Review: Red vs Blue “The Brick Gulch Chronicles”

You’ve got a Red in me.

Like many people who have or are growing up in this century, I have seen the Toy Story movies a few times in my life. As a kid, all I needed to accept the logic of the story was that it was happening; toys come to life when you’re not looking and do toy things. Having grown up a bit and expanded my critical thinking skills, suddenly my mind goes places with this concept that I’m pretty sure the filmmakers never intended, such as: Do the toys pretend to be not alive as self-preservation, or is it involuntary? Is there a sacred pact between the toys and the humans since ancient times that the humans must never know the toys are sentient? Are the cars from Cars actually bikes?

You will not find the answers to those questions in this week’s episode of Red vs Blue. What you will find is ten minutes of time to waste watching the Blood Gulch Crew as Kre-O figures getting yanked around by a sadistic 12 year old, with a touch of being self-referential. And, for what it’s worth, it’s solid ten minutes. This is the first episode of this anthology season to not be something stealthily tucked into the series’ intricate timeline, and it’s refreshing in that regard. It reminds me of the joke episodes they did way back in Seasons 2 and 3. Just some gags that aren’t tied down by the story and can just let the characters play around as their base selves. It could easily fit into one of the first five seasons if not for Freckles, the giant deathbot from Season 11, also being there.

It’s a fun yarn that calls back the old, gives it a slight new spin, and does enough with it without out staying its welcome. We’ll most likely be getting more heart-wrenchers as we move on in this season, so some levity is welcome. This show did start as a comedy, after all.