Review: Red vs Blue Zero “FOR POWER Pt.2”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

In order to fight the newly upgraded Zero, Raymond decides to suddenly bring up that Axle and One’s armors can have their limiters turned off for extra strength, but higher chance of going in a coma. Carolina finishes of Diesel, while West seems to “kill” the newly formed East…but she recombines with Phase, who goes for the kill…but West says he loves her so she throws a fit and then randomly decides to go join the fight against Zero with everyone else. Though soon enough, the Ultimate Power begins to overwhelm Zero, with the Black Lotus AI threatening to take over if he can’t pull it together. He starts raging out, which gives him a momentary boost, but the combined efforts of Shatter Squad force Black Lotus to make a retreat. The group all give their real names to each other and head home. To be continued?

OUR TAKE

As this season went on, it became increasingly obvious that the priority was on the action first, with character and story last. As such, it’s no surprise that the season ends right after the fight ends, not even getting any repercussions for taking off those limiters like there was implied, as why would we want any further exploration of these characters and how they’ve grown over the course of the eight episodes? Well, that’s because there wouldn’t be anything to show anyway, since none of them have changed much at all. Raymond is the same, Axle is the same, One is the same, so on and so forth. There are some pantomimes of character growth, the most notable being Phase/East seemingly choosing to forgive West for leaving them to be experimented on and then joining against Zero, but considering her anger against him was beyond understandable and reasons for joining Zero were a complete mystery, her letting go of said anger and turning on Zero mean nothing.

And I think the scene that was meant to show this shift is worth special examination because it is by far the most rapid fire confusion I have felt all season. West is fighting the re-separated East and Phase, which is confusing enough as to what that is supposed to mean, but then he grabs a hold of East to grenade, which gets Phase scared, as if this means East will die. However, all it ends up doing is just putting East back into Phase to remake their combined form, which they should just as easily be able to separate from again without any trouble, but Phase still acts like this was some great loss on her part. And for all we know it is, but mainly because the rules and logic regarding their ability to divide and reform has never really been explained properly, and even if East really is gone for good somehow, it really makes no difference either way since she and Phase are exactly the same in terms of personality, so there’s no way to feel that loss when there isn’t any actual loss. But the kicker is that West basically gives the exact same “I did it to protect you and I love you” speech that didn’t work before on either Phase or East, but somehow THIS TIME is the one to get her to bang her fist into the ground and decide to turn on her leader despite there being no new or more compelling reasons to do so. What was stopping her before? Why do this now? Sadly, we may never know.

And hey, let it never be said I don’t appreciate a well animated fight when I see one, and RVB Zero is filled to the brim with them, but that doesn’t mean much when I don’t feel much of any connection to the characters in said fights. So when Phase comes in and tries her Vegeta lines followed by a team up with One that feels like it’s meant to be the culmination of a long rivalry falling away to become an unbreakable friendship, I must confess that it didn’t end up feeling like much more than glowing action figures crashing into each other while their owners act out some fight in their heads on the playground. And there is certainly some appeal in that sort of storytelling, but not when it takes itself so seriously as this does. Though an odd thought occurred to me about this show’s very anime energy, which is that despite being Rooster Teeth’s big anime-esque show, RWBY could desperately use some of that, especially now. But as for why this season didn’t work for RVB, we’ll get into that next time with the Season Review.