Before this episode begins, it occurs to me that we're already one-third of the way through this entire tournament. At the end of this hour, we'll have seen a full 50% of everything this season has to offer. So drink it all in, I guess. Even the filler at the top of the show.
It's a new day (or at least, everybody knew that this would be a different episode than the prelims), so now our hosts have been allowed a change of wardrobe. Chris tells us that the remaining robots have been seeded 1 through 16. How or why, we don't know. They just were, okay?
The brackets are laid out for us. This is really just an invitation for me to complain further about where these rankings may have come from. Tombstone is seeded number 1 -- it's difficult to argue that decision. Icewave is number 2... I guess you could make an argument for that. It does have an intimidating weapon when the weapon works. Bite Force receives the 3 seed. It's at this point that things already get shaky. Maybe they're going by fastest KO's? No, because they told us that Hypershock scored a quick knockout in its first fight, and it has the 14 seed. And I don't think past victories are much of a consideration -- while I don't know how well it did, I know that Stinger (with the 5 seed) competed at the BattleBots event that never aired. If I'm right that Bite Force is a new robot, then I'm not sure how they ranked two similar designs that delivered similar results in their preliminary fights.
Maybe it's all arbitrary. And if the show wants to arbitrarily place these sixteen robots in the brackets, that's fine -- just don't say that they were seeded and then leave us confused as to how those seedings were determined.
For the first battle of the night, we'll start with the 2 vs. 15 fight. Why not. It's Icewave, which got here via knockout, versus Chomp, which got here via wild card. Molly says we're going to look at what happened to each robot since their last fight. I'm going to guess "minor repairs." That'll be good television.
We see some clips of Chomp's fight that didn't air. Zoe Stephenson and her family went to work conducting minor repairs. Then we see clips of Icewave's first fight. Remember how at the end, Marc DeVidts was concerned about the apparent fire taking place inside his robot? Turns out he had a battery fire, which did a lot of internal damage to the machine. It's implied that he'll be ready in time for this fight.
Chris presents the category rankings. I know that looking at them will just make me angry, yet I do it anyway. Chomp rates a 63 in Weapons. We still don't know what exactly it does other than spew flames in front of its body. Does that arm on the top clamp down? Does it have a lifting wedge? Are flamethrowers automatically worth 63 points? Am I being narrow-minded in my definition of "weapon"? What is a weapon? Am I a weapon? What would be my Weapons ranking? What, truly, is a ranking? Is the concept of numbers fully analogous to the concept of a ranking? What are numbers? Aren't numbers themselves arbitrary? Aren't all representations of "things" arbitrary? Is anything in this universe actually real?!
I need to stop looking at this show's robot comparisons.
Kenny provides some actual information by pointing out that the tips of Icewave's orange blade have been painted gray. The idea being that the opponent will see the blur of orange and miscalculate the distance before damage will occur. Most robots move so rapidly that precise maneuvers are rarely executed, but it is a nifty idea.
The hosts discuss what Chomp can try to do offensively. Kenny points out that Icewave's weapon operates on a gasoline-powered engine. If Chomp could set that on fire, then an explosion could occur. Gee, I'd hope that there's something in the rules about shielding gasoline engines from heat. Then again, apparently the entanglement rules were lax, so who knows what goes anymore.
We move to the BattleBox, where lots and lots of spectacle takes place. Nothing of much substance to comment on, though. Kenny does use the word "jam" again when discussing what strategy Chomp might want to employ when facing Icewave's spinning blade.
Let's jump ahead to the fight itself. Icewave spins up its blade. I guess the gray tips do kind of blend into the floor. Although the very edges create a sort of halo around the orange blur, so I'm not sure whether it would be effective.
Icewave begins to tear into Chomp's armor. After two hits, a piece of armor falls off. After the third hit, something round is torn out of Chomp's body.
Yep -- that was a wheel. Chomp isn't able to drive in a straight line anymore. It swings its body around and connects with Icewave's weapon again, losing more armor in the process. Chomp is activating the flamethrower, but historically, flamethrowers have been very bad at actually inflicting any damage. Icewave charges straight in and hits Chomp again.
Chomp's left side is pretty badly torn up, so Icewave goes around to the right side. Another wheel comes out of Chomp's body. And now Chomp has stopped moving. The countdown begins. And then the countdown ends because it reaches zero -- Chomp is dead.
Alison interviews Marc, leaning casually on his shoulder. Like all reporters do. Marc acknowledges the other two members of his team, which is nice since the show seems determined to allow only one person to be the face of any one robot.
Chris and Kenny discuss the dominance of horizontal spinners so far (they ignore Warhead's and Ghost Raptor's losses) and wonder whether there is any way to defeat them. Don't worry, guys -- I know there are at least a couple of robots with sturdy wedges that will level the playing field.
So Icewave moves on in the tournament -- later in the episode, we'll learn what robot it will face. After the commercial, though, we logically move to the 5 vs. 12 fight. (Hey, if you don't want me to point out the randomness of the order in which you present these numbered fights, then don't randomly number them in the first place.)
It's wild card Warhead, which we met in the first episode, versus Stinger. In the pits, we see Warhead's team examine their robot for damage. We know that something caused the weapon to stop spinning, though the only repair we see the team make is the replacement of the dulled teeth on the spinning weapon with sharper teeth.
Then it's time for a profile of Matt and Wendy Maxham and their robot Stinger. The show is aggressively playing up the fact that Matt used to be a plumber. Which is true, and makes for an interesting story, but he hasn't been a plumber for many years now. Also, when his robot isn't named Sewer Snake, it doesn't make as much sense.
Yes, Stinger is a yellow version of the wildly successful Sewer Snake, one of the three current kings of the heavyweight division in robotic combat (the other two are Last Rites, competing here as Tombstone, and Original Sin, which is a wedge and therefore wasn't invited to this tournament). Audiences love Sewer Snake -- especially its sweet dance moves. Unfortunately, when it has its spinner-killing plow on, it can't dance as well, as we saw in the clips of it defeating Captain Shrederator. And since it's going up against the dangerous spinning dome of Warhead, that thick wedge is still in place.
There's nothing else that needs to be said -- let's get to the fight. Warhead spins up, approaches Stinger, and delivers a blow to the wedge. That causes Warhead to jump up onto Stinger's wedge, Stinger drives forward, and Warhead winds up upside down.
The spinning dome acts as a wheel, driving Warhead across the arena floor. I assume those wings can function as a self-righting mechanism, but before Warhead can do anything, Stinger is underneath, shoving Warhead into the wall and flipping it onto its side. Warhead stretches its wings, lands on its wheels, and Stinger immediately flips it over onto a screw. As Warhead bounces up and down on top of the screw, a chunk falls off.
The weight of Warhead finally causes the screw to stop spinning. Warhead's weapon is working, but not much else at the moment. Stinger attacks again. As Warhead remains upside down, it pivots its spinning dome forward, almost at a right angle to the floor. In addition to causing pretty sparks, the maneuver drags Warhead off the screw and back into play (of sorts -- it's now balancing on its dome). Stinger shows up again to knock Warhead off balance.
One of Stinger's rear wheels is severely out of alignment, but that's not going to stop the robot -- it shoves Warhead into the corner. Stinger flips itself and rights itself. Warhead remains upside down.
With some help from Stinger, Warhead performs some lovely poses on its wings. None of this is helping Warhead fight, but it looks cool. Stinger pushes Warhead into another wall, where contact with the spinning dome flips Warhead back onto its wheels.
Stinger is a little wounded with its one wobbly tire and Warhead is fully functional again. A set of saws pop up from the floor to remind everybody that they exist.
Warhead has its wings up. Stinger attacks with its wedge. The impact against the spinning weapon spins Warhead around and onto its side. Stinger takes advantage and shoves it into another wall. Then toward the corner, where Warhead absorbs some blows from a sledgehammer.
Warhead drives around and into a set of saws. Hooray -- three episodes in, and the killsaws do something!
Not much happens for the last few seconds. Warhead drives around, its weapon no longer spinning. Stinger starts its victory dance before time is even up. The clock hits zero, and both teams celebrate a very entertaining fight.
This fight goes to the judges, and while there's always a danger of losing when you let the judges decide a fight, this one ends the way everybody expected -- with a unanimous decision in favor of Stinger. The post-fight interview reveals two teams who love fighting robots and who love putting on a good show. Kudos to both.
With that, we go back to the brackets, where I see that we'll likely be looking at a Stinger vs. Bronco fight in the quarterfinals. That will be fun. But I'm getting ahead of myself -- after the break, we move to Warrior Clan vs. Ghost Raptor.
As you'll recall, Ghost Raptor broke its spinning weapon in half during its last fight. With no spare on hand (and it being extremely difficult to hastily weld a spinning weapon back together while keeping the weight balanced), the robot will be relying entirely on the lifting mechanism built into its body. Warrior Clan lost one of its mini bots to Nightmare, but it sounds like they intend to put it back together.
Chris calls our attention to the rankings for each robot, then immediately points out that those numbers are meaningless since they were made up (I mean, "calculated") when Ghost Raptor had its spinning weapon. Still, that doesn't stop the show from leaving the numbers up on the screen for more than ten seconds.
Kenny suggests that Team Raptor should add more armor to Ghost Raptor. We have to wait until the introductions to see for ourselves that it does indeed look like there are some thicker wedges on the front of the robot's body now. Warrior Clan looks the same, all the way to the inclusion of two mini bots.
The fight begins. One of the mini bots carries the other mini bot out and deposits it near the center of the arena. That mini bot can still shoot flame, but it's pretty clearly incapable of driving anywhere. The other robots drive around, seemingly at random. The functioning mini bot of Warrior Clan briefly gets underneath Ghost Raptor. It obviously isn't powerful enough to push, and Ghost Raptor's wheels are still touching the ground, so Ghost Raptor escapes.
More driving around and bumping into one another. Pretty soon, the spinning weapon on the main robot of Warrior Clan slows to a halt. That main robot's wedge meets Ghost Raptor head to head, but it's a stalemate.
Lots more driving around. Ghost Raptor wasn't designed to primarily be a lifter, and with Warrior Clan's robots being so flat, it's having trouble getting underneath them enough to flip. But the main robot of Warrior Clan is slowly dying... it eventually comes to a complete stop over one of the sets of killsaws. However -- the one time they would actually be useful -- the saws never appear.
Ghost Raptor wedges underneath the immobile mini bot and shoves it into a wall. It's then able to get underneath the main robot and presses it into a corner. As that main robot sits in the corner and emits smoke, the referee begins the countdown. The clocks in the arena all display 0:00, but the onscreen timer added in post-production says that Warrior Clan was counted out shortly before time expired. Whatever -- Ghost Raptor clearly won that fight either way.
This was another three-minute fight that was condensed down to about two and a half minutes. Though in this case, I don't think anybody is going to mind.
So Ghost Raptor moves on to face Icewave in the quarterfinals. After the break, we move to the final fight of the night: Bronco vs. Plan X.
We see footage from the pits of Plan X's team examining the damage done to their armor as a result of their fight with Wrecks. None of the damage affected the actual body of the robot, so they don't appear too worried. Bronco didn't suffer much of anything in its fight against Witch Doctor.
The question on the minds of the hosts and on the minds of Inertia Labs is whether Bronco will be able to get underneath the large Plan X far enough to effectively flip it. As I see it, Bronco might not be able to reach the body of Plan X, but Bronco should be able to easily snag the edge of that armor. And Bronco has enough power in its flipper that I expect to see Plan X at least get some good air.
During the introductions, we see that Plan X has foregone using its mini bots for this fight. Which makes sense from a strategic standpoint (they didn't contribute much to the previous fight), but I'm disappointed -- Bronco could have had some real fun with those.
Time to fight. Plan X leads with its weapon, but the weapon isn't spinning. And if that isn't working, then things look dire.
Soon, Bronco gets underneath Plan X. And not even underneath the expansive side armor -- Bronco drives beneath the non-spinning weapon, places its flipping arm squarely under the body of Plan X, and fires. Plan X rotates 180 degrees over its backside and lands upside down on a screw.
This happens directly in front of the hosts' and judges' tables. Chris jumps up out of his chair. He has no faith in the protective properties of the BattleBox, does he? Look, man -- if the Lexan fails, then the robots are going to reach you faster than you'd have time to react, anyway. So you might as well sit down and enjoy the spectacle up close.
Having hit the screw, the clear dome covering the brain on Plan X has shattered all over the floor. It's fairly obvious that Plan X is not invertible, though that doesn't much matter when it's balanced in an awkward position on the screw. Bronco gives Plan X a nudge so the screw can drag it farther up against the wall.
The referee performs the countdown. He's clearly counting faster than one number per second, but it doesn't matter -- there's no way Plan X can escape. That's a quick knockout for Bronco. During the replays, it's becoming evident that Chris being afraid of the robots is going to be a running gag on this show.
During the post-fight interview, Reason Bradley points out that the screws are effectively a death sentence this time around. Which has mostly been true, though in this case, even if the screws weren't there, Plan X would have been stranded upside down on its head. With no spinning weapon on Plan X, the result of this fight was pretty much inevitable.
After the break, the hosts finish off the show by examining the brackets. Chris continues to insist on referring to the robots' seeds as if they mean something. Most notable among next week's fights is the fact that Lock-Jaw and Overhaul will be fighting once again in a rematch of their controversial(?) fight from last week's episode. Frankly, I'm disappointed -- if the robots happened to meet up again somewhere later in the brackets, that'd be fine, but to repeat a matchup immediately after we already saw them fight? I know the show is doing whatever it can to manufacture conflict and drama, but I have no desire to see these two fight each other again. Let them face some other robots.
Meanwhile, in bracket examination that I know the average viewer isn't contemplating, I'm a little disappointed that my hopes of a Tombstone/Stinger finale won't be coming true -- if each robot keeps winning, they'll meet each other in the semifinals. And wouldn't it have been a kick to have BattleBots' triumphant return to television end with the two robots that have been competing the most at other events while BattleBots wasn't on the air.
There's technically more show after the successive commercial break, but it's just the credits and hype for next week's episode. The credits are rated as a 12, the tease for next week is a C, and the Whalerock Industries logo at the end ranks, of course, as a drawing of a cloud wearing a pair of socks.