Review: Red vs Blue “Throwdown”

Yo, I’m MC David and I’m here to say, this ep was not made for a review format…way!

Welp, we’re back in another gimmicky episode, this time being a rap battle, by the sister show Rooster Teeth Throwdown. Which are fun times, don’t get me wrong (I love me some Epic Rap Battles of History every now and then), but it’s just not much fun when your job is describing and going into detail about things that happen in an episode when…nothing’s really going on.

So, what DOES happen?

SPOILERS

Church and Sarge rap battle for a few minutes while clips of all the seasons play. Then Felix and Locus take over for a bit. That’s it.

That’s not to say it’s anything bad or unentertaining, just that this is one of those times when you’d be better off just watching it and enjoying it yourself.

This week’s episode comes written and directed by Jeremy Dooley, a fan of RT’s stuff who made his own rap battle series “Epic Rap Battles of Rooster Teeth”, where he would parody characters and staff members of the company in the form of rap. He was eventually discovered and brought on Achievement Hunter when those videos got popular and…is 5’4’’? Maybe 5’3’’. What I’m saying is there’s not a lot of info on this guy.

But it’s actually kinda fitting that this episode was made by a fan made employee, because we’ve reached the 300^thEPISOOOOOOOOOODE…sort of. See, the first ten seasons of RVB pretty evenly add up to 200 episodes, while the Chorus Trilogy is 58 (19+19+20). Then you get the 20 we’ve gone through in this season, and you get 278. THEN you bring in all the miniseries the show’s done since 2006, starting with Out of Mind (5 episodes), which followed original series regular Tex through a subplot she fell into during Season 4 of the first arc. After that was Recover One (4 Eps), introducing Agent Washington and the Meta, then Relocated (another 4 Eps) which was a prologue to Season 7, and then two Halo: Reach miniseries (3+6 episodes = 9), adding up to 22, and that’s how you get to 300 this week.

Of course, THAT’S assuming you don’t count the trailers for some reason. Trailers, you ask? Yes, I respond, trailers. Seasons 6, 7, 11, 12, and 13, all have teasers/trailers that are technically canon, so some people include them in their count. And in that case, the 300^th episode was actually a few weeks back with the “Caboose Guide to Making Friends” episode. OR if you don’t count those OR the miniseries, we’re still a ways-away.

But regardless of all that, it’s certainly been a wild ride. One that’s not over yet! Earlier on Sunday, Miles Luna (Showrunner of Seasons 10-13 and Head of Story here) announced there’s still four more episodes after this one. Going back and rewatching the trailer, I noticed that, among the names mentioned that hadn’t already been featured, we can still expect the remaining slots for:

1.       A story by Agent Washington’s voice actor, Shannon McCormick (likely a Freelancer related episode, since they’ve been noticeably absent so far)

2.       An episode by RT’s Immersion (where they imitate moves and techniques in video games, so this’ll probably be live action)

3.       And the return of Burnie Burns and Matt Hullum, two of the original cast and crew. Assuming they won’t be going separately, I’m guessing this’ll be another two-parter to end things full circle.

And, without guessing the particular order, that’s what things look like going into the end of RVB…Season 14, that is. Seeing how this review was more about the past and future of the show than anything regarding, I apologize if that was what you came to read (and want to inform you that you didn’t miss anything because I am super white and would fail spectacularly), but I’m sure the final batch will give us plenty to pick apart. Until then!