Shorts Review: Red vs. Blue Season 13, Episode 18 ‘Great Destroyers’

Spoilers Below:

How many episodes are in this season? Someone please tell me.

“Great Destroyers,” the second-to-last (third-to-last?) episode opened with Wash & Carolina making a “final” stand against Locus & Felix, but first attempting to change their minds about purging everything and everyone. An epic showdown ensued, with plenty of ridiculous action. At one tiring point, Felix said he could do this all day. “We know,” Wash replied. “In fact, we kind of planned on it.” The good guys then revealed they were just trying to waste time while the others worked on the real plan.

Meanwhile, Kimball and the other Reds and Blues led a charge on the Communications Temple, and the number of Space Pirate casualties became worrisome to Counselor Price. He suggested aborting the mission, taking the Tartarus, and leaving, which caused one of the Space Pirates to draw his gun (apparently under conditional orders from Locus and Felix.) Unfortunately for him, his weapon was missing, and the Counselor shot him instead, saying, “To hell with this mission, and to hell with Chorus. Get us out of here!”

However, it was too late, as the Reds and Blues plan was revealed, and the Tartarus was sucked into the gateway and destroyed, raining debris down on Felix and Locus. In the last shot, Felix’s fist emerged from the rubble.

In Case You Missed It:

1) Best fight exchange? [when stuck underneath a moving spacecraft] Felix: “Oh now this is just ridiculous!” / Wash: “We’ve had worse.”

2) Second best? [to Carolina] Felix: “You drop me, you drop us both.” / Wash: “DON’T DROP HIM.”

3) Felix’s frustration: “What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?! Christ, man, always with the cryptic one-liners!”

Touché, Red vs. Blue. After presenting a perfect episode two installments ago, I chastised the series for putting the largest amount of action and what seemed like the ultimate climax prior to the actual end of the season. I’m still a bit sore about that (and I stand by my low-ish score last week) but the folks at Rooster Teeth made up for it somewhat with “Great Destroyers.”

We had two exciting face-offs in this one (although they were actually part of the same fight) and some really creative action. As I’ve mentioned before, you’ll rarely hear me say this, but I really dug the fight sequences. They all showcased some killer moves, and managed to make an 11-minute episode with mostly visuals pretty damn captivating. That’s high praise coming from me, as my eyes usually just glaze over during what others call “the exciting parts.”

I also really liked the small conflict aboard the Tartarus. It was totally unnecessary and pointless to the plot, as the ship was doomed either way, but seeing the normally composed (and always douchey) Counselor Price panic and shoot one of his own men was quite satisfying in a sadistic way. Come on, those dicks deserved it.

As for humor, you may have guessed there wasn’t much – generally more action equals less humor. However, they did manage to work in a few one-liners and brief exchanges during battle, so bonus points there.

Of course, nothing was totally resolved, as Felix is clearly still alive. (Locus might be as well, for all we know. Price better not be.) And despite the intrigue, this is still yet another cliffhanger. But before I start giving shit to the creators for prolonging the inevitable ending once again (Fuck you, Kerry! Er, sorry…) I’ll give them a fair shake and wait for the finale.

After all, I only have two feet, and I’ve already inserted one of them into my mouth because of this show.