Red Vs Blue's first five seasons were pretty much all built on comedy, and they were great! But from Season 6 onward, this scrappy little webseries started to put a lot more emphasis on plot, allowing it to reach heights that the Blood Gulch Chronicles could only hope to achieve.
The Recollection Trilogy is composed of Red Vs Blue's sixth, seventh, and eighth season and is essentially about the Reds and Blues fighting to stop an ex-freelancer called The Meta who's trying to steal all of the AIs, while also learning a lot more about the freelancer project itself. Seasons 9 and 10 continue this storyline (I'll get to those later), but these three seasons form a pretty great trilogy around the fight against The Meta:
Season 6: Reconstruction
The jump in quality from Season 5 to Season 6 is absolutely impressive in so many ways. This season manages to feel so much grander than anything in The Blood Gulch Chronicles, it has adventure, drama, and some of the best plot twists in any media ever, which still maintaining the comedy that makes Red Vs Blue so enjoyable. This season is essentially about the freelancer Washington recruiting the Reds and Blues to stop The Meta, so it has the team traveling around different Halo locations facing off against the aforementioned villain. The season gets off to a bit of a slow start with a sort of "get the group back together" storyline, and the tonal shift may feel a bit jarring at first, but the second half of Reconstruction is absolutely magnificent. This season packs in plot twists that completely twist your perception of the show (that Church reveal, huh?) while still making sense and fitting in with the otherwise nonsensical first five seasons. The Meta is also a great villain. He's intimidating, powerful, and genuinely scary at times, helped by the incredibly tense music that plays whenever he's on screen.
Some of the strongest episodes include the absolutely insane shootout in "Chapter 6", the hilarious backstory of what the Reds were up to in "Chapter 9", the big reveal about Blood Gulch in "Chapter 13", the chaotic and stunning finale in "Chapter 19", and of course, that big reveal about Church in "Chapter 16" that forever changed the series for the better.
Reconstruction is a triumph of a season and part of the reason why Red Vs Blue is as beloved as it is. It takes the comedy and characters we loved from the first five seasons while managing to include a compelling plot with fun adventure, a scary villain, and some insane plot twists that are somehow able to tie the show together brilliantly. It's up there as one of my favorite seasons of the show.
5/5 Stars
Season 7: Recreation
Coming after Season 6, it's hard to not feel disappointed by Recreation. This entire season focuses mostly on the Reds and Blues only, taking place in just two locations. It's a very small scale plot line where not much happens outside of the set-up for Season 8. This season signals Red Vs Blue's temporary return to comedy, but I wouldn't say that's necessarily a bad thing. Recreation is actually a really funny season, maybe one of the funniest in the whole show, and there are plenty of genuinely plot-driven subplots that build off of the end of Season 6. It may not have the same intricate story-telling as last season, but it makes up with Red Vs Blue's typically strong humor and some long-awaited payoffs like Tucker's big return. I also wanted to point out that this is the only season Gavin Free directed, and it kinda shows that it was directed by a different person this time. Despite this season being a machinima, Free manages to pull off a ton of strong visual gags, beautiful wide shots, and crazily-shot action scenes. Red Vs Blue's cinematography had been slowly improving over the course of the show, but Season 7 is absolutely one of the best-filmed seasons in the show.
As far as my favorite episodes go, "Well, Hello" and "Watch The Flank" have the long-awaited returns of some of the show's best characters but "Think You Know Someone" is a season finale so good that it stands far above the season in pretty much every way. It packs in a mind-blowing and devastating plot twist that brings the dramatic tone back in preparation for Season 8.
Overall, Recreation doesn't manage to reach the heights of Season 6 (or even some of the BGC seasons at that), but it has some of the most well-executed comedy and cinematography in the show while still maintaining the emotional heft introduced by the aforementioned sixth season.
4/5 Stars
Season 8: Revelation
Coming after Recreation, Revelation is an absolutely phenomenal final installment in the trilogy, even if I do have some problems with it. First, the good things. Revelation returns back to the tone of Season 6 and brings back an emphasis on plot. Storylines about Church, Tex, Wash, and The Meta reach some sort of satisfying resolution by the end of the season, and yet this season still has some of the funniest moments in the show. I think this season peaks really high in the first and last thirds with some amazing streaks of episodes, with one particular episode in this season being easily my favorite in the whole web series. But what really elevates Revelation over pretty much any season so far is the animation. This is the first season to have Monty Oum join the team, who began to add CGI animation to many of the scenes. Not only does this animation blend in with Halo 3 incredibly well, but it allows for some phenomenal visual gags along with some insane action sequences. Monty Oum is a god at making intricate yet bombastic action sequences that are easy to follow and immensely rewatchable, and Revelation has a whole bunch of these amazing set pieces. As for the issues, I feel like the pacing slows to a bit of a crawl after Tex arrives, and the season generally feels less like an adventure than Season 6 due to large portions of it taking place in the same warehouse location. My biggest issue, however, is in its cliffhanger finale which means that it doesn't quite feel like the end of a trilogy. It's actually a great ending for a season finale but it makes it difficult for me to call these three seasons a trilogy give how Seasons 9 and 10 continue right where they left off. And despite my gripes, Revelation's heights are still higher than any season before it.
My favorite episodes this season include the phenomenal two-parter of "Upon Further Review" and "Recovering One" which introduces Monty's CGI with a bang, "Tenth Percentile" which actually gave Sarge of all characters some emotional material, "Reunion" which packed in a devastating death and one of the best fights in the series, and "N+1" which gave The Meta a satisfying death that utilizes the whole cast to the fullest. And then there's my favorite episode in the whole series, "This One Goes To Eleven", which is pretty much one long fight scene as Tex beats up the Reds and Blues in increasingly intricate ways. It perfectly blends comedy and action into easily the best action scene of Red Vs Blue.
Overall, Revelation feels like the perfect blend of Season 6's drama and Season 7's comedy, with some mind-blowing animation from Monty Oum and satisfying character resolutions that make it feel like one of the show's definitive seasons. Even if it does have its faults, its high points are some of the highest in Red Vs Blue history.
5/5 Stars
For most people, The Recollection Trilogy is absolutely the peak of Red Vs Blue, and I definitely understand that. This trilogy managed to give Red Vs Blue a great plot packed with twists, fun action, and dramatic moments while still maintaining the strong characters and comedy that make the series great. Personally, this isn't my favorite arc in Red Vs Blue, but I can't deny it started the peak of the webseries.
4.7/5 Stars
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