Season Review: Red vs Blue Season 16

Admittedly, I didn’t expect to write a series review so soon because I didn’t think this was the end.

Our Take:

Altogether, this was a wild ride.

This season had a really slow start. The time-traveling shenanigans were fine (destruction of pizza included) and were very much in the absurd spirit of the show. Caboose stumbling across time in his attempts to right himself and inadvertently causing many of history’s big moments was hilarious. Wacky hijinks accidentally tripping up the natural order of things is very much right in the vein of Red vs Blue. That was fun, albeit lacking plot– but what ended up dragging things because of Tucker.

Tucker has had an ego problem since day one. He’s always overcompensating in some way or form, whether it’s through his combative behavior, his constant sex jokes, or incessant flirting. When he has time alone with Sis, more of this continues- for far too long. Their starting segments dragged as it was nothing but sex jokes, over and over. Not to say that didn’t have a payoff- it absolutely did, in Sis finally getting fed up with Tucker’s antics and telling him off, but Tucker was the main reason why the first half felt so, so long. Had this been slightly toned back, it wouldn’t have been nearly as bad. But as it stands, it was too much, even if the payoff it delivered was quite good and necessary. Once that was in the past, things really began picking up.

There was some suspension of disbelief with introducing gods into the Red vs Blue universe, one notably absent of religious iconography beyond jokes, but even that was quickly repaired, as they are actually cosmic AIs. The Cosmic Powers are self-proclaimed gods, modeled after the Greek Pantheon, with King Atlas standing as the group’s leader in Zeus’ position. They oversee time and space and originally are cast as the season’s enemies, in trying to deliberately smite Tucker and Sis, but it turns out they aren’t the actual villains.

While the Reds and Blues usually don’t mean harm, they tend to end up as unwitting pawns to a higher power. This time it’s no different, with the sealed time god Chrovos having them act as his unwitting pawns. Posing as God he grants the team time machines that they can use freely. In doing so, and thus disturbing the fabric of space and time, they will loosen his bindings and eventually set him free. The Cosmic Powers are highly against this and meant to keep Chrovos sealed, and only realize after Huggins’ suggestion that the team actually has no concept of what’s happening.

Larger plot aside, we are getting a lot of important character development. Donut particularly, has had enough of the team. He deeply regrets his betrayal and insists that he won’t betray them again, but he’s also frustrated by the team’s lack of care about him. To them, he doesn’t really matter- and that hurts him a lot. Yet at the end of the day, he still considers them to be his friends. He wants them to go through some grief until they realize his importance, but he also doesn’t want them to be hurt. When he realizes that they could be in harm’s way, he fights back. He risks severe injury and turns against Chrovos because well, in the end, they’re still his friends.

Washington also has survived but has lost his memory. He’s slowly getting it back, but he has no idea that his memory is impaired, as Carolina hasn’t told him. He only remembers things from halfway up to last season, and his short-term memory is scrambled. When he finally does find out, it’s less that he’s still hurt from his critical wound, but more from that his friends never told him. They didn’t trust him with the information- and so they didn’t trust him. The people he cared mostly about ended up lying to him, and this hurts him deeply. It leaves him unsure of what to do- and so he ends up going off on his own.

As for the ending, that’s some ending. In trying to right the wrongs and save Washington from being shot, they end up causing a paradox, unraveling space and time, and warping them all the way back to Blood Gulch days. Then it cuts off– until the next season begins. A killer cliffhanger.

I’d say that altogether, I had a good time. The really slow start dragged the score down, but the latter half of the season made up for it. Ready to see what happens next, or if anyone remembers because that’s a crazy situation the team has to get out of.