Rhett and Link's Buddy System Review: To Kill a Robot

"People with exceptional talents like me will be the confidants of our robot overlords. More average people like yourself will spend their days in hamster wheels helping to power the cybertronic society we all helped create."

Season 2 of Buddy System has to be the most promising second season I've seen in a while. Instead of picking up after the events of its incredible first season, knowing that their little story arc has met its graceful conclusion, Rhett and Link have decided to create an almost completely different product, now finding them in an alternate universe where they were never friends in the first place. Whereas the first season was built on testing their friendship, this season has shifted gears entirely. Now, it's about building one up.

In spite of that massive shake-up, though, one of the most interesting things about their new set-up is that, in spite of missing that crucial bond, Rhett and Link's characters are otherwise unchanged. Even down to their mannerisms, like Rhett snapping his finger at Link while shutting his front door (shown before in "Super Special Secret Bike") are delicately preserved, alongside the broader jokes like Link being obsessed with tedious, mind-numbing occupations (a jab considering the creativity of their oeuvre); the combination of both the obvious and the sly paints a nicely-complete portrait of our protagonists.

Also assisting in their presentation is that the show doesn't exploit its premise to a point of aimless absurdity; there's always some grounding force that makes all of the surreal moments work. It's something that Rhett and Link have always excelled at whereas so many others haven't; even if their universe is far-fetched to a point where Link temporarily becomes a tenant at a morgue, there are rules to the insanity, and the characters react according to their reality, neither a surrogate to the audience nor maniacally embracing it. To them, that's just life, and it allows the hilarity of the premises to shine through as brightly as possible.

Further, it's those subtle touches of magical realism throughout that land the strongest. While the trailer came across as hacky, Season 2 is no less a master of subtle joke-telling as Season 1 was capable of. Consider, for instance, the scene of Rhett flipping his package of food around for a bit too long before opening it up, revealing its contents to be a remarkably unphased bowl of soup - it's a dumb flourish and it works - or how, when Rhett reads Link's sticky note in his voice, he still possesses his own cadence.

Ultimately, though, with the sheer diversity of the events scattered across the episode, one of Buddy System's greatest successes here is in its ability to create a continuous narrative, even with all of its odd beats. At first, there's nothing really at the forefront, but "To Kill a Robot" wisely finds the connection in each of its events. If you're thinking, "This shouldn't work, but it does," this is why.

Consider Rhett and Link's confrontation. Link gets turned down as a tenant once Rhett gets a call from his much cooler friend and train engineer Anton, so Link takes residency in a morgue instead. After a night of hardcore fun-having, though, the sleep deprivation leads to Anton derailing a train, killing him off, and the bodies the train was carrying are moved into Link's morgue, forcing him out; finally, Link gets invited back in on the offer. On top of adding a unique tone to the narrative - it borders on chaotic at some points - everything always ties itself together. Even as a resolution to the conflict, finding Link trying to murder the robot who stole his job, Rhett saves the day, though merely to condemn him for refusing to try his night chocolate.

(I feel immense pity for anybody who hasn't seen the episode and is trying to make sense of any of that last paragraph.)

What helps ultimately sell the episode is its concluding song, "I Like What I Like." It doesn't exist to forward some part of the plot, and it doesn't exist for the sake of existing; it's simply there to examine Rhett and Link as characters and how they differ while employing the duo's signature wordiness. Interestingly, too, it makes the point that neither character is really better than the other in their outlooks; sure, Link seems firmly locked in a universe where he refuses to dip below Top 40 hits and deems paintings of dogs playing poker as the best kind of art, but at the same time, Rhett comes across as an almost-stuffy hipster who looks on in befuddlement and his new friend.

What it does is set the table for the characters' slow and steady acceptance of one another over the course of the rest of the series, and I can't wait to see how the characters will grow. (Oh, and there's also the twist ending, but we'll have to wait and find out where the show takes us there, so I'm withholding thought for now.)

Notes and Quotes:
-"Would it be weird if I felt your impossibly silky pajamas?" "Yes." "Yes, it'd be weird, or yes I can?"
-"It started off innocently enough. We were talking, and to be honest, he's more in touch with his emotions than you are." "Wow. I don't even know how I should feel about that."
-Dylan made a pleasantly odd appearance as Rhett's package delivery guy, and I'm excited about how Rhett and Link are going to find other means of incorporating their characters from Season 1 in a newer context.
-Perhaps all of the strange two-person accompaniments Rhett has around his house hint at the fact that he subconsciously wants companionship beyond just being a nice joke string.
-Anton Lacroix correcting that he drives a train via joystick and not a wheel, and having the subsequent news report of the train derailment make the same correction, was brilliant.
-Shout-outs to the sly return of the "Farewell Grandpa" puzzle from Rhett and Link's sketch, "The Puzzle." It even has the same final piece missing!
-I sincerely hope that Mayim Bialik's out-of-left-field "Take your sheet with you" was ad-libbed. It felt nicely improvisational.
-In spite of the obvious jokes about Rhett and Link's characters, the show still finds great ways to incorporate them winningly, especially Link casually observing the mayonnaise on his sandwich as an "exotic white spread."
-Also, fair warning: I don't have YouTube Red at the moment. Whether or not I will be able to review the rest of the series is entirely up in the air, but at the very least... it's been fun. I'm hoping I can do more in the future, but we'll have to gauge the accessibility.

Final Grade: A. "To Kill a Robot" managed to remove every potential fear I had about Buddy System, and that's an incredible feat to be able to pull off. It takes everything that worked about the first season, and presents it back to us as if a funhouse mirror, but it really works, and for Rhett and Link, it has to be super liberating, especially in being able to extend each episode to a standard, 24-minute length, allowing them ample time to chase their ideas further down the rabbit hole. Basically, to summarize all that I've said, it not only works as an introduction to the new universe - the place where most shows stumble the most - but it works in its own right regardless of that. It's delightful.