Season Red vs Blue: Season 12 Review

Yeah, expect some comparisons to the 2007 New York Giants.

Spoilers Below

The twelfth season of Red vs. Blue was bad stuff sandwich, but it had the best tasting good stuff bread possible.  The story for season 12 was a lot different in terms of how it came along. In season’s past, the story was about 15 episodes of comedic gold, but little exposition. Over the final five episodes, however, the story just comes together in an abrupt way. This season, the story took it’s time. It simmered and took a while to develop.

The story started out great. I can’t even lie. Tucker, Simmons, Caboose, and Grif are separated from the rest of their team, and the only thing on their mind is a reunion. Ten episodes later, and our team meets up with the other half of the squad. And where we get a full eight episodes of Grif and company trying to lead a squad of underlings, we get one…ONE episode of Sarge, Wash, Donut, and Lopez, and the slow burn started.

Herein lies the first real problem of the season: Once we got the stories of the two separated teams, we got silly backstories and durdling around. It felt like the writing team went, “oh shit. We just hit everything we wanted to before we finished, where do we go now?” Those five or so weeks gave us one good thing: the return of Church and Carolina. The durdling, flashbacks, and a complete episode of Locus and Felix just talking about their plans were a drain. If it were up to me, I would have had the battle span over the course of a few episodes.

Another problem was the amount of breaks Rooster Teeth took when putting out episodes. This didn’t only affect RvB, but RWBY as well. Generally, there was only one or two breaks during the season, but there was no less than five during season 12. It seemed like whenever there was a thread of momentum, that momentum was smashed due to a technical error in uploading, holiday, or some other shenanigans. Whenever I would bring this up with John, we would be amazed at how many breaks we had.

So, after we learn what Carolina and Church were doing, get some insight on what Locus and Felix were doing, how each side handled the lies of their team dying at the hands of the other side, and a couple episodes of planning and raiding a crash site, we get to episode 18, and the battle finally began. There was nothing but a Mexican stand off with the Feds and Republic, and most of the action came from the Freelancers and the Reds and Blues trying to invade the mercenary stronghold. Of course, their plan succeeds, and they out the CEO of Charon Industries was behind the civil war and the former Freelancers becoming hired guns.

While the pacing suffered from a terrible slump worthy of the 2013 NY Giants, the last two episodes turned the ship just in time, and scored the game winning touchdown. Another score for the season was the CG integration. It got so much better as the season went on, because the CG was better weaved into the surroundings. Early on, you can tell that there was a definite hard cut between the CG and the game footage. Towards the end of the season, that CG footage felt like it was taking place inside the game footage, and the editing around it got a lot better.

Now, don’t get me wrong. There was a lot of good with this season. With a little bit of tinkering, the plot structure could really work. The writing staff just needs to keep the plot on track, and not get derailed from the stupid shit that hampered the second half of the season. This was the first time that RvB had a structure like this, and it should be perfected by next season, for sure. The CG is already leagues above where it was during the early years of use, and I was happy with the progression during the season. My last problem is that I have to wait about seven months until the new season kicks off.