redvsblue season 3

I am a little late on this one, but it is now time to cover season three of the web series, redvsblue (trailer). The plot really starts to unravel in the third part of The Blood Gulch Chronicles saga, with a majority of the season taking place outside the confines of the fan favorite map that dominated most of the first two seasons. When season one ended, most of the redvsblue cast went off to chase down an infected Doc (Matt Hullum) via the blue base teleporter, but it teleported most of them to different locations on a series of different original Halo multiplayer maps.

Caboose (Joel Heyman) and Sarge (Matt Hullum) found themselves teleported into a unique predicament on another fan favorite map, Battle Creek. Here, a series of constantly respawning red and blue soldiers continue an endless cycle of hilariously blowing each other up that is a riot to take in. Meanwhile, Chruch (Burnie Burns) and Simmons (Gustavo Sorola) are taken prisoner on the Sidewinder map, while Doc and just the head of Lopez are also out there scheming up their next diabolical plan. Donut (Dan Godwin),Tucker (Jason Saldana) & Tex (Kathleen Zuelch) were the only remaining troops at Blood Gulch, and after a few shenanigans there, they join up with Caboose and Sarge in a mysterious location that I believe is the Wizard map from Halo.

These five then teleport to Sidewinder to rescue Simmons and Church, but the rescue mission fails big time with a huge explosion that sends most of them off to a new dimension that takes place on a map in the then newly released Halo 2. Sarge somehow explains it best that they are now in an all new future timeline. Meanwhile, Church got teleported so far back in the past that instead of being in a world featuring 2004's latest and greatest graphics, he is instead in a world filmed with one of Bungie's first games from the early 90s, and that is the FPS Marathon.

It is here where Chruch realizes he has to revisit the events that took place in the first two seasons of redvsblue to prevent them from blowing up the universe again. So in a fresh twist, we see Church time travelling and interrupting key moments from the first two seasons, but constantly failing at attempting to change the way history played out. These moments were probably my favorite out of this season, as you can tell the filmmakers at Rooster Teeth had a blast coming up with all kinds of ways of Church to screw up trying to change the past.

I am going to spoil some of season three's final moments here, so reader beware! Meanwhile, the rest of the reds and blues convene on another fan favorite map, Zanzibar (aka "The Windmill" map), where they discover 'O Malley and Lopez are constructing a mammoth robot army to take over the world. The two armies decide to (gasp) work together and bomb the base, and it is when rewatching this final base invasion transpire I forgot that this is where the redvsblue universe really starts to go off the rails. Turns out that Caboose became best friends with the bomb, who turns out can talk and his name is Andy (Nathan Zellner). In the season's final moments, Church finally teleports to Zanzibar just in time to stop the bomb, but just before a new alien menace approaches him as the season closes.

Extra features are the same standard fare as previous seasons. While the season three content that is filmed with the first Halo is remastered with the PC version of Halo for a far better resolution, I have no idea if the scenes from Halo 2 were from the original Xbox or the PC version that hit a few years later. Regardless, it still looks pretty great, and there is a significant jump in graphics between the two games. Looking back it is remarkable, and nearly hard to believe that both games came out on the same system. The extra features however are not remastered, and I do not mind since it is a nice comparison to see how much better the main feature looks. For extras there are 40 minutes worth of deleted scenes, outtakes and bonus PSA videos where the Rooster Teeth crew have special videos on Christmas, Thanksgiving, Election Day and the Cold and Flu season. The original commentary is also here featuring most of the cast, and it is fascinating hearing how psyched they were to get early access to Halo 2 at Bungie's studios and hear other interesting anecdotes from them throughout the production.

Season three of redvsblue is where the show really starts to go all out as the Blood Gulch map is no longer the primary setting. It is at this point about a decade ago where I saw myself starting to get a little less attached to the series because so much was happening in each weekly released episode, but watching it again this time around in one sitting made it a little more easier to follow. Throughout this season I could not help but think about how much it reminded me of the TV series, Lost (which was actually premiering its first season while season three of redvsblue was transpiring), and how much that series went bonkers when it introduced time travel in its later seasons. Season five I believe is where I originally stopped watching, so I am almost caught to where I once was, but I think watching these seasons in individual chunks now will greatly improve my chances at staying on board with the series.

You can join in the fun reliving these episodes with me by watching them for free on the Rooster Teeth website and YouTube channelor by getting the ten year anniversary set off Amazon. See you all next month for season four!

Past redvsblue Blogs

Season 1
Season 2