Review: Red vs Blue “Mr. Red vs Mr. Blue”

It makes sense in context!

I’ve made no secret that I’m starting to get a bit peeved with how lukewarm the most recent handful of stories in this season have been. Nineteen episodes is the bare minimum for an RVB season, so you know we’re already nearly at the end here. And with the gimmicky duds we’d been getting the past month or so, it seemed like we were going to cap off this installment with more of a whimper than a bang. Well, while this certainly isn’t a bang, it’s definitely meatier than simply adding music, changing genders, or adding a color filter would be.

SPOILERS

This episode is set between the end of Season 5 and 6, like “Fight the Good Fight” before it. Following the climactic events of the Blood Gulch finale, the remaining Reds and Blues are in a weird place. Church has lost Tex, Tucker’s lost his alien son, Caboose has lost Sheila, and the Reds have lost all motivation to fight (which isn’t saying much, but still). Everyone’s made a truce, but no one’s really getting along. To perk up things a bit, Tucker puts together a movie night…or rather, ANOTHER movie night, as this has been apparently been done quite a bit for awhile now, and with the only movie they have in the canyon: Reservoir Dogs. Great film on its own, but probably not when you have to watch it on repeat. That said, hunger is the best spice, and so the teams unite to play the tape one more time. This time, unfortunately, Caboose is at the projector, and this naturally ends with the tape destroyed.

While this is momentary relief for most of the canyon, Tucker is devastated. So, out of an opaque mixture of guilt, concern, annoyance, and boredom, the Reds and Blues give the film the “Be Kind, Rewind” treatment and try to recreate it with them as the cast. What follows is basically what you’d expect if the RVB guys did Reservoir Dogs, which sounds a bit gimmicky I admit, but at least it’s a joke that’s set inside an already functioning and layered story, instead of having that gimmick be the entire story itself. With the added context as to why they’re doing this, the situation and the humor that comes out of it feels more natural and is conveyed better, and so becomes funnier as a result. As opposed to “we’re quoting movies, so here’s a movie quote joke” that would feel disconnected in comparison. Suffice to say, Tucker loves the finished cut, and all’s well that ends well until Shannon McCormick shows up.

The placement of this episode really colors things as to how everyone acts towards each other, as well as giving this story a feel of a bonus episode from Season 5 we just never managed to see until now. Sarge isn’t dead set on more Blue killings for once, Grif has to deal with his sister’s insanity, any mention of Tex within earshot of Church instantly sets him off, and so on. You could even argue that Tucker’s new fixation with Reservoir Dogs might be linked to having just lost Junior, something that he literally gave birth to. Noting all this, it gives a very transitional impression. All the key characters are trying to move on, but they’re stuck in certain places, whether emotionally, mentally, or just because they’re still stuck in the middle of a box canyon for the foreseeable future and now like the people they used to fight so much that they don’t want to anymore which just makes the crushing boredom that much more apparent. I might be overestimating this because I’m just that starved for good writing, but it’s probably one of the most emotionally complex stories I’ve seen come out this franchise in awhile, and it didn’t need an intergalactic war or crazed super soldiers to pull it off.

Though that might be related to this episode’s writer, Ernest Cline. Cline is an incredibly acclaimed writer, known for novels like Ready Player One and Armada, as well as the 2008 film Fanboys. Needless to say the man knows his film and general geekery, and RVB is no exception to either. I hope we can find out more about Cline’s involvement with this story and RVB fandom in general so as to see from his point of view how this episode came about.

Finally a breath of fresh air. Hopefully, this is a sign that we are picking up tempo and can make it to the end on a strong and fitting note.