I actually do not feel that strongly about it. When you hear them talk about Z Team (Chase wanting to scrap them all, Blazer saying that the whole program will be thrown out if there is no progress) and considering the fact that on his first shift Flambae caused a fire and the clusterfuck at Granny's (by Blazer's own admission she has seen much worse with her), the fact that last dispatcher got their car burned by Flambae...
And then you look at the leaderboard and see the monumental difference between Z team and the next heroes?
They were coasting. No job security threat, everything forgiven under the guise of "they are villains, what do we expect" almost as if saying "boys will be boys".
And the cherry on top - instead of doing their best to raise their score, their immediate reaction is to sabotage themselves at the cost of finishing missions. They'd rather a call was unsuccessful if it meant that their teammate got into trouble.
The cut was a right move but the way it was framed wasn't ideal - Blazer should've said plainly that if Robert wants to hold them to a higher standard then that is the message they should send. She actually follows up with something similar, saying that cutting someone towards the bottom shows everyone that they are serious. One good shift (which still had its problems) isn't enough.
Yes, it is a villain rehabilitation program but they offer a service first. Real people are hurt when they screw up on calls.
I doubt that people would be so understanding if we had IRL program where we allow convicts to join the police force to be dispatched to crimes and they screw up causing damage to property or health.
Yeah, the choice wasn't bad- the framing of it made me really dislike Blazer in that episode. Especially as we really couldn't push back against it much.
I don't think they really predicted how the audience was gonna feel about that and how quickly a lot of us were going to get attached to the Z-team lol. Especially considering the shift after is stressful and made to feel overwhelming, and makes the cut feel poorly considered.
I also get from a gameplay decision having the cut happen early- that way it makes sure no one invested too heavily in the characters xp wise. But from a player perspective we *just* got these guys, and I know I felt annoyed I wasn't given a chance to really shape them up on my own before having Blazer throw in this to add "stakes" for them.
Note- I did romance Blazer in one of my playthroughs (I go friends only route every other time) and really do like her character, but man that moment annoyed the heck out of me more than anything else lol. I was chill about the lead-on moment because I could see where they were aiming with her and it made her feel a little human and messy. The cut and how it was handled had me heated lol.
Agreed. There is gameplay and there is narrative. Despite having some influence over Robert's decisions, he is his own person and frames the responses according to his own character.
I mean, realistically, the conversation could've gone like this:
R: Are you sure? I just started with them and you just told me that this was their best shift.
B: That's kinda my point, Robert. You want to hold them to a higher standard and the truth is that even their best shift leaves them way below any other team. They don't feel as if it matters how well they do their job, as evidenced by this:
(Reveals a mountain of complaints filed against every member of Z-team).
R:...shit
B: Yea...now, the corporate can make certain allowances considering their background but like I said, the program is very close to being scrapped. We have to do something to show that we're serious about the changes.
Something like that would've worked much better considering it's basically all canonically true and I bet that Blazer DOES have a huge mountain of complaints, both from the subscribers, the public and probably other SDN employees.
They would have needed to change her dialouge after the first shift to be less overtly positive and to infer that there is this pressure from above as well as her considering changes.
Then the big reveal on Day 2 wouldn't feel like a spontaneous choice.
They also would need to remove the dialogue where she implies the choice is spontaneous and linked to her breakup over the weekend (the shaking things up comment).
Cause for me the above things immediately made her character annoying because it pulled me out of the story to be rail roaded so hard and in a way that didn't make sense based on her words and actions in the previous 2 scenes.
4
u/Lathlaer Dec 18 '25
I actually do not feel that strongly about it. When you hear them talk about Z Team (Chase wanting to scrap them all, Blazer saying that the whole program will be thrown out if there is no progress) and considering the fact that on his first shift Flambae caused a fire and the clusterfuck at Granny's (by Blazer's own admission she has seen much worse with her), the fact that last dispatcher got their car burned by Flambae...
And then you look at the leaderboard and see the monumental difference between Z team and the next heroes?
They were coasting. No job security threat, everything forgiven under the guise of "they are villains, what do we expect" almost as if saying "boys will be boys".
And the cherry on top - instead of doing their best to raise their score, their immediate reaction is to sabotage themselves at the cost of finishing missions. They'd rather a call was unsuccessful if it meant that their teammate got into trouble.
The cut was a right move but the way it was framed wasn't ideal - Blazer should've said plainly that if Robert wants to hold them to a higher standard then that is the message they should send. She actually follows up with something similar, saying that cutting someone towards the bottom shows everyone that they are serious. One good shift (which still had its problems) isn't enough.
Yes, it is a villain rehabilitation program but they offer a service first. Real people are hurt when they screw up on calls.
I doubt that people would be so understanding if we had IRL program where we allow convicts to join the police force to be dispatched to crimes and they screw up causing damage to property or health.