Red vs. Blue Season 9 – DVD Review

“We’re going to eat lunch with Dinosaurs. I’m going to eat a giant egg!” -Caboose

The Season:

Red vs. Blue: Season 9 is an action comedy animated/machinima series, produced by Rooster Teeth Productions and loosely based in the Halo universe, directed by Burnie Burns and Matt Hullum. Red vs. Blue Season 9 follows two apparently separate story lines. The first details events that play out in the Epsilon Al’s memories of Blood Gulch, which are depicted with the Halo: Reach engine. The second storyline is a prequel, detailing events concerning Project Freelancer at its peak and is depicted using pre-rendered CGI rather than the Halo: Reach engine, allowing for action sequences and settings outside of the maps provided in Halo: Reach. It is not known until Episode 20 what happens to the characters following Revelation. Unlike Revelation, machinima and CGI are not blended; each medium is entirely separate and represent different eras of the Red vs. Blue storyline.

The season opens in Blood Gulch; Church, Tucker, and Caboose of the Blue team are spying on the Red team (Grif, Simmons, Donut, and Sarge). When Church becomes concerned that the Red team isn’t acting like themselves, well everyone except for Simmons. Church decides to confront the Reds but before he convinces them, Donut shoots him in the foot. Tucker and Caboose are on a cliff watching the whole thing but choose not to get involved. Once Church limps back to the Blue Base, he discovers that Caboose has called Command who has sent out a special forces member. However, Caboose can’t seem to remember who they’re sending and when they’re going to arrive. Later, Church finally figures out that Command is sending Tex. He attempts to explain to Tucker and Caboose about his past and his relationship with Tex. Church also explains how the Blood Gulch isn’t real, which is why he’s not worried about the earthquakes that keep happening. Once Tex arrives Church keeps making up excuses to keep her there. Caboose at one point pays her a hundred dollars to fix the tank and later she builds a bomb to finally put an end to the Red team.

Meanwhile back at the Red Base, Simmons is briefly obstructed by Grif and his recently-cleaned floor before getting Donut to help with the construction of a robot. During this, Grif and Donut begin to revert to the personalities of their real selves, causing an earthquake. Donut decides to tell all of his thoughts and feelings to Sarge, turning him back into his regular gruff personality. When the robot, Lopez, is complete, the Reds notice that he only speaks Spanish. It seems that Lopez is the only one that is concerned about the earthquakes that keep happening but the Reds don’t understand Spanish. Simmons doesn’t like that Lopez is taking his job so he comes up with a plan to get rid of Lopez for good. After that blows up in Simmons’ face, Lopez paints himself maroon so he looks just like Simmons and leaves Simmons tied up in a cave. Sarge, Donut, and Grif don’t notice that Lopez is pretending to be Simmons. The earthquakes keep happening and Lopez is trying to figure out why but while investigating he gets shot. Simmons escapes and returns to find the Reds giving him a eulogy. Now that Simmons is back he figures out that the planet isn’t stable and that’s why the earthquakes are happening. Sarge comes up with a half-ass plan, drill to the center of the planet and throw a bomb into the core. One problem, they don’t have a bomb. Grif figures that if he yells insults at the Blues, they’ll make a bomb for him. However, he didn’t think that plan through the whole way. Could this be the end for the Red team or does it even matter since the planet might explode anyway?!

Meanwhile, in the past during Project Freelancer, The Director and the Counselor are talking about “the system” testing and ranking the agents. The Director sends twin agents South & North Dakota into a cryogenics research facility. South tries to steal data files while North tracks the guards via thermal imaging. While downloading the data, South is confronted by a guard. The guard tries to activate an alarm; South kills him, but his momentum carries him to the alarm button. With the facility now alerted, South grabs the data pod and rendezvous with North. The agents fight their way past numerous guards to get to the helipad for extraction. When they reach the pad, they find themselves surrounded, and a voice demands they stand down and hand over the data pod. At the Director’s behest, an unnamed agent in blue armor arrives to help South and North, sneaking in and providing a distraction for them to fight back against the surrounding enemies. During the battle, North is wounded while protecting South from enemy fire. The mysterious agent is revealed to be Agent Carolina, that helps the twins to extraction, a Pelican dropship. With some evasive maneuvers and North’s shield ability, the dropship manages to reach the rendezvous point.

Meanwhile, Washington and Connie or C.T. (aka Connecticut) return from a failed mission. Although Washington strives to cheer up Connie, she’s still angry. C.T.’s not buying into everything the Director is telling her or anyone else for that matter. Later on, Washington and North are in the middle of a conversation when it gets interrupted by some guards that are on their way to watch a new recruit face off against Maine, Wyoming, and York in a three versus one sparring match. The new recruit kicks their asses over and over again. Resulting in some some injuries to York. Later on, the new recruit is revealed to be Tex. She seems to be the Director’s new secret weapon.

On the Project Freelancer ship, “Mother of Invention”, the Director, the other Freelancers, and the Pelican pilot Four-Seven-Niner, begin briefing on their next mission. Members of the UNSC loyal to the Insurrection have acquired a high level asset and are holding it in a secure building. The asset, codenamed the “Sarcophagus”, can only be accessed by a key code held by an official of the program that created it, who arrives by car to inspect the asset. Because the building will be locked down at the first sign of trouble, both targets must be attacked simultaneously, meaning there will have to be two teams. The first team – Carolina, Washington, and Maine – are tasked with infiltrating the package storage facility. They are unexpectedly joined by York, despite his injuries. The second team, composed of North, Wyoming, and C.T., will act as recon for the first team until they infiltrate the building. After that, the second team will then ambush the official and obtain the key code. Also, as a result of South’s poor performance in her last mission, she is barred from participating in this mission. Can both teams of Freelancers complete this mission or is the Director trying to eliminate the competition and is he using Tex to do his dirty work?! You’ll have to watch and find out!

Conclusion:

Wow! This season was amazingly epic! The Blood Gulch storyline was hilarious. Caboose and Church are my favorite characters. Even if Caboose is getting dumber every season. What can I say, I’m a Team Blue FanGirl! Although, Simmons holds a special place in my heart. Nerds like him need love too! Another great thing about RvB is the writing. There’s such a good back and forth banter between the team members. Not to mention it’s funny as fuck! As for the Freelancer storyline, it’s action packed and had me on the edge of my seat begging for more! You could tell that this storyline was all original CGI and not machinima/Halo based. The attention to detail was breathtaking! Another thing that caught my attention was the soundtrack, mainly the song called “Falling Towards the Sky”. With that being said, I’ve been a fan of RvB since Season 1 and I own all of the Seasons. So my recommendation is this: Buy Season 9 of Red vs. Blue! Once you watch it, you’ll be addicted and wanting more!

The DVD:

Audio/Visual

The sound is clear and crisp. The music is done by Jeff Williams and features members of the cast. It also features Casey Lee Williams, Sandy Casey, and Lamar Hall. The animation is action packed and fanFUCKINtastic! You won’t be disappointed!

Special Features

Director Commentary: The commentary was interesting and funny. It’s not just the directors, there’s also some commentary appearances by cast and crew. I found that this commentary has a Podcast kind of feel to it, which I enjoyed. They talk about different problems they had or how they did certain moves for the characters. They also have some discussions and comparisons about prior seasons.

Outtakes: One word – hilarious!

Deleted Scenes: Totally worth watching but you can see why they got cut.

Special Videos: The PSA’s that were used for promoting the season. These are great!

Behind The Scenes: Impressive to find out how much work when into this season. It gave me a greater appreciation for the series and the animators. There’s also talk about some things that will be in RvB Season 10!

Season 9 Teaser Trailer: I recommend that you watch this. This is a short scene that isn’t in the season.

More From Rooster Teeth: This includes all of the trailers from different Rooster Teeth series; The Recollection Series: Seasons 6-8, Blood Gulch Chronicles: The First Five Seasons, Grifball: Double Agents, RT Shorts Seasons 1-3, Immersion, and Achievement Hunter.

The Season Rating Rating:

The DVD Rating Rating: