Looks like they were going for one of those puzzle piece, flashback episodes but this late in the Volume with all the tension that should be there is the wrong time for something like that. And this episode felt unusually short. This almost feels like it isn't meant to be 'the' Ironwood boss fight a lot of us would love to see and I'm not sure if that's because they're saving it for later or if they really bungled the pace by arranging that action scene the way they did.
I'm always slightly amused but annoyed at how they keep hiring big name voice actors while the rest of their show is shit, is that Richard Epcar voicing the big blue buff dude? They should be paying better writers instead. To be brutally honest, I don't get excited about the relic smurfs because they're a big blue reminder of how bland RWBY's setting is in practice. They are the creations of gods yet they act and speak like regular modern humans, they should be otherworldly and truly frightening but, like the Brothers Grimm, they're just people in body paint with magic powers. Almost everyone in this world, no matter how far in the past you go (even Salem's era), talks like the average American, that might have been okay for modern Vale but it makes me painfully aware that they're just placing the castles and magic around like dressing instead of using the lore to its fullest potential. But WoR was an utter shitshow from the start that they've been retconning ever since so this was botched from its inception.