Friday, November 20, 2020

Red Action 3: Grudgement Day - (OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes Season 3 Episode 15) - 'Toon Reviews 40

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Red Action 3: Grudgement Day

The Red Action-centered cartoons have always been great fun with their stories, world building, and character dynamics.  This is why it’s become pleasing that there’s at least one cartoon like this every season.  In this last season, not only is it another solid and fun time travel cartoon, but it also brings solid closure to her relationship with the main hero trio.  

The conflict is driven by her rarely explored relationship with Rad made apparent by the cartoon opening with a beyond heated argument.  It may be childish and sad that picking fights is all Rad and Red Action seem to do, but at least they’re fighting is made funny by great vocal performances and mad expressions.  Now with the hero Red Action is closest to, Enid, she’s annoyed and disturbed by how much their fights are escalating and sets off to settle it.  Seeing that Rad’s the real one to blame in starting the fight, her primary course of action is to figure out what his deal with Red Action even is.  With his only reasons being very petty and his comments that Enid deserves someone better, one could get the feeling that he’s merely jealous over Red Action getting her attention.  Through it all, the cartoon offers several examples of how intimate Enid and Red Action have become.  Enid is quick to sympathize with Red Action while holding her back from fighting, and Red Action frequently gives Enid endearing glances like she’s someone special.  

Nevertheless, anything nice is compromised when Rad, stuck for good reasons to be mad at Red Action, challenges her to a power battle.  While there’s humor in its constant escalation, Enid and K.O. take it upon themselves to use Red Action’s time travel devices to settle Rad’s petty concerns with her.  There are a couple of interesting quirks to their attempts.  One of them shows the evolution of this series’ animation.  When in the past, you can easily see the difference in the colors and shading with the Season 3 designs of K.O. and Enid looking much more vibrant than those of the prior seasons.  It’s a very clever touch of showcasing how much time has passed, but that’s not all there is to this time travel angle.  There’s not much to take from the first pass of it where Enid uses her shadow powers to have Red Action follow Rad back on social media.  The second pass goes back to the cartoon “Plaza Prom” where Rad claims that Red Action stole the last piece of cake he wanted.  More than just the art direction and even K.O. and Enid’s interactions with their past selves, there’s an added endearment to Enid’s ties with Red Action.  When past Red Action discovers her, Enid convinces her to dance with her, and they end up enjoying it immensely.  It’s like they were destined to be together.  

As for the power battle, it seems like K.O. and Enid’s time interventions aren’t helping, and they’re pushed to directly confront Rad on what his real deal is.  When pushed, he snaps and says that his real issue with Red Action is the time she posted that embarrassing video of K.O. back in one of the very first cartoons, “You’re Everybody’s Sidekick.”  It seems like another feeble excuse, but the fact that Rad is serious adds much endearment to the legitimacy of his bond with K.O.  Red Action is convinced to go back and stop the video from being posted, and she even shows humbleness in realizing how bad her past actions really were.  That said, what reason did Rad have to keep it secret?  

After that, all seems well between everyone as they enjoy the amusing sport of jelly surfing.  The highlight is the closure to Enid and Red Action as they confirm that they are indeed in love with each other as they share a short yet adorable kiss that Rad supports.  In turn, it fully confirms that his issues really were from a place of care for K.O. and not out of anything like romantic jealousy, and it would make sense if that was so.  All in all, the directions, imagination, and development have this cartoon showcase why Red Action stories are just so appealing.

Now these last few cartoons may have been solid light-hearted fun, but that will all change from here…

A

Season 2 Rankings

1.      Your World is an Illusion

2.      T.K.O.’s House

3.      Final Exams

4.      CarolQuest

5.      All in the Villainy

6.      Dark Plaza

7.      GarQuest

8.      Dendy’s Power

9.      Crossover Nexus

10.  Lord Cowboy Darrell

11.  Bittersweet Rivals

12.  Beach Episode

13.  Red Action to the Future

14.  My Fair Carol

15.  K.O.’s Health Week

16.  Are You Ready for Some Megafootball?!

17.  Boxman Crashes

18.  Wisdom Strength and Charisma

19.  Gar Trains Punching Judy

20.  I Am Jethro

21.  Mystery Sleepover

22.  Super Black Friday

23.  Point to the Plaza

24.  Project Ray Way

25.  Special Delivery

26.  Seasons Change

27.  The So-Bad-Ical

28.  Monster Party

29.  Sidekick Scouts

30.  Whacky Jaxxyz

31.  Rad’s Alien Sickness

32.  Plaza Film Festival

33.  OK A.U.! Alternate Universe

34.  Let’s Watch the Boxmore Show

35.  Be a Team

36.  Plaza Alone

37.  Soda Genie

Season 3 Ranking

1.      Big Reveal

2.      Let’s Get Shadowy

3.      T.K.O. Rules

4.      K.O. vs Fink

5.      Whatever Happened to Rippy Roo?

6.      Red Action 3: Grudgement Day

7.      Chip’s Damage

8.      The K.O. Trap

9.      We Are Heroes

10.  Let’s Meet Sonic

11.  You’re a Good Friend K.O.

12.  Radical Rescue

13.  Planet X

14.  Deep Space Vacation

15.  K.O., Rad, and Enid!

The next OK K.O. review brings such an end to the current stretch of light-hearted fun when an innocent day out brings a very devastating outcome.

Next time on MC Toon Reviews is "Something Ventured Someone Framed" in The Owl House.

If you would like to check out other OK K.O.! reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.

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