Review: Red vs Blue Season 11 Ep. 7
Spoilers Below
As I sit here trying to write this review, I’m struggling. Not because of anything to do with the review itself, but more so a mood issue. You see, I just finished watching Downfall (or Der Untergang in German.) If you haven’t heard of it, it’s movie from 2004 about the last days of Adolf Hitler and the rest of his bunker buddies. Why did I happen to be watching a two-and-a-half hour film about the end of World War II from nine years ago, you might ask? (By the way: 2004 was nine years ago! Where the hell did the time go?!) The reason I watched this movie – aside from the positive reviews of it – was because I was caught in a situation where one of the 161 movies in my Netflix queue was expiring from the site, and I knew I had to use it or lose it.
You might think: Cool! I love World War II stuff, or war films, or action films, or just watching shit getting blown up and people getting killed. And I will say, at first the abundant Nazi deaths seem righteous, and I’m very much unaffected by it. After all, it’s a war movie; war deaths are expected. Then, later in the movie, Hitler and Eva Braun kill themselves, as is also expected. And then a German officer kills himself… and another, and another, and suddenly the suicide death toll is skyrocketing. Again, Nazi deaths aren’t too big of a deal – until it’s the Nazi officer parents poisoning their children, one by one. Then the wives kill themselves, then more officers kill themselves, then Hitler’s friends, then Hitler’s dog. His dog! That’s right: someone poisoned Hitler’s dog, probably so he didn’t feel left out of the mass suicides occurring. Soldiers die as the Russian troops close in, and German civilians are caught in the crossfire by guns and bombs, filling the hospitals with the dead and dying, amputees and injuries. Finally the war ends, which is of course marked with some final Nazi officer suicides.
Think the death has ended too? Not so fast. Before the credits start to roll there are a series of slides reassuring you one-by-one that the Nazi officers and other persons that you didn’t see die in the film, eventually died, with dates ranging from 1945 to 2003. One (1) single slide ended with, “He now lives in Berlin.” Finally, a sole survivor amongst the deaths of pretty much everyone else that appeared in the film!
If you were to play a drinking game with this movie – where you drank every time someone died – you’d be dead by the end of it.
Why I chose to watch the newest Red vs. Blue, and then Downfall, and then write a review for Red vs. Blue, I’ll never know. But here we are.
The episode began at the Blue base, where Washington questioned Caboose about how he found “Freckles,” the mantis. After Caboose insisted he did, in fact, just find him (under some debris), Washington ordered Tucker to continue training and headed up to inventory the ship’s food supply. However, when Wash entered the ship, he passed by the food storage to tend to something else.
Meanwhile, at the Red Base, Grif asked Simmons why they always carry their guns, given that their only enemy is the Blue Team, with whom they have been peaceful since they all arrived. Spooked at the challenge to put his gun down, Simmons ran away from Grif, only to both be called over by Sarge. Sarge then instructed the duo to do reconnaissance on the Blues, believing them to be plotting some sort of attack with their newly-acquired mantis.
Since I dicked around for most of this article, I’ll cut to the chase now. The episode was funny, had some quotable lines, and appears to be finally heading somewhere plot-wise. Wash is clearly up to something, so the show succeeds in piquing my interest for next week’s episode.
Sorry if any of this death talk was a bummer. I actually encourage you to watch Downfall if you get the opportunity. It’s a long film about a very short amount of time in the world’s history, but it is very well done. And if you happen to be wondering whether or not the sole survivor that was still alive in 2004 is still alive nine years later… He is, at 96 years old. So there’s your happy moment in this article. Until you remember that that survivor was Hitler’s bodyguard – and thus a despicable, Nazi scumbag that doesn’t deserve to live anyway – and the moment is gone.
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