Review: Red vs Blue: Red vs Blue vs Rooster Teeth

This doesn’t seem physically possible!

But here we are, at the end of our grand experiment. It’s been a weird, fun, and lightish red road, but we reached our destination. To close us out, it’s a final assault on the much-abused fourth wall, as most of the main cast break through to meet…the main cast. In a way, this is sort of a crossover with RT Shorts, Rooster Teeth’s live action show that stars exaggerated(?) versions of themselves going through wacky hi-jinks around the office. It’s actually kind of a perfect fit, even if I would have proffered a more somber and dramatic continuity porn ending.

SPOILERS

The Reds overlook Lopez fixing the teleporter, which turns on to reveal Caboose. He explains how he got in there…with Sarge’s body. Zoom out to reveal that this is actually Miles Luna (current head writer) and his assistant direct working on a scene, but they mixed up the controllers for each character and Miles chews them out for it. Overhearing this dissention in the ranks, Burnie (Church/Lopez) and Geoff (Grif) come in to rant about how, back in THEIR day, they wouldn’t have stupid shit like a giant global death machine turned on with a key or bringing back a pointless minor character just to rehash the snow fight in Season 8! But this is Miles’ show now, old man! And he’ll add as many contradictory roles for Grey G. Haddock as he likes! Enraged, Burnie and Geoff pull out their last resort: the RVB Kill Switch in the back of the office to end the show once and for all.

Back in the Machinima-verse, the Reds and Caboose attempt to check if the currently activated teleporter is working properly in the best way they know how: By all jumping in at the last moment! This coincides with Burnie’s countdown to pulling the kill switch and Miles arguing with his people again, leading to a spilt (previously established) energy drink, the switch being pulled, and all the present characters going through the teleporter. And per the laws of fiction, carbonated beverages + electronic equipment + a power surge = fictional characters in real life!

After the standard group scream, the Sim Troops branch out to investigate their new surroundings, with most of them soon running into their flesh and blood counter parts. Geoff and Grif wax poetic about the virtues of laziness, Gus (Simmons) and Simmons speak over head sets as their past and future selves, Matt (Sarge) is held up at gunpoint by Sarge for intel, Joel (Caboose) finds his likely most iconic role and reveals his best survival tips to him (before a mournful farewell), and Burnie hears Lopez out on his impassioned statements despite not knowing shit about Spanish. The remaining staff meets back at the switch and decides to flip it again while Burnie and Lopez fight over the broken Xbox. The rest of the troops arrive, with Donut carrying energy drink cocktails, which he naturally spills. Everything lines up again just right as the switch is pulled and the Reds and Blue are returned to their box canyon (or whatever Valhalla was)…along with Burnie. After wrapping up and hoping to finally get some rest, Tucker comes through the portal, with the traditional black soot on his armor. Don’t worry, it all works out with him as a new RT employee!…even if he may have a few dozen HR meetings in his future.

But it looks like the future of Red vs Blue looks pretty bright after seeing this! We’ll get to looking at this season as a whole next week, but for now, let’s go over this last installment. Like I said before, I was hoping for something else to add to the continuity and the mythos. However, before its early steps into meaningful sci-fi dramadey, this show was, above all else, a comedy. Bringing the characters together with their voices is an idea I’ll bet every longtime fan has wondered and probably wrote about for most of the company’s lifetime, and now it’s brought to life in a pretty hilarious manner. Kinda sucks that Church, Wash, or Tex didn’t show up (especially since Shannon was in quite a few memorable RT Shorts), or that Donut and Tucker’s voices didn’t get to interact with them, but the smaller cast did make the comedy more economical, and so the story flowed a whole lot better. The jabbing at Miles currently having the reins over the show was cute fun, but…personally, I think they could have gone quite a bit further. Though these are certainly things to learn from in case they ever follow up on this anthology type season.

Overall, bringing the troops to the minds behind them is probably the closest thing to a full circle we’ll get, so it’s the most appropriate place to take us out. Next week, we take a look back on it all.