With Jaques Schnee winning his political battle, Penny framed for an attack on Robyn Hill and the threat of the Grimm growing ever more serious, it seems that in ‘Worst Case Scenario’ hope is in short supply for team RWBY and the gang, with a lot of them questioning their own faith and actions, and whether they have what it takes to do the right thing.
Obviously, spoilers ahead for RWBY.
The episode opens up with Penny distraught in a hospital room in the aftermath of the Grimm attack and the populace of Mantle being quarantined to their homes…really? We get miss the Grimm attack from the end of the previous episode? I understand that the Rooster Teeth guys need to make room for story, but come on. Stop teasing the audience with what could be awesome battle/conflict scenes and then give us nothing. Even if you showed team RWBY and the Atlas military cleaning out the remaining Grimm instead of the full fight, it would be better than nothing.
As all this is going on, a military convoy passes by and is ambushed by Robyn and her huntresses. Here, the audience get to see some pretty cool Semblances – a force field which acts as an invisibility cloak, the power to shrink large objects. While it seems a little too plot convenient for this scene, it’s still interesting to see what Robyn’s group are capable of.
‘Worst Case Scenario’ takes us a little further into the future, with Ironwood and the rest of his military team analysing recent events and furiously debating their next course of action along with team RWBY. Ironwood states that his current course of action is a necessary evil with others point out it only puts Mantle in more danger. It’s clear Robyn Hill no longer takes inspiration from Robin Hood and is pretty much a reskinned futuristic version of the character, redistributing the stolen supplies among the poor of Mantle.
It’s also in this scene that the audience learns a little bit more about the character of Tyrian Callows: he was a serial killer who committed murders all over the continent, and “escaped justice when his prison transport was attacked by Grimm”. So, Tyrian is basically a chattier version of Michael Myers? All these factors as well as keeping secrets from the general public are causing internal friction and it’ll be interesting to see how this all comes to a head.
With Robyn hijacking convoys, Yang and Blake volunteer to hide in the next transport in a bid to ambush her. However, the pair have a crisis of faith, thinking that Ironwood’s actions are questionable despite everything and whether they shouldn’t ambush Robyn.
In another location, Pietro is reviewing the events of Robyn’s victory party with Ruby, Weiss, and Calavera (it’s nice to see her make a return). Nearby, Penny stands shut down. They too are reviewing what has happened and are trying to organise their next move. There’s a few interesting bits of dialogue throughout this scene: Pietro didn’t create an artificial aura for Penny, but used his own, making her more like his daughter than the audience initially released, and that this could be the last time he could be able to reactivate her.
While this is interesting character and relationship development, it seems a bit unusual to bring a beloved character who was pretty much axed off in a previous season only to do the same with her again. Additionally, the Schnee Dust Company controls the heating grid for Mantle, who Weiss suspects may have something to do with who hacked the network. She may be more on the money than she realises.
Meanwhile, Ironwood’s gamble pays off and Robyn goes to attack Yang and Blake’s convoy, unaware that they are in hiding. It’s a good thing that Robyn decided to check the back of the truck instead of having her lackey shrink it down, that would’ve been inconvenient to the plot. While she attempts to flee, Yang and Blake corner her and tell her the truth about Ironwood’s plans, where Robyn uses her semblance to confirm they are telling the truth. Seems like a very handy tool for someone who wanted to be a politician. However, Robyn says that this doesn’t make sense. Perhaps Ironwood isn’t telling the team everything.
‘Worst Case Scenario’ concludes with Oscar and Ironwood in the chamber of the Staff of Creation, where Ironwood hoped to get Ozpin to come back. Here, they discuss even further the events of what happened and how Ozpin would’ve handled them, as well as talking about what powers the Staff of Creation has. Their conversation concludes with Ironwood jokingly pointing out that Oscar’s solution sounds like something Ozpin would say, and Winter delivering him an invitation from Jacques Schnee, inviting him to dinner so that Ironwood can defend his seat on the council. This is a scene that the whole fandom has been excited for since the announcement of volume 7, so it’ll be interesting to see what the Rooster Teeth crew come up with.
‘Worst Case Scenario’ is a mixed bag. It has some niggly bits of writing that take away from the overall quality of the episode, like telling the audience about the aftermath of the Grimm attack instead of showing us, as well as bringing Penny back to use her as a plot device. These factors make ‘Worst Case Scenario’ one of the weakest episodes in the volume. However, there is still some hope: there are some genuinely nice moments of character and relationship development as well as some interesting set ups for the future.
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