the more i chew over the mercs trilogy from rvb14 the more i think my initial reaction to it was kind of a complete misread actually lol

i had to dig through some old posts to find where i talked about it but initially i approached/read it as showing a pivotal, critical moment in felix and locus's history where they tipped over the line from being This to being That, and in that regard, the episodes are definitely still super fun and charming and Good but they also fall very flat. what exactly was pivotal about that? honestly, not much unless you want to do an insanely close read with some reaching. i guess maybe the whole "surprise, guess we're down to do a ransom and also kill a guy" part but... not really? they definitely murdered n+1 people at the club and are not new to murderizing (eg. the "mason wu, trained killer of men" comment). that was not a moral high ground situation in any way and nothing about it really points to it being The Moment that something changed fundamentally.

but what it was, actually - and i feel silly that i didn't read it like this at first - was honestly just a show that felix and locus did actually come from a place of doing net positives at some point in their lives. and that's not something to be dismissed! the fact that they weren't terrible horrible no-good dirty rotten mercenaries from the day the left active service is really interesting! and the trilogy showcased all of that in a super fun and charming and Good way and sometimes the point is just to show that things used to be different.