Painting the Town...
The bigger they are, the harder they'll fall.
"Now, many of your brothers have already moved down to our new operation in the southeast. If you'd rather stay within the city, that's fine... But if you're truly ready to fight for what you believe in, this is the arsenal I can provide you. Any questions?"
— Roman Torchwick
Team RWBY takes on Roman Torchwick in an epic urban battle, but he has an ace up his sleeve... called Neo.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Androids Are People, Too: Ruby takes Penny's ability to generate an Aura as proof that she is just as much a living person as she herself is. She is in absolutely no doubt that Penny has a soul, just like a living person.
- Ascended Meme: The fandom is fond of creating unusual names for their favorite ships, which the creators are aware of. Ruby uses some of these names for combination attacks.
- "Freezerburn": The ship name was based on Weiss and Yang's ice and fire themes. The combination attack combines Weiss's ice and Yang's firepower to create a freezing fog that blankets the battlefield.
- "Ladybug": Ruby and Blake's ship name is based on their red and black colour scheme, which is like a ladybug. Their combination attack consists of them both using their speed to engage in sliding attacks from opposite sides of the enemy.
- "Bumblebee": Blake and Yang's ship name comes from their black and yellow colour scheme, which is like a bumblebee. Their combination attack consists of Blake extending the ribbon of her weapon to Yang, and swinging her to build momentum for a high-powered punch using Yang's gauntlet weapons.
- "Checkmate": An unintentonal example. The most common ship name for Weiss and Blake at the time was "Monochrome". The writers did not want to give all the combination attacks a shipping name, so actively avoided the Weiss/Blake shipping name when inventing a name of their own for their combination attack, which involves combining their blades, speed and Semblances to slash and parry attacks. Only after the episode aired did the writers find out that "Checkmate" was an existing, secondary name for the ship. As a result of Checkmate being used as the attack name, it became the more popular ship name after this episode.
- Darkened Building Shootout: Blake shoots out the lights to try this on Roman to get the edge on him, especially since as Faunus she and Sun can see in the dark and he can't. Roman just hops into the Paladin though, forcing them to flee.
- Energy Absorption: Ruby explains that, when Yang takes damage, her Semblance converts that kinetic energy into strength, making her increasingly more powerful the more damage she takes.
- Giant Robot: The Paladin Mech.
- Left the Background Music On: When Yang barges into Junior's club, the music immediately changes to the "Red Like Roses" remix heard in the "Yellow" trailer. Then it starts skipping and glitching—when it's revealed that the DJ in the bear mask was hiding under his turntable, clearly remembering what happened the last time he met Yang. He stays in sight just long enough to lift the needle and kill the music, before slowly slinking out of sight again.
- "No. Just… No" Reaction: When Weiss attempts a pun at the end of their fight with Roman, Yang responds with 'No. Just no'. Weiss is confused and asks what's wrong with the timing of her pun, but Yang just thinks it's a bad pun.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Ruby takes the reveal that Penny is a robot so well that Penny is more than a little confused.Penny: I don't... um... You're taking this extraordinarily well.
- Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Torchwick once again gets away, thanks to his petite new companion, Neo.
Neptune: They're probably fine, right?
Sun: Probably.
Sun: Probably.
