Yeah, that's right. I'm reviewing webseries too! And what better one to start with than my personal favorite, Red Vs Blue. The first five seasons of Red Vs Blue, also known as the Blood Gulch Chronicles, are pretty much entirely made using machinima, meaning that it all falls onto the writing to carry the show. Thankfully, Red Vs Blue is absolutely hysterical from the get-go, with sharp writing, great characters, and a bizarre yet oddly compelling plot line.
Red Vs Blue is a machinima filmed using the game Halo, pretty much about two opposing teams of soldiers fighting each other in a canyon called Blood Gulch. Eventually, a storyline about an evil AI develops throughout these first five seasons, as the Reds and Blues even end up leaving Blood Gulch for quite some time, but most of the season is spent watching these characters interact and butt heads. The comedic writing in Red Vs Blue is absolutely hilarious most of the time. All of the characters have their own unique quirks and styles of humor, and watching them play off of each other is a lot of fun. There are tons of iconic and recognizable quotes in these first five seasons, along with plenty of running gags that end up paying off later on in the show. Even with the fairly low budget of the show, resulting in a pretty unprofessional first season, the writing manages to carry Red Vs Blue from the very start.
It helps that Red Vs Blue's cast is just plain phenomenal. It's huge too, though mostly just divided by Reds, Blues, and the Freelancers. The Red team is more built around comedy and works as a perfect comedic trio. There's Sarge, the crazy military leader, Simmons, the nerdy suck-up, and Grif, the lazy straight man. Grif is my personal favorite of the trio, as his snarky wit and relatable personality really appeals to me. The Blue team deals with plot more often that not, but they still have a lot of strong comedic moments, particularly the absent-minded Caboose. The leader of Blue team, Church, is probably my favorite character in the show. His sheer hatred for the rest of the cast is both hilarious and sad, and his role in the plot becomes increasingly more important as the show goes on. Tucker is also a great comic relief on par with Grif. And then there are the Freelancers, a group of mercenaries who are pretty much responsible who the AI threat to begin with. They don't get as much focus until Seasons 6 onward, but it's a colorful cast of personalities that flesh out Red Vs Blue's world.
Season 1:
The first season of Red Vs Blue is pretty much entirely lacking on plot. While there is a sense of continuity, the season feels more like a collection of events like Church's death, Tex's arrival, and the finale, rather than its own self-contained season. The low budget nature of the series is also the most visible here, as the video quality is weak and the voice acting is shaky. You can tell that the creators of the show didn't quite have the same ambition in this season that they do in the later seasons. Despite my many gripes, however, Season 1 is still really funny, even from the very first few episodes. The writing is solid right from the start, and the season does a great job of introducing all of the characters. And near the end of the season, there were several episodes that I did find really enjoyable. In particular, I liked "A Slightly Crueler Cruller" which introduces the Spanish-speaking robot Lopez, along with the finale which actually packed a bunch of plot twists, cliffhangers, and a surprising death for Tex. Overall, a solid first season, it just doesn't have the ambition of the rest of the show.
3/5 Stars
Season 2:
For its first two-thirds, Season 2 kind of just feels like more of the same. Even with last season's cliffhangers, the season just felt a bit aimless, at least until the final third, which starts to feel like it's building towards a finale. The season introduces the main antagonist of the Blood Gulch Chronicles, the evil AI Omega, which actually gives the cast someone to work against. Even more, the finale introduces a bunch of neat twists about the Reds and Blues that show a lot more fore-thought compared to the first season. And with the characters leaving Blood Gulch at the end of the season, it really feels like Red Vs Blue is starting to get more ambitious. While the plot doesn't really kick in until that final third, however, the comedy is still there, and it's still excellent. Season 2 might not have as many iconic lines as Season 1, but it still has the same entertaining character interactions and fast-paced humor that I love the show for. There are a lot of strong episodes this season, including "An Audience Of Dumb" which introduces Caboose's hilarious depictions of everyone else, "Blunderball" which has some goofy James Bond references, and "Kit BFF" which is still one of the most packed, chaotic, shocking, and cliffhanger-heavy finales that Red Vs Blue has ever done. Overall, I think Season 2 is a big improvement over the first, especially in its stellar final third, and it's the point in which Red Vs Blue starts to show its ambition.
4/5 Stars
Season 3:
Season 3 is one of my personal favorite seasons of the Blood Gulch Chronicles for how different it is, along with how indicative it is of the more serious later seasons of Red Vs Blue. Pretty much all of this season takes place outside of Blood Gulch, as the Reds and Blues team up and try to take down Omega. I think the season gets a bit too bizarre due to its liberal use of time travel storylines, and it's not one of the funnier seasons, but the best stretches of episodes are thoroughly exciting, compelling, and fun. The best parts of Season 3 include the initial first five episodes which split up the cast, the Church time travel arc where he goes back in time and realizes that he ends up causing all of the events of Seasons 1 & 2, and once again the finale which was packed with tense cliffhangers for the next season. Out of all of the BGC seasons, Season 3 definitely aged the best, as it very much resembles the show that Red Vs Blue would end up becoming. While it's not the funniest season and has its slow points, Season 3 is packed with creative ideas and a whole lot of ambition.
4/5 Stars
Season 4:
Season 4 of Red Vs Blue was just kinda disappointing for me. The first episode "Familiar Surroundings" was a hilarious start to the season, but it never quite reached those heights ever again. This season focuses more on humor as it brought the whole cast back to Blood Gulch, which is kind of disappointing given how much fun the more experimental third season was. Still, this does mean that this is one of the funnier seasons of the BGC, even if the plot definitely suffers. The whole season is built on two storylines, between Tucker going on a "quest", and Simmons getting kicked off of the Red Team. Sadly, neither of these storylines were very interesting, and were dragged out for pretty much all of the season. Even Omega, the main villain of Seasons 2 & 3, didn't really reappear until the last few episodes. As mentioned before, the only true highlight of the season was its premiere, the rest of it was just kind of dull. Overall, Season 4 is definitely the weakest Blood Gulch Chronicles season in my opinion. It had its funny moments, but the story was paper-thin, drawn-out, and dull.
2/5 Stars
Season 5:
Thankfully, Red Vs Blue managed to end its first arc on a very strong final season. Season 5 of Red Vs Blue takes place entirely on the Blood Gulch, but it manages to feel like a satisfying climax to the Omega storyline, slowly bringing back pretty much the entire cast for one massive final battle in the last few episodes. And even with all of the buildup, the first two thirds of Season 5 still had tons to love, from the addition of Grif's hilarious sister to the cast, to Sarge's "funeral", to the paranoia-inducing mystery on who Omega has taken over. But once again, it's that final arc that really blows me away given how well it manages to tie up all of the series's disparate plot threads and characters. My two favorite episodes by a massive margin are "Same Old, Same Old" which has Tucker try to defeat the freelancer Wyoming using a time loop, and the finale "Why Were We Here?" which is a climactic, shocking, hilarious, and even kind of saddening end to the first 100 episodes of Red Vs Blue. The Blood Gulch Chronicles is not one of my favorite arcs due to its focus on humor over plot, but I'm not gonna lie, Season 5 is absolutely amazing. It has great humor, a compelling story, and a stunning final third, a perfect end for the arc that started Red Vs Blue.
5/5 Stars
Overall, the Blood Gulch Chronicles is a hysterical start for Red Vs Blue with sharp writing, great characters, and a strong ending, even if its fairly light on plot and visibly low-budget.
3.6/5 Stars
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