Seeing Red
"I know you've made your choice... and I've made mine."
Written by Miles Luna & Kerry Shawcross
Directed by Kerry Shawcross & Connor Pickens
Directed by Kerry Shawcross & Connor Pickens
"We didn't want to steal from you. We did it because you gave us no other choice! Now I'm giving you one last chance to stand down and hear us out."
— Ruby Rose
Having just defeated Cordovin, Ruby's group faces some disastrous consequences. Meanwhile, Adam forces Blake and Yang into a fight for their very lives.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Bare-Handed Blade Block: When Adam tries striking Yang with his sword, she catches it with her cyberarm and then disarms him with a punch that has been power-charged by her Semblance. It's a Justified Trope, considering her arm is completely mechanical and thus won't have the pain involved in holding it back, and she had activated her Semblance just before the blow struck anyway.
- Bleed 'Em and Weep: Blake breaks down crying after she and Yang kill Adam.
- Book Ends: "Heroes and Monsters", the penultimate chapter of Volume 3, kicked off the story arc between Yang, Blake and Adam with Adam victorious against his ex and her friend. It's fitting that this chapter, the penultimate chapter of Volume 6, ends the arc with the two vanquishing Adam.
- Broken Tears: After she and Yang kill Adam, Blake breaks down crying and desperately swears she will not break her promise to Yang.
- Cliffhanger: The fight between Cordovin and the protagonists, which started back in "The Lady in the Shoe," results in a lot of negative emotions. The whole of the city has been aware of the fight due to Cordovin announcing that she wanted Argus to witness what happens when her authority is defied. By the end of this episode, the battle attracts an enormous Grimm called a Leviathan from the ocean depths, along with a horde of Manticores and Sphinxes from inland.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: Adam is Blake's ex-boyfriend. He doesn't want to give her up, and he doesn't want her to leave his side for any reason. While he fights Yang, he shouts in frustration that he doesn't understand what Blake sees in Yang.
- The Dying Walk: After being impaled by both Blake and Yang, Adam stumbles away from them for a few feet before collapsing to his knees and then falling off the cliff to his death.
- Failed a Spot Check: At the beginning of the episode, the soldiers gather around a monitor and cheer for Cordovin as she fights the protagonists. However, since they've stopped manning the Grimm-detection radars in the process, they don't notice a red dot indicating the approach of a Leviathan Grimm from the ocean depths until it's almost too late.
- Finger in a Barrel: Ruby disables the mech's cannon by leaping into its barrel bodily as it's charging up for a lightning attack, and sniping the Dust cartridge from within, then speeding out as all Dust in the cannon goes off at once, encasing it in huge lumps of ice and solid rock. Cordovin's panicked reaction suggests that this trope would be in effect even if the cannon fired with Ruby inside.
- Foreshadowing: At the beginning of the episode, a red blip appears on the military radar, just off the coast of Argus. At the end of this episode, the radar blip is revealed to be the approaching march of a Leviathan from deeper waters.
- From Bad to Worse: Throughout Volume 6, the heroes try stealing an airship so they can get the Relic of Knowledge safely to General Ironwood. However, it backfires because Adam fights Blake before she can disable the military radar, and Cordovin's ego and feud with Maria cause the former to use the mecha to fight the heroes herself. The two battles destroy the robot's ability to function properly, badly damages the airship the heroes stole, and most of the heroes are either left drained of Aura or exhausted to the point of collapse. At the end of the episode, the Grimm show up from two separate directions, trapping Argus in between the two threats: a massive Leviathan from deeper waters, and a horde of winged Manticores and Sphinxes from further inland.
- Gun Struggle: A subverted example. By the end of the fight, Adam, Blake, and Yang are all weaponless and their Auras have shattered. Blake and Adam dive for half of Blake's shattered weapon. However, Blake reaches her half just before Adam does, and just as Yang arrives with the second half. Instead of a struggle over the weapon, Blake and Yang stab Adam to end the fight.
- Headbutt of Love: After Adam is killed, Blake collapses in tears. Yang rushes to her side and hugs her; they end up with their foreheads pressed together while Blake sobs.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The battle between Blake, Adam, and Yang ends when all three of them are weaponless and have broken Auras. Blake and Adam charge for the same piece of Blake's broken weapon, while Yang grabs the other half. Blake and Yang fatally stab Adam from the front and behind, respectively.
- Killing in Self-Defense: Throughout Volume 6, Adam stalks Blake across the continent to interfere with her mission. He ultimately intends to kill Blake out of a perceived slight against her for ruining his life. After Yang rescues Blake in "The Lady in the Shoe", the two decide to end the fight by killing Adam in self-defense.
- Kung-Fu Sonic Boom: Happens when Blake and Adam enter a Blade Lock. Presumably it is caused by their auras hitting one another.
- Logical Weakness: While fighting with Adam, Blake warns Yang that Adam's Semblance is like hers, except that he channels the energy through his sword instead his body like Yang does. As a result, Yang begins to avoid making contact with Adam's sword to stop him from being able to power up his Semblance from her strikes. At the end of the fight, even though Adam's Aura has broken, Yang still takes the precaution of throwing his sword off a cliff into a waterfall far below, an act which makes Adam panic.
- Loud Gulp: One of the Atlesian officers audibly gulps when witnessing an enormous Grimm called a Leviathan approach from deeper waters towards Argus to meet a horde of Manticores and Sphinxes.
- Major Injury Underreaction: After being fatally stabbed by Blake and Yang, Adam lets out a surprised "Oh!" before succumbing to his wounds.
- Mass "Oh, Crap!":
- Cordovin notices Ruby about to snipe her mech's missile launcher and closes it in the last second, causing Ruby's bullet to glance off. Everyone in the heroes' team (except Maria) gasps in shock.
- Everyone loses it when Cordovin prepares to blast Ruby point-blank with the giant cannon, with Weiss and JNR making a desperate run towards Ruby, Oscar calling out her name and Qrow freezing in terror. And then they're left completely astounded when she just jumps into the cannon.
- When the heroes learn about a Leviathan Grimm about to wreak havoc on Argus, they have a moment of terror when they realise that they have disabled the mech capable of stopping such threats.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: While fighting Cordovin's mech, the heroes discover its primary purpose is to fight the giant Grimm that live in the deep ocean and strategise accordingly, leading to Ruby eventually disabling the cannon on its left arm. However, the negative emotions caused by the battle inadvertently attract a massive Grimm from the deep ocean, and both the heroes and Cordovin realise that they've just destroyed the only thing capable of protecting Argus.
- Pyrrhic Victory: The protagonists disable Cordovin's giant mecha, allowing them to leave for Atlas in their airship. However, the negative emotions caused by the battle inadvertently attract the Leviathan Grimm from the ocean depths as well as a horde of winged Manticores and Sphinxes from further inland. Since Cordovin's mecha was designed for fighting giant Grimm from deep water, Argus has very little effective offensive power to use against it.
- Sickening "Crunch!": Once Blake and Yang use the former's broken sword to fatally wound Adam, the latter stumbles over a cliff and falls to his demise. When his back hits the rocks at the cliff's bottom, a loud crack can be heard just before Adam falls into the waters.
Blake: I... I am not going to break my promise, I swear!
Yang: I know you won't.
Yang: I know you won't.
