As I had previously mentioned in the last article, I personally think that if the ReBoot series had ended with “Daemon Rising”, the series could have ended on a great note. It answered so many questions, gave us an interesting villain, gave us some real insight on Bob’s mindset, and most importantly had the ultimate sacrifice of arguably the show’s best character. It couldn’t be topped if they tried. But unfortunately, they would try. The series was still in a planned trilogy mode, and thus we get “My Two Bobs”. Is it as bad as I’m making it sound? And why do I feel the way I do about it. Let’s find out as I get to reviewing the 2nd four part ReBoot arc.
The episode opens in Dot’s diner set to a very sitcom styled opening, complete with laugh and talking straight to the fourth wall. Bob (or as he’ll be known from here on in, Glitch Bob) enters, and gets no reaction from the hooting crowd. However the original Bob enters to a massive reaction. While strange, this whole opening is pretty brilliant for a setup for this whole two Bob premise.
But it turns out that this was a dream by Dot, who’s been having these dreams since the other Bob showed up. Yeah, to say that Dot’s conflicted on which Bob she truly loves is going to be the prevailing conflict for most of this, is pretty much the correct answer. The two Bobs are also a bit confused as to why there’s two of them. Other Bob claims that he has no recollection of anything that happened after Megabyte launched him into the web.
Glitch Bob tries to claim he’s the original because he has the most memories of the two, while Other Bob shuts that theory down that he could still be a copy even if he has memories. This conversation is cut short as a game cube conveniently drops. Over at Lost Angles, Matrix is being shot at by the CPU force. It turns out that this whole thing was his idea, much to the chagrin of AndrAIa. Despite the war with Daemon being over, he’s still confused of what to do.
As our heroes prepare to enter the game, Dot puts a stop to the plans of both Enzo and Glitch Bob. Since there’s still no answer as to what Hexadecimal did to Enzo’s icon, and since the last time Bob rebooted, he nearly died, therein lies Dot’s reasons. The Other Bob seems to have easily earned the trust of everyone, while Glitch Bob seems to be getting the shaft.
Bob, Enzo and AndrAIa head to Al’s diner to restore his energy, while Matrix, Frisket, and Other Bob enter the game. The game is a full on Pokemon parody, complete with Frisket rebooting into Pikachu, and Bob is trapped in a pokeball. Back at the principal office, Dot is still confused as to which Bob is which, and which one to choose.
The user approaches the final level of the game, and of course is a DBZ parody. Matrix sends out Bobzilla. Yeah. To say this episode is weird is an understatement. He manages to beat the opposing creatures with snot blasts and farts. The user keeps sending out more monsters. In fact he just happens to have 150 of them.
Back at Al’s, we see something interesting as formerly infected binomes are actually rather upset at no longer being viral, since it means that they’re no longer intimidating. It’s actually rather unique to see the whole viral thing from another perspective. Back in the game, Matrix is holding true to the rules of the game, to which Other Bob reminds him, he’s a renegade, he can just cheat. So Matrix attacks the user, and Bob finishes him off, ending the game.
Outside of the game, Glitch Bob is still feeling weird about this whole situation, especially given the fact that he didn’t win the game, but the other Bob did instead. Matrix and Other Bob celebrate their victory. Hell, Matrix is so happy about how it felt like old times that he doesn’t mind Other Bob calling him Enzo. Back at the principal office, more of Dot being conflicted because of the two Bobs. Her plans have been ruined. It doesn’t help matters that Glitch Bob reminds her of bad times, and Other Bob reminds her of the happier days. So, it seems like she may have made her decision as we end the episode.
I won’t go too into detail about my issues with this episode, as they’ll continue throughout the next part. But to put it into quicker to digest details, the issue I have with a lot of this is that it feels too much like the show is hitting the reset button. After fixing so much of the series with the pre-Bob revealing conclusion of Daemon Rising, suddenly it feels like the show is trying to move back to the days of season 1. Silly adventures inside the games, along with this whole love angle with Dot. While that should feel good, it doesn’t. It feels like a parody of “the good old days”, and not so much a continuation of them.
My issue with the whole two Bobs really comes from how quickly both Matrix and Dot seem to turn on Glitch Bob. Especially Dot, though they seemed to be going down this road of Dot’s uncertainty a little in season 3. Now this really fleshed out character that tried her best to keep a system safe in the absence of Bob is becoming less likable as her conflict over which Bob she loves is already becoming less endearing, and definitely more annoying. This whole soap opera would feel more gripping if you didn’t already feel like something’s up with this other Bob.
The game in this episode was a fun parody of the Pokemon hype. Complete with Other Bob’s disgust over the idea of imprisoning animals. The cel-shading used for the characters was nice for something different, and despite the battle coming down to just gross-out humor and borderline cheating, there were some decent jokes, and it was a nice shot at the anime boom of the late 90’s/early 2000’s.
In the next part of “My Two Bobs” we get more confused about which Bob is which, and who Dot will choose. Oh joy.