Shorts Review: Red vs. Blue Season 13, Episode 8 “Test Your Might”

 

Spoilers Below:

Not all episodes of Red vs. Blue accomplish all three major ingredients of a successful installment: 1) plot progression, 2) action sequences, and 3) humor. Still, a winning RvB show can achieve greatness (or solidarity, at least) with only two of these elements, and possibly only one. Although “Test Your Might” wasn’t a slam dunk, it worked under these very stipulations.

Episode 8 began with Agent Washington telling Grif, Simmons, and Sarge that no matter what happens, he’s proud of them. This only made the Reds panic, as they believed that Wash thought they would be killed on their upcoming mission. Especially after finding out Sarge volunteered them for the frontlines.

Meanwhile, Tucker, Caboose, Carolina, Dr. Grey, and Church’s Ghost all deciphered the gateway’s instructions regarding the “true warrior,” and Tucker took it upon himself to attempt to jump into it. He was immediately rejected, but reported seeing unbeatable armies of Locus and Felix clones. Carolina then decided to take her chances and entered it herself. She emerged shaken, having seen visions of Tex and other deceased members of Project Freelancer. The gang then decided to send in Caboose, citing his “empty head.” He was instantly recognized as personally lacking in doubt, fear, or negativity – making him a true warrior in the decider’s eyes. The alien AI entity then emerged to talk to the other “true warriors,” (the Blues) and it was revealed that he was named “Santa” by Caboose.

In Case You Missed It:

1) Grif on Chorus geography: “It’s a gas station. That we’ve been to before. Seriously, there’s like three places to go on the whole planet.”

2) Did “the voice” remind anyone else of James Earl Jones’ talking haunted house in the original Simpsons “Treehouse of Horror”?

3) Upon being deemed a true warrior, Caboose’s only response was: “Neat.”

After seeing only Locus & Felix (and their men) for an entire episode, this was a welcome change. We managed to check in with both the Red Team and Blue Team, and the comedy was restored to both groups.

Washington’s awkward pep talk/goodbye was a bit out of character for the calculated freelancer – as was the Red’s attention to subtlety – but it made for a satisfying albeit brief rendez-vous with the warm-colored team, even though it didn’t progress the plot any further. Still, it was refreshing to see Wash one again causing a bit of a humorous moment with the Reds and Blues.

The Blues, on the other hand, spent most of their time attempting trial (and error) runs (or jumps) into the gateway, with varying levels of success. Tucker’s visit seemed useless, Carolina’s was vaguely terrifying, and Caboose’s surprisingly brought back the alien AI running the whole shebang.

So although the plot appeared to be a little slow, it actually accomplished a great deal, and moved the story along ever-so-slightly. This coupled with some humor is almost all one can ask for in a Red vs. Blue episode.

Of course, we could have used a bit more humor and maybe some action sequences, but it wasn’t entirely necessary in this installment.

In the end, this was a slight step up from last week, but could at best act as a set-up for a future episode.

Let’s hope that episode comes soon & lives up to the assumed hype.