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We open up on a black screen with an unknown female voice stating "The door opened for Alyx at the tree..." As we see a glowing silhouette of a door opening, leading us into a white screen, the voice says that Alyx, before going back home, had a great many questions. A shot of the Great Tree transitions to a storybook image of the same, the page of which turns, and the person turning it is…
S: After all the lessons she'd learned, and the friends she'd made and lost, who had she become?
Yep, that's Summer Rose. Told you we'd be getting that reveal this season. And as a bit of an unfortunate reminder for Miles and Kerry,
NO ONE CARES.
Seriously! What is the point of this reveal if it's linked to some absolute balls-to-the-wall filler season with no logical flow from prior seasons?
Summer Rose continues reading the story, as we observe Yang and Ruby as children in their beads. I've got no idea how old they're supposed to be in this particular flashback. Summer reads out that Alyx heard one more question on the wind: What are you?
The scene shifts to a shot of Ruby Rose, made of wood with tree leaves floating down onto her, eyes closed, before this itself cuts to Jaune bolting out of the Neo Mansion on his rabbit deer, WBY riding behind him. Dramatic and suspenseful music full of trombones is playing as Jaune frustratedly years to know what "this place wants". They stop at the still-flooded village of the Paper Pleasers, bless their souls, and Jaune repeats that he doesn't understand.
W: [placing a hand on his shoulder] We can figure this out.
I don't think you can, Miles.
There's gotta be a way to the tree, she says, just as a familiar digitally-layered voice rings out.
???: Hello there. You appear upset. Would you be so kind as to tell me how I can help?
It's a Paper Pleaser, except it's not made of paper, but gemstone. Red gemstone. You know, like a ruby. *sigh* Really should've had a SLEDGEHAMMER OF SYMBOLOGY count for this one... It holds out some fruit from its basket, supposing they might be hungry. Jaune asks what they are, and as we get cuts of more of this new species, they are identified as the "Genial Gems", and the ruby gem says that they've arrived to clean up this desolated place and make something great. We're shown a shot of the gems working some magic on the water that flooded the lake...
transforming it into a gleaming tower of ice or crystal or something similar as Casey vocals begin to layer over the mystical-sounding track, which is again reminding me of a specific game I once played...
B: This is them, isn't it? They're back.
W: It's...just like they said. They came back from the tree better.
Y: No flood or fire will ever hurt them again.
J: ...By trying so hard to save them, I stopped them from becoming what they needed to be...
*two fingers to forehead* Okay, we gotta talk. Rooster Teeth? And by that I mean everybody who keeps letting Miles and Kerry do this shit without saying anything to stop it? Let's get one thing straight.
Yes, there are plenty of places and cultures where what we typically consider suicide is not considered such. Some of you undoubtedly have examples popping up in your head, more than likely the same ones in mine, which are certain rituals originating in Hindu and Buddhist beliefs. We would look at a sokushinbutsu and see a dead body; the people who pursued or endorsed the ascetic mummification process involved would not. That practice was, culturally, a means of ascending to a higher plane. I'm paraphrasing a lot here, the wiki link is there if y'all wanna explore that topic for yourselves.
That is not what happened to Ruby, though. Just because we know Ruby is almost certainly not literally dead, as in deceased, as in no longer alive, does not clear this latest plot development of being effectively suicide. Ruby was in extreme mental, emotional, and physical distress, and actively chose the "ascension" as a means of escaping that. Whether literal death or 'ascension', she desired to end her specific attachments to the world as they were. She, driven to complete despair, chose not to pursue living as Ruby Rose anymore.
That is suicide. She was not pursuing anything except 'no more of this'. She wanted an escape. You cannot remove the framing and the connotations and say "Well, Ruby didn't self-death after all!" just because she's not actually gone forever.
I have no real point to give this, because somehow I never fathomed Rooster Teeth would do something so offensive as to have their main character commit suicide and then try to cast it as okay because she didn't die. If I need to, I'll make one.
J: I was being selfish because I... I wanted the rush of rescuing someone.
That is getting a point.
Jaune: 87
Because we get it, Jaune sucks and can never save anyone and is a terrible hero et cetera, et cetera. There's no reason we need to be having Jaune time, because as I last recall, we were kind of in a rush to get to the tree and un-death Ruby Rose, were we not?!
W: I think you're asking too much of yourself. We've been telling ourselves that failing means we're no good. But I can guarantee, even the best huntsmen in history... They've all lost.
And, again, that's fucking RWBY at its finest, again. Miles, shut up. There is a difference between failing as a normal part of life and growing from the experience, and failing because you doomed hundreds of thousands of people to die because you stranded them in a monster-filled desert and blew their home countries off the fucking map!!!!
Miles wants RWBY absolved of this "failure" because it theoretically absolves him, too. But it doesn't. He's still an absolute moron for writing that as if the in-story consequences weren't a hundred times bigger than could be solved by some stupid fucking moralizing about failure being a part of life.
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 116
W: [to Jaune] But they were still incredibly brave...and good.
I guess this duty falls to Weiss so we can now all marvel at how things have changed since those days of Jaune's ill-fated crush on her. If Yang and Blake are busy being each other's twoo wuv, Miles might as well get the White Knight he always wanted that everybody has hated since day one.
Yeah I wasn't exaggerating, Jaune tears up and says her name and then she touches his arm and they hug all tender-like even though they've never been particularly close. Fuck it, have another point, considering up until recently Weiss was supposed to be heartbroken because her fucking home got destroyed.
Road to Nowhere: 44
Jaune: 88
Then the girlfriends join in because why stop at only one wammen comforting this tiresome character? We're a third of the way into this episode, are we planning on resolving literally anything today?
J: Maybe that cat was right. I just needed to accept it. It's not a place you go.
And then the group are all swept up in a wave of tree leaves, because now that Yang and Blake have accepted their romance and Jaune has accepted that he sucks and Weiss has accepted...erm, that sometimes you irrevocably change the course of human history and doom countless people, I guess... Well, now that's out of the way, they can find themselves at the tree.
Weiss leads the way and strides right up to a wood-ified Herbalist.
Yang somehow detaches herself from her girlfriend long enough to spot Ruby's wood-grown statue, and in distress, begins breaking branches off of it, attempting to free her sister.
J: This is why the tree brought us here.... Acceptance.
W: We've done everything we can. Now it's up to Ruby.
*swelling and turning red*
Did you?! Did you really do everything you could, when you sat there for thirty seconds and watched Ruby drink the tea?! Were you doing everything you could when you sat there and did nothing despite seeing a murderous enemy standing over her?! Were you doing everything you could when you hemmed and hawwed about your own damn problems and treated Ruby like part of the fucking wallpaper?!
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 117
You shit-brained idiots at Rooster Teeth don't even care, you just have shit happen just because!
W: Whatever happens next, we have to welcome that.
Including cancellation? I'd welcome that.
The chick in the black wig that people keep calling "Blake" touches Yang's face romantically as Yang tearfully asks, what if Ruby isn't Ruby anymore when she comes back out?
How To Piss Off Gay People: 109
Just then, in a glow of light, the Herbalist's tree cracks and breaks open, with the caterpillar body now replaced with blue butterfly wings. He flies up and off into the light. Symbolism like that made me vomit, so I'm not showing it to you.
There's like five whole seconds of just a shot of Yang crying with Blake holding her face like she's afraid her head might roll off her shoulders. Yay for face-touching. I know y'all love that, the height of romance, right?
How To Piss Off Gay People: 110
As JWBY wait outside, there's a close-up on Ruby's wood statue that transitions to the real Ruby, floating in some vaguely space-like void.
Between that and the horrible fixation on suicide we've been up to for a few episodes now, I'd say that RWBY is dangerously close to becoming Persona 3. Mock suicide was also a good thing in that game, too, because hey, it means you're facing the inevitability of death!
The dangling plot point of that armored blacksmith woman from the market stall finally comes back as Ruby follows the sound of the hammer striking metal through the starry void. She looks up from the mask she's crafting to say she wasn't expecting Ruby so soon.
Ruby says she wasn't expecting to be here and asks if the blacksmith, herself, is the tree. Sort of, is the rough answer the blacksmith gives, but she says that'd be oversimplifying the tree.
R: ...What's going to happen to me? Am I gonna die?
???: The only thing that can happen to you here is what you want to happen.
*fake brightness* Oh, so she can kill Salem and Ozpin and put everyone's lives back the way they were supposed to go before the train got derailed? *furious* Can it, Miles. I already went over this. Your suidice-as-metamorphosis plot is disgusting.
???: ...You don't know what you want, do you?
Yeah she does. She wanted to die. That much was pretty clear.
Outside, amongst the tree's woods, JWBY's attention is drawn by some kind of clanging, clamoring noise. Right ahead of them, when they turn around, is a grand door, opened wide, white light spilling from behind it. It's the way out! And who should be trying to go through, except Neo Cat! 
Hopefully both these characters go the way of Adam Taurus and are given a merciful excision from this show, there's not much to be done with either of them.
The meeting is tense, and Jaune sums up that Neo can't go through the door. The Cat clarifies that Neo has no attachments to Remnant and nothing to return to, which you would think it would've thought about before trying to hitch a ride inside her esophagus.
???: She has failed me, just like Alyx did.
Then we get exposition, because god knows we haven't heard e-fucking-nought about Alyx yet. The Cat says that Alyx promised to bring them back to Remnant with her, and as they describe, had a change of heart after "talking" with the tree, and decided to fix all the shit she broke in the Ever After (Jaune included) while Lewis left for Remnant. Given the way the scene plays out, with the cat turning on her and a blade dropping to the ground, it seems that the Cat killed Alyx for this change of heart.
RSVP: 74
Which is still that point, because we traded the Evil Black Girl for the Dead Black Girl.
The Neo Cat brandishes holographic blue claws,
as Jaune calls it a monster, but then the cat notices the Ruby statue, which thrills it because yay, it might can still bodyjack her instead. It seems like the fight will start in earnest, but we cut back to the starry void where Ruby and the blacksmith are before that can happen. There's about three minutes left in the episode.
In case you were unclear about the suicide metaphors, there's a bunch of fairy lights flying past the two, which the blacksmith identifies as souls, moving on to whatever is next for them. Ruby asks if they get to choose what that is, and the blacksmith wonders whether she's asking for them, or for herself. Then we cut back to the fight.
The battle with the Neo Cat progressed, with it manifesting zombified clones of Ruby Rose to try and take advantage of Yang's fears that what Ruby comes out as could be terrible. 
My fears are realized as it becomes clear they're going to cut back and forth from the conversation Ruby's having to the fight with the Neo Cat and back again, like an even worse version of the way Jaune healing Weiss was chopped up and sprinkled out over two or three whole episodes of Volume 5 like a line of coke.
Ruby laments to the blacksmith that she tried so hard, but failed to realize her ambitions as a huntress.
R: And... [crying] I may have just done more harm than good.
'May have'. May have. Atlas is gone, Mantle is gone, the citizens of both are being eaten by Grimm in the desert right now.... This is a bit more than doing 'more harm than good', Miles.
There's yet more dithering about who Ruby is and who she's going to be and yes, it's very much a broken record at this point. Let's cut back to the fight.
Jaune is raging at the cat for lying and letting him think Alyx was a bitch when she'd really gotten killed by the Cat, and the Cat's just like, eh, sometimes people lie, saying Jaune's not exactly a brave knight either.
Jaune looks poised to land a deathblow on the Neo Cat, which it prevents by shapeshifting into Penny, causing him a critical moment of hesitation before a cloned Pyrrha comes in to attack from behind. Jaune is floored, and Weiss tries to assist by casting a fireball at the Neo Cat, which just vanishes and causes it to hit Jaune instead.
Thereby knocking Jaune off the tree, which I didn't realize was a thing that could happen because they never showed us any boundaries while they were exploring all this solid ground earlier, and I just assumed the tree was its own little pocket dimension. Just more of shit happening if and when it needs to happen, I guess.
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 118
Back in the starry void, Ruby explores a circle of a hundred or so glass cases that the blacksmith has manifested around her, each bearing a weapon. She asks who these belonged to, and the blacksmith dismisses this question, simply asking if Ruby feels the woman who might hold it if she were to take it.
There's a triple close-up on Ruby's face as she laments that all she can feel anymore is heavy, and it isn't a feeling that goes away. Dissatisfied with not being enough, Ruby's eyes settle on the axe blade that we all know belongs to Summer Rose, as her voiceover from the Volume's first few seconds plays, Ruby remembering the story of Alyx in the Ever After as told to her by her mother. As "What are you?" echoes out again, she takes the axe.
The episode ends.
All that's left now is the finale. How are my predictions looking so far?
- Everyone very noticeably did not use their semblances at all during this episode; even Neo only used hers in the void above Wonderland—oh sorry, the Ever After. I’m going to guess there’s going to be some inhibiting factor that keeps them from using it and handily allows them to not have to animate anything remotely complex. [JOSSED]
- The Jabberwalker is obviously going to be an underling to either Neo or Alice or whoever the Red Queen expy is. [🗸]
- Jaune will, undoubtedly, be way more important than advertised so far. [🗸] And he’ll fuck something up. [PROCESSING...]
- The Crown of Choice will pop up somewhere. [PROCESSING...]
- The Bumbleby kiss. [🗸]
- Summer Rose reveal, perhaps? [🗸]
Counts:
- Jaune: 88
- It Was Right There: 64
- Fauxminism: 67
- Hypocrisy: 57
- Reliable Leaders: 80 + 17
- Prowling Wolf Fallacy: 17 (RETIRED)
- Threatening Enemies: 59
- Love to Be a Part of It Someday: 106
- Your Fight Scene Sucks: 161 + 35
- Evisceration Evasion: 35
- Ill Logic: 200
- Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 118 + 90
- Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge: 50
- Band-Aid Brigade: 58
- Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge: 50
- RSVP: 74
- Road to Nowhere: 44
- Dragged Kicking and Screaming: 56
- Y.A.S. Queen: 20
- Rooster Tease: 37
- LuLaRwe: 76
- The Lovegood Fallacy: 17
- How to Piss Off Gay People: 110
- Invisembl: 14
- Broke-Ass Clowns: 79
- Shut the Fuck Up: 24
61 – RWBY V9E8 | Table of Contents | 63 – RWBY V9 Finale
