#also in s5 when church is like oh the pink guy i actually liked him

[funsizedcrow]

rvb relationship dynamics i want to see more of

carolina/grif

simmons/wash

donut/church

church/grif/simmons

kai/simmons

[calliecat93]

RvB16 Episode 12 Review: Docudrama

Earlier in the week, Joe confirmed that the season’s final episode count would be 15 total. This will make it the series’ shortest season, though Joe has said that the final runtime is the same as S12. My point is, we are in the final stretch my friends. So last week had some mixed responses regarding Tucker... and IDC cause Grif got n Energy Sword! WHOO!!! But now, after ten straight episodes of our heroes being separate, it’s time to bring them back together.

Overview

This episode has a rather interesting premise. You know how movies have those behind the scenes documentaries/features? Well this episode is shot as one, beginning with the actors for Wash and Carolina... having sex... while the two real ones look. Jax wanted sex appeal... though he apparently plans on making a Grimmons scene so you know what? Add all the sex appeal Jax! Also hope you all can tolerate shaky came cause haha... we get light eight straight minutes of it... be afraid people.

So Sister, Tucker, and Grif have just arrived, so at last the gang is back together! We even have Grif showing off the new sword to Simmons and them proceeding to come up with sword puns, all while Simmons is in awe. Ah I missed these two being together so much. Donut also appears to joint he party! Grif isn’t happy about this considered that... you know, Donut’s with the bad guys. But Donut apologizes for getting everyone into the mess to begin with and wants to help get them out of it. This seems to satisfy everyone for now, but... yeah don’t fall for it viewers.

Grif reveals the deal to meet with the Cosmic Powers and tries to get everyone on board with it. The Freelancers have concerns however and Sarge isn’t willing to give up the gun yet. But Grif, as well as Sister and Tucker, explain about the shield protecting them and Grif trusts Huggins enough that he thinks it’ll be safe. Carolina worries that this is a trap, while Wash is just happy to be back in the usual ‘get involved in shit with the others’ groove. Before a final decision can be made, Jax wants to know more about if time travel is a bad thing or not once Tucker explains about the time line being damaged. As such, Jax wants to interview everyone and create a timeline based off everyone’s travels in order to see if there are any true consequences to all of it.

So the interviews are conducted, where it’s implied that Sister shot JFK and Grif may have killed Ceaser. Oops. Caboose also discovered Chinese finger traps. The most interesting though is Donut talking about how Chrovous saved his life and has been nothing but respectful towards him. The Reds and Blues on the other hand, well... yeah... anyways, onto the results! Jax concludes that while the Reds and Blues have failed in fixing any past mistakes or losses, there so far haven;t been any actual consequences to their shenanigains. He would know since, as it turns out, he’s been using Sarge’s gun to do some time traveling of his own. More on that later. The unified time line... well... it’s a dock. No seriously, it is an actual drawing of a dick. Science is mean man.

With that out of the way, Grif again presses everyone to meet with the Cosmic Powers. Wash still has concerns though... namely in how this is supposed to help find Church. To say that everyone is confused would be an understatement. What Wash is refereeing to is Chuch’s message last season... which IDT he ever did get told that it was just a past recording. Carolina tries to pass it off as him fooling around and while t looks like Wash realized that he lapsed again, it very clearly troubled him. But anymore discussions bout that will have to wait as the Reds and Blues take the guns and head for the Cosmic Gods. Oh and what did Jax do during his time travel you asked? He got actors like Tommy Wiseau and The Dude form Big Lebowski and cast them as the leads. Wow... wow... oh and the studio doesn’t like it, so they cut the funding and with the Reds and Blues gone, Jax can’t fix it. So much for no consequences, haha...

The Reds and Blues arrive at what we can now refer to as Starseat, the base of the Cosmic Powers. Although Jax briefly pops in via the open portal to convince them to help get funding back. It ends when Atlus throws his weapon into Jax and knocks him back into his own time. Oh and we also learnt hat Kalirama is Atlus’ wife... and sister... did I ever mention how fucked up mythology can be?! We also find out who Golfing Guy is. So there’s been a popular theory around that he is Jenkins, who was the ‘camera man’ for Blood Gulch and was in one of the S5 alternate endings. And... it is indeed Jenkins... well Genkins to be exact. He also says that the pink one is going to steal the hammer, HMM... so once intros are done, Carolina asks to hear everything form the beginning. Atlus begins to talk... and because Joe is a jerk, the episode ends there. JERK!

Review

Lets get the annoying out of the way first. SO the documentary style? I liked it! I think Joe mentioned last year that he’d wanted to o an Office-style episode in S15, but simply didn’t have the time. This was a nice place to revisit the idea. but... Joe honey, why did there have to be shaky cam? Okay I know why. It’s documentary style, and those have plenty of shaky cam. It annoys the people watching so Joe got that down... the problem is it annoys the audience. I definitely think that he should have had maybe some int he beginning, and left it after that to make it more bearable to watch. Still credit where it’s due, he got the desired emotion out of me. I’m also kind of annoyed that Tucker is back to being his usual self after the last episode, though he is acting more like regular Tucker so I guess we’ll see what happens.

So the Reds and Blues are finally together again and let me tell you, THANK GOD. I did not realize how much I missed everyone being together until this episode. I lied that it wasn’t overplayed and everything just... went into place. Grif and Simmons joking around, Sister getting referred to by her actual name, Tucker and Wash’s little ‘hey’.s to each other, it was just nice. I also liked how they discuss the issue. There’s the irony of Grif trying to get everyone to follow the plot now, the Freelaners asking questions, the Grif SIbs and Tucker explaining what they found out. Like it’s not over the top... I mean there’s plenty of humor like Grif knowing that he was gonna have to lie to Sarge to make him cooperate. But as much as I’ve enjoyed the crazy time shenanigans, it was nice to have a more calm episode of everyone just discussing what the next step is for them. IDK why I liked just seeing everyone talking so much, but I do.

There was just a lot that I loved. Like the shipping joke in the beginning, Grif still trusting Huggins, both Donut’s return and his interview bit (that hurt...), Simmons trusting Grif’s word and siding with him over seeing the Cosmic Powers, Caboose and the finger trap, the Reds and Blues trying to give themselves epic titles, it was all just great. Even with the heavier moments like Wash having another memory lapse and Carolina still trying to hide it were nice to see... and also hurt, but still well done. Everyone was just, for the most part, happy. I missed the happy.

So time travel stuff. Honestly IDK if this is a Closed Loop anymore or not due to Jax taking actors... though tbf aside form John Wayne IDT any of them are dead in the current time. So what we can conclude with the info that we have is that with the current brand of time travel, you cannot change the past. If you got your men killed or betrayed someone? You can’t change it. You feel bad about your sex life? Can’t change it. You lose a penny? Can’t change it. Now the whole ‘pizza doesn’t exist’ thing is still a huge hole... but we COULD attest that as damage to the timeline. It’s a consequence of the time travel. As we just saw with Jax’s movie losing funding, there are consequences to making changes and we saw that with Sarge where recruiting the new Reds ultimately did nothing for him.

There’s still a lot unclear about time travel, and with three episodes left IDK how Joe is going to explain it all. Maybe he won’t and we’ll have to see if he does next season. Now it looks like we’re finally getting some exposition which I think is sorely needed at this point. My guess is we’re going to learn about how Chrovous got locked away and hopefully just why tie travel is as dangerous as it is. But there’s also Genkin’s comment about ‘the pink one steals the hammer’. It seems to hint that whatever Donut is going to do, next episode he’s going to do it. IDK where that’ll lead, but I imagine that it won’t be good for our heroes...

Final Thoughts

This is probably my shortest review so far, but even so I loved this episode. The shaky cam was annoying as Hell, but it had a lot of fun moments that makes it forgivable. Plus it was just so good to have everyone back together again after so long. We have three epsodes of S16 left to go, and honestly I have no idea what to expect at this point. All I know is that whatever happens, we’re not ready for it.