#rvb s16

[widestshoes]

Red Vs Blue season 16 did a lot of weird things, snd some poorly executed things, however one thing Season 16 did really well was the ending.

All season, the reds and blues have been twisted by chrovos and her plans of weakening time to free herself, and it’s been going pretty well, mostly, I’m pretty sure it was only Tucker and sister who were really messing with things, sarge and jax too, the rest were just relieving their lives or causing things to play out how they are meant to.

Eventually because time can’t be fixed that way, chrovos gets lucky and the reds and blues unite, aside from donut, to try and stop wash from being shot.

The plan is going well, Everyone is progressing properly except there is less people then there should be in temple’s base, yet the reds and blues carry on, except.

Grif has been the protagonist this season as well as last season kinda, and here he is lead away from his team to genkins.

Genkins rant about changing the world was kinda done wrong and likely misinterpreted by a bunch of people but what the main point is, the Reds and Blues are going to win and that’s bad, they are going to save their friend yet that is wrong.

Grif is given the chance to stop his friends yet grif has never been the best runner and his friends when united always win.

He rounds the corner and yells to them “Don’t, No” yet as he says it, they gun down the person who was to shoot wash and.

Immediately, time has stopped, the only thing heard was the echoing of the battle rifle, they have managed to break time itself, if only partially.

They are slowly consumed into that moment of broken time, everything is consumed by a white void, that moment they were in is dissolved and in its place is the vacuum that covers what remained of time, you can hear it pulling everything out into the unknown until Donut managed to strike Chrovos preventing her from escaping.

And in the end, something familiar, yet different, it’s not the same but it’s similar, the Deja Vu of season 5 has returned yet it’s repeating season 1, Tucker and Church are back up on that cliff yet Church doesn’t sound like himself.

The Reds and Blues won, and shattered time in its entirety in the process

Rvb still remains the goat, even in some of the worst seasons,

ALSO I made a video, its my first time doing this sort of thing but I’ve learned plenty from it, so I was hoping y’all would give it a watch, thanks in advance https://youtu.be/G8jbtwW0Dvk?si=z4DkwlY8G5plLngN

[sabotourist]

how we feelin rvb fans

[justtkatt]

Thinking about how if s16 focused on Tucker’s guilt over Wash’s injury instead of regressing his character it would have made the season more compelling

[skateboard-theta]

with rvb especially i love picking and choosing from canon and official non-canon at will. idc that the only Grif OCD mentions are in an Epsilon simulation and a PSA. he has OCD to me

[joltning]

i love repackaging my old rambles

-

i love the way s17 changes their fears in the labyrinth (even if boo hoo carolina hates herself we fucking get it) but tucker’s changing from felix (which he does admit was like the worst time of his life, but it also was important to him) to changing to his team leaving him means something changed between s13 and s17 that would warrant that change. obviously there’s the fact that felix is dead but his team leaving him feels much more real in his head with grif in s15 leaving and church in s13 leaving (as well as Wash getting fucked over) +he’s obviously much closer to ALL of them after previously on shenanigans

meanwhile Carolina’s shift to herself first off highlights that she’s Over Tex which is good. but like I think it also lends to the fact she’s not scared of her team leaving her like how they do in the temple. which directly is the opposite of what happens to Tucker. the only thing left of that fucked up team is wash, who she let down by not telling him about his hypoxia, and most of all, herself. she sees herself as the weak link because not only do the others not need protecting anymore, she sees herself as the only one to put them in danger, like how she put her team in danger in the past. that one thread connecting the two teams that is gonna cause their downfall

[funsizedcrow]

I remembered it was good friday and drew this so fast.

[aro-ortega]

i only gave later seasons as options bc imo that's when it gets more contested. also s6-8 are the best and i was unwilling to have anyone say otherwise

[t4tails]

I remember showing the short term memory rvb clip to my dad. He loved it and he watched s6 with me cause I happened to be n he loved wash, said it’d be funny to watch him grocery shop. Anyways cool final rvb season, kinda mad they just made anything past s13 non canon but whatever

they really said fuck red team development 😭 i couldnt follow s16 because it got waayy too fantasy for me but FUCK. season 15 was GOOD. and grimmons fucked in a CLOSET. and LOCUS WAS THERE! also yeah it would be fun to watch wash grocery shop. hed probably be oddly good at it

[str4ng3rdanger]

red vs blue so good it gave me a panic attack

(i finished s17...)

[katzenklavierr]

I will also add that the tonal problems and OOC moments are things that also irked me with S15-17 and S19 so it's not unique to these (and also they're literally out-of-context script drafts so I'm not really giving them any canon credibility) but I digress. I mostly made this post to share my take on bisexual Sarge LOL

My general criticism re: the hypothetical RvB S17 continuation script drafts is that they feel tonally incoherent with the series and everyone feels OOC

My specific criticism is that Sarge wouldn't formally come out as bisexual and have a big emotional moment about it. He'd just casually mention having relations with another man at some point in his past during some long-winded and heavily embellished anecdote and everyone would kind of pause for a moment and process what he just said and if they tried to ask him more directly about it he'd just brush it off and never elaborate further because it's never something he'd considered notable about himself or even thought about all that deeply and it's not relevant to the point he was trying to make, damn it

[grif-hawaiian-rolls]

Anyways the “essay” about the energy sword to character development pipeline below the cut

Ok so like yea tucker-crunchbite-junior is, obviously, the first instance of the sword-quest-companion theme/trio that im like, rattling in my head rn

Tucker finds the sword, crunchbite shows up and theres the “quest” that challenges tucker both in the false intent (you need to be the hero) and the true intent (SA leading to Junior which is not handled well but it IS important) which is a push against tucker’s character thus far in that he’s the comic relief, make everything a sex joke archetype— he doesnt take it seriously, he doesnt see himself as important beyond getting just enough recognition to be “hot” and now he’s made to be the so called “hero” and the true plot puts him in the one position that he probably never thought could be him. Bc he wants to get laid so… yeah. Pushes his character if you give it like three seconds of critical thinking and not just the standard “haha alien baby bullshit” (that said, i do enjoy fics that explore crunchbite more and play with the potential of the “joke” shitty character into someone less sinister, but im doin my best to stick to canon rn)

And JUNIOR, oh man, because theres the thing that really solidifies this for me like

The dude who doesnt care doesnt bother is all jokes and ‘man whatever’ energy is a dad, and it starts with him trying to avoid it but he really fucking quickly steps the FUCK up for Junior and its the start of his development that people are like “oh he learns to be a leader on chorus” which i mean kinda yeah but he never struck me as a Leader even on Chorus even tho he does decidedly lead, its not the same as when kimball leads or when wash leads or carolina

He’s leads as a dad bc he is a dad

Not always a good one, but he’s trying and yea sometimes that means being the asshole, sometimes that means screwing up but it also means you fucking care and you take responsibility and you put yourself in danger first (the rescue mission, leaving the lieutenants behind)

And that doesnt start on chorus! Its the most evident there sure but

it starts with junior

It starts with him going after tex to protect his son, it starts with him trying to be a diplomat so they stay together, in sending junior away so he is safe while tucker buys time protecting the temple, it STARTS with him looking at church and going “leave my kid out of this” and yeah the way rvb was written and approached does Not take that seriously bc it wouldnt and if it did it would be a very different show but the implications are there and its acknowledged with tucker’s photograph of junior with his 5th grade basketball team (“i know right? Who carries actual pictures anymore” -tucker) which i could go on about THAT too but suffice to say its very clear that tucker cares so gd much about his kid and yeah his character development isnt super linear but you can basically pinpoint when it starts with the sword and junior

The second run of this trio of things is actually grif which is admittedly, a stretch, a big ol reaching for straws (okay, TECHNICALLY grif is the third run, but i’ll address that in a minute) largely a stretch bc grif… does the pattern backwards

This IS S16 stuff so if ur a shisno paradox hater i respect that, i however am gnawing on it with everything i have and will be going feral so this is your warning thank u for reading the tucker side of it mwah appreciate ya

Anyways

Grif does his plot backwards during timetravel shenanigans

He gets the alien companion/friend who contrasts his character first in Huggins

Grif is a loyal friend, but he is lazy, even after s15’s breakdown and apparent change of tune, he’s still looking to take the path of least resistance, avoiding the call, trying to keep things from moving

Enter Huggins: zippy, full of energy, excitable and just so different in that she is not only so proactive she puts herself in danger (which helps everyone in the long run/plot but its the principle) but shes so fucking lonely

As far as she knows, her family is dead, except for muggins who is so dettached from her, he might as well be a coworker and not her brother

Compared to grif, who has a family even when he tries to push them away (the reds, the blues, KAIKAINA) but hates taking action

Huggins is the start for grif’s arc of “it sucks but someones gotta do it” which in their case is best shown as the trudge across the bottom of the english channel which is so fucking funny to me but it really pushes both of them and puts them firmly in the friends category

Huggins cant zip ahead without grif, grif cant stop moving because huggins wont let him, so they find their little balance of gas vs brakes and together they cruise along p well

The actual push of the “quest” is grif having to be the one who steps up (kinda like tucker but its to the left) he’s the one who starts getting everyone together again across the timeline, even if he is very,,,

Well he’s very Grif about it, but it is still fundamentally, the change in character

Tucker isn’t a always good dad, Grif isn’t always a good instigator of action

But theyre trying and theyre working on it and grif’s arc suffers a Little from being so late in the show and thus not having much of a parallel to pull on but you could argue he gets the parallel from s15 anyways with the refusal of the call (from fake church/loco) and rescue mission but i hesitate to call that a parallel bc its literally back to back but an argument could be made for it which i love

Enter part two: the alien quest giver

“Wait wasnt that huggins”

NOPE huggins was alien companion! The Bestie in grif’s case,

The alien fetch quest comes from atlas, in that stupid wishing sequence but cmon it wouldnt be rvb if the character development wasnt sandwiched inbetween obnoxious gags and stupidity

The quest is less important here admittedly bc again, with grif doing this in reverse its not the challenge to his principle character that it was for tucker, his connection to huggins was the challenge, and this becomes the final push into the development, the “you have a role, now play it” that gives grif the final shove into Doing Things literal!! And his prize? For this character development arc? An alien sword

And thus the inverse version reaches an end, sort of (im pissed that technically he loses his sword, im also ignoring that he loses it in canon bc he fucking earned it okay this is a bit of canon i will ignore and loophole my way around it)

And now we track back to Chorus and to the second iteration of the sword-quest-companion plot

Locus

Now okay i will admit this is conjecture and pepe-silvia-on-corkboard-with-red-string fuckery at this point but hear me out okay!

He gets the sword with Felix’s death. We know this. What we dont know is how the fucking hell he gets off Chorus! We just see him show up later with A’rynasea. The vaguely alien (maybe sentient?? AI? Its implied with the way he addresses her but we literally have her for like two episodes) ship that seems to be the driving force (literal) (bc shes his ship) behind his chosen redemption arc where he pushes himself to help others at no apparent benefit to himself, but because it is, and i quote “the right thing to do”

Arguably, Santa could be Locus’ quest giver, seeing as how he is the one who triggers the whole shift in view for Locus in the first place and that is, technically, what crunchbite does and what atlas finalizes for grif! But the problem is we simply dont have enough of A’rynasea to draw the parallel between her and Locus as personalities, as companions for it to work for me??? But that might just be me overthinking? But it does make Locus’ version is a bit messier depending on who you consider his quest-giver but as far as I’m concerned, he’s still on his quest snd its just up to interpretation if A’rynasea is his companion?? or if theres a secret third alien for Locus that we never wouldve seen even if they planned for that bc its red vs blue and im just delusional about locus and his role in plot and this is just me firing concepts blindly into the sky at this point like - yeah i could still theorize what kind of companion characterization i think locus would work well with bc its more about the wielder than the companion in this sense (sorry junior and huggins i love yall i promise) but thats a completely separate rant at this point and not nearly coherent enough at this exact moment to add it PLUS its ridiculously self indulgent and only marginally canon compliant/adjacent but i will never not be amused by this very specific plot beat happening enough to draw these parallels, as tenuous and vague as the parallels are

[justtkatt]

whenever i do a rewatch of RvB i always skip s16. It”s my least favorite season and because i know what happens I just jump to season 17

[whatthefuckisasweep]

RvB: Restoration Thoughts

i don't hate restoration, it's honestly pretty alright for what RT was dealing with, but there is one thing that confuddles me the most: the characters "getting what they want"

I understand RT was trying to tie up the loose ends of the characters - everything kind of comes to this perfect standstill of an ending. yet, to me, it makes no sense.

the point of red vs blue was friendship and growth of the characters within the framework of church's story. the end that makes sense involves seeing all of them after they have come together through thick and thin. I know that wasn't possible given the alotted amount of time, but something doesn't sit right with just... giving the characters what they wanted in the first place.

because, here's the thing: it's not even what they want anymore. i would have much rather seen them realize what they wanted was not what they needed.

sarge dying isn't that horrible to me. i liked what he told grif and simmons, it was just so out of nowhere. i think it would have been better for sarge to try to sacrifice but have grif and simmons stop him and almost die because of it - kind of like s8. something like that, but he realizes through grif and simmons being a leader isn't about winning, but more keeping the morale of his men. and that grif saving him so many times is a testament to how well he does as a leader. i like people saying sarge should retire. i don't know how'd they'd get there, but i like it. just be like. "you know what, boys? I'm... done with this" at the end and they're like "WHAT?" and sarge is like, "heh. don't act too damn shocked, now." and then make a joke about his age or somethng lmfao.

grif wanted to be "discharged". i would have loved to see him just... stay working with the guys given the choice to leave freely. and not just because there is a mission, or "for old time's sake". nah, because he loves them. of course, he wouldn't say that out loud. but i wanted to see grif charge headfirst into danger, like he had in s16 and so many times before, and have it BE for church and caboose. i love his little message to caboose at the end for that.

simmons who got to "be a leader"... this one i don't have as much qualms with, but i still feel like simmons could have realized what he needed wasn't to be a leader, but to have others believe in him. sarge telling him that he's proud should have still happened imo, but simmons could have turned down being a leader and offered it to Lopez or donut or something, it would have shown how much he grew. Not only that, but i imagine he would say something like "what, and leave grif unattended while i corral all you guys? no way." all snootily. could be a great to diss grif while everyone's in shock

donut honestly got a great arc in s17, so i'm kind of OK without him. but i LOVE him so like. simmons promotes him to the leader, as kind of a callback to that time they did the sarge, lopez, simmons competition in s3. that way he can still kind of be an admiral. :) and he's not a rookie anymore. and he holds like little fairs on Chorus where they do ring toss or something to do with throwing haha

lopez being donut's second in command would be HILARIOUS. like lopez i think could have had more. he's so underappreciated, and having him be like some kind authority figure would be so warranted. especially with donut's bad spanish skills. oh my god.

doc was SO slandered. i know he wanted to go out HELPING people but i think the whole thing about DOC WAS THAT HIS WHOLE THING WAS NOT ABOUT HELPING OTHERS BUT BEING FORGOTTEN AND CAST ASIDE. i think doc should get recognition and eventually be a bad doctor (still) at General Doyle's hospital, where him and omalley work at the mental health ward (sometimes successfully and sometimes unsucessfully due to omalley). or maybe he could come in at a moment where they're at the lowest to save the day. i would have loved a highlighted doc moment. if he had to die, at least do it ON SCREEN so he gets the recognition.

church & tex ... their end was pretty alright, i don't have that much to say. I think them dying like that was good, knowing that their friends loved them and that caboose was the one to restore everything to peace. i think that was the right choice and what they needed.

caboose was pretty ace in this, he was the only one that i was like. i don't really have much to say. i would have maybe put more caboose washington moments, considering they were the only two active blues left. and maybe more caboose church moments, just to have church say he's his best friend one last time.

tucker got SO sleighted. bro got like 4 lines of dialogue. and one of them was being tortured for 10 YEARS like are you kidding? i think tucker being the Great Destroyer was one of the best things that they called back to, i wish they did something for tucker about him settlin down and wanting to be a better father for junior, and more scenes with church and tucker. the chorus fight they had.... i would havevloved to see them argue about just LEAVING the blues like that.

wash and lina didn't got much, but i did like wash being in hospital and needing to let go of the freelancers. i wish that lina and him could have had that scene together in hospital. i wish the blues were more invovled with that. i think what wash needed was family; and to see more of that would have felt more satisfying.

anyways, that's my scrambled thoughts on the whole thing after thinking on it a little longer. it doesn't really matter, because based on epsilon's recap, it oculd have all been a simulation anyways, but, :P yeah

[tvckerwash]

I'm going to be completely honest and say that I've genuinely never interpreted that scene as being about locus rather than wash, but looking at it from that perspective does make the scene make more sense.

that aside though as a whole locus' perception of wash and the forced parallels between them doesn't make sense because wash is not, and never was the "good little soldier who blindly follows orders". even ignoring the washed hands interview from the book, a very good (and often overlooked) example of this is in s9 when tex is introduced.

out of all the freelancers, wash is the only one who went "wait wtf?!" when maine and wyoming brought out the live ammo, and wash is also the only freelancer who questioned the director's decision to not punish them directly to his face. wash isn't some rule loving goodie goodie, but he is someone who believes that protocols exist to keep things orderly and organized, and he will respect the chain of command so long as those in authority positions don't use their power in ways that would bring unnecessary harm to him or the people around him.

but anyway, wash openly confronting the director is really big, because the only other person who was openly questioning the director at this point was ct, and that brings me to another example that's overlooked when it comes to wash's loyalty to the director: his relationship with ct.

now wash and ct's situation is really vague and very open to interpretation, but I believe ct purposefully let wash see her communicating with the innie leader, and that she felt comfortable openly talking about her doubts in the program with him, and being openly sus af whenever he was around because she was confident that he wouldn't turn her in. I think it's fairly obvious that wash and ct had the "we're the good guys, right?" conversation long before north and york did, but wash is willing to exist in a grey area and ignore questionable actions from those above him or things he does himself if it is for the sake of the greater good—unless as I said above, it will bring unnecessary harm to himself and those around him.

with those examples out of the way, I believe that carolina would've been a much better fit to parallel locus than wash, because she fits the "soldier just following orders" profile far better than wash ever has, and unlike wash, carolina cares very deeply about bettering herself and making up for the wrongs she committed in pfl, I also think carolina being the director's "greatest creation" would've bounced off of locus' obsession with maine/meta very nicely since the director refers to maine as "the prodigal son" at the end of s6. (also I just think wash vs sharkface would've been really funny, who wouldn't want to see the two most unkillable guys of pfl and charon industries duking it out?)

oh and to clarify, I don't think wash protecting donut in the 100 tex fight qualifies as atonement as much as it was wash evening the score in a "sorry for shooting you, but now that I've done a good thing by protecting you it cancels out the bad thing so you can't use that against me" type of way. so I guess it would've been better to say that wash and donut are cool after that moment, rather than that wash made up for what he did.

but yeah anyway wash is very extroverted lol, he's a bit awkward sometimes but he really thrives in a team and while he might come off as less extroverted post epsilon he's really not, it's just that now he has to be the straight man to the bgc, as well as the fact that a lot of wash's scenes in the flashback seasons are when he's not on duty, so he lets himself be a bit more goofy and relaxed than he is when he's out in the field. I mean if I'm being honest s10 kinda does a lot of the freelancer's real dirty characterization wise imo, but that's a topic for another day.

ah yes I've been reminded about how much I dislike wash's arc with locus on chorus because it makes no fucking sense!

like that scene in s12 where wash has that dream about shooting donut? while perhaps understandable when looked at in a vacuum, it makes absolutely no sense in the context of wash's arc from s6-s10.

wash repaid his debt to donut by protecting him from one of the tex bots in the 100 tex battle (which is what that seemingly random line in that fight where wash says "okay, we're done here" is referencing), and wash mentally justifying shooting donut in the dream with a "I was just following orders" also makes no sense because that's not what happened!

pretty much everything wash did from mid s7 through s8 were all things that he chose to do. wash chose to go to the chairman and make a deal after he found out that caboose still had epsilon, wash chose to shoot donut and lopez (because he didn't know them and had no attachment to them), wash chose to take doc prisoner, etc etc.

yet despite all of those awful choices he made, the reds and blues still refused to let him die. they chose to save wash when they had every reason to not save him, and they did it because that's what friends do—they protect their own.

this is why wash pulling his gun on lina in s10, and the words that followed him doing so were so important. wash knew what she was feeling, he understood her on an intimate level because lina was mentally in the same place that he himself had been in not too long ago—but he was not going to stand by and watch her hurt his friends, and he was not going to let her force the reds and blues into a battle that wasn't theirs (like he himself had done in s6 on his quest to defeat the meta).

tldr; wash's arc on chorus with locus doesn't make sense because the whole point of his arc (and kind of lina's arc too) prior to chorus was unironically about rediscovering the power of friendship thanks to a group of dumb guys in colorful armor.

[heroictoonz]

king I've been putting off a rewatch of s15-17 for ages do u think its worth it

My instinct is so say no save yourself but like jokes aside I think that’s up to you like, I always said that they gave the RvBs a “bad ending” and that they ruined Tucker’s character post Chorus however, that was back when season 16 was literally first coming out

Flash back here but so when s16 was coming out I was just getting more and more upset with the writing of the show especially and honestly almost specifically Tucker. Somewhere near the end of s16 I stopped watching (didn’t even finish the season) and then after a bit I heard that the next season was gonna revolve around whole new characters

Now this, I only recently learned was weird miscommunication. See I’m trash ass shit at keeping up with news of shit even shit that I like so for the longest time I thought the story of this group I’ve been following since I was a teenager ended at s16 which KILLED me inside so I swore off the rest of the show and vowed to never watch it. Instead I mostly just rewatched Chorus or s1-s13 if I wanted to rewatch the “whole” show. Basically just watching till the end of Chorus and stopping. Every time I tried to go rewatch s15 to mmmaybe finish the show I kept remember how bad things got and kept running away

I’m gonna give some vague spoilers from here on out but it’s cause I do genuinely wanna talk about how I feel having literally only a few minutes ago finished s16 and s17 for the first time

I decided to finish RvB LITERALLY last night like no joke and it’s cause I saw spoilers out of context for s19 and I was like fuck it I need to see what the hell that is show is over anyways might as well finish it. So I am doing that now

I rewatched/finished s16 and fucking hated it. The good parts were Wash being cute and silly and my favorite guy ever of all time and forever. There’s also Grif and this character named Huggins they’re like on god one of my new brotps of all time damn RvB writes some good ass season specific supporting cast cause holy shit man. Also! I liked that Kai was in it! I enjoy Kai so so so so so much! I’ve always wanted more of her in the show! UNFORTUNATELY!

Tucker is so hard to watch. It’s so honest to god painful to watch. Maybe that’s what they were going for I don’t know. But, having now seen season 17 I get what they were TRYING to do I just don’t fully like how they did it.

In s17 Tucker admits to himself that the reason why in s16 he was acting so weird and gross and toxic masculinity “I have to have the biggest and most talented dong in the room at all times or I’ll kms” character ever is cause he was trying to be a leader

It’s sounds stupid and personally I think it IS stupid but now that I know what they were TRYING to write it makes these post Chorus seasons more bearable.

Basically, Tucker spent all that time in Chorus forced to be a leader. Once he finally got comfortable in the position of one Chorus no longer needed them. He wanted to keep being a leader keep feeling like a leader and it went to his head. He tried acting cool and tough and macho cause that’s what he thought a leader was and he says this! Out loud he admits all this to himself in s17! And honestly? That’s SUCH a good fucking concept it’s super fucking interesting and I really dig it plus with Tucker FAILING at being the leader it gave Donut well deserved character growth. I’ve always hated how sidelined Donut got compared to the others cause I’ve always liked him but s17 is definitely Donut’s season and to see him finally get screen time and respect and also have genuine moments of connection with the others was honestly really fucking awesome

So, do I like s16? God no. Do I recommend it watching it? Hard to say. You have to watch it if you wanna finish the show. Is finishing the show worth it? Honestly I dunno yet I haven’t seen 18 or 19 so it’s to be seen rn. But s17 where not perfect was definitely better than 16 and gave better insight on what they were trying to do. I don’t like the execution I don’t think it was as done very well but I like the ideas I like what they were attempting

S15 I admittedly do not fucking remember at all cause again it’s not a season I’ve rewatched more than maybe twice cause I kept stopping cause I just did not wanna deal with what I knew was coming. And I know me I know myself I know if I tried rewatching the show from the start or even s15 in an attempt to finish it I’d ever fucking do it so instead I just started from s16 and went forward

I don’t remember out right hating s15 but similar to the above I think there were good ideas and not all of them were perfectly done in writing. Also there’s this like really cool interesting thing that is about Tucker that then ends up being a stupid child support payment joke and that sucks so much it makes me so burningly livid I don’t even have a joke here it just makes me mad

But! It brings in the concept of other reds and blues other soldiers that were left in the rubbles of project freelancer which is super interesting again I think they coulda done more with specific parts of it and the “Tucker doesn’t pay child support for the buncha kids he fucked into existence” joke sucks especially when they CONSTANTLY SHOW HIM AS A VERY DOTING AND LOVING FATHER it’s fine I’m not mad I’m not bitter I promise

But uh yeah honestly if you like the show a lot I say watch it even if it sucks. Some of my biggest special interests are GARBAGE shows with writing so bad it makes me wanna commit actual arson. But, I love the characters I love the settings and I love what could have been maybe that’s why I always keep sticking around in stuff like this lol even if it sucks I like to imagine what could make it better cause I love it! And if I didn’t love it I wouldn’t care to put as much energy into wanting it to be better as I do! That’s the same with RvB! I wish it was better I wish SSOOOO BADLY that it was better but it’s cause I love it so fucking much not out of any sort of hate if that makes sense?

Idk tldr it’s up to you and you might suffer a bit but if you love the show I say go for it

Aaaand it’s 2am and I read ur ask wrong I thought that said “watch” not “rewatch” but? Points still stand I’m the kinda person that will rewatch even the seasons I hate to remember why I like the ones I love (I’m looking at you Ninjago season 3 you hot fucking garbage that I’ve sadly seen more times than I would like)

[arkhaline]

My Complete Thoughts on RvB: Restoration

Major spoilers for the entire season below the cut!

I think the biggest sin of this season was not clarifying when it takes place, as it cheapened a lot of the twists by genuinely confusing me or contrasting information that we had already been given in S15-S18. Keep this in mind for the rest of the review.

Maybe the allusion to Caboose’s voice being “misremembered” was confirmation that it was in fact a simulation post-S13, but it still wasn’t super clear to me. Especially since Dylan was talking about the Reds and Blues (even though I know they met post-S10), which kinda made it feel like Restoration could be post-S18 (unless that was the point). There was just enough ambiguity that it really could have gone either way for most of the movie.

I feel like the humor was a bit off?? Maybe it was a generational gap since the show was going back to someone who hasn’t written for it in a while and is older than the current writers (case in point: he used tropes that Gen Z makes fun of a lot, e.g. he’s right behind me isn’t he). The Zoom call bit also went on WAY too long. The metacommentary about the changing attitudes toward RT also felt a bit tone deaf. In general, a lot of the trademark RvB banter just felt stale, it was the more general dialogue that was stronger (though Church telling Caboose to shut up when Simmons was talking did make me laugh).

Also, Grif was so angry all the time at the beginning?? Felt out of character and took me out of those early scenes. Maybe it was a setup for the whole discharge subplot but it just felt�� off

The writing was just a bit clunky at the beginning, felt very direct and exposition-y, but that might be because they had so much to cover in so little time. It resolved itself later, anyway (except for the rapid fire ending, there was so much to unpack there).

Alright enough complaining about the general format, here are my more detailed thoughts.

Sheila!!! That is all.

I can excuse Caboose secretly speaking Spanish the whole time because there was a bit in S16 (maybe 17? can’t remember) where he understands something that Lopez said.

I initially completely missed the fact that the Meta’s color scheme was an allusion to Felix, that is so fucked up. Tucker dressed in the colors of the man he hates the most about to kill his closest friends? Jesus.

The Director being Epsilon’s therapist in the YouTube video made me laugh really hard.

Speaking of therapists, Wash was patient 619-B and I think that was the Counselor’s voice. Is the implication that he survived in this timeline?? Because he died before Epsilon fractured himself, so that much should at least be set in stone. Not really clear on that.

The “Great Destroyer” thing felt a bit retcon-y, but I can get behind it well enough.

I got so excited when 479er showed up, glad that we got confirmation that she made it out of Recovery okay. Wish we could’ve seen her and Wash (and Carolina) interact though.

I wish they had done Sarge’s death a bit differently. Kinda wish he hadn’t been all “that worked out well!” only to be stabbed, it felt very “he’s right behind me isn’t he” and made the fact that he was about to be stabbed obvious from a million miles away. There’s definitely something to be said about him sacrificing himself for a blue, and the deathbed interactions he had with the others were really good, but it kinda just felt like shock value?? Like there wasn’t enough build up to the payoff, it just kinda seemed like he decided to save Caboose last minute without any major character motivations or development behind the decision.

Which is another thing, it felt like it relied a LOT on Red vs. Blue dynamics in the beginning, and I was fucking flabbergasted when they actually left Caboose behind. The same people who broke time to save Wash would just leave Caboose to die like that? No way.

Meta!Tucker felt like it wasn’t explored enough, mostly just “no I won’t do your bidding” and “yes you will” back and forth with no real depth. However, credit where credit is due, I LOVED how this gave us a new perspective to Maine’s descent into madness. That ten-years-of-torture-in-a-few-seconds thing? So fucked up. Can you imagine being tortured by the remnants of your best friend, who have zero regard for your well-being? If they did all of that to Tucker in the short time they were together, just imagine what they did to Maine to get him to the point he was at at the end of S10/by Recollection.

Bonus points for the fact that the fragments tortured Tucker without a second thought when they themselves are a result of torture. They seemed to spare no empathy for Tucker despite having been through this themselves. Then again, I suppose they are they are copies of the original Leonard Church, who had no such qualms.

Didn’t realize that Meta!Tucker was voiced by Miles Luna (aka Felix’s voice actor) until the credits, that was an extra layer of fucked up and I loved it.

I really enjoyed Wash’s plot for the most part. I was definitely super intrigued the whole time since so much of his subplot didn’t add up from his perspective. I mean, I think he deserved something more for a send-off since most of his arc wasn’t really related to his character as a whole (besides the freelancer thing at the end). However, I still enjoyed it for what it was worth.

Additionally, if this is post-S13, I wish they’d clarified because I assumed that Wash was suffering from cerebral hypoxia and not some other injury. They kept alluding to something that happened on Chorus, but I wasn’t clear on the fact that it was a separate timeline of events. The Doc plot twist threw me off a lot more as a result.

I could tell he was gonna launch himself off the cliff and it still made me laugh hysterically.

I’m glad that the final battle was in Blood Gulch. It’s cliché, but it felt full-circle. Plus, it was the best resting place for Sarge in canon and a good set-up for a “why were we here” moment.

I knew Simmons was gonna have his arm broken but I still gasped anyway. And when the shotgun was cut in half??? Bro my jaw was on the floor, it was like when John Wick’s dog was killed (probably, I’ve never seen that movie). But the way Simmons cocked the shotgun with one hand was badass as hell, good for him.

I’m glad we got something resembling a Simmons character arc? I think it relied a lot on setup from previous seasons of him becoming a leader, with little to no actual development in S19 itself, but it still felt at least decently satisfying.

“Best throw ever. Of all time” made me laugh, I love a good callback. Actually, there were a lot of fun callbacks to jokes, like the irony bit. They were greatly appreciated.

Tucker getting launched by a warthog actually made me laugh really hard, I love the “shotgun as a code word” bit so much.

The Tex plot twist was SO GOOD, I totally didn’t see it coming. Much better direction to go anyway, since we already put Church to rest in S15. So glad that Caboose was able to get his moment in the spotlight and have the smartest plan of all of them. Unless it was Church’s plan, in which case I find it so sweet that he wanted to bring Tex back instead of himself (even if it did cheapen the S9 “let her go” thing a bit). I also really loved the callback where her armor turned black because of the teleporter, that was really good.

I got so excited when they started playing Round One I’ll be honest. Also, I Say Ooh?? Was not expecting that one.

In all honesty, I didn’t love the soundtrack (kinda felt stock music-y and cliché in a lot of parts, plus it didn’t have the musical style that we’ve come to expect from RvB). It was fine, but nothing to write home about. The campfire song was good too. I know about the whole thing where Trocadero wouldn’t join on unless everyone was brought back on, and now that we know that RT is shutting down, it’s possible that this was because multiple musical artists just weren’t in the budget. That said, it’s a shame that there weren’t more original songs.

I called that Carolina was gonna be Recovery (though now I think about it, why was she doing Recovery?? was it even Recovery since Charon had been shut down??? What happened to her after Chorus???? Also her talking about how her and Wash would do everything together from now on meanwhile she left him behind in some hospital?????). Anyway, the fight with her and Tex was SO fan service-y but I ate it up anyway, good for them.

Tex winning because she was a collection of the Reds and Blues’ memories and she always won against them was so, so good, something to be said about the positive nature of the memories of your friends (I mean just look at how happy they had been when recounting everything they’d been through!)

Also if just talking about someone was enough to create a functional AI, it kinda makes the whole “torturing Alpha to make more AI” thing totally pointless and retcons the entire show but. Whatever.

TEX DESERVED THIS ENDING!! I like the S9 ending in a lot of ways, it was poetic that she was finally allowed to rest after being dragged back so many times against her will, but I think it also felt incomplete because I don’t know if being put to rest was what Tex herself would actually want. There is a significant difference between not electing to bring her back again and choosing to take her out of the fight. Tex was never allowed to make her own decisions, not even in S9. This ending was entirely on her terms, which I think was fantastic.

I loved the rockslide, it reminded me a lot of the ice fight from S8 was just generally very fun.

It’s established that Tucker became the Meta because he had several AI when just two was enough to almost kill Carolina. If this isn’t the canon timeline, then why didn’t Tucker become the Meta in that one? For a reason besides “the writers didn’t think of it”.

I hope that Burnie came up with the idea for this season by reading Meta!Tucker fan fiction.

The Doc thing was so??? Why did they do a Sixth Sense. Like I think that twist would have worked a LOT better if they made it clearer when this took place (I kept flip flopping on whether this was an alternate timeline post-S13 or main timeline post-S18 up until this point, which made the whole Doc-died-on-Chorus thing feel like it came out of nowhere since, if it was post-S18, we knew that Doc survived Chorus. It also makes Epsilon’s sacrifice to get them all out of there feel a bit cheaper since they didn’t all get out of there, but maybe that suggests that S15-S18 are the main timeline).

How did Doc heal Wash’s leg?? Was it even broken in the first place??? Did they ever clarify that????

I GASPED when the Freelancers showed up. It was camp as hell and hard to take seriously but also I don’t even care. I’m glad he got some kind of goodbye, since he was always too late to do so as a Recovery agent.

Kinda funny that Wyoming wasn’t there but Florida was, and also South was there even though Wash murdered her in cold blood. Anyway.

When One showed up I felt every emotion I think

Bro where the hell was Donut? There was no good reason for him not to at least show up, maybe on the pelican with One or something. Especially since S16 and S17 were dedicated to an entire arc about how everyone should stop disrespecting Donut, like come on.

Edit: did a little research and it might be because there’s no pink armor in the game this season was filmed in? Which is so hard to believe, since Halo has so many references to RvB. I can’t believe they would just cut out the armor colors of one of the main characters and make it impossible for him to return in the way we know him, it’s messed up.

I know time was short, but I wish we had more time to explore Tucker’s feelings post-Meta. Especially since he killed Sarge, even though it definitely wasn’t his fault. There probably wasn’t enough time to get into all that, but still, he seemed remarkably fine after everything that had happened. I guess that kind of exploration is what AO3 is for lol.

I have mixed feelings about the end for Tex and Church. On one hand, Tex calling herself Allison Church was so sweet and I loved how caring she was, it reminded me of when she said goodbye to Alpha during the Freelancer saga. Also, the fact that there was finally a Church free of the memories of his predecessors felt very satisfying. However, I kind of wish that they could have just had their happily ever after and stayed in the memory unit. I understand the decision—destroying the remaining AI was really the best way to make sure Project Freelancer was put to rest forever—but I kinda feel like she and Church deserved better than simply being put down after everything they’d been through.

One final team kill for Caboose. Ow.

The animation was really, really good!! It looked much better than that plasticky look the trailer had. I didn’t love Epsilon’s animations (they felt a bit jerky and overacted), but otherwise I think they did a really great job. I especially loved how they animated the AI on Tucker’s visor, it looked cool as hell.

I think one of the things this season suffered from was the overall tonal shift in the writing. Burnie hadn’t written for, and Matt hadn’t solely directed, a season in a LONG time. We’ve come to expect more character-focused narratives that dive into the nuisances of the characters and their relationships, and we didn’t really get that here (unless you count Sarge’s deathbed confession to Grif that he was hard on him because he wanted him to be more, which still felt a bit shallow. Actually, there are lot of things which could be considered set-ups in retrospect, but their intended payoffs didn’t feel like payoffs). I think there was a consequential whiplash as compared to what we have come to expect from RvB, and while the writing style we got wasn’t inherently bad (again, I liked a lot of it), it was definitely different.

I really, really hated that Grif left at the end. That’s literally the antithesis of his S15 arc, which felt much more complete and true to the character than this one. It’s impossible not to compare these arcs because of how inherently similar they are, and because I believe the S15 arc is superior (Grif’s exhaustion was a more subtle and believable reaction than this Grif’s raw anger, and his realization of how much he relied on his team was much more powerful than this Grif just tapping out), it makes the S19 Grif arc feel poorly thought out.

Also, he wanted to be discharged, but I don’t think they worked for the UNSC or any other military organization after Chorus since they all retired, so was any of that really necessary? Maybe retirement is just a vessel, so to speak, to represent Grif leaving adventure behind him for good. Still, I liked the way S15 handled this arc a lot more.

Vale Deah. Ow.

NO GRIMMONS??? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???

The most we got was Grif leaving and asking Simmons to come with him but like. “not scared to take risks my ass”, Burnie.

Honestly, I think this season was a victim of its format. Eighty minutes isn’t a lot of time to properly send off these characters, especially when RvB as a format is based on multi-season arcs. There just wasn’t enough time to build up tension or explore the dynamics of something as extreme as Meta!Tucker in a way that would feel satisfying. That said, I think Burnie did a pretty good job fitting as many things as he did into this format. A part of me is almost glad that Grimmons wasn’t made canon? I feel like it might’ve felt rushed to give it a satisfying arc in just 80 minutes in addition to all of the other shit going on, and I think after 21 years they deserved at least a satisfying resolution. However, they did NOT deserve an ending which implied that they would never see each other again, what the fuck.

TL;DR? 7.5/10. Far from perfect, and there were a lot of creative decisions made that I heavily disagree with. However, they did a lot right, too, and it still seems heartfelt in a way that helps me overlook some of its flaws. Overall, I enjoyed this season for what it was worth. There are some qualities of S17 that I think made for a better final goodbye to these characters, and some qualities of S19 that I think made for a better goodbye (in all honesty I never finished S18, but it wasn’t really a “goodbye” season anyway). Wrapping up a 21-year-old series is very difficult, and I have a lot of respect for Burnie and the others who worked on Restoration for what they put together. Truthfully, I’m gonna pick and choose which segments of S17 and S19 are canon in my heart (S17 is still the overall canon ending for me), but I’m happy with what we got in the end.

Anyways, I’m happy to chat more in the replies, let me know your thoughts!