While the first season of ReBoot was full of charm and excellent humour, the main thing that I felt was holding it back was the lack of engaging stories in the majority of the episodes. Of course, the season finale stepped things up ten fold with a two part season finale that showed off a dark alternative universe where Megabyte was in control. With the first episode of the show's second season, the show continues with the trend of compelling storylines with a greater focus on action while still keeping the humour.
At the Principle Office, we see Dot and Phong standing on a platform atop the Principle Office's energy sphere. We then cut to various binomes around Mainframe as the system voice announces 'Attention! Incoming File!'. The blue sky turns to yellow static as a small black hole appears in the sky. Enzo is excited about this potential upgrade, and excitedly tells Frisket about what he hopes this upgrade will bring him. He waves at Bob as he flies past on his zip board. Dot contacts him to enquire where he is, and Bob informs her that he’s on his way, but he had to mend a minor tear in Kit's Sector on his way over. He arrives just before the upgrade does, and Phong ponders that it’s arrived earlier than he expected.
From the hole in the sky, a blue light shoots down to the Principle Office, stopping once it reaches the platform, revealing the upgrade as a large grey cylinder. Bob isn’t impressed with its primitive nature, and Dot reminds him that this isn’t the Super Computer. Phong lowers the platform into Mainframe's core in order to install the upgrade. Dot contacts a security binome to get him to ensure the sectors are clear. Once that’s done, Phong opens vid windows around the Principle Office to tell citizens to prepare for the city to power down and upgrade. Bob presses a button to start the powering down of the city, which causes the Principle Office shields to raise, the sky to dim to a sunset and all the lights around the city to go out.
Once the city has powered down, Phong attempts to take the lid off the upgrade, but finds it too heavy. Bob offers to do this for him, and he succeeds, although the lid sends him flying. Phong peers inside the cylinder, and Megabyte's hand grabs hold of his face, surrounding him with a green force field. Dot tries to free him but touching Phong causes her to experience a slight static shock. Bob attempts to throw the lid at Megabyte, but he catches it. Megabyte says he should have expected Bob to be there too, and he responds by saying that he should have known that Megabyte would create a fake upgrade. Megabyte prepares to throw the upgrade canister at Bob, but he escapes using a zip line from Glitch. Megabyte then throws the canister at the end of the line, knocking Bob off and causing him to fall. Megabyte then picks up Phong, who tells him that he can’t infect him. While this is true, Megabyte is able to copy his read only memory and gain the access codes to the core. He then orders the platform to descend into the core as Bob comments that 'This is bad, this is very bad!'
As the platform lowers, we see that Bob is hanging onto the hatch as it closes. Megabyte comments about how the core is more magnificent that he imagined as Dot attempts to send out a distress signal. At the Diner, Enzo is disappointed as nothing has changed. A security binome shows up on a vid window to inform him about the situation, and that no communications can get through to the Principle Office until the shield is down, also ordering Enzo to keep everyone within the Diner calm.
Back in the core, Megabyte states that he he hasn’t felt this good since his first infection, ordering vid windows to appear to give him a view of the whole city. This gets interrupted by Bob knocking him over by swinging on a line from Glitch. Bob and Megabyte briefly battle, but this is halted when Glitch runs out of charge, causing Bob to flee. Meanwhile, a weak Phong tells Dot that she has to leave him to save the city before passing out. Bob grabs her as he runs past and they reach a nearby corridor. Bob regrets leaving Phong behind, but he couldn’t have done anything more due to Glitch's low charge. Dot states that they need to find a charging station. Megabyte monologues about how he’ll deal with Bob and Dot later, but he has to destroy the city first. He gives the command to begin erasing the city.
The Diner gets sent into a frenzy as the system voice announces the environment shutdown. Megabyte switches the view to Bob and Dot, and sets Pong pucks after them. These are energy seeking and loaded with electromagnetic detonators. Bob and Dot attempt to flee, but end up getting pinned between two sets of pucks heading towards them from both directions. Bob connects Dot's organiser to Glitch in order to give it a temporary charge, shielding both of them as both sets of pucks crash into each other and explode.
Back at the core, Hexadecimal contacts Megabyte via vid window, letting him know of her appreciation for the chaos, and that she hopes that he wasn’t planning to erase her. Megabyte rhetorically asks if that’s any way to treat family, and Hex suggests striking a deal. At the Diner, we can see that all the patrons are starting to fade, and then the whole city starts to shake. We see buildings collapsing as well as the 8 ball from Bob's apartment tumbling off. Hex and Megabyte manage to end up with a deal where each gets 50/50 control of the city. After Hex signs off, Megabyte monologues about his plan to destroy Mainframe and rebuild it in his image.
Dot ends up at the armoury and discovers an exo skeleton suit. At the Read Only Room, Bob searches for a recharge zone, prompting a charging device to appear. While Glitch is charging, a ghostly hologram of Phong appears, telling Bob 'you’ve got what you need, now use his greed' before vanishing. At the Diner, we see that Enzo is in pretty bad shape as Megabyte shows up to gloat. In the midst of this, Dot shows up behind him in the exo suit. While she initially has the upper hand, Megabyte eventually overpowers her, throwing the suit off the edge by the foot. Luckily, Dot is able to grab on with the suit's large hand, but Megabyte extrudes claws from his hands, and prepares to strike.
Luckily, he’s stopped last minute by Bob using Glitch to hold Megabyte in a beam of light. Dot then grabs Megabyte, and asks Bob to reverse the rasher command. He’s prevented from doing so by Megabyte, who infects the exo suit and uses it to grab Bob. He demands that Bob provides him with a portal to the Super Computer, preparing to crush Bob's head with the suit if he doesn’t comply. Just before his head gets crushed Bob agrees.
We cut to a small chamber where Bob activates a portal. Megabyte walks inside and orders the exo suit to hold him. Once Megabyte is inside the chamber, Bob deactivates the portal and seals Megabyte inside, revealing this to be where the Principle Office breaks down viruses. Megabyte then opens a section if his wrist and activates a self destruct sequence. Bob then orders the chamber to eject, causing it to land next to Silicon Tor. Following this, the system voice announces the arrival of the real upgrade, and the fallen buildings begin to rise. Phong comments how he hopes this upgrade will bring him a new modem, and the episode ends.
As a season opener, this sets things off to a great start. We get an excellent plot with plenty of action and suspense as well as great moments from the characters. This episode is probably the darkest we've had so far. Sure, the prospect of Megaframe in the previous episode was pretty dark, but that wasn’t real in the context of the show. This time around, we're dealing with the potential destruction of the city at the hands of Megabyte, and this time, it’s real unless Bob and Dot can put a stop to it.
Speaking of Megabyte, this episode has him at his most menacing. While we saw how menacing Megabyte was last season, his schemes always ended with failure due to passing all his dirty work onto his far from competent minions. This changes with this episode. He’s acting alone, and he came incredibly close to achieving his goal. His downfall was through Bob taking advantage of his greed rather than through incompetence.
Bob and Dot are both great in this episode. Not only do they have great chemistry, but they also have their time to shine. Without Glitch, Bob is forced to find other means to solve the episode's conflict without relying on his key tool. He learns to use Megabyte's weakness of his own greed against him to stop him from destroying the city. Likewise, Dot gets her own awesome battle with Megabyte while using the incredibly awesome exo skeleton. This model was so complex, that it had to be simplified in order for the animators to animate with it.
Speaking of the exo suit, it’s a clear reference/parody/homage of the scene from the end of Aliens with Ripley in the Power Loader fighting the alien queen. This season is where the show begins to utilise more pop culture references. Whereas before, they were a little more subtle, they become a lot more overt, which we will especially see more of once we get to the fourth episode. We also get a subtle reference to Predator through Megabyte's self destruct device.
Overall, this is a very fun episode that opens the show's second season on a high note. We can see that Megabyte is through letting his minions prevent him from his ambitions, and that our heroes will need to use their wits in order to best him. Other than that, there’s nothing of note story wis... wait, what did Megabyte mean when he referred to Hexadecimal as family?
Next time: We find out that Old Man Pearson has a dark past in 'High Code'
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