The previous episode ended on a pretty dour note - in spite of everything our heroes had done to try and save their home - Mainframe is still doomed. With one episode left of the season, is there a way to salvage the system, or is everyone going to be meeting their demise?
We begin with the surviving binomes gathered in the crumbling Principle Office. The mood is incredibly sombre, and everyone is feeling the sense of impending doom. Eventually, we reach the war room, and Phong tells everyone that Mainframe is dying. While they've stopped the bleeding, the patient is too far gone to save. AndrAIa points out that they can't affect repairs without powering up a sector, but if they power up a sector, it will just start going offline again.
Bob has a last resort solution, but it's not an ideal situation. The system voice announces an incoming game. Matrix is prepared to enter the game, but Bob says he shouldn't. His plan is for the User to win the game, which would force Mainframe over the edge and potentially force the system to restart. The game ends up landing, sealing their fates. Dot and Phong begin to ensure that all active PIDs are accounted for, and Mouse and Ray decide to go and keep the binomes calm since a game is bound to make them restless.
Ray offers to take Mouse away from the destruction, but Mouse feels that she's stuck with Mainframe for too long to leave now, but says that Ray doesn't have to stay. He simply replies by saying that everyone has to be somewhere, and he likes it where he is. Just after all the PID's are accounted for, Hexadecimal shows up, offering everyone biscuits shaped like Herr Doktor and his assistant. Bob convinces Phong to give Hexadecimal a PID, and he reluctantly agrees.
The system voice then announces that the game is over, and that the user has won. Just as the game leaves, the system begins to crash. Sectors begin to slowly sink into the sea. The crew of the Saucy Mare decide to have one last drink. Mouse and Ray kiss. Our heroes stand and watch the system go down as the voice announced 'Warning, System Crash', and we see Bob and Dot staring into each other's eyes before the screen goes black.
We're then met with green text being typed onto the screen:
SYSTEM CRASH:
RESTART Y/N?:
YES
RESTORE Y/N?:
YES
Suddenly, a light shines on the Principle Office and we see that it's no longer in the state of decay that it has been since Matrix, AndrAIa and Bob's return to Mainframe. One by one, the various sectors fall into place. The various buildings begin to reappear. Then the citizens of Mainframe are restored. Following this, a green wave sweeps over the viral binomes, reverting them back to normal. When the wave goes over Hexadecimal, it seemingly has no effect, as she just remarks that it 'tickled'. With everyone restored, Bob and Dot kiss. Dot tells Bob to never leave her again, and Bob promises not to. Then he's suddenly knocked over by young Enzo. Everyone else is confused as to how he could appear when Matrix is still there, but we see that Matrix's icon was in Game Sprite mode, meaning that the system restored a back up of the young Enzo. He notices Matrix, and asks who the big ugly green guy is.
As the credits begin to show up, they get interrupted by Mike the TV announcing an offer for the viewers - a recap of the season performed by the Mainframe Strolling Players. We then cut to a theatre where Binomes begin playing Gilbert and Sullivan's 'Modern Major General' song as binomes sing and perform a re enactment of the events of the season.
As the ending to this already excellent season, this is just the perfect ending. After watching the characters grow and suffer so much since the end of the previous season, it's great to see them finally triumph over adversity and be gifted with the rebirth of their home as if it had never been destroyed by war. As we begin the episode in such a hopeless position with the heroes faced with the inevitable destruction of their home, seeing Mainframe get slowly resurrected is incredibly satisfying to see.
Bob's decision to let Mainframe crash in the hopes of a restart was a risky move, but it was a last resort to try and resolve a hopeless situation. There was no hope to save the system, so his plan was to let the system die and in the best case scenario, the system will be restored. Luckily, this ended up paying off, and the system is somewhat better since, without Megabyte, his viral forces are now freed from his control. While the scan might have deleted him anyway, back in the very first episode of the show, Phong said that Megabyte has manage to avoid being erased at every scan. My take on this is that now that Megabyte is gone, his hold over the binomes is no more, so the scan is able to free them from his viral command. Likewise, Hexadecimal is somehow unaffected by the scan, but we'll get more into that next season.
Through this resurrection, we end up seeing the return of young Enzo. The original Enzo was robbed of his childhood by circumstances outside of his control, being forced to take on adult responsibilities while being a literal child, and he ended up paying the price for it. Having this new, younger Enzo gives Enzo a second chance, since this Enzo can now have the childhood that the original Enzo was deprived of.
And then, at the end of it all, we end on a song recapping the season as a whole. The only other show I can think of that's done anything remotely similar to this is Avatar The Last Airbender, which had an entire episode where the characters watch a stage show re enacting the show so far. This song ends the season on a positive note with practically every plot line resolved. This does make the ending of the next season somewhat disappointing in comparison, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.
There is one tiny downside to this episode, which is what the creators consider to be the 'biggest failure in all of ReBoot'. Upon watching this episode back once it was completed, they got to the scene where we're greeted by the user choosing to restart and restore the system. When watching this scene, they realised that it probably would have been better if it had said 'ReBoot' instead of 'Restart'. While some argued that it would say 'restart' on a real computer, it was agreed that it didn't matter and it should have said ReBoot.
Now for my thoughts on this season as a whole. If it wasn't already clear, I love this season. It's one of my favourite seasons of any TV series ever. While it does have some flaws in places, overall, it's a great season with a truly engaging story arc carrying us through sixteen episodes broken up into four arcs.
I've already deconstructed Enzo/Matrix's character arc throughout the season, but I'll summarise it here. This is one of the best character arcs I have ever witnessed. Starting in Season 2, Enzo was thrust with adult responsibilities but wasn't able to carry them out effectively. He was only able to keep up as long as he did because Megabyte allowed him to live, preferring to make the system wallow in how ineffective he was before killing him. In the end, Enzo failed after entering a game he couldn't win. He blamed Megabyte for this since, if it wasn't for him, he wouldn't have been in this position to begin with.
This hatred of Megabyte kept him going throughout his time in the games; he used that time to prepare himself to stop Megabyte when he eventually got back home. His hatred of Megabyte extended to all viruses, feeling that they were unworthy of mercy. He also seemed to hate his younger self, feeling that he was 'too weak' to defeat Megabyte, and that he needed to change. In the midst of all this, he feared that what he had become was no worse than Megabyte, and worried that his friends and family would view him as such when he reunited with them (something which he expressed to AndrAIa after they found Bob in the Web).
While he had his hatred, he was kept from going over the edge by the love that AndrAIa provided him with. That love kept him grounded and stopped him from getting too aggressive. As we saw in the third arc, when it looked like he was going to lose AndrAIa, Matrix became much more unhinged and willing to risk everything to save her life.
In the end, when he got back to Mainframe and defeats Megabyte, he decides to spare him and show him mercy. As far as he's concerned, he's defeated Megabyte. Rather than killing him, Matrix decides that it's better for Megabyte to be left alive to live with the humiliation of his defeat.
This season also allows us to see more of the world outside of Mainframe. While we've had hints before this season about a wider world, this season we actually get to explore it and see different systems. This makes the universe of the show feel much bigger than it has previously, and it's interesting to see how other systems operate.
While Dot is sidelined for a lot of the season, she's still as awesome as she has been in the previous two seasons, being given the position of commander of the system. It's great to see her in this position of power commanding the system, and it's also great to see her more vulnerable side come to the surface in a couple of scenes. Another nice touch is that, when Megabyte ends up winning, she mobilises the forces into becoming a resistance to one day take back Mainframe from the virus who's ruined her life.
Even though Dot is only in about half the season, luckily we have AndrAIa to make up for her absence. While I prefer Dot as a character overall, AndrAIa is an excellent character in her own right. She's intelligent and compassionate while also being able to hold her own in a fight, making her Matrix's equal rather than a damsel who needs to be saved by him every episode.
This time around, Megabyte is at his most menacing. While we've always had a sense of the threat he posed, it wasn't until last season when we really got to see how much damage he could do. He begins this season effectively in control of the system. With Bob gone, he's now pretty much got the system to himself. While the heroes have control of the Principle Office, he has the run of the rest of the system, and he ensures that the citizens suffer. In the end, once he's free of the Firewall, he ends up taking complete control of the system, and as a result, the system is devastated. Even when he's eventually defeated, he triggers the system to crash, ensuring his legacy.
At the time they made Season 3, Mainframe Entertainment were under the impression that this would be the last season of ReBoot, so they ended it on a high note with a big celebratory ending and most plot points resolved with a few breadcrumbs scattered throughout in case they got the chance to do more. Following the completion of the season and it's broadcast on YTV in Canada, they completed two more seasons of Beast Wars for Hasbro in 1997 and 1998, and then released it's more divisive follow up 'Beast Machines' in 1999.
Also in 1998, Mainframe were contacted by the toy company Trendmasters and given a box of tiny micro playsets from their 'War Planets' toy line. Trendmasters gave Mainframe full creative control to make a TV series based on their toys. The end result was a great series with a vast universe. While three 13 episodes were planned, only two were produced after Trendmasters decided they didn't want to continue producing the show. As well as this, they also produced the series 'Weird Oh's' in 1999, based on a series of polystyrene model kits.
Eventually, Season 3 of ReBoot was picked up by Cartoon Network in the US, who aired it in 1999. Sometime after this, Cartoon Network expressed interest in doing more ReBoot, so Mainframe Entertainment got to work on the season. Little did they know that things would shake up behind the scenes big time and affect the production of the season ending up like they planned...
Next week: We take a break from looking at the series and look at the ReBoot game for the PS1
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