Never Miss a Beat
"Never miss a beat, never miss a beat, never miss a beat..."
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
Neon: You should try rollerblading sometime! It's super fun! It'd probably take you a while, though, since you're so... you know, top-heavy.
Yang: Excuse me?!
Yang: Excuse me?!
Penny reveals to Ruby that she wants to remain at Beacon and mentions that she has a plan to make that happen.
Yang and Weiss fight Team FNKI representatives, Flynt Coal and Neon Katt.
Qrow and Ozpin discuss Ironwood's recent actions and Qrow asks Ozpin if he's chosen the "guardian" yet.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Ash Face: Weiss is covered in soot by the end of the doubles round, due to leaping onto a lava plume which erupts on her.
- Blow You Away: Weiss makes use of wind-based dust for the first time, and uses it to stalemate Flynt's sound waves while she prepares another attack.
- Color Failure: Neon gets this after she and Flynt lose to Yang. Said colors quickly come back after she declares Yang and Weiss to be amazing.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Russel and Sky don't even get a chance to fight back against Penny.
- Establishing Character Moment: Ciel Soleil is introduced as Penny's retainer and has a no-nonsense "following orders to the letter" attitude. Her interrupting Ruby mid-introduction further shows just how little she cares about Penny's friends beyond a deliberate requirement to be around them.
- Eyelid Pull Taunt: Neon uses this on Yang to provoke her anger.
- Feed It with Fire: Neon's constant taunts toward Yang end up as this. While she is outclassed for most of the fight, eventually it backfires when Yang's rage-induced Semblance is activated.
- Foreshadowing: Penny recalls an incident where she accidentally got a magnet stuck to her head, revealing that she is affected by magnetism.
- Fragile Speedster: Neon is very mobile with her roller blades and lands several hits on Yang in rapid succession. However, it seems like her Aura level is low to start off with, as she gets taken out in only a few hits, especially compared to Flynt, who doesn't move much but takes much more abuse before getting knocked out).
- Friendship Moment: Despite the crack Ruby makes to Penny at the start of the episode (about Weiss being a friend that's ordered to spend time with you), she and the rest of Team RWBY do react in shock at Weiss's Heroic Sacrifice, almost immediately checking to see if she's okay after the battle's over.
- Harmless Freezing: Neon's glowstick-nunchucks use frost dust to freeze Yang's extremities. She smashes the ice and continues fighting with no real harm done.
- The Glomp: How Penny greets Ruby when they reunite. She almost crushes Ruby.
- Graceful Loser: Unexpectedly after all their taunting, Neon and Flynt turn out to be this; freely acknowledging that they were beaten fair and square, congratulating their opponents on their victory with no resentment, and even extending an invitation to get together under friendlier circumstances in the future.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Downplayed. Weiss attempts to double-eliminate her and Flynt, but fails. However her sacrifice does drop Flynt's Aura down to 16%, low enough for Yang to one shot him.
- Hoist by Their Own Petard: For most of the episode Neon spends dodging Yang's blasts on her rollerblades and mocking her, however by the end of the episode both those traits end up being her undoing. First she makes a crack about Yang being weak after Weiss sacrifices herself which sets the former off and activates her Semblance which causes her to destroy the ring. Then she ends up tripping on a piece of loose rubble when she wasn't paying close enough attention to her footing which sends her flying into a geyser and allows Yang to One-Hit KO her.
- I'm Not Here to Make Friends: Ciel has no interest in talking to Ruby and makes it clear that overseeing Penny is her job, and nothing more.
- Instrument of Murder: Flynt Coal's weapon is a trumpet capable of blasting soundwaves.
- I Shall Taunt You: Flynt and Neon have quite a bit of smack-talk before and during their fight. This even seems to be part of Neon's M.O.
- It's Personal: Flynt clearly holds a grudge against Weiss since her father's company put his father's Dust shop out of business.
- Me's a Crowd: Flynt Coal's semblance is the power to duplicate himself.
- Taking You with Me: A heavily wounded Weiss pushes Flynt (and his clones) onto a volcanic geyser, which doesn't eliminate him, but it leaves him with low Aura.
- Title Drop: "Never Miss A Beat" turns out to be a phrase that Neon says during her fight with Yang while she's skating around the ring with her rollerblades. It ends up becoming an Ironic Echo of sorts once Yang begins destroying the ring and messing up her timing, eventually leading to her tripping on a loose piece of rubble with her blades thus sending her flying and allowing Yang to easily KO her.
- Triumphant Reprise: "I Burn" gets a jazz rendition (appropriately enough) as Yang fights Team FNKI.
- Troll: Neon relentlessly taunts Yang.
- Weapon Stomp: Flynt steps on Myrtenaster after knocking Weiss off her feet, causing her to lose it a few feet in front of her.
- Wingding Eyes: Neon gets starry eyes while gushing over Team RWBY's victory. Hell, they're even rainbow-coloured!
- Worthy Opponent: At the start of the episode neither Flynt or Neon seem to give much respect towards Weiss and Yang. Neon mostly just acts like a Troll to Yang and thinks she's weak and annoying whereas Flynt doesn't like Weiss because his father's dust shop was bought out by the Schnee Dust Corp. By the end of the episode Neon considers both Yang and Weiss to be awesome ,and Flynt is clearly impressed by Weiss's Heroic Sacrifice.
- You Are Fat: Neon taunts Yang about her weight throughout the entire fight.note
"So, have you chosen your guardian yet?"
