CaT Reviews: BBO Season 4!

WARNING: This review contains very minor spoilers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. If you haven't seen it yet and don't want to be spoiled, go read something else.

This is the fifth episode of CaT Reviews!, this time featuring Season 4 of Bryce Bowman: Origins, as requested by Brywarrior!

Story
Okay, since this is season four, I'll summarize everything important up to this point:

A kid named Bryce Bowman has the Infinity which is an Omnitrix with evolution features that Azmuth made and gave to him and he uses it to fight evil and defeat enemies and everything is kinda sorta swell but not really until this guy named Death Dragon escapes from the Infinity and tries to kill Bryce and ends up hitting Bryce's girlfriend with his death fire which causes Bryce as a Celestialsapien to evolve and brutally kill Death Dragon which gets everyone disappointed in him for some reason because apparently killing something that is literally pure evil and wanted to destroy the world is still bad because reasons and so Bryce joins some people called The Freelancers to atone for his actions of saving the world and that's where Season 4 begins m'kay?

* Deep inhale*

We good?

We good.

So, in the present day, Bryce undergoes an operation to become Master Chief© and starts working for The Freelancers. After equipping some Halo® Aviator™ armor, Bryce goes down to the training room, where they simulate War Games and okay people, the more I read, the more I'm convinced that Brywarrior was paid off by Microsoft to write this season.



Anyways, we meet most of the other Agents; Carolina, North, York, Wyoming and Maine. They're all named after their home states, and the only reason Bryce doesn't get a state name is because his home state is already taken, resulting in him choosing 'Bowman' as his code name.

The logic of choosing your last name as your code name aside, Carolina starts getting snappy with Bryce, seeing as how he's still a 'Shiny', which basically means that the person in question hasn't had enough battle experience to get their armor damaged. Bryce, actually having a lot of battle experience (see last three seasons for reference), goes the 'lol fite me irl m8 1v1 360 No Scope' route and challenges Carolina to a practice battle in the arena.

We're treated to a short fight scene which goes on until Bryce uses his main character powers to teleport away from a grenade Carolina threw and hit her with a shot from his paint pistol at point-blank range. He helps her up and they exit the arena together, leaving the other Agents watching in awe of how OP this character is.

The second episode opens with another sparring match between Bryce and Carolina, this time with Carolina winning the match, apparently because Bryce was worn out from a previous match. We then see a match with York, Maine, and Wyoming going up against a new recruit named Tex, who utterly decimates them in the battlefield. Bryce starts getting suspicious about this new guy, but goes to shake his hand anyway once the match is over. Tex blows him off and Bryce starts smugly snarking, which is something you'll have to get used to in this season. Tex resists the urge to deck him and walks off, shortly after which the guy running this operation, The Director, calls all agents in for a mission briefing.

The mission is a stealth operation to obtain some science dohickey that does sciency stuff. After the briefing, they get flown to the drop site and land safely, forming a plan. Now obviously they go with the obvious plan of having Bryce turn into Ghostfreak and effortlessly retrieve the object using his intangibility and invisibility.

By which I mean they come up with an overcomplicated plan that gets them caught almost immediately after grabbing the dang thing, prompting Bryce to turn into Diamondhead and murder everybody that saw them.



When they get back to base, the Director rightfully yells at them for screwing up the mission, which Bryce objects to. The Director chews him out for speaking out of line, especially after doing whatever he just did back there, and Bryce explains about the Infinity. This apparently gets the Director immediately calmed down, and the two exchange devious looks.



The third episode begins with Bowman angsting over the people he killed yesterday and Carolina talking with him about it. She reminds him that he has a match today, and we cut to him battling Tex in the training arena. The Director and every agent, including two we haven't seen before (Washington and C.T., respectively), are watching the match. It's a fairly even fight, with Bryce eventually losing, but managing to get in one last shot to Tex's face. This shot apparently knocks out some sort of voice changer, and it's revealed that Tex is, in fact, a girl.

This doesn't really matter in the long run, so...moving on, I guess.

Later, the Director has Bryce follow him to the laboratory, where they implant him with a new A.I. named Cortana. In addition to essentially being an operating system for the suit, she is able to activate an armor ability called 'Promethean Vision'. I dunno how useful this will actually be, though, considering that I already upgraded to Windows 10 and the only thing Cortana does when I tell her to activate Promethean Vision is bring up Bing, and let's face it, nobody wants that.

The fourth episode begins with Bryce using his Promethean Vision to kill a bunch of guards in an enemy base and getting Cortana to their computers. While she gets the data they need, Bryce kills some more guards and then bolts out of the base, jumping onto their drop ship and talking with the Agents on board.

Later, at their base, Cortana gives a mission report to the Director and the Counselor, stating that nobody in the base survived, even though apparently it was supposed to be...a...stealth mission.

Okay Bryce, did stealthiness eat your family when you were little or something? What the hell?!

Wait, actually, it turns out to be Cortana who decided that murdererlizing everybody was the best course of action given the circumstances. The Director okays the machine's decision to slaughter human lives, no doubt beginning the chain process that will eventually lead to Skynet, and has her upload the files retrieved to his personal computer before dismissing them.

On his way to the bunks, Bryce flirts with Tex a bit and starts talking to Carolina and York, who say Tex is going up to get an A.I., and York says they were using Bowman's A.I. for beta testing. He then brings up that Tex, Carolina, and Bowman are probably the Director's favorites, which Carolina scoffs at. York walks off, and Bryce says that he may have a point since the three of them never seem to get in trouble on a mission unless they're working with others.


 * (Bowman): Well, the three of us never really seem to get in trouble unless we're with one of the others. Come to think of it, I went on a mission not three days ago that was supposed to be stealth, but we ended up going loud. You know who was with me?

Wait a second...Bryce is blaming yet another stealth mission of his gone wrong...on Maine?
 * (Carolina): Maine... Maybe there's something to what York is saying.



OH YEAH THAT'S TOTALLY IT BRYCE. IT COULDN'T POSSIBLY BE BECAUSE YOU HAVE A TRACK RECORD OF UTTERLY SUCKING AT STEALTH MISSIONS OR ANYTHING, NONONO, IT COULD ONLY BE BECAUSE YOUR PARTNER WAS THE WRONG PERSON.

HALLELUJA,

HOLY CRAP!

WHERE'S THE TYLENOL?!

The fifth episode begins with the Director calling all agents to the Bridge. He gives them a mission to bring back an item called the 'Sarcophagus', splitting them up into two teams. The team Bowman is on will sneak into an enemy skyscraper to get the artifact, and the other team will create a distraction.

After arriving at the building, Bowman's team, led by Carolina, activates armor programs that disguise their armor as regular clothing, letting them sneak into the building. Once they get to the floor with the Sarcophagus, they immediately take out every guard and find the Sarcophagus, discovering that it's too big to carry out. C.T. suggests breaking the glass and hurling the box out the window into the Pelican, which the Director approves of over radio.

Bryce turns into Armodrillo, a new transformation to him that Cortana picked, and picks up the Sarcophagus. Some guy wielding a flamethrower steps out of the elevator and confronts them, immediately getting blasted away by Armodrillo, who then takes the Sarcophagus and jumps into their dropship. With everyone on board, they take off, only to find that the other team is in trouble. Bryce uses Jetray and Goop to save the others, and arrives back on board the dropship.

He notes that the guards were wearing Agency uniforms (BBO's version of the Plumbers, and the people who fund the Freelancers). Carolina waves this off, as their group (the Resistance) apparently steals a lot of Agency equipments. Bryce somewhat accepts this answer, but is still suspicious.

Once they get back, Bryce approaches the Director and questions how Cortana was able to pick an alien for him. The Director explains that Cortana wasn't really something they invented as much as the A.I. that was already in the Infinity. Bryce then asks why Tex went to the Bridge the other day, which apparently surprises the Director and catches him off-guard.

Episode six is a crossover with Kenn 10: Omnistorm, a series that was never finished because the user went inactive. Now, I dunno the exact reasons, but I can definitely say that the whole I.S.I.S. fiasco could not have helped.

In case you did not visit that page and read the comments, CharmcasterX, the creator of the series, made the above page, basing it off of the I.S.I.S. organization from Archer.



Some people (read: Paper) got their panties in a bundle over this, and after some comment drama (which I plopped in some reaction images to), forced her to change the name.

Class act.

The episode itself begins with Bryce in a sparring match against York. Once the match finishes, they make small talk, but are interrupted when Bryce gets sucked into a random blue portal.

Over in Kennedy's (the main character of Kenn 10) universe, Kennedy is bored, something that is quickly solved by Bowman appearing in her room in a glowing blue portal. She assumes a defensive position and asks Bowman what's going on. He replies that he doesn't know either, and after concluding that he's traveled to another dimension, says that the universe must've brought them together for some reason. Kennedy correctly rebuts this by saying it was dimensional travel that did it, basically ending the philosophy lecture for the day.

Suddenly, a loud boom prompts them to rush outside, where they find a Battle Cruiser in the sky. Kennedy: "If it busts up my place I'ma kill it!" Heh, I like this kid.

Anyways, Vilgax comes down from the Battle Cruiser, upon which Bryce immediately punches and kicks him to test his power level. Concluding that he's not as strong as his own dimension's Vilgax, he turns into Eatle and starts fighting, which prompts Kennedy to join the battle with her Megawhatt transformation.

They eventually time out, which gives Vilgax the opportunity to abduct Kennedy and leave his drones to kill Bryce.

Bryce destroys the drones using Victorstrike (his version of Frankenstrike) and gets onto the Battle Cruiser, making his way to where Kennedy and Vilgax are. Vilgax has Kennedy on an operating table, and is planning to remove her Omnitrix.
 * "When this needle penetrates your body, it will destroy your resistance and you will be at my will." Vilgax said to her.
 * "Phrasing.." Kennedy said back to Vilgax, cringing.



Bryce busts in and takes out the guards, then uses a voice command code to transform Kennedy into a Chimera Sui Generis, which she names Tentacles. This breaks her out off of the table, and she manages to get a hold of the drug Vilgax was planning to inject her with and use it on him, temporarily disabling him. Unfortunately, they spend so much time screwing around that Vilgax recovers and Kennedy times out. Bryce tries to fight him with an alien called Earthshaker, but times out and gets an uppercut to the face from Vilgax.

Kennedy: "There's blood but, you're bones... they're intact..."

You're bones? You are bones? Oh my god, Bryce is a skeleton!



Anyways, Bryce bum-rushes Vilgax again, dodging another uppercut but eventually getting thrown to the ground and stomped on. Kennedy's Omnitrix recharges and she turns into a Dalek, taking Vilgax down with a single shot (which you could've done in the first place, but whatever).

I.S.I.S.- wait, sorry, I.P.S.I.S., tows away Vilgax's ship. Bowman and Kennedy talk a bit and say their goodbyes, with some good 'ol implying implications, and Bryce returns to his home dimension, with Kennedy going back to her house.

The seventh episode begins from where the fifth one left off. The Counselor gets all huffy, then Bryce gets all huffy, and the Director has to break up the argument, reprimanding them both. He explains that Tex was being matched for an A.I., confirming York's conclusion from episode 4.

We cut to the other Agents having a hissy fit over the whole thing, until everyone gets called up to the Bridge. There, the Director dismisses everyone except Carolina, Bryce, Wash, and Tex. He tells them that their mission is to eliminate C.T., who has been caught collaborating with the Resistance. This comes as a shock to everyone there, especially Wash.

On the dropship, Bryce notices that Wash isn't doing very well, and begins to postulate that Wash and C.T. were a couple, but gets cut off by Wash, who doesn't want to talk about it. They arrive to the drop location and do their Agent stuff, sneaking around, killing everybody, the usual.

Eventually, only five guards are left, and four of them run an equal chance of being C.T., prompting the group to split up and each chase one of said guards. After seeing Tex, Carolina, and Bryce kill their guards, which turn out to be the wrong people, we see Wash catching up to C.T. and confronting her. She tries to explain herself, but Wash is having none of it.

(Wash): You keep your mouth shut, traitor!



C.T. tries to explain herself again, claiming that the Resistance (AKA Rebels) are actually the good guys, and that the Agents are the true Rebels. Wash doesn't believe this and shoots her, killing her in one shot.



Back at base, Wash talks to Bryce, who is revealed to keep tally of his kills via dents and tally marks in his wall instead of just marking his gun, given that he isn't proud of his kills. Wash reveals that he and C.T. were indeed an item, and had planned to start a family once all this was over. Given this information, Bryce wonders exactly why the Director had Wash go on this mission, especially since two people higher on the leaderboard were available. Wash says that he doesn't know, but that the Director better have a good reason.

This review is taking so long to make, I had to split it into two parts! The rest of the review will be along by Monday, and will include the last 8 (or 7, since I'll be reviewing the series finale in one segment) episodes, as well as the other sections of the review and my final conclusions! Stay tuned!