Review: Red vs Blue “The Triplets”

There’s nothing wrong with Ohio, except the snow and the rain…

Okay, this week REALLY made it clear how inconvenient it is not knowing a whole lot about music, because I spent a good hour looking for a fitting song lyric about certain states and had to settle with the Bowling For Soup line you saw before you clicked the link. I was so friggin sure one of these guys would be Oklahoma so I could just fall back on the musical, but NOPE.

And before you ask, yes, I looked into the Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young song and…it doesn’t really go here. Mainly because Nixon doesn’t really have much of a place in this franchise. Plus the Bowling for Soup has Texas in it to, and this is RVB and all, so…I’m going with that.

Moving along, we FINALLY have another episode with some meat on it, as well as our first multi-part story since the Felix and Locus three parter a little over two months ago. And it’s about the Freelancers, the super soldiers that are best at kicking the plot along since the first season, so even though this isn’t confirmed yet, I’m gonna guess this is by Shannon McCormick. Guess we’ll find out next week.

As people who have kept up with RVB will know, Project Freelancer selected 49 soldiers to be part of a top secret program to train the best of the best, forming hundreds of teams full of the worst of the worst, and also occasionally inserting unstable and fragmented Artificial Intelligence into the best of the best of the best. This led to…let’s say mixed results, but even across the nearly decade and a half long history of the show, we’ve only managed to run into 12 out of the 49. Until today, where we finally meet three more! At this rate, we should finally know every single agent by Season 48, coming in May 2051!

SPOILERS

We start with Agent Ohio trying to psych herself up…and failing, before being startled by virtually identical Agent Iowa, who apparently has gone through some considerable oxygen deprivation which may or may not have left him with permanent case of Bad Travolta Impression-itis. They are joined by the equally indistinguishable Agent Idaho, who seems to be a walking listicle generator. This pisses the hell out of Ohio, who may enjoy their company more than she lets on, but aspires for greater things in her group and is constantly let down when she is never given any missions or jobs to do…mostly because she and her synonymous associates kinda suck hardcore at everything they’re trained to do. This isn’t helped by the recent introduction of ranking the performance of the agents, which those who saw Season 9 can tell you didn’t really help things in the “team morale” category.

We enter sort of a “popular kids talk to the nerds” thing as top ranked agents South Dakota and Georgia walk in to mock the three. I dunno why Georgia’s so high and mighty, since he only got a post-credit scene in Season 10. Behind them are CT, who ended up being a traitor (hey, I said spoilers) and Washington himself. Apparently, they used to hang out with the Triplets (who turn out to be not related, just likely called that because they have nearly the same armor) before entering the higher ranks, and so have started to distance themselves from them. And you probably would too if you knew people who randomly ask about lists with “pork cheek” as good tasting meat.

After another demoralizing training session, it’s finally Assignment Day. Unsure if they will ever be recognized as worthy of standing with their peers, the trio are called in about a “very special mission”. As it turns out, while they are basically crap as individuals, they apparently are uniquely qualified to work as team, something they seem to hold over other Freelancers. Finally, a chance to shine for Ohio! But where is this mission? What will they be doing? And does the fact that these are completely new characters that were never mentioned before now mean that they are doomed to die by the end of this story? We find out next week!

As I said, I’ve been really hungry for another story that wasn’t just “Reds and Blues + gimmick” and the lord has delivered! I’m actually pretty surprised it took us this long to get to a Freelancer story, but I am glad it’s likely just going to be the one. It seems like the thing that could’ve easily gotten abused (like the gimmick stuff) and I’m glad it wasn’t.

Regarding the story itself, like with the Funhaus Red Team we got awhile back, I really like the chemistry between these three, and it’s made better by this new group is halved so character traits don’t have to be stretched so thin. Ohio is clearly very ambitious, if under qualified. She seems desperate to prove herself, and is kinda miserable where she is now, but enjoys that she has some friends who she can be miserable with. Iowa is very clearly the dumb one of the group (again likely due to the oxygen deprivation) and is mostly there to be dumb and pal around with Idaho, who at least seems to have more of his wits about him, but is equally as complacent with things. Will these differing attitudes and personal goals clash when given their first chance to be true agents? I dunno, probably. And if Siris can survive his story despite appearing nowhere else, maybe these three can too. Fingers crossed! And either way, great episode, and a strong tempo to lead us to a strong ending to the season.