The Guild Season Three Review
“The expansion to our game is coming out,” Codex/Cyd Sherman explains in her video blog. “New continent, new powers. Most importantly, new character hair styles. I’m hoping it will help heal some of the wounds in the Guild. Make us focus on what matters. It’s about the game, not each other. Dumb humans.”
Thus begins the third season of the highly-successful webseries, The Guild, which focuses on a group of World of Warcraft-style online gamers who have trouble adapting to the real world. While the sitcom has always had its fair share of Internet-living exploration—each episode, for instance, opens with Codex recording an entry for her blog—it’s the oddball assortment of characters and their coping with the outside world that truly elevates the webseries to a higher-level of enjoyable entertainment.
At the end of the previous season, the lives of those characters had been turned upside down. Tinkerballa (Amy Okudo), for instance, used her feminine mystique on Bladezz (Vincent Caso), leading to the sexually-aroused male to shower her with expensive gifts. When Tinkerballa eventually rejected his advances, he retaliated by erasing her online avatar. Zaboo (Sandeep Parikh), meanwhile, discovered a new love interest after continually being spurned by Codex (Felicia Day), causing unexpected jealousy in Codex. And Vork (Jeff Lewis) had his leadership questioned when Clara (Robin Thorsen) continually, as well as anonymously, butchered his online character after he refused to grant her a magic orb. With such upheaval in their personal lives, it’s no wonder Codex hoped for a return to normalcy within the fantasy online world in which they routinely gather.
Unfortunately, the avalanche of screwball-comedy events that have disrupted their lives since season one—which is when the group first met face to face—extends itself to the safety of the Internet in season three when a rival group of gamers, the Axis of Anarchy, threaten to destroy the online world they have created for themselves. In addition, each member of the Guild faces new real-world problems that likewise push them even further away from the game, allowing the webseries to again explore its major theme: it’s not about the game, it’s about each other.
Vork, for instance, relinquishes his leadership role within the Guild when he is unable to stop the Axis of Anarchy from cutting line at GameStop and later hits the road in his camper for a journey of self-discovery. Tinkerballa, still upset at Bladezz’s actions at the end of season two, leaves the Guild and joins the Axis instead. Down two members, Clara’s husband is recruited into the group in an attempt to save their marriage but he proves totally inept at gaming.
Zaboo, meanwhile, finds himself in a dominating relationship with girlfriend Riley (Michele Boyd) that extends beyond the bedroom. When he forgets to make her breakfast one morning, for example, Riley knocks Zaboo unconscious and ties him up in the closet so that he won’t forget again. As for Bladezz, the majority of his problems stem from the Axis of Anarchy—they plant a variety of “weapons” in his school locker and one of the group’s members later “bangs” his recently divorced mother.
Then there’s Codex, who is left to fill the leadership void left by Vork. Despite her meek persona and chronic lack of confidence, she does her best to keep the group together even if it indeed proves futile. She still provides the emotional center needed to summon the group together for one final showdown with the Axis of Anarchy, however, ultimately leading them not only to victory online but in the real world as well.
Thus in the end Vork realizes his biggest personality flaw—being someone disliked by most people—actually makes him a good leader; Zaboo finds the backbone to stand up for himself and becomes stronger because of it; Bladezz learns the humility he never before possessed; Clara finds enough common ground with her husband to keep them together; and Tinkerballa realizes her mistake and rejoins the Guild.
As for Codex, she finally discovers the inner strength she has always lacked when, in a moment of emotional panic, she imagines that her Internet character is talking to her. “I’m who you are in game, who you want to be,” the avatar Codex tells the real-life version. “Confident, in charge, naturally wavy hair. You’re playing me like I’m Cyd—twitchy self-conscious with the occasional unsightly pimple. Just relax and be me for a minute. Reality is kicking your ass right now.”
The Guild launched its third season online by initially releasing a music video featuring the entire cast wearing their avatar outfits. “I was listening to really bad 1990s dances songs—C+C Music Factory, Stacey Q—and that was my inspiration,” Felicia Day, who co-wrote the song, explained to the BBC News in August 2009. She then approached Jed Whedon, the co-creator of the musical webseries sensation Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, to assist and the result tore up both the Internet as well as Apple’s iTunes.
“When our music video hit the top ten on iTunes over all the label stuff, I have to admit that I was definitely heartened,” Day told Wired at the time. “I do like breaking the common patterns of behavior. When we have a victory like that, it’s very fulfilling. We’re going to be in stores with the DVD right next to major TV shows. We shoot in my shed. So, I don’t know, that’s just a cool message. And when I have people come up and say, ‘Because of you I started composing again.’ Or, ‘I’m making my own website without waiting for funding.’ That’s awesome.”
Felicia Day has created one of the truly great webseries of the medium’s early days, and has been able to sustain it for multiple seasons. It may be her rebellious creative nature and independent spirit, however, that turns out to be Day’s greatest legacy as she inspires a new generation to follow in her footsteps, break the mold and do it themselves.
Anthony Letizia (March 8, 2010)
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