How much change do we want?



Change is, generally speaking, good. The natural human instinct towards change is one of repulsion (look, for example, at any major website redesign), but there isn’t a realistic way to prevent changes in an environment. So the best solution is to change with it; adaptation of the natural kind (rather than the forced kind - “they should adapt Red vs Blue into a video game!”). And once the initial shock is over, or if the change is gradual enough, people barely remember how it was before.

Red vs Blue finds itself in something of a bind here. The show is, as mentioned, entering its sixteenth year, which is mind blowing. And these sixteen years in particular feel especially tumultuous (although maybe all time periods feel that way; I’m reminded of this xkcd comic). But for all that, Red vs Blue actually only produces two or three hours of content each year. Most modern TV shows that have been on air for a fraction of Red vs Blue still outpace it in narrative hours. So we have a strange paradox, and not the one of the season subtitle: we have spent ages with these characters, but they haven’t spent all that long with us.

Back to change, now looking right at our target instead of skirting around it (sorry, it’s a bad habit). The characters of this show change, often through extended multi-season arcs (Church, 8-10; Tucker, 11-13; Wash, 10-12). Much is made of the color bias in this, as Blue Team are afforded the more dramatic arcs whilst the Reds are “relegated” to comedy relief. Except that it’s a comedy show, so being comic relief isn’t a demotion at all, but that’s a tangent. Last season there were some attempts to give depth to Simmons and Grif, the most promising Red Team pairing for a variety of reasons (including, yes, romantic ones). However, the view of most seems to be that the story left the arcs unresolved, and failed to address it in the finale. This was disappointing, but mostly because the promise of change had been teased and snatched back.

Nonetheless, I heard concerns this week that the Reds and Blues of Season 16 were acting out of character and that Joe was ignoring their character arcs from even last season, and that. First, I think it’s unfair to put this onto just one person; while Joe is the writer & director credited for the season, he isn’t the only person working on it like Burnie used to be. There’s also additional writing credits and head writer credits in the opening titles, and we know some of the cast like to ad-lib, so I’m wary about making criticism of any kind especially personal when I don’t know what happened behind the scenes.

Secondly, the complaint that our characters haven’t changed enough seems disingenuous. After all, much of Red vs Blue’s success with the machinima format is in creating strong archetypical characters with catchphrases and traits both specific and general. One of the great strengths of the show is that very few lines written for any given character could be delivered by another character (this is part of why I love Wash’s Sarge impression in Season 11 so much). So even when our characters are dramatically affected by their world, do you really want them to change?

There’s no easy answer, but let’s focus on one character by way of example (and by way of being able to post this review sometime this year). Grif has had a starring role in these last two episodes, and had the most interesting story of last season, even if (as mentioned above) the ending was lackluster. He’s also a terribly meta character this season, actively refusing every call to adventure he can find. I’m not here to tell you what’s funny, but all the proposed and immediately refuted plot threads were my favourite gags so far, as the show smartly searches around for its own reason to exist (see last week’s review - sometimes I don’t give this show nearly enough credit). But the choice of Grif as the vessel for this plotless plot is both obvious and unusual. Obvious because his story last season was very similar… and unusual for the same reason.

Grif knows he’s in a story. He knew it last season, when everyone got ready for another adventure and he turned them down, and he knows it know. There’s literally no other explanation for why he acts the way he does unless he knows he’s a character in a story. And he knows what kind of story it is, too. It’s the kind that makes hay from his suffering, that forces him to work to make the audience laugh, and the kind that sometimes takes an unexpectedly dark turn that means he could lose something. And he wants out.

He can’t have it, because the narrative demands that he continue on, so he’s settled for wryly lampshading (or outright mocking) the things that happen around him. But to return to our original question: does this represent a satisfying change in Grif? I would argue, not really. Even back in Season 3, Grif was wishing he could just return to his old, uneventful life (that never existed, because, as he knows, he is a character in a show that started when events really kicked off). He’s always resisted change, but as the story ramped up in scale so too did Grif’s reaction to it. What we saw in Season 15 was just an oversized version of what we saw in Seasons 3 and 4. Not change, but growth. Is that fair?

You might not think so. That’s okay. I’m not sure I think so, to be honest. The jury is out, at least until we see if Grif can change any other way over the rest of the season. Other candidates for change are thin on the ground, so my suspicion is that this is a season where things mostly happen around the Reds and Blues rather than to them. Cause and effect is out of whack.

Oh. By the way, time travel exists.