesn't simply mean 'crow', it also means 'crowbar'.
- Ship Tease: Sun/Blake gets teased a bit when Sun winks at Blake after his fight, who blushes in turn.
- Shock and Awe: Neptune and Nolan from Team BRNZ use electric weapons, while Nora is revealed to have a lightning-based Semblance. Considering she's based on Thor, it's not surprising in retrospect.
- Spoiler Opening: Spoiler closing credits, actually. Qrow's identity isn't revealed until Winter calls him by name in the next episode, obviously set up as a big reveal... except that the closing credits list Vic Mignogna as voicing Qrow Branwen (and not, say, Crow Bar patron) in this episode.
- Talking Is a Free Action:
- Jaune has an impromptu team meeting in the middle of their fight. Their opponents are annoyed, but don't actually do anything about it.
- Non-combatant version. Oobleck and Port give a full explanation of Nora's Semblance in the middle of the same fight. Nolan just stands there and listens while Nora continues to absorb electricity from his weapon.
- Sun and Neptune have the chance to argue right as their fight with Team NDGO starts, because Neptune's actions momentarily confuse everyone. Averted when the same argument continues later in the fight, almost giving Dew a chance to deal Death from Above to a distracted Sun.
- We Need a Distraction: Ren's role is to keep Team BRNZ's sniper off of Nora, to his disappointment.
- When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Team JNPR's easiest solution is for Jaune to just give in and tell Nora to take the opposition out with her hammer. She does.Jaune: Uh... ehh... (Sighs) Nora, just... hit 'em with the hammer.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Neptune starts freaking out when he sees the terrain will be the ocean (complete with a pirate shipwreck).
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Team BRNZ is non-plussed that their opponents informally stopped their fight to have a team meeting.
Yang: Looks like the dorks made it to the next round!
Blake: Emphasis on "dork".
Blake: Emphasis on "dork".
