The Guild Season Four Review
In the award-winning webseries The Guild, a small group of dysfunctional online gamers struggle to relate to the outside world in classic comedy fashion. Through the show’s first three seasons, they have dealt with love, betrayal, identity crisis and other elements of offline life while experiencing it all through the lenses of their online world. Season four continues this trend with a focus on both loveless romance and the perils of employment, with plenty of twists along the way.
“So we faced off against the rival Guild,” Cyd Sherman (Felicia Day), aka Codex, explains in the opening moments of the first episode. “It came down to me and their leader Fawkes. I kicked his butt, we met up for drinks and then....” Codex is the Healer within the World of Warcraft-like game that has brought the group together as well as the main protagonist of the series. Her meek personality and numerous insecurities inevitably sets the comic snowball rolling and her uncharacteristic indiscretion of sleeping with the leader of a rival Guild likewise serves as the catalyst for season four. Afraid of keeping it a secret from the rest of the Knights of Good, Codex confesses her actions to the group only to be met with negative derision. Just as she is about to defend herself, however, her home computer crashes—leaving her alone and defenseless.
But that’s not the worst of it. Codex assumes that because of the intimate nature of their first date that she and Fawkes (Wil Wheaton) are now a couple. Fawkes, however, has a different viewpoint. “I thought I made this clear between us,” he tells her. “I don’t date.” The embarrassment of admitting the indiscretion to her fellow gamers was hard enough for Codex but telling them that it was merely a one-night stand is even more difficult. “I’m their priest,” she laments in her video blog. “I have a virtual reputation to uphold.” She thus convinces Fawkes to pretend that the two are actually dating for the time being, something Fawkes is willing to do when he discovers the negative effects their “relationship” is having within Codex’s Guild.
With her imaginary love life under control, Codex turns her attention to the fact that she no longer has a functioning computer. Fellow Guild member Bladezz (Vincent Caso) comes to the rescue by finding her employment at the Cheesy Beards restaurant where he works. Although unqualified for the service industry, Codex sees an opportunity by offering to promote the establishment online and thus gain access to the owner’s computer. “Social media can’t be that hard,” she tells herself. “Every bozo on the Internet claims to be an expert.” Codex, however, discovers that the task is more difficult than she imagined.
It turns out that the rest of the Guild is busy with their own financial problems. Leader Vork (Jeff Lewis) has decided the group needs a Guild Hall but at a cost of five hundred million in gold, the goal is not something easily attainable. Adding to the problem, Vork and the other members of the Guild differ on the design and décor of their wannabe Hall. A competition thus arises, with whoever raises the necessary funds first having the final say on the specifics of the purchase.
An alliance is formed when the remaining two female members of the group team-up to sell fishing gloves online and quickly begin to outpace Vork. Inspired by Codex finding employment at Cheesy Beards, Clara (Robin Thorsen) decides that her and Tinkerballa (Amy Okudo) should form a business partnership in the real world as well. Although the two are initially clueless on how to do so, it does not take long for an idea to form.
“We wanted to make money off of gaming and we thought of a niche no one was serving—tees for pregnant gamers,” Clara explains to the other. “We even have a bunch of slogans all ready: ‘Noob on board.’ ‘Mini Boss.’ ‘Don’t frag my baby.’ Women of all ages will want them.”
While Vork may be unwilling to find employment in the real world, he has a different opinion when it relates to the online world of the Guild. Although the game does not contain a commodities trading structure, Vork creates one and immediately corners the market on everything from silver to leather. Unfortunately his business sense is seriously lacking so he forms a partnership of his own with the most unlikely of sources—the mother of the final member of the Knights of Good, Zaboo (Sandeep Parikh).
“When did this Guild go from playing a game together to talking about feelings and holding each other’s vaginas?” Tinkerballa asks during season four. The answer goes all the way back to the first season when Zaboo confessed having a crush on Codex and showed up at her doorstep. In addition to his unrequited love for Codex, Zaboo also arrived with a domineering mother intent on controlling her son’s life by any means necessary. “We can do this, OK?” Codex told the group at the time. “With just a few of us we can take down a ten-man dungeon. Life can’t be that much harder.” In the end, the group was indeed able to break the umbilical cord between mother and son once and for all.
While Mrs. Zaboo’s reentry into his life in season four inevitably causes distress for her son, the consequences are both good and bad for Vork. On the one hand, the Guild leader has found someone with the business acumen to allow him to raise the five hundred million needed to buy a Guild Hall; on the other hand, Zaboo’s mother has a negative effect on Vork’s offbeat lifestyle.
“I cleaned out you kitchen earlier,” she tells him. “I threw out many expired large cans of food.”
“Expiration dates are mere suggestions, like late fees and traffic lights,” Vork counters after tracking down the garbage truck and retrieving his items.
Eventually Mrs. Zaboo goes too far and Vork needs a way out of the partnership. “Codex says I overdo everything so why don’t you just go overboard,” Zaboo offers in the way of advice. “Make a giant gesture that’s really inappropriate and then she’ll run the other way.” Vork thus decides to propose to Zaboo’s mother with the expectation that she will say no—in true Guild fashion, however, she inevitably says yes and adds to the mayhem.
When The Guild first premiered online in 2007, creator Felicia Day had crafted a webseries centered on her dysfunctional character Codex and the problems the insecure gamer experienced when it came to the real world. As the seasons progressed, however, Day shifted that focus more and more onto the other members of the Guild. While Codex is still the star of the series, the evolution of the show from this solitary focus to a more multidimensional one has served the webseries well, giving The Guild more seasons than most other entries in the medium as well as a longer creative life than many successful television shows.
At this point in time, it is redundant to call The Guild “groundbreaking” or “innovative” or a “pioneer” in the budding webseries medium. After four seasons, it is more accurate to consider The Guild as an online institution and a staple of our comedic diets in much the same way as Friends was in seasons past or The Office years later. In short, The Guild is no longer a novelty but a legitimate source of quality entertainment regardless of the medium, a fact that the show’s fourth season successfully demonstrates.
Anthony Letizia (January 10, 2011)
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