Red Vs Blue General Discussion

Trailer looks interesting. Was that Wash escorting... whatever that thing is?

Looks like.

I'm... not sure how that lines up with his story arc in the last season. I guess he's still combat-capable.

Nice! I hope at least that the Reds and Blues get a cameo.

Ngl, the “changing of the guard” probably should have happened in Season 15. I like the good old Blood Gulch Crew, but we’re kind of exhausted on stories that could be done with them at this point.

The characters ended up saying they felt his condition would be manageable in the end, and they left it very open-ended on how much he'd recover in the long-run. When they were dealing with it before he/the audience was told what his problem was, he was basically functional with the odd moment of confusion here and there. So, my guess is that he's 'functional except when plot/comedy needs him to not be'.

I've come into RVB after all 17 seasons were already out, so I've just binged it and haven't had the years of fatigue or attachment to certain characters or certain story arcs that's set in for other people. In fact, I (mostly) don't have a clue about this fandom's preferences or dislikes where characters and storylines are concerned. So, whether they're using new or old characters doesn't really bother me. I'm easy. Like Grif, that is. Not like Kai.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Sep 17th 2020 at 5:30:35 PM

Oh my.

Edited by FOFD on Sep 28th 2020 at 1:28:47 AM

It's for that reason I wish we had a little more Andrews investigating in season 15 before she caught back up. She made a pretty refreshing protagonist while she had the spotlight.

That is indeed the PSA I was talking about last page.

Okay, I've got a question for people much more familiar with the show than me, since I only recently watched all 17 series' for the first time. I'm watching the show from the start for a second time because I missed a hell of a lot on the first viewing that caught me by surprise when it switched from comedy to... well... plot. I spent a lot of the first viewing missing things and not fully understanding why certain things were happening, which forced me to rewatch certain episodes again (which sometimes helped and sometimes didn't). I've only just discovered the trailers for each of the seasons, and therefore have just discovered there was actually some useful information in a couple of them that I could really have done with knowing to watch the first time round; I also didn't realise that certain episodes of the show have end credit scenes (coming from RWBY, I did start off by checking for those, but got used to not seeing any so stopped looking).

I've decided to watch it in full from the beginning, and am I starting to spot a lot of what I missed now that I'm seeing it for the second time round. That's running gags that I didn't really understand because I missed or forgot the origin of them ^note such as why Caboose can't run backwards, things that I did spot the first time round but never really clicked on the significance of until the second viewing ^note like Church reading Sheila's binary code message in S2, Lopez developing a resistance to being taken over by Ghost!Church (because he's firewalling the intruding AI like he would a virus), or the underground computer being a 'Virtual Interface Computer' but not spotting that forms the acronym VIC until second viewing (I didn't even understand that VIC was an AI until Dylan talked to him in S15, so I didn't spot the vasectomy versus descendants clue until second viewing), or things I just didn't understand the first time round ^note like how Church figured out Gary's identity; that only clicked when I went straight from Out of Mind into Season 5: I had York's comment about Reggie's knock knock jokes fresh in my head when I saw Gary make a knock knock joke in the opening credits, and that's when the penny dropped.

I'm currently rewatching Season 8, and there's still something I don't quite get. When Wash and the Meta are fighting the Reds, Epsilon takes one look at Washington and flips so badly his laser is triggered. Why?

The only thing I can think of is that Epsilon is still barely remembering properly at that point, so he's got everything up to the moment he's suicides inside Wash's mind (which he's mostly repressing because of the torture), and then he's got Caboose's stories for the rest. Epsilon de-powers after that outburst, but not before muttering about the Director finding her. Wash was still very loyal to the Director when Epsilon was put inside his head (something that only changed because Epsilon was put inside his head), and Caboose met Wash while he was still Recovery One (so his official job was to hunt down and recover missing AIs for the Director even if he had his own hidden agenda). So, is he blowing up at Wash because his gut reaction was to assume Wash was still inclined to hunt down and recover AIs for the Director, and he was afraid Wash was hunting down Tex?

While I'm sure there's some kind of personal thing between Epsilon and Wash, the show never really seems to address that directly... ever. So, I'm not sure it's just that. I therefore feel like I'm still missing something with that scene.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Oct 5th 2020 at 12:17:53 PM

That one confused me. I dug up some answers though. [1]

Yes, I'm figuring Caboose's storytelling into my theory, too. I'm just wondering how Epsilon's panic when he collapses the wall fits in because he sounds like he's trying to explain his knee-jerk reaction to Washington's presence, but he's too panicky and unstable to really make full sense. It sounds like he's afraid that Wash will find Tex and the Director will do something to her if that happens... hence my question.

It did make me wonder how much of Wash's mind and personality Epsilon gained before they were separated. Wash was very loyal to the Director at that point. From Epsilon's perspective, the Director had been torturing him one moment and put him into the mind of someone completely loyal to that same Director the next moment. Which isn't exactly going to do much for an already broken psyche. And, while I haven't made it back to the Project Freelancer episodes yet, wasn't Alpha being tortured with the death of Washington and Tex how the Epsilon fragment was harvested... so his last memory before being putting in Wash's head was of Wash and Tex dying.

I don't know... it's just a slightly confusing scene.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Oct 5th 2020 at 12:29:41 PM

Gotta say, I don't remember Caboose not being able to run backwards at all.

It's not a consistent gag. Every so often he says can't run backwards and no-one takes him seriously (in terms of animation, he does run backwards plenty of times), and it wasn't until I rewatched the Rat's Nest scene where Wash first meets Caboose that I realised that, when the commander tells Caboose to never, ever come back, Caboose interprets it as he's not allowed to go backwards. The commander accepts that as 'close enough', but that seems to be the source of the 'can't go backwards' joke — for example, when Epsilon is first put into that artefact and he's demonstrating he's learned some control by moving backwards, Caboose says he can't go backwards and promptly gets told to shut up.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Oct 5th 2020 at 12:37:50 PM

Red Team will be facing off against Blue Team in Screwattack's Death Battle series. The thread for that is mostly disinterested in anything from Rooster Teeth and are passive-aggressively ignoring it, as I expected, so nobody's really talking about it over there.

So far, it seems it's Sarge/Grif/Simmons vs Church/Tucker/Sheila.

But... that doesn't really make sense. A more accurate roster would be:

• Red Team: Sarge, Grif, Donut, Simmons, Lopez
• Blue Team: Church, Tucker, Caboose, Sheila, Tex, Sister, Doc, Washington

You can see the lopsidedness already. Besides than how unfair this would be, last I checked Caboose and Tex's actors had left the company. So I'm trying to figure who would be logically included in a "Red Team vs Blue Team" match-up.

• Tex isn't officially part of the Blue Team (and her VA is gone) so she's out
• Sister... was an official addition I think.
• Sheila was their tank. But she tips the scales if included.
• Doc is a conscientious objector, so it'd be funny if he were included and I guess he could make things interesting, healing either team's members. He's not "officially" on the Blue Team though.
• Washington unofficially joined the Blue Team, so I'm not sure if he counts. Basically if you include any Freelancers the game shifts.
• So then Church/Tucker/Caboose/Sister/Sheila makes the most sense for balance and "official membership." Sister doesn't offer much more than comedic situations until The Shisno Paradox.

Then, the outcome:

• Sarge/Grif/Simmons/Donut/Lopez
• Church/Tucker/Caboose/Sister/Sheila
• Tucker, Caboose, and Donut would be the game-changers. Tucker is the most competent out of the entire group (Church can't hit anything), Caboose has superhuman strength when properly motivated, and Donut's skill with throwing grenades is absurd.
• But based on nothing but speculation - the Red Team can work better as a group (ironic, given their personality traits, but they're usually the ones grouping up to take objectives), and the Blue Team can work better individually to get things done (see Tucker fighting on his own, or Caboose building weapons of mass destruction, or Church working with Carolina and Washington).
• If Blue Team has their tank it's a gamble whether it works or not. If it it does, they have the advantage. If it doesn't, Donut can probably kill them all with some insane grenade tosses first. If Donut dies, the other Reds are pretty screwed, as none of them can probably handle Tucker or Caboose in a fight. Lopez is the "only sane man" but I can't recall him doing much on his own.
• Things get hard to predict if Doc is included. But I doubt he will since Death Battle is "to the death."

Edited by FOFD on Oct 6th 2020 at 5:27:19 AM

I know the release date is now the 9th November, but what time (and time zone) does it typically air on the website?

Take this with a pinch of salt, since I know nothing about Death Battle (I've only ever seen one — Carolina versus The Meta — and I thought the whole thing was... bad), but if they're using the Season 1 teams (Sarge, Simmons, Grif, Donut, Lopez and the Warthog versus Church, Tucker, Caboose, Tex and Sheila) then, while that might look one-sided, Blue Team does have two problems: Tex is set up to always fail and Caboose tends to accidentally kill team-mates.

So, it might not be quite as one-sided as it seems on paper if they can use those two factors creatively.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Oct 17th 2020 at 6:53:53 PM

I've often wondered how they set up an AI to "fail." It was an awesome plot point to me at the time but like... she destroys a lot of people and clearly outdoes Carolina at certain points. It's an interesting theme but like... I don't think it would mean much in any random fight. The closest comparison I can think of is Qrow with his bad luck semblance, but that usually works for him rather than against him. Tex is designed to fail, but only at dramatically appropriate moments. She just needs to set her goals "higher."

It seems the fight is Sarge/Grif/Simmons/Donut and Church/Tex/Tucker/Caboose.

You know it just hit me how satisfying it is to see the Reds and Blues outmaneuver Washington and defeat The Meta, after getting their asses handed to them by Tex, who ultimately lost to the Meta and Washington, and was previously defeated by the Reds and Blues early in the series herself. Accomplishments in buffoonery indeed.

Edited by FOFD on Nov 14th 2020 at 7:35:10 AM

That's something Price points out nicely in season 13. That for all their bickering and stupidity, they know each other so well they have faith in what they can do as a team when they work together. The Freelancers were individually some of the best soldiers to come out of the UNSC, but they absolutely suck as teams.

Indeed!

The first episode of RVB Zero premiered. Not sure if it's out for the public. The action is tight, Carolina and Washington take center stage and job to the new antagonists who seem... a little overpowered for this franchise and yet underwhelming compared to what Carolina and Wash have already faced (read: time travel gods). Shatter Squad breaks up the action setpieces with a humorous, non-regulation race and use of ordinance that gets them an ear-lashing. Washington ends the episode being... tortured. Which is disheartening after everything he's gone through.

It's weird yet intriguing to see other "badasses" in the RVB universe. I'm eager to see how Shatter Squad operates, and where the other Red/Blue alumni fit into this. Wash got more screentime than I expected (plus a few knife-fighting scenes, per tradition).

Overall it feels like Red vs Blue but with more of the hype action sequences.

Saw a lot of people disappointed that Wash's injury basically just got glossed over, after how big a deal it was in the last 2 seasons. But it was either that or basically retire the character honestly. As for the villains, I think it's for the best they get dialed down after the whole god stuff.

Since the episode was about mystery alien objects and Wash being tortured for coordinates from his past to somewhere connected to alien artefacts, I wonder if this storyline is going to be about that artefact hunt that Connie and her partner were involved in, and which seemed to require the alien artefact that temporarily became Epsilon's body — it was picked up on the desert planet and ended up being dumped in that secret facility of the Director's on the same planet.

Connie and her partner were dealing with an artefact hunt that was connected to that planet, Tucker was stationed there, Wash tracked the Reds and Blues there when hunting down Epsilon for the Chairman and ended up back there with Carolina when she was hunting the Director because CT's helmet was still there. We never did learn what that was all about.

The new season could easily pick up those threads and turn that into a storyline without newcomers needing to watch the previous 17 seasons because all that never got explored in the main show. It was peripheral at best and eventually just faded into the background and was dropped.

Anyway, something felt slightly off about the Wash and Carolina scenes to me. It's hard to describe: the jokes fell a bit flat for me, Wash and Carolina felt a bit too easily overpowered (but that's probably the point they were going for), and their characterisations didn't feel quite right — Wash more than Carolina, but she didn't feel quite right either. That said, I did like the special effects and I think the armour and their abilities seem interesting. I also thought the Shatter Squad scenes were much better in terms of both characterisation and jokes. I did like the episode and I didn't dislike the Wash/Carolina scenes, but I did feel like that part of the episode was missing something I can't quite pin down.

One thing I did notice was that the female villain clearly has a problem with Freelancers, so there's obviously a personal connection there.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Nov 16th 2020 at 6:34:50 PM

Second episode and... not my cup of tea. More to say on this later but:

This show does have a tendency to pick up old threads and make them important, so yeah, I could see it.

Edited by FOFD on Nov 19th 2020 at 7:00:59 AM

Three episodes in and Zero really isn't putting its best foot forward. It's not bad, but it's just kinda...eh.

Maybe it's just me, but in previous seasons cryptic references to future plot lines were compelling. Now they're just annoying. Obtuse vagueness isn't en vogue anymore.

Edited by FOFD on Nov 30th 2020 at 1:50:25 AM