A/N: This will be the last review episode in Part 2 of the second season (due to Season 2 of this story being split into three parts), and, like the Season 2 Part 1 finale, the ending will lead directly into Part 3.
P.S.: The events depicted still take place on November 2020 for Season 2's Sociality Arc.
In this fourtieth review episode and the last of the second season's Part 2, after the third day of the Sociality Arc and taking place in the beginning of the fourth day, Ruby, Yang, Blake and Weiss once again have woken up in the middle of the night, this time with Ruby having a nightmare of sorts. Although they will leave Edo Island to return to Beacon Academy from the world of Remnant, and just as before, team RWBY decide to review The Purge and try to not dare questioning it.
EDO ISLAND
SAMURAI KINGDOM
12:30 AM
"AAAAH!", Ruby screamed as she woke up abruptly, waking up her teammates Yang, Blake and Weiss jolt awake.
It was the middle of the night, and team RWBY had already fallen asleep a few hours ago
Yang worried, "What's wrong, sis?"
"What happened?", Blake asks, rubbing her eyelids.
Weiss groaned, "What time is it...?", yawning as she checks her Scroll, "Half past midnight? Are you kidding me?"
"I... I just had a bad dream...", panted Ruby.
Yang concerns, "About what? Is Beacon falling? Is Earth in danger? Is Grimm invading?"
"No, none of that. I was dreaming that there was this strange metallic robotic humanoid that was standing two feet taller than me and had a scary visage with golden-red slit reptilian eyes...", broached the leader of team RWBY to her teammates.
Blake and Weiss wondered, "What else?"
"Other than that, I dreamt about that 2013 horror movie The Purge.", Ruby brought up.
Yang exasperates, "The Purge?! Fuck! That dumbass movie everybody fell for and yet somehow spawned a franchise?"
"Unfortunately, yes. A film where crime is legal for one night... May be the subject of fear-mongering if you think about it.", unsurely feared Ruby to her older sister, "If that were to happen, it would be complete chaos."
Her elder sister said, "The Purge wouldn't happen. It never could happen. And that's why it's so baffling that it's such a success!"
"I can see why.", the younger sister of Yang Xiao Long understood, "I just happen to find the movie on Netflix before we went to sleep, yet we haven't watched it by now, so I feel like we should go on ahead and review this one before we go back to bed."
Weiss sighs, "Do we have to?"
"We gotta if we're gonna help Ruby help good dreams tonight.", confides Blake, as Ruby then turned the guest room TV on, setting the movie up on Netflix.
Team RWBY's Commentary of The Purge (Part 1)
Ruby started, "With its sequel The Purge: Anarchy having come out in 2014 and having it be number one again at the box office...well, almost number one due to the success of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes...as well as the third film The Purge: Election Year which its box office opening overshadowed by The Legend of Tarzan and The BFG two years later, The Purge is one of those surprise hits that literally nobody can identify with."
"The idea's that the not too distant future has basically abolished crime because one night a year, they make crime legal. An interesting idea for a dark satire or maybe a clever comedy, but no! The film plays it up like this could really happen! And we shouldn't let it happen because, apparently, we're too stupid to realize it's a bad idea! We mean, its advertising takes it ridiculously serious.", examples Yang.
Blake said, "Ah, yes. Nothing like a national anthem being sung to blood-gushing, innocent killing, homicidal psychotics slaughtering families. Now if a gay or ethnic person sang it, that'll be a call for an outrage!"
"Hell, maybe America's more fucked up than we realize if we're dumb enough not only to take this shit seriously, but also give not one, not two sequels, but a franchise out of this!", exclaimed Weiss.
The leader of team RWBY was about to commence, "Let's see if this movie shows what the flying hell is wrong with us even if it does it in a way that wasn't intended-", before she and the other three girls heard the shoji door open to see Natsume and Ohana Matsumae, "OH! Natsume, you almost scared us."
"Sorry about that, Ruby. Me and Ohana heard you screaming from our guest room and we wondered if you guys will be right.", Natsume apologized in her Australian accent.
Ruby's elder sister excuses them, "We apologize. My sis had a nightmare, and we thought just reviewing The Purge would help her calm down before we go back to sleep."
"Strewth me dead...", shocked Natsume, "The Purge? What a Barry Crocker!"
Ohana supposes, "Isn't that the movie where terrorism is legalized for one night every year?"
"This is the one.", Blake figured, "We can't wait to find out if this is worth spawning a franchise."
Weiss said, "Apparently it made more installments after this, so it's best if we just do the first one."
"We wish you good luck with that. I'm eternally grateful that you allowed me to review Forest Warrior with you.", happily told Natsume.
Ohana adds, "Though I haven't done a movie review with you guys, I'm happy to have come with you guys. I do have friends back home, but it seems to me that you girls are very good friends too, especially Natsume."
"By the way, how come you heard me?", questioned Ruby as she rose an eyebrow.
Natsume answered, "Netflix. Me and Ohana were staying up to watch a bit before we sleep. Still in the middle of watching The Water Diviner, a good Australian film. The bedding here was kinda much of a swag to me."
"Swag?", questions Yang.
The ginger-haired Aussie girl rolled her eyes, "As in a sleeping bag?"
"Oh.", the blonde sister of Ruby Rose said, "Sorry, we don't know much of Australian slang, but that's good to know."
Natsume smiled, "Thank you for understanding."
"Diversity is great as always!", happily obliged Ohana.
Blake and Weiss look at each other, "Couldn't agree more. Same as the LGBT community."
"Definitely.", said Ruby as Natsume and Ohana close the shoji door as they head back to watch Netflix in their chosen washitsu guest room for a bit, "So let's not waste any time, this is The Purge."
The Purge
Ruby starts off, "We see the film opens up in the year 2022. Gee, we're getting real close to that year, aren't we?", sarcastically fearmongering, "We're so close, America! It could happen any day!", thinking afterwards, "I think it's more likely that we'll be dressing like Griff Tannen from Back to the Future Part II in a few months than having The Purge in less than a few years.", while the film's opening montage had security footage showing intense violent muggings and incidents to the sound of calming music.
"Ah, yes. And just to give you a taste of how subtle and non-pretentious this film's gonna be, here's a bunch of intense violence set to calming music.", presumes Yang, "Because it's irony! They don't fit together!", who then becomes ominously doubtful, "But will the future know that? Questions.", adding, "And just when you're wondering how an intro could be any less subtle, one hell of a puzzle piece falls into your lap.", as the film shown the producer credit being Michael Bay, "Now it makes sense! Suddenly so many elements come together! God, I could just see good old Bay getting high off his ass one night saying, 'I want it to feel deep, but I don't want to use my brain for it. Where's that Purge script?'"
Blake laughed with Weiss and Ruby, the former saying, "Very true.", beginning the story as the opening credits finish, "The film opens with a home security salesman named James, played by Ethan Hawke, driving home on the day of The Purge and noticing quite an unrealistic amount of people still in their neighborhoods."
"Uh... If we knew crime was gonna be legal in 24 hours, It'd be like telling my Schnee family, 'Hey gang! How about that vacation to Canada?' Though the more we think about it, it may not be the safest either.", dramatized Weiss.
The leader of team RWBY continued, "People put out flowers to show they support The Purge, others talk on the radio to talk about what crimes they're gonna do. Well, hopefully Keith from Northern Virginia's boss doesn't listen to the radio... Fucking idiot... And even guys in lab coats explain the totally believable way The Purge works. Hey, The Purge is not a virus or anything medical, it's just a crucial one-night event like Independence Day.", as the movie exampled the interview stating that everyone themselves is a violent species for wars, genocide, murder, denial and such while believing that the Purge may benefit themselves by letting out their aggression for one night every year.
"Oh, of course! Terrorists, drug dealers, embezzlers, people with aggressive mental disorders, all they needed to do was just let out a little aggression! It was so simple the whole time! Good lord, do you know how many crime shows would have ended differently if we knew about that from the beginning? Breaking Bad much? Would like to see Walter White make a cameo in Better Call Saul.", incensed the elder sister of Ruby Rose.
The Faunus resumed, "So James has a wife named Mary, played by Game of Thrones' Lena Headey, who spends most of her time fighting off jealous neighbors.", as the four girls watch a scene with Mary's neighbor Grace talking to her about the upcoming Purge and acted casual about it by believing it was neighborhood gossip and ensuring there would be nothing to worry about, "I bet she's like, 'I might be passive-aggressive, but tonight I'll be aggressive-aggressive!'", also saying as a married couple was seen in the movie meet up with the two women in their car before driving off, "Also that couple would've thought, 'Well, we established ourselves! Can't wait to obviously return just for the climax!'"
"Woven like a quilt, Blake. Woven like a quilt.", impressed the Schnee heiress, "But even before The Purge, a little bit of creeping seems to be going around.", as a blurred low-angled shot was shown spectating Mary as she turned around and was startled, only for the film to reveal it was a hybrid baby doll-tank-robot toy that crept up on her, "Yeah. You really got me there, movie. For a second I swore a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny person was going to kill her, but instead it was a toy hybrid similar to Sid's toys in Toy Story. Good fake out!"
The red-black-haired huntress explained, "This baby doll-tank-robot hybrid device was made by their son Charlie, as he seems to enjoy monitoring his heart rate.", before they see an excerpt of said scene with Charlie at the dinner table as he records his heart rates on his notebook, "It's never explained why, and never comes back into the movie later, it's just something he kinda likes to do.", before shrugging, "Quirks. Replacing character identity since the beginning of this movie."
"They also have a daughter named Zoey, who's moody because her dad does not approve of her 18-year-old boyfriend.", the blonde huntress states while she and her three teammates watch when the kids argue, thus causing the parents to scold the two as the kids fistbumped after, "The father's like, 'Kids, do I have to savagely mutilate you during the Purge? I'm guessing this world thinks we're good parents for some reason, but I can totally do that!'"
The black-haired huntress noticed when the father tells his family that it was time for lockdown in preparation of The Purge although it was barely irrelevant with its time setting, "Wow! Can't believe we almost missed THAT little detail! Oh what? The Purge is starting? Pfft! Whateves! It's not like we're missing an episode of Chasing Life! Hell, the movie starts by saying it's an hour before the Purge begins. That means they have to drive home, talk to neighbors, start dinner, set the table, eat dinner, AND prepare the security system during arguably the fastest sunset the town's ever known!"
"Call us crazy, but we wouldn't leave so little time between mental stability and death-becomes-the-new-selfie! We mean we know the rest of the world relies on the honor system by not committing crimes the rest of the year, but somebody could start early catching you off your guard, and then leave the country while the cops are shut down!", supported the white-haired huntress, "Or do they Respect the Purge too much to break the law?"
Ruby scoffs when the Emergency Broadcast Signal announcer mentioned the Founding Fathers during the emergency broadcast, "The new Founding Fathers. I'm sure these speeches these New Founding Fathers gave fit in just as well as the other great leaders of the past, but we don't think they would.", notifying after, "And just like before, the film praises the effectiveness of the Purge but never addresses mental illness, territory disputes, drug possession, or anything that doesn't fall under mere pent-up rage. They just say... It works!"
"That's right. The Purge works. Just like how somebody can take $65 million and apparently make a film like Foodfight! Don't question how illogical it is, it just works!", Yang demonstrated.
The team RWBY leader replied to her sister, "Thanks for mentioning it, Yang."
"I had to. Still was pretty traumatizing for us to review that one.", remembered the blonde sister, before she also unveils, "One of the other phrases they seem to repeat a lot in this movie is 'Release the Beast'. Quite a fine combination of words, right? I think people would see it in a Jaegermeister ad."
Blake summarizes, "We see a homeless guy trying to hide from some violent kids by...screaming at the top of his lungs, that'll work...as the son decides to let him in.", when said scene shows a guy named Dwayne asking to be let in just when Charlie opens the security system to let him in, "Yup! The little kid opens the door. It's not like the top seller of the security system would actually BE around his security system! Buddy, all that high tech gadgetry doesn't do much if you give into its one simple design flaw. Like Jerry Seinfeld once said, 'The door must be closed!'"
"To make things worse, Zoey's boyfriend snuck in before the lockdown and tells her that he wants to just talk to her dad about allowing him to date her.", reveals Weiss, as the boyfriend in the movie suddenly pulls out a gun and starts a gun fight with the father James before the latter shoots the former, shocking his daughter, "My gods, he must be thinking, 'I still believe the Purge works, honey!', while the boyfriend should've said, 'Talk went well. Hit a few bumps, but I think we can get past that.'"
The leader of team RWBY synopsized, "The boyfriend gets killed, and lo and behold, a group of young people approach the door who were chasing the homeless man down, to whom the leader with the mask would've said 'Dick or treat!'.", causing her, Yang, Blake and Weiss to snicker in laughter, "Now to this movie's credit, just when you think it's taking itself too seriously, a character simply known as Henry enters the film. And by god, he either takes absolutely none of this seriously or every single molecule of breath he takes on the set seriously! Either way, he may be considered as by far the most entertaining or the most overreactive part of the film. Others may not see it, but it can be proven wrong.", as the four teammates of RWBY watch several snippets of Henry's psychotic yet pretty hilarious character in the film.
"I have a feeling he's got more ham than a Dr. Seuss book. He's not gonna release the beast, he's gonna release the squee!", thought Ruby's elder sister as she chuckled to her joke, "Well, now we know what Macaulay Culkin does to every family who watches Richie Rich or one of his other movies.", who then describes as the power goes out in the family's home, "So the kids give them an hour before they try breaking in to have them hand the man over. This results in the suspenseful part of the movie where they go through the house with the power cut by the masked kids."
The Faunus assumes, "Which would make it hard to find the guy, wouldn't it? They're obviously not gonna call the cops!", also saying, "And we're not kidding, the search goes on for 15 minutes. 15 minutes of them just searching through the dark and us practically looking at nothing. We don't even know who we're supposed to be scared for. The family, of course, are the main characters and they're chasing an injured man crying for help!"
"Where the hell are we supposed to be afraid? All the while, the 'Children of the Corny' are taunting them, we guess, by doing non-scary things that are supposed to be scary because they have masks on.", the Schnee heiress frustrates as they saw the Purgers mugging on the camera with random stuff like kissing, playing around and taunting, "Those people are like, 'Well, we've tried skipping, and we've tried prancing, best continue to do a full on do-si-do and around we go!'"
The red-black-haired huntress abstracted, "But thankfully in the middle of their searching, we get yet another scene from dear young Henry.", as they react to another scene with the psychotically entertaining purger Henry, "We're really trying. We're trying so hard to be scared by this kid. But we can't tell whether or not if he is intensifingly scary or over-the-top hilarious. You can trust a face like that on a night where all crime is legal. How can this go awry?", all while the four girls watch a random purger in Henry's group get killed by him when he angrily demanded to hand Dwayne over to them.
"Why are they even blowing all their time on this one damn house? They have one night of the year to do whatever the hell they want, and yet they spend it like fifth graders who just found out they have cameras on their phones.", the blonde huntress questioned, "It's not like if they're targetting someone like a politician, celebrity or anything like that, so why shouldn't they just spread the chaos?"
The black-haired and white-haired huntresses both supported their teammates' opinion, "What person would spend so much time to get into a person's house for such a weak reason?"
Suddenly, Ruby and her teammates hear the former's Scroll ringing.
"I'll get that.", Ruby excused as she pulls out her Scroll to answer the call, before she and her three teammates were then surprised to see who it was.
Pyrrha, Nora and Penny.
Team RWBY says in unison happily, "Hi, guys!", to their friends on video chat.
"Hey, girls. So, how was your trip to Edo Island so far?", Penny and Nora gladly inquire.
Ruby nods, "Oh, it's been amazing. If only you'd be with us, it's like a paradise of dreams! Well, not the best paradise of dreams, but it takes us way back in time, that feeling when you're in the Edo period. There was the Samurai Kingdom, the Glade of Ninjas, and the one we haven't went to yet being called the Pirate Coastline."
"Samurai, ninjas and pirates, huh?", pondered Pyrrha on Ruby's Scroll video chat, "Very authentic..."
Yang said, "No kidding. We've met some friends of the Baiken's here as well, and one of them appeared to be a character from the Street Fighter games that we happened to meet yesterday. Another seemed to have been an immigrant of Japan, but she's doing very well with our samurai friend."
"Which Street Fighter character was it?", Nora wonders.
Blake answered, "Ibuki. She's one of the inhabitants from the Glade of Ninjas, and now she joined us back to the Samurai Kingdom as another friend of ours. We explored the glade yesterday while Yang was busy reviewing Dragonball Evolution with Ann and Futaba."
"The kunoichi with the baggy ninja garments? Awesome!", loved Nora.
Weiss continued, "So anyway, for the rest of the day, we've spent the rest of the day going around the Samurai Kingdom. At one point, me and Blake reviewed a movie with Natsume together, and then we reminiscences of when we've met Sinon, Leafa and Athena."
"Yeah, we know those three are some of the friends who joined us on our Niagara trip.", Pyrrha and Penny sweetened, "So, which movie are you thinking of doing next just for fun?"
Ruby confirms, "The Purge. You know, that one movie series where crime is legal for one night every year? We were in the middle of going through it."
"Yeah, that movie was kinda controversial. Speaking of which, the four of us were already starting to watch it, all the while Jaune and Ren are having their guys trip, and Harley, Noelle, Church and Sarge are busy gaming together.", Nora revealed.
Yang confused, "The four of you? Wait a minute, if there's three of you, who's with you as the fourth? Glynda? Ozpin? Qrow? My mom Raven?"
"Sun? Neptune? Ilia? Winter?", Blake and Weiss guessed.
Pyrrha scratched the back of her head in awkwardness on Ruby's video chat, "You might wanna see this one.", as she tilted her Scroll for team RWBY to look through from Ruby's Scroll video chat to find out who it was.
It was Salem.
"Hello, RWBY.", Salem calmly greeted.
Team RWBY said in an unsurprised manner, "Hi, Salem."
"Sorry about the intrusion. I arranged a watch party with Pyrrha, Nora and Penny here so that we would have fun together. Ever since that Halloween fiasco, I thought I wanted to do something just for fun with RWBY's friends of theirs. Cinder or Neopolitan didn't feel like coming, so I had to go by myself. I know you wouldn't like me being here because I'm an egotistical absolutist, but I just wanted to try new things to change the outlook.", explains Salem.
Ruby eased, "We never said you were. It's just that we're surprised you're there during our social event...and we're over at Edo Island on Earth, so we'll be leaving first thing."
"I see. The movie your friends happen to play is indeed The Purge. I understand the four of you are doing your part-time occupation of having your own opinions on such film artistry.", Salem said on the Scroll video chat, "Soon, I'll best be going once this movie is over. I think you don't mind me dropping in every once in a while."
Yang shrugged, "Well, we don't mind, but-"
"What Salem is saying is that she is welcome tonight to join us for our watch party.", Pyrrha, Penny and Nora dismissed, "We don't mind at least, neither does Glynda or our other friends."
Blake told, "Yeah, lately we've been doing a lot of crossover collaborations. It isn't actually repetitive or redundant, it actually gives our friends the opportunity to work and join us collaboratively, you know?"
"I also seem you've made a lot of new friends lately. The three of your friends here already told me.", notifies Salem.
During the conversation, Natsume and Ohana open the shoji door again after leaving their guest room to check up on Ruby, the former saying, "G'day, team RWBY. How ya doin' with the review so far?", in her Australian accent before noticing Salem in Ruby's Scroll video chat, "Who in the outback is that?"
"Have fun, girls.", Pyrrha, Nora and Penny happily said.
Team RWBY greeted, "You too.", as the Scroll video chat has finally ended; once it does, they turn to see Natsume and Ohana at the shoji door, the two dumbfounded by Salem's appearance on the video chat, "Hey, you two. How's it hanging?"
"Y'know what? Everything's fine. I'll come back later. I suppose she's a friend of yours maybe?", Natsume nervously chuckled as she closed the shoji door.
Ohana also thought, "Cosplay, perhaps?"
Team RWBY couldn't help but roll their eyes and smile for their friends.
To be continued...