Recap / Red Vs Blue S 17 E 1 A Stitch In Time

A Stitch in Time

Directed By: Austin Clark
Written By: Jason Weight

After the paradox, Chrovos and Genkins continue with their plans, and Donut gets started with his own.

• Note: This episode's tagline is "The Reds and Blues ruin the universe."

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This episode has examples of:

• Actually Pretty Funny: A variant In-Universe; despite him being on the enemy team, both Grif and Simmons can't help but give a quietly impressed "...Son of a bitch" when Genkins-Church manages to shoot out Sheila's turret with his sniper rifle and save his own life.
• Allohistorical Allusion: An In-Universe case; an Alternate Timeline Tucker's Badass Boast when he kills "C.T." at the Sandtrap Digsite during the events of Recreation is almost the exact same as Epsilon-Church's in the original timeline.
  Epsilon Church: (after blasting "C.T." to smithereens) I am not a thing! My name is Leonard Church, and you will fear my laser face!
  Tucker: My name is Lavernius Tucker, and you will fear my laser sword! (stabs and kills "C.T.")
• Bait-and-Switch: When Genkins-Church is aiming his sniper rifle at Caboose (who is driving Sheila at the time), it briefly looks like Genkins is going to prevent Alpha-Church's first death via killing Caboose so Sheila has no driver. Instead, Genkins uses Church's sniper rifle to shoot right into Sheila's main turret, blocking her main cannon and forcing her to go offline, saving Church's life.
• Call-Back: The events of the Season 1 episodes "The Rookies," "Head Noob in Charge," "Check Out the Treads on That Tank," and "Don't Ph34r the Reaper" all get revisited in this episode as part of Genkins-Church's plot to cause Temporal Paradoxes.
• Creative Closing Credits: The end credits for the episode show Donut falling through the Everwhen along with brief flashes of the season's other main characters accompanied by their corresponding voice actors.
• Damned by Faint Praise: After she and Donut learn how an Alternate Universe Tucker had an exceptionally dumb death in trying to leap a tank over a battleship a la Evel Knievel, Chrovos commends that he at least lived "a powerful and confident existence...briefly."
• Deadpan Snarker: After performing a Gender Flip, Chrovos reveals themselves to be very sarcastic and cheeky, such as dryly complimenting Donut's Lame Comeback before inquiring that she must know how he's going to stop her Near-Villain Victory.
• Doing In the Wizard: Downplayed; Chrovos is confirmed in this episode to be a Mechanical Abomination akin to the Cosmic Powers they themselves created rather than a more supernatural Eldritch Abomination.
• Double-Meaning Title: The episode title serves as both an unintentional Shout-Out to a Kim Possible TV film and a punny allusion to the nursery rhyme "A stitch in time saves nine." The latter phrase has meaning since it refers to how nine people are currently trapped in the Everwhen — Donut, Grif, Simmons, Sarge, Tucker, Kaikaina, Caboose, Washington and Carolina — and are the only hope to save the universe from Chrovos and Genkins.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Played for Laughs; both Chrovos and Genkins are nauseated after the former takes on Donut's form, with Genkins even noting that he just "threw up a little in my mouth."
• Evil Is Bigger: Chrovos, the Big Bad of the season, is revealed in this episode to have their true form be that of a massive Forerunner Monitor (as in, the diameter of their eye alone is as tall as any of the Reds and Blues).
• Foreshadowing:
  • Before Chrovos settles on their new female form, they first become a copy of Genkins. The season finale reveals that through some Stable Time Loop shenanigans, Chrovos is the future version of Genkins.
  • A metatextual case; the official synopsis for this season has the line "Chrovos has been freed from their old prison", and the gender-neutral writing there serves as an allusion to how Chrovos performs a Gender Flip in this episode via taking on the female "Vengeance" form.
    • It also uses Exact Words to foreshadow something else. Chrovos might be free from their old prison, but not from the new one Donut created.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: As Genkins is having problems with Chrovos as a massive Forerunner Monitor ("You are a ball! How do I know if you're pointing at anything?!"), Chrovos changes themselves into a variety of humanoid forms. The first is Genkins, the second is Donut, and the third and final form they take is a feminine "hourglass figure" form they call "Vengeance."
• Gender Bender: Chrovos performs a Gender Flip in this episode, going from being voiced by Ray Schilens and being referred to with masculine pronouns to being voiced by Lee Eddy and being referred to with feminine pronouns.
• A Glitch in the Matrix: Like with the previous season finale, the Reds and Blues are feeling some familiarity in what they're experiencing. That's because the Time Crash trapped them in reliving their past memories. Chrovos and Genkins are exploiting this, as ensuring things don't go as they used to creates further paradoxes.
• Hand Wave: A Played for Laughs example; When Genkins questions why "Shisno" is used to describe paradox-makers, when it's also a derogatory term for human, Chrovos quizzically suggests that the Fates are racist against humans.
• Happy Ending Override: Surprisingly inverted; while the situation is still exceptionally dicey, Donut was able to successfully imprison Chrovos, meaning that there still is an incredibly slim chance that Donut can save everyone from Chrovos and Genkins.
• Immediate Sequel: Again, it starts just after the end of the previous season - a Reality-Breaking Paradox, Donut striking Chrovos, and an imperfect recreation of Blood Gulch.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Easily the best evidence that Genkins is possessing Alpha-Church is that Genkins is able to use Church's sniper rifle to shoot out Shiela's main cannon with Church's sniper rifle.
• Lame Comeback: Donut can only muster up a "Nuh uh!" after Chrovos evilly cackles over how Genkins is hastening her release, and any attempts made by Donut to stop this will only further speed along her escape.
• Lame Pun Reaction: Chrovos awkwardly stumbles over her words after she describes her new female form as having "an hourglass figure" and Genkins isn't impressed by her weird time pun.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Chrovos and Genkins musing over the multiple definitions of "Shisno" is a pretty obvious allusion to the many fan discussions last season over the Retcon regarding that word's meaning in the series.
• Mechanical Abomination: This episode reveals that while Chrovos is still an incredibly powerful Physical God, their "true form" is that of a Forerunner Monitor like the other Cosmic Powers, implying that they're another A.I..
• Mental Time Travel: How time travel within the Everwhen works, with Donut's present-day self being able to possess the different iterations of himself through the shared history of the Reds and Blues (read: the rest of the series). Genkins can do something similar, except that instead of being restricted to the past versions of himself, he is restricted to the past versions of both A.I.s and A.I.-ready individuals.
• Mind Screwdriver: Multiple elements of the last season's Gainax Ending are given clear explanations in this episode. Just a few are:
  • What is Chrovos' origin? While the exact details are still vague, they're another hyper-advanced A.I. like the other Cosmic Powers.
  • What was with the pink flash across the sky? It's a flash of light that emits every time Genkins or someone else succeeds in creating an Alternate Timeline within the Everwhen.
  • Why are the Reds and Blues trapped in an imperfect recreation of Blood Gulch? Because Chrovos was re-imprisoned by the Reds and Blues via Donut and The Hammer, their shared history before the Hammer-strike has become a collective "soft-time" singularity called the "Everwhen" where alternative timelines can be created, which if left to grow, will further weaken the strength of time itself and therefore Chrovos' new prison, making it easier for her to free herself and ravage the cosmos.
  • Why does Church sound so weird and is clearly not voiced by Burnie Burns? Because Genkins is able to "possess" A.I.s and A.I.-ready individuals within the Everwhen who aren't "unstuck in time" like the Reds and Blues are (i.e., Church), and is only pretending to play along to a degree so he can make events go Off the Rails and cause more alternate timelines to help free Chrovos.
  • Why are the Reds and Blues suffering from deja vu under weird circumstances? Their memories have been wiped of the future, but it wasn't done perfectly and so they're still able to mostly recognize that something feels off about their current situation.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: As Chrovos explains, while Donut did succeed in imprisoning Chrovos with The Hammer, the Temporal Paradox caused by the Reds and Blues the previous season has created a crack in the seal, which Genkins can now mess around with their timeline to create more alternate histories, cracking Chrovos' prison even more. Furthermore, Chrovos has no problem telling Donut about this because his attempts to fix things should cause more cracks
• "No. Just… No" Reaction: Chrovos gives a disgusted "No!" after hearing Donut name the soft-time singularity "The Everwhen".
• The Reveal: This episode reveals that Chrovos is another form of highly advanced A.I. like the Cosmic Powers from last season.
• Rewatch Bonus: The first form Chrovos takes being Genkins is rather fitting after the season finale reveals Chrovos and Genkins are actually the same person via a Stable Time Loop.
• Rule of Symbolism: The Everwhen, the shared history of the Reds and Blues leading up to the Temporal Paradox, is depicted as a large crack on an otherwise invisible wall in Chrovos' prison cell. Any alternate timeline created by Genkins while possessing A.I.s/A.I.-ready individuals within the Everwhen is shown to create a literal "crack" branching out from the primary Everwhen crack.
• Rule of Three: Chrovos takes three different forms in this episode prior to their final "Vengeance" form: Their true form as a huge Monitor, Genkins, and Donut.
• Shout-Out: The episode's title is an unintentional allusion to the Kim Possible TV movie Kim Possible: A Sitch in Time.
• Skewed Priorities: Donut asks Chrovos, in terms of escalating horror respectively, if humanity, Earth, and America are at risk upon learning of the Everwhen.
• Tempting Fate: Lampshaded — Right in the middle of realizing that he trapped Chrovos and saved the universe, Donut realizes that no, it hasn't been all tied up that neatly.
  Donut: It worked! You're not free! In your face, you spooky freak! I knew I could do it, and technically no one can disprove that! I saved the... (dawning realization) the... Universe, ugh, there's more to it isn't there?
• Time Crash: The "Everwhen," the main setting of the season. After the Reality-Breaking Paradox from last season, the Everwhen is a "soft time" singularity consisting of the shared past of the Reds and Blues (including Wash and Carolina) and also serves as a vital component in Chrovos' prison. Interestingly, it seems to operate more like a Lotus-Eater Machine than most other examples, with the Reds and Blues actually being "unstuck in time" within the Everwhen and being forced to unwittingly relive their own history as Genkins forces events to go Off the Rails, which creates alternative times (which consist of physical cracks in Chrovos' prison). Mental Time Travel is possible within the Everwhen once someone Spots the Thread and becomes aware of being a Paradox Person within the Everwhen.
• Time Loop Trap: The Reds and Blues are kept in a variation of this, living their lives over and over again inside of the Everwhen, being only somewhat aware of the loop themselves (as in, they all seem to be suffering from deja vu to at least some extent).
• Title Drop: A season-wide case; Chrovos briefly refers to the first crack in their prison as a "Singularity" while trying to figure out a name for it.
• A World Half Full: Deconstructed in that while Donut and Chrovos both note that some of the Alternate Timelines created by Genkins aren't actually bad at all (i.e., one timeline consist of Caboose joining the Red Team instead of the Blue Team, and from what little is shown, Caboose and Sarge seem to be getting along famously), their mere existence being a divergence from the "standard" timeline is the result of Temporal Paradoxes, and thus is weakening the fabric of time itself (and, more importantly, Chrovos' prison).