u/personalduke

while season 5 started pretty rough, i personally loved the second half of the season once they finished the Mall episodes. here are my season 6 predictions after catching up and reading through the finale discussions!

(Obviously spoilers ahead if you are not caught up to the end of Season 5)

I'll start off with some more obvious predictions that come off the heel of the Season 5 finale:

• Kristin Marie is definitely moving to Abbott next season, and she'll be the one to take over Gregory's 1st grade class now that he's moved to Assistant Principal. this will give her a chance to be introduced to both Barbara and Janine and get roped into their hi-jinks with Melissa.

• Jacob's story arc will definitely shift towards taking on greater roles with the District through his whatever position it was (I don't remember the title). We might see even see Manny and the District crew regularly again.

• Gregory and Janine's relationship is going to build up to a proposal by the end of Season 6.

• lol this means Janine might get pregnant in season 7 if the proposal happens in the next season, or that could mean we'll have season 7 be their honeymoon season where they focus on family planning topics. Like what happens to a teacher during family leave?

• Barbara episodes are definitely going to be about her life as a... Glamma! Which means we're going to see Taylor again more regularly since she'll be living closer to Barbara again.

• As Barbara grows into her new life as Glamma, this will serve as the opener for Janine and Gregory thinking about family planning during any Taylor episodes.

• Barbara will probably start entertaining the thought of retirement as she becomes Glamma. That's been hinted at for the last 2 seasons now.

• Definitely going to get another episode with Janine's mom and Gregory's dad as they navigate elevating their relationship. Maybe Janine's sister might even come back for an episode to touch base as Janine continues to go through significant character development.

• We'll probably get more developments with O'Shon and Ava's relationship, learning more about O'Shon's life.

• Speaking of Ava, I really, really hope we get new story development for Ava. I'd love an Ava-focused season. We still don't know too much about her, like how she ended up with her Grandma being her only family member. What happened between the time her dad left her family to her Grandma stepping in? Did she live in a single mother household? What is her relationship with her Grandma like? What happened to her mom and where is she? The series hasn't introduced her mom or grandma in person yet, and it hasn't touched base on that part of her story since season 1. Tons of questions behind Ava's story.

• We are definitely going to start seeing more Caleb now that he's entering his first full season as a gym teacher. Actually this would become his first full year as a teacher. His character story will probably be about getting accredited lol.

• Jacob's story episodes will probably move towards being with Caleb a lot more now.

• We might even get to see Jacob and Caleb's family next season and see their dynamics, which opens up Jacob's personal character arc again for more story development as he grows from his own family difficulties that shaped him.

• Mr Johnson's story is going to advance with Ms Carol!

• We are definitely getting more Ava and Dia hi-jinks now that Gregory is going to serve as the straight man comedic role between them as Assistant Principal lol. I love Dia so I hope to see more of her.

More speculative predictions:

• In hindsight, I think the writers started increasingly featuring Tasha, Morton, and introducing Dominic so that they can fill in enough grade teachers to cover the incoming influx of students that will be moving into Abbott after the other 18 (19 minus Abbott) schools are closing. That means they're going to transition into becoming main cast members getting into their own hi-jinks.

• Following the above, Tasha's story will probably be introduced, Morton might get some actual story development in being less of an incel lol, and Dominic will start to have his story develop like an early series Janine. We may find out why Tasha became an apathetic teacher.

• Morton finds... housing! And then a car, lol. We might get a continuation of his MostlyFans storyline or he'll be doing some new odd job.

• Janine will begin to transition into a seasoned teacher, mentor role for Dominic

• I have no idea who will become Courtney's 7th grade teacher, but it could be either Tasha, Morton, or possibly Kristin Marie if my other prediction is right. I hope it's NOT Kristin Marie since that would be a rehash of last season with Melissa and Courtney. It's hard to imagine where they would place Courtney in anyone other than one of the main cast members' classes since they haven't built up the other teachers' characters enough yet.

• But, for the above, they might switch up Jacob's grade level like how Melissa got moved to 6th grade. Instead, Jacob will move down to 7th grade and have Courtney be part of his class next season.

• We'll probably see another episode featuring Crystal Riley and the aftermath of Liberty Rings going no-test and no-homework LOL.

• But, I think Ava's rivalry with Crystal is going to open to a new story point for Ava where she begins to take greater pride and ownership over her career as a principal instead of focusing on one-upping Crystal. This would be the ultimate one-up to Crystal, and force the two to start to grow into their roles as principals and not just sorors. This would be picking up where we left off in Season 5.

• I absolutely want more Krystal and Tariq episodes, I think the PTA episodes are so funny. But it's getting harder for me to imagine how they can have episodes focused on them since Nick is moving onto grade 3, which none of the main characters teach (unless Melissa gets moved down to elementary again and we get Melissa-Tariq moments lol). I can't remember what grade Krystal's kid is moving into, I think it's 2nd grade?

• I also really want more Erika episodes cause episodes she's in are always my favorite ones lol. An Erika episode is a good episode for me. She got to do a camera crew monologue during the Janine-Gregory breakup storyline so I think she's going to get introduced more regularly. We also haven't had a chance to see Simon in a while, and if the Jacob-District story is happening, that's an easy way to involve the District crew again.

• I want more Ms Inez episodes, it's like she's right at the brink of becoming a consistent recurring character like Tariq, borderline main cast member. Ms Inez episodes would be a fantastic way to talk about the literacy crisis in the US right now.

• We're going to see Melissa Schwartz launch her Board of Education campaign now that she's out of a job, and that will lead to Jacob's next season political story madness LOL. I think the Campaign episode was setting up a politics story for Jacob that's a commentary on the state of US showboating and muckraking politics. It was pretty obvious who was playing what role in the political commentary of the Campaign episode in Season 5, lol.

• I hope they ease up on hitting back at Jacob next season. They did a great balance of this comedic bit throughout Season 1-3 where it was more like a gentle pushback instead of outright dismissal. It was particularly bad in the first half of Season 5 where everyone was downright mean to Jacob, but I think they started writing these comedy bits better near the end of Season 5. It felt like a bizarre turn of character for everyone in the first half of Season 5 before they started returning to form again.

• In general, I hope Season 6 leans back into more story arcs (personally those are my favorite) and introduces more involved story episodes. Season 5 was weak in that dimension: the story-focused episodes didn't move the story developments for the characters very much. I don't think they should move the series into a serial format, instead focus on writing layers into the story again.

Anyways that's all I have at the top of my mind right now, what are your predictions for Season 6?

let's reimagine the Rebellion Arc in a way where Alicia & Beth survive Priscilla instead of Yagi sending the two off unceremoniously (or don't encounter her at all), and they make their way back to HQ to participate in the Rebellion Arc for an even more hype, an even more chaotic arc.

SCENARIO:

• Beth still gets inflicted by the Destroyer to get her mutated awakened form.
• Priscilla beelines straight to Clare instead of Yagi sending her to encounter Beth to get rid of Alicia & Beth to advance the story
• Beth ignores Priscilla and immediately makes her way back to Alicia after she awakens (since she is now recovered)
• Meanwhile, Riful and Alicia continue their fight to the death UNINTERRUPTED. Riful unfortunately must lose this fight for the Rebellion arc to happen. Alicia emerges victorious (Beth can join the fight, doesn't matter, up to you to imagine).
• The Destroyer, Clare, and Priscilla all become sealed away as usual.
• Alicia and Beth soul link and Alicia brings Beth back. Let's just assume her appearance once returned, is only slightly different or not different at all. But they can still return to their normal forms and perform soul link.
• Beth gains a new awakened form.

MEANWHILE AS ALICIA & BETH ARE PREOCCUPIED WITH RIFUL AND RETURNING TO HQ:

• Miria takes down the Last Generation, the Organization sends out Cassandra, Hysteria, and Roxanne as usual.
• They are in the middle of fighting the Last Generation with the same matchups as in the story (CASSANDRA NOT AWAKENED YET, HYSTERIA STILL HAS AMNESIA), until...

ALICIA & BETH RETURN:

From this point, how would you reimagine the Rebellion Arc?

---

MY REIMAGINED REBELLION ARC:

• Since Roxanne vs the trainee twins are furthest away from the center of the action, Alicia & Beth encounter Roxanne first. They immediately notice that Roxanne, an unknown Claymore, is attacking trainees because of the trainee uniforms, and interpret the situation as Roxanne being a rebellious Claymore.
• In fact, based on the sheer number of Claymores fighting against the revived Number 1s, Alicia & Beth interpret the situation as the last generation being summoned to put down Cassandra, Roxanne, and Hysteria. Of course, they join the fight mistakenly thinking they're fighting for the Organization.
• Alicia & Beth engage vs Roxanne and it turns into Alicia, Beth, and trainee twins vs Roxanne
• Roxanne is forced to fight seriously, and struggles significantly. She still takes down the trainee twins almost immediately, but not as severely, as she begins to struggle vs Alicia & Beth, especially with Soul Link.

MEANWHILE, Cassandra is casually sweeping Audrey, Rachel, and Nina like in the story.

• Roxanne is forced to awaken much earlier to deal with Alicia & Beth after suffering enough damage from the fight.
• Cassandra finishes her spar and awakens like in the story.

Hysteria continues to fight Miria like usual in the story but before Miria deals the finishing blow:

• Alicia & Beth notice that Cassandra is going after Roxanne and decide to run away towards Miria's direction to deal with Hysteria which they deemed a much more manageable situation
• The twins and the last generation go and save Audrey, Rachel, and Nina like usual. They don't need Miria to block a Cassandra hydra head this time since they suffered far less damage thanks to Alicia & Beth's assistance against Roxanne. And Miria is still dealing with Hysteria in this reimagination.

WE THEN GET Hysteria vs Miria and Alicia & Beth:

• Hysteria struggles much more than in the story, but thanks to Elegance and her usual swordsmanship and power, she has the speed to keep up unlike Roxanne.
• Miria, meanwhile, runs off to kill the Organization and leaves Alicia & Beth to deal with Hysteria
• The Organization gets destroyed much sooner than in the story

WHILE MIRIA IS DESTROYING THE ORGANIZATION:

• Hysteria suffers enough damage from her fight with Alicia & Beth after dealing with Miria (who still had to use Ultimate Phantom) that she is forced to awaken as well (similarly to how Roxanne experienced a sudden jolt in agility to run away to awaken after being completely dismembered and even bisected).

With the Organization gone, Miria has to deal with the new Abyssals.

• She decides to go after Hysteria using her original plan, like in the manga, by teaming up with a Number 1 (Alicia & Beth) to deal with the new Abyssal Ones.
• WE THEN GET: Awakened Hysteria VS Alicia, Beth, and Miria.
• HYSTERIA DOES NOT SUFFER FROM PLOT-INDUCED PRIDE THIS TIME: She does NOT compete with Miria anymore in a contest of speed, this is a fight to the death now that Alicia & Beth are here. She retains her original form and not her frail form. She can fly.
• Alicia & Beth are forced to go into Soul Link awakening back and forth between Alicia and Beth in order to keep up with Hysteria.
• Miria serves as backup to protect whichever twin is not awakened.

The fight moves too quickly for her and she is still forced to nearly awaken, before her Seven Ghosts (minus Clare) crew arrive with Dietrich and Anastasia in stow and brings her back.

• The crew, thanks to Alicia & Beth, suffer much less damage but are stuck at an impasse against Hysteria.

• They decide to mostly provide support in the air thanks to Anastasia, in order to avoid the melee that happens between Awakened Alicia or Beth vs Hysteria

• Alicia or Beth, stays in the air to make it harder for Hysteria to interrupt Soul Link. They switch back and forth from mid-air to ground bound when swapping awakening.

• Considering how insane the speed and damage collateral that happening between Hysteria, Alicia, and Beth, Hysteria still tries to whittle down her opponents and Seven Ghosts, Dietrich, and Anastasia still suffer similar damage as in the story, but not as severe (like when Hysteria cannon balls in the air).

• Cassandra takes down Roxanne and kills her like in the manga

• This time, Hysteria lures Alicia & Beth away to Cassandra instead. With Roxanne gone, the Hysteria fight continues.

WE THEN GET: Cassandra and Hysteria vs Alicia & Beth and Miria

• Cassandra, now being forced into a fight, defends herself. She does not go into offense mode because she has no idea who any of these people are, and only attacks those who attack her.
• Miria still gets her speed boost from Anastasia's hair using the same plan as in the manga. This time, she gets this boost as a way to forcibly tip the scales in her favor in the fight and to keep up with the 2 other Abyssals.

Throughout the time Miria is planning and moving to return to Alicia & Beth, the fight starts to tip in Hysteria's favor and Alicia & Beth suffer significant damage from both Cassandra and Hysteria.

• They begin to run out of Yoki from Soul Link awakening repeatedly throughout the arc thus far.
• Hysteria, being much slower than she was in the story at this point (she's still in her first form but still has a huge speed advantage over awakened Alicia or Beth), gets taken down by a significantly faster Miria with Anastasia's hair, who ambushes Hysteria right as she's about to deal a deathblow to Alicia or Beth.

With Hysteria dead, the fight pauses as Cassandra is not on the offense and Alicia & Beth are now out of yoki and need to recover.

• Cassandra leaves like in the story, and Alicia & Beth are left in the aftermath
• The Priscilla illusion appears again, Alicia & Beth immediately recognize it. Miria gets the same explanation from Deneve & Helen about Priscilla, which now Alicia & Beth get filled in on too.

Miria has Yuma and Cynthia heal Alicia & Beth, who are startled by seeing such an ability. More importantly, now that they are able to ascertain the situation, Beth recognizes Yuma and Cynthia from The Destroyer arc.

• As they are healing, Miria explains to them the situation that the Organization is no more and that they are free
• Alicia & Beth are left in a state of shock but mostly bewilderment and uncertainty.
• They experience a breakdown, and their self-awareness starts to struggle to the surface. But ultimately, they join Miria in agreement that they need to deal with Priscilla and Cassandra.

END ARC.

Fast forward, Alicia & Beth return to Rabona where they recognize Galatea through her yoki. Their individual personalities starts to surface after coming to terms with the gravity of the Rebellion arc, and as they experience their first sense of connection with the familiar faces from their generation.

Alicia & Beth join the final fight.

• Galatea fills in Alicia & Beth about her contingency plan with Miata and Clarice in case things go wrong at Rabona. They decide that Beth will stay back at Rabona to assist.
• Alicia joins Miria, Seven Ghosts, Octavia, Chronos & Lars, and the remaining Awakened to try and lure Cassandra.
• Everything proceeds the same as in the story: they lead Cassandra to Priscilla where they all pivot to fight Priscilla, except this time Priscilla has a much more difficult fight.
• Since Priscilla doesn't manage to kill anyone at this point yet, Alicia continues to survive.
• Same events happen in the finale, but Tabitha survives because Alicia leads much more of the fight this time

Meanwhile, Beth & Galatea perform a much more feasible Soul Link with Miata (can't be the other way around since they don't have the experience of holding back their Awakened link)

• Miata and her generation vs Europa proceeds much more smoothly with Miata maintaining her sanity the entire fight
• Clarice survives

With Clarice surviving, Beth, Galatea, and the last generation rush over to the scene versus Priscilla.

• By the time they arrive, Teresa returns

Finale proceeds the same.

THE END! And this time Alicia & Beth survive and get their happy ending!

I just had this realization all of a sudden when I was thinking about the Cassandra vs Teresa duel (which is unrelated to the post).

Irene was one of the Claymores who fought Hysteria during the Rockwell Hill Massacre.

This comes from what we know about the timeline of Teresa's tenure as a Claymore, as well as what we know about how the Organization puts together Awakened Being teams.

After the Rockwell Hill Massacre, Teresa jumped from some lower single digit to some higher single digit, while Rosemary was promoted to Number 1. Considering that the Organization was aware of Teresa's role in taking down Hysteria, we can presume that Teresa was promoted anywhere from ranks 2-5, but it's likely rank 2. The Rockwell Hill Massacre is also where she gets her epithet from.

Shortly afterwards, Teresa takes over Rosemary's position as Number 1.

This timeline points to the fact that Teresa's tenure as a Claymore was fighting entirely solo, except for Rockwell Hill Massacre. Rockwell Hill Massacre occurred when she JUST got her rank, which was immediately a single digit rank. She took down Hysteria, Rosemary dealt the finishing blow, and she rose to the top single digits.

At that point, immediately after she was given her rank, her promoted number was too high for the Organization to pair her with anyone else for Awakened Being hunts. We know this because Teresa needed to build enough credible demonstrations of power for the Organization to promote her.

The only way she could have done this was by fighting enough Awakened Beings completely solo, effortlessly, without suffering any damage, consistently. That was the only way to indicate that her powers were in fact, greater than the current standing Number 1. Otherwise, the Organization would have given her the Number 1 rank while only meeting the expectations of the higher single digits' line of duty, which isn't enough reason to topple Rosemary's achievement that got her to Number 1.

Further evidence that Teresa was always fighting solo after Rockwell Hill Massacre (which again, was Teresa's first ever mission since she had JUST received her rank) is what we know about how the Organization manages the single digits. The lower single digits get paired together with other lower single digits, and other double digits, for Awakened Being hunts. The higher single digits are stationed near the HQ or are each of the cardinal regions of the island to maintain balance of power among the Awakened Beings and Yomas. They are usually fighting solo or sent off to missions, solo. We see this with Galatea, Ophelia, Raphaela, Miata (Clarice was there as emotional support), formerly number 3 Dietrich. The only exceptions we see are Roxanne (her mission with Cassandra's number 35), and Audrey & Rachel.

But again, going back to the earlier point, Teresa was a single digit and needed to demonstrate sufficient power and achievement to overtake Rosemary for the number 1 rank.

Roxanne did NOT rise in rank through power and achievement, she rose to the rank because she gathered what was basically a lynch mob to kill Cassandra for the number 1 spot. All the while Cassandra never fought back against her other comrades, only marching to get closer to kill Roxanne.

Audrey & Rachel gained their rank because Dietrich failed to kill Galatea, so they were always of a lower rank. Audrey was at most rank 5 since Rachel takes her spot after Dietrich's demotion and Audrey's promotion. So those two didn't gain their ranks through demonstration of power either. And presumably, Audrey's generation was a weaker or merely average generation, so it's no surprise that a rank 5 had to be consistently paired with another lower single digit on Awakened Being missions. Roxanne was always known for gaining power and rank by killing off her other comrades, and she knew about Cassandra's secret and her relationship with Number 35. Since she preemptively called for Cassandra's lynch mob, the implication is that Roxanne schemed to request to be paired with Number 35 as a folly for that Awakened Being hunt as part of her scheme to kill Cassandra.

So every instance of a single digit we've seen in the series consistently has the top 2-5 on solo missions. And we can now infer that this was the case for Teresa too since she needed to build her resume to the point where the Organization was sufficiently convinced that she was the proper Number 1 of her generation to overtake Rosemary. Again, she needed achievements that were significant enough to topple the Number 1 who dealt the finishing blow to Hysteria, one of the Organization's strongest Number 1s of all time.

Yet, Irene is the one who introduces Teresa's special ability to the reader. Irene has never been paired with Teresa before on an Awakened Being hunt because of the balance of power above for top single digits. Irene couldn't have inferred her power from Teresa's epithet. Irene states that Teresa's individual abilities in strength, speed, and overall power was lower than each of the other single digits that were on her hit squad. The Claymores that are sent to take down rogue Claymores or black cards, are not given the data on Claymores that the Organization keeps record of as we know from the examples of black card executions (Clare and her friend, Miria and Hilda), and punitive executions such as from Galatea being hunted by both Dietrich and Miata, Rafaela sent to take down Irene, and from Cassandra's lynch mob where Cassandra was humiliated in front of her generation who discover her technique for the first time.

So that means that Irene had to have witnessed Teresa in action at some point.

The only time Teresa has ever fought an opponent in front of anyone else was during the Rockwell Hill Massacre.

This means that Irene's information about Teresa's abilities and her inference about Teresa's powers (before she found out she was wrong) comes entirely from when they were fighting together to take down Hysteria during the Rockwell Hill Massacre.

Similarly, this means that Teresa knows about Irene's Quicksword through the Rockwell Hill Massacre. But in Teresa's case, we also know that she's just monstrous enough to block against Quicksword by matching Irene's sword regardless.

This gives us some information about Irene's timeline as well. It's possible that Irene's time as a warrior was actually longer than Teresa's.

Irene was most likely part of Hysteria's generation at the latest, though it's possible she was part of an even earlier generation.