Theogeny
Directed By: Josh Ornelas
Written By: Jason Weight
Written By: Jason Weight
To stop Genkins, the Reds and Blues must escape the Labyrinth. But, even if they succeed, what lies in the future?
This episode has examples of:
- Anti-Climax: Wash darkly notes that it's possible that Caboose could've been killed by the Labyrinth's illusions... only for Caboose to casually show up behind him and give everyone a nonchalant "Hi," seemingly no worse for wear.
- Became Their Own Antithesis: Sarge starts to act similarly to Grif following his surprisingly traumatic Labyrinth illusion. In fact, when Wash grimly notes that they will have to confront whatever is Carolina's greatest fear is, both Grif and Sarge immediately start giving excuses and/or refusing to participate before an exasperated Wash underlines that she might die without their help.
- Big Damn Heroes: The Reds and Blues all rally and hold the Labyrinth's copy of Carolina's past self at gunpoint to make her back off from the actual Carolina.
- Bittersweet Ending: Wash has to permanently suffer through his brain damage again so as to resolve the Temporal Paradox (though it's implied that he'll likely be more functional than he was before due to him having better treatment this time around and Carolina not ignoring the issue), and Donut decides to walk away from the Reds and Blues for a while due to all the trauma he’s been through over the course of this story arc and him Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life. However, the timeline is saved with the Reds and Blues fixing reality, Chrovos and Genkins are both defeated, and Doc & his O'Malley personality have successfully gone through a Split-Personality Merge. Additionally, Donut seems to have finally earned legitimate respect from the rest of the Blood Gulch Crew, and Tucker takes a lesson in humility after having acted like a Jerkass for the last season. Oh, and Lopez learned some fantastical secrets of the universe while floating through the universe for countless eons, but is stuck speaking Spanish again so only Grif (and maybe Kaikaina) can understand him.
- Bowdlerize: The original release of this episode had Genkins Flipping the Bird before jumping down the black hole. 343 Industries (the current developers of the Halo franchise that Red vs. Blue is primarily filmed in) requested a censorship change, and so the current version has the fingers blurred out.
- Brick Joke: As Genkins is ranting like a lunatic after having traveled through a black hole back to the beginning of time, he gets hit with a golf ball seemingly out of nowhere. That's actually the golf ball his past self hit into the same black hole at the end of "The Shisno," the first episode of The Shisno Paradox.
- Call-Back: Caboose was unaffected by the Labyrinth's illusions, just as he was on Chorus in the alien temple in Season 13's "Test Your Might".
- The Cameo: The Cosmic Powers from last season — specifically, Atlus, Kalirama, and Burnstorm — briefly appear during the flashback showing Genkins' rapid Sanity Slippage into Chrovos.
- Cliffhanger: Played for Laughs; the season ends with Lopez eagerly returning to tell the rest of the Reds and Blues about his exploits in outer space over the last few eons... but since he's still speaking only in Spanish, the announcement doesn't get as much of a dramatic response from the other Reds and Blues as one would otherwise expect.
- Continuity Nod:
- Doc using his medical scanner as a plasma pistol in this episode is likely an allusion to both him weaponizing it against the Meta in Revelation and him outright admitting that it's "actually an alien pistol" back in Season 15 after being captured by the Blues and Reds.
- Kaikaina continues to annoy Tucker in this episode as she did in "Limbo" earlier in this same season, likely as part of her revenge against Tucker having been a sexist dick to her for the majority of The Shisno Paradox.
- After she kicks her past self through a wall, Carolina's present-day self walking through the dust and debris-laden hole is backlit to make her entrance strongly resemble Epsilon-Tex emerging from the destroyed steel door at the Freelancer Offsite Storage Facility at the end of Season 8's "Backup Plans".
- At the end of the episode, when all of the Reds and Blues are at General Doyle General Hospital on Chorus to hear about Wash's recovery, there's a poster showing a woman standing next to a man pregnant with an alien baby reading "Alien Pregnancy and You". This is a reference to Tucker's own experience with alien pregnancy back in Season 4.
- Dark Reprise: A tragic rendition of the series' original Theme Tune "Blood Gulch Blues" — "Blood Gulch Blue
" by Meredith Hagan — plays as Wash goes to get shot again in Temple's base. - Defiant to the End: When the Labyrinth illusion of Coach Prestwood is about to let Grif fall to his death and mockingly asks him what initials he would like to place on the Labyrinth's leaderboard for him, Grif responds back with "A... S... S."
- Dude, Not Funny!: Played for Black Comedy; After a disoriented Tucker comments that his Labyrinth illusion consisted of being left completely alone except for the disembodied voices of his former teammates urging him to jump into the black hole, Kaikaina reassures him that it's really them... before cheerfully remarking "Now jump off that edge, buddy!"Grif: (shoots her a Death Glare)
Kaikaina: (sheepishly) ...Too soon?
Grif: (aghast) It's still happening!
(Grif angrily Pistol Whips her up the backside of her head)
Kaikaina: Ow! Dick! - Flat "What": Wash gives a baffled "...What?" in response after Simmons rejoins the Reds and Blues (with Grif and Kaikaina's help) with a cheery "Still got my penis!"
- A Friend in Need: All of the Reds and Blues come with Wash to comfort him as he re-enacts his injury to save the timeline.
- Friendship Moment:
- More a "Sibling Moment", but after Kaikaina is essentially traumatized by the Labyrinth in her illusion, Grif interrupts it and helps comfort her with their sibling bond.
- The Reds and Blues all going to comfort Wash as he re-enacts his brain injury.
- Foreshadowing: This episode's title is an intentionally misspelled version of "theogony," the term used for the birth and origins of the ancient Greek gods. This alludes to how this episode reveals the origins of the Cosmic Powers through showing how Chrovos and Genkins are the same person through a Stable Time Loop.
- Funny Background Event: While everyone else is holding Past-Carolina up at literal gunpoint, Caboose is only "sticking her up" with finger-guns.
- Grand Finale: For The Shisno Trilogy as a whole.
- I Hate Past Me:
- Carolina's entire fight with her past self in this episode is basically all about her directly confronting her Old Shame of a past as an arrogant, selfish Freelancer and rebuking it with the healthier, friendlier and more merciful mindset she has now in the present as part of the Blood Gulch Crew.
- Chrovos is audibly disappointed upon realizing that Genkins was actually the past version of herself.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Wash re-enacts his brain injury to prevent the Temporal Paradox and save the timeline.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: At one point, Kaikaina angrily accuses the Labyrinth's job to be to "skulk around in the dark and kill people!" Cue Carolina dryly commenting "No wonder this place made a convincing me."
- Holding in Laughter: After learning just how absurd Simmons' Labyrinth illusion is, Grif literally breaks down laughing and Kaikaina is audibly trying not to start giggling.
- Immediate Self-Contradiction: After having a gun held in his face after he tries to desert within his Labyrinth illusion, Sarge changes his tune mid-sentence and immediately agrees with him.
- Irony: Sarge tries to avoid work and suicidal orders from his commanding officer during his Labyrinth illusion, making him resemble Grif to a surprising degree.
- Good All Along: Despite trying to drive all of the Blood Gulch Crew to commit suicide throughout the previous episode and half of this one, the Labyrinth A.I. isn't actually evil, and is only fighting them since it thinks that they're trying to free Chrovos. Once it realizes that Genkins is manipulating it so he can free & kill Chrovos, the Labyrinth immediately switches sides and helps Donut goad Genkins into falling into the black hole and closing the Stable Time Loop.
- Nerds Are Virgins: In Simmons' Labyrinth illusion, as he's being hunted by a UFO wanting to use his penis in scientific experiments, he wails "No, don't steal my penis! I haven't even used it yet!"
- No-Sell: The Labyrinth's attempts to drive Caboose to suicide didn't work at all. At most, it just made him hungry for pancakes.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Poor Sarge starts suffering through PTSD flashbacks and is reduced to a terrified, panicking mess when the Labyrinth forces him to take part in the Normandy landings. It gets to the point where he starts to act like Grif in terms of speaking back to his officers and trying to get out of a suicidal charge straight into enemy lines.
- The Power of Friendship: This is how the Reds and Blues save Carolina. It's also lampshaded when Genkins furiously demands how the Blood Gulch Crew keeps thwarting him, and Caboose quizzically responds with "Mmmm...Friendship?"
- Retcon: Very old (and admittedly loose) canon stipulated that Grif was brought onto the Red Team due to a "one-person draft". Here, it's instead shown that he enlisted in the UNSC Army due to running away from his terrible home-life, and that his utter incompetence in the military led to him being re-assigned as a simulation trooper.
- The Reveal: This episode reveals that Grif was never drafted into the UNSC Army. Instead, he had actually enlisted, as he'd realized that he needed more structure in his life than what public school, a Disappeared Dad, and a mom who'd ran off to join the circus could give him. Additionally, it's also revealed that Genkins and Chrovos are actually the same person through a Stable Time Loop.
- Rule of Symbolism: After Past-Carolina tells her present-day self that she doesn't like her because she's her reflection, the camera shifts to show how Past-Carolina is literally being reflected in Present-Carolina's visor, emphasizing how the former is the latter's Enemy Without.
- Rule of Three: Subverted during Grif's Labyrinth obstacle course; Grif counts the intervening seconds between a giant crushing machine in the obstacle course so he can time the proper point where he can safely pass under it... but on the third stamp, it immediately starts to wildly stamp the ground repeatedly while not following any set pattern, leaving his efforts worthless.
- Saying Too Much: Invoked by Donut himself. When Genkins is in the middle of a Villainous Breakdown, Donut says how he may have gotten Lopez but the rest of them are united, confusing Genkins since he can tell Lopez is still alive. Donut pretends to only just realize Lopez is still alive since black holes don't kill you, they just take you back to the beginning of time and that Huggins told him. Genkins, realizing Huggins survived, realizes he can travel to the beginning of time with the black hole too and stop the Reds and Blues from having ever existed. However, this is exactly what Donut wanted him to do, having realized that Genkins is actually the past version of Chrovos, having gone insane in the past and forgotten their previous identity and goal.
- Secret Secret-Keeper: Grif reveals to Kaikaina that he actually knew about the fire that destroyed their home while he was in the army. He felt ashamed that she had to go through that alone so he kept quiet about it.
- Sequel Hook: Not only is there whatever Locus was trying to send a message to Grif about last season, but there's whatever Lopez was so eager to tell the other Reds and Blues about regarding his sojourn in outer space for literal billions of years.
- The Slow Path: Lopez, after falling into the black hole under the Labyrinth, apparently just waited for the universe to form around him before returning to the Reds and Blues in the present.
- Stable Time Loop: This season and the previous one are revealed to be one: Chrovos is imprisoned by their own creations (in the form of the Cosmic Powers), they eventually get the help of the Reds and Blues (plus Genkins) to escape from their prison, the Reds and Blues eventually defeat Genkins after he becomes a Dragon Ascendant, Genkins escapes to the beginning of time to perform an Internal Retcon on the Reds and Blues... and the A.I.s they developed to help them succeed in this goal turn out to be the Cosmic Powers, and Genkins turns out to be the past version of Chrovos (having intentionally taken on that identity after going off the deep end before forgetting their previous identity as Genkins over the past eons) and is thrown in prison by the Cosmic Powers.
- Split-Personality Merge: Doc and O'Malley undergo this when Doc finally grows a spine against his psychotic alter-ego.
- Super-Speed: Carolina uses her Speed Unit (which has mostly been rendered ineffectual for her since Epsilon's Heroic Sacrifice at the end of Season 13) to kick her past self through a concrete wall.
- Time Abyss: Lopez is revealed to have become this after he jumped into the Labyrinth's black hole in the previous episode and was deposited at the beginning of time (just like Huggins and her parents both were). He had then floated through space until he eventually arrives on Chorus in the "present day" of the new timeline.
- Time Loop Trap: How Genkins is dealt with. He goes through a black hole to the beginning of the universe, and creates the Cosmic Powers, taking on Chrovos' identity... including the part where they imprison Genkins/Chrovos in the Labyrinth.
- Took a Level in Badass: Thanks to absorbing his Ax-Crazy Split Personality, Doc goes from a whiny and ineffectual Actual Pacifist to a badass Space Marine who can take out multiple deadly soldiers on his own in an Offscreen Moment of Awesome.
- Wham Line: "Yeah, it's a mind-fudge, Wash... But Chrovos had to come from somewhere."
- You Are Not Alone: The rest of the Reds and Blues come with Wash to his injury at Temple's base so that he won't have to suffer through it alone.
