Episode 13 - Identity Crisis Part 2

Last episode, we got the first part of the two part season finale. As stated in my post on that episode, it presented us with an interesting plot and setting up things which appear in this episode, such as Dot's visions of a dystopian Mainframe and the Funhouse game. In the second part of this two parter concluding this season, Gavin, Ian, and Phil successfully paid off everything they set up in the previous episode to end the season on a high note.

Following a brief 'previously on ReBoot' montage, we pick up where we left off with Bob and Dot outside The Funhouse. Bob ReBoots into a clown, but Dot is reluctant to do so following her perceived failure in obtaining the PID's. She eventually does so after Bob's encouragement, ReBooting into a sad looking clown. Bob and Dot head off only to be attacked by exploding custard pies, which it turns out were being thrown by the User, taking on the form of a polygonal clown. The User heads to the first level, and Bob gives chase after him, grabbing the downtrodden Dot to ensure that she’s not left behind.

At Silicon Tor, we can see that Megabyte is halfway done encrypting Dot's file. His doctor tells him that they are on schedule, and Megabyte comments about how he cannot say the same about Dot, prompting him and Cyrus to begin laughing evilly. Back in the game, Bob is figuring out how to get into the Funhouse. The mouth of the entrance opens and a large tongue grabs Bob and Dot, causing them to slide down the tongue. Upon reaching the bottom, they head off and we can see that Phong can see inside the games somehow via vid window. He monologues about how Dot appears to be more affected than he thought, and he needs to do something to save them all.

Bob and Dot enter a hall of mirrors with lots of doors. Only one is the correct entrance to the next level, but the others lead to doom. Bob opens a door only to get grabbed by some strings that hang him up like a puppet, he says that it’s all up to Dot now as the door closes. Dot mopes about how it’s yet again up to her, and that she blew it last time. Phong appears over her shoulder and says he wants to show her something, grabbing the sides of her head. This prompts everything around her to slow down, including a voice saying 'Game Over, The User Wins'.

We cut back to Mainframe and we see Dot, now in her normal attire, pulling herself out of a pit. She comments that the whole sector has been nullified, but she’s somehow survived. We see that the sky is now an incredibly dark grey colour. Dot eventually finds herself at the viral prison camp she briefly saw in her vision. Asides from Megabyte's binomes, all the other binomes have barcodes instead of icons. Even Frisket has been captured and marked with a barcode. Some binomes immediately take interest in Dot due to her not having 'the mark'. The eye robot that Dot saw in another vision last episode shows up, prompting Dot to flee. Eventually, she evades the robot, but she discovers that her Diner has been rebranded as 'Nibble's Diner', named after Megabyte's pet null.

Dot walks into the Diner, and sees that it’s now a sketchy looking dive bar. She sits down, and spots Cecil, who’s now a faceless drone with claws for hands. Dot is initially happy to see him, but this fades once she realises that Cecil no longer has a personality or recognises her, even threatening her. Dot rants about how this is her Diner, which is the best in Mainframe. This causes the patrons to laugh, and for Cecil to correct her and tell her that this is, in fact, Megaframe. The commotion is interrupted by a teenage Enzo with a scar under his eye and stubble enters the Diner. His attitude is a lot more aggressive. Like Cecil, he doesn’t recognise Dot, saying that Dot got everyone killed in a game. After telling her that Bob is on Level 31 with Old Man Phong, he kicks her out the Diner and tells Dot to stay off of his turf. It's interesting to note that Teenage Enzo in this episode is voiced by the original Enzo voice actor Jesse Moss as opposed to Matthew Sinclair who took over the role from Talent Night onwards.  Megabyte then pops up on a vid window as the citizens of Mainframe bow to him, saying 'hail to the prince of power' in unison with each other.

On Level 31, Dot hears Phong's voice coming from an alleyway. Walking down it, we see a box with a picture of Frisket's face on it with the eyes cut out. As Dot approaches the box, Feathers McGraw from Wallace and Gromit walks past. Feathers McGraw is the star of one of my favourite behind the scenes ReBoot stories. He was initially only supposed to appear in this episode as the scene was a homage to The Wrong Trousers. However, the model remained in the archives where the models for the show were stored, and the animators would always find him and decide to put the penguin in the background. This would go by unnoticed until Gavin and Ian saw the finished episodes. Most times, they were able to pull him out of the shots, but he remained in a few. Eventually, Ian sent a memo around the studio demanding that the penguin was to be deleted from the archive.

Phong emerges from the box, and it turns out he’s gone a bit senile. When Dot asks where Bob is, he gets a caged blue null out of his box, commenting about how no one believes that Bob used to be a great Guardian. This sends Dot over the edge, ranting about how she didn’t even try to win the game, wishing for another chance. This prompts Phong to briefly return to his former self, offering wisdom on how the future isn’t determined by the roll of a dice, but the conscious decisions we make. Soon after, Viral binomes spot Dot, with one giving the command to inform Lieutenant Cyrus that they’ve found her.

Dot flees, but ends up getting cornered in an alleyway. As he virals approach, Cyrus in a viral army uniform pops up on a vid window to tell Dot that they’re here to help her. A security drone grabs her and forces a contraption onto her head. This shaves all her hair off and marks her with a barcode, prompting Dot to return to the game. Phong tells Dot that she still has time to win and she sets off through the correct door.

This leads to a giant winding bowling lane that needs to be traversed via a small unicycle. Dot gives chase after the User, making it down just after he’s reached the final challenge; shooting water into a frog's mouth to get it to the top of a tube. Dot is able to beat the User at the last second by holding onto the hose and releasing it at the last second, allowing a large volume of water to shoot out and end the game.

Once the game leaves, Phong explains what Dot experienced was through the use of a reality distortion device that sends ripples into the past. Dot explains that she saw someone who let everyone down by not giving up, only that it was her. Bob joins up with them to congratulate Dot. The three of them work out that there’s still time to stop Megabyte since the file is encrypted and it’s possible that Megabyte hasn’t managed to decrypt it yet. Bob and Dot set off to stop him.

At the Tor, Megabyte is one digit away from decrypting the file. He orders Hack and Slash to bring in the binomes. Back at the prison site, a Viral tank piloted by Bob and Dot pulls up. As soon as the prisoners are on board, the tank pulls away before any virals can board. The worried binomes are relieved when they find out that Dot's piloting the vehicle. She apologises for her failure, but the binomes say they know she tried her best, and thank her for everything she tried to do. Bob then suggests crashing Megabyte's party.

At the Tor, Megabyte has finished decrypting the file, but his doctor tells him there’s something wrong. It turns out Dot has managed to hack in and take back the file to her organiser before Megabyte could finish his decrypting. She gets on the vid window to assure everyone of her victory, thanking Cyrus for helping. This causes Megabyte to turn on Cyrus, demoting him to a shoe shine boy. Phong then inputs the PIDs, turning the sector into an energy slide.

As a way to end the season, this two parter was a great way to round it off. This is also the first time the show steps into darker territory, something that the show is going to begin taking bigger steps towards next season (and more so in the third season), and it definitely benefits the show as a whole. The high stakes really elevate this story in comparison to some of the previous episodes we've had this season. While we've previously seen Megabyte be menacing before, we didn’t get much of an impression of how much control he had over Mainframe. From this two parter, we’ve not only seen that he already has a vice grip over certain sectors within the city, but we also get to see what could happen if he ended up having 100% total control over the city.

The Megaframe portion of this episode is one of the highlights. Not only does it make for a spin on the ‘It’s A Wonderful Life' trope where a character realises how much impact they have through a world where they weren’t able to make a difference, but it also makes for a grim and twisted version of the show that we haven’t seen before. One where Bob is nowhere to be found, Megabyte is essentially in control of everything and Enzo is an aggressive punk with a scar over his eye. Obviously, this was all a dream of Dot's to snap her out of her depression, but keep this in mind when we get to Season Three.

My highlight is, of course, Dot. I’ll get onto this later, but I’ve been very vocal in the past about how great of a character Dot is, and this episode further exemplifies this and it’s great to have an episode where she’s the protagonist. In this two parter, we can see that she is very quick to doubt herself when things go wrong, and this episode is about her learning to overcome that, making for a great moral by the episode’s end.

The only thing I didn’t like is Phong's ability to see into and enter games at will. This is never brought up or mentioned again after this episode, and it’s not explained how or why he was able to do this. And if he can do so, why doesn’t he do so in later episodes where this ability might come in useful?

Now for my thoughts on this season as a whole. Going into this, I wasn’t expecting to enjoy Season 1 too much. I was expecting to enjoy the odd episode, but find I didn’t like this season too much due to not having the nostalgia for it and the stories not being as engaging. However, I was surprised to find that not only was there only one episode that I really disliked (Enzo the Smart), but that this season is actually a lot of fun.

Character wise, Bob is great as your goofy yet somewhat capable hero, and his characterisation in this way prevents him from becoming your generic cookie cutter action hero that’s rampant throughout shows like this. Dot is, of course, a fantastic character who serves as Bob's equal rather than being sidelined to being someone for Bob to rescue week after week. It’s great to see her have so much involvement in the plots and show that she’s just as capable as Bob, even going as far as to resolve the plots of some episodes through her unique skills. Seeing as we live in a world where Young Justice got cancelled because 'too many girls were watching it and girls don’t buy action figures' and Nickelodeon were reluctant to greenlight Legend Of Korra because 'boys don’t watch shows about girls', having a great character like Dot in a show who’s predominant target audience is boys is a brilliant move. I could even argue that the show would be just as great if she was the protagonist instead of Bob.

Enzo can be a bit annoying at times this season, but he mellows out a bit by the end of the season and is a bit more bareable. Of course, Enzo wasn’t a character the show's creators wanted to include, but had to in order to get the show made since the audience needs someone to relate to. As such, the creators felt he was annoying too. However, they grew to love the character as the show went on, which I imagine why he’s less annoying.

Then we get to the villains. Megabyte is possibly my favourite villain of al, time, even if that’s not super apparent this season. He’s voiced brilliantly by Tony Jay, and he is super menacing, but this season, he mainly just cackles in his chair and gets his incompetent minions to do his dirty work. While that’s not a bad thing, it’s not as interesting as what we get next season. Hexadecimal is a very interesting and chilling villain as well, but unfortunately she only appears in two episodes.

While I felt the stories were lacking for the most part, the show has plenty of charm and manages to develop a great sense of humour. We also get some episodes that have some interesting ideas and concepts, namely The Crimson Binome and The Great Brain Robbery, which both give us an idea of what the world outside of Mainframe is like. Sure, the animation is a little dated by today’s standards, but considering this had never been done before, it’s very impressive by 1994 standards, and the animation does get better in later seasons.

Overall, Season One was a success for Mainframe Entertainment. The show was airing on prime time on YTV and doing incredibly well, ABC in the US were airing it on Saturday mornings where it was building an audience, and the show even managed to get 60% of the ratings when it aired on ITV in the UK. With this success came a range of merchandise including action figures, micro playsets, bed sheets, story books, stationary and more. I’ll go more in-depth on this merchandise in a later post. Due to the show’s success, both YTV and ABC ordered 10 more episodes to be aired as a second season (which would also be aired by ITV in the UK), and now the show had found its footing, the creators were able to expand on what they’d established and focus on telling stories of a higher calibre than before...

Next time: Megabyte infiltrates Mainframe's core in 'Infected'