Review: Season 2, Episode 8

This was a very…unique episode. I’ve been hinting at the fact that I’d eventually tell this story for quite some time, most prominently in S1 E5—the last Chaotix episode (well, the last one that I wrote, anyways). Of course, this one couldn’t have been any more different from that one. Computer Room Caper was an unapologetic comedy, while this was…well I don’t want to say 100% serious crime drama, because I definitely parodied the genre in a few places, but it was definitely meant to be taken seriously, with a few lighthearted laughs mixed in. But anyways, I’ve been putting thought towards this plot for a very long time, trying to figure out how to build a convincing mystery that tells the story I’m aiming for. Heavily pre-planned episodes always end up in an interesting conundrum. Writing goes much faster than average for some scenes, because everything right down to the wording has already been planned out, but much slower than average for the rest, because it suddenly becomes a puzzle of how to perfectly word each less-planned scene such that it leads perfectly into the next planned one.

Another interesting consequence of planning out this mystery was that this turned out to be the third longest episode ever (13,888 words), behind only S0 E32 Time of Reckoning Part 2 (14,689) and S2 E1 Time Heals All Wounds (14,824)—making this the absolute longest episode that isn’t a finale or a premiere. I wasn’t expecting it go this long, in fact I was worried about it being too short at first, but it turned out that the need to thoroughly set up each suspect, and to give them roughly equal treatment with a second appearance each, on top of basically introducing Vector, Espio, and Charmy as individual characters from scratch, just took up a whole lot of time. I wanted to make sure that this was a legitimate mystery, not some Scooby Doo type situation with 2 suspects where one of them seems to be the obvious culprit so it must actually be the other guy. I wanted there to be no clear-cut answer, I wanted there to be a legitimate reason to suspect anyone—the boss who’s suspiciously unlikeable, the kid who’s suspiciously too likeable, the suspiciously non-suspicious girl who makes you question why she’s there, and the intentionally hinted red-herring friend. I figured there was zero chance of anyone suspecting Espio or Charmy, so I didn’t bother trying anything there. Interesting random tidbit, I was originally thinking that Graff was going to be the culprit, but I decided that would be way to obvious. There’s something to be said for picking the obvious choice on purpose, since the audience wouldn’t expect it to be so obvious, but that was too much roundabout thinking for me.

Despite what a relatively small percentage of the episode it took up, what happened in the present day is worth mentioning as well. The decision to have Vector leave the Rebellion was, in strong part, pushed along by a goal I’ve mentioned before. The cast must be dynamic. The Sonic cast is so wide and varied that constantly changing up who is and isn’t available is a guaranteed way to keep interesting character interactions going. The other, more important component of this decision came from much the same place as the decision to make Charmy a doctor. Unlike Charmy, Vector certainly didn’t need something to do in the logical sense. Putting his detective skills to work gathering intel for Rebellion made him plenty useful enough. This was more about how to treat him as a character. It’s my goal to make every main character go through some kind of relevant character arc, which was quickly and easily out of the way for big characters like Sonic, Shadow, and Tails. But even though Vector’s played an important role in a good handful of episodes by now, he’s been a stagnant character the entire time. This was the attempt to end that stagnation. Will he ever be able to make it back? That remains to be seen. I’ll also admit that I just really wanted to imagine how a Vector vs. Espio fight would go down. I intended it to be a smidge longer than it ended up being, but given the length of the rest of the episode, I figured “over in a second, blink and you miss it” would serve for a more powerful moment, letting the leader of the team prove his strength without necessarily confirming that a more standard fight would go the same way.

I’ll go into more detail about this in the trivia, but another interesting conflict/inspiration in writing this episode came in the form of Knuckles’ Chaotix. At some point along the line, however long ago that may have been, I was definitely considering ignoring Knuckles’ Chaotix as non-canon. After all, Charmy was 16 in that classic game and 6 as of Sonic Heroes, and there’s…really no reconciling that. However, looking once again at Yuni Oha’s Out of the Shadows episodes, there was some information from the Chaotix manual used as backstory for the relationship between Espio and Charmy. (“In my youth, before I first joined the Chaotix, I was what you might call a hothead. I would lose my temper at the smallest of annoyances. Of all people, it was Charmy who had to calm me down.”) Making a Team Chaotix origin episode, it was a bit of a necessity for the sake of continuity to address this specific statement. And I figured, if I was doing that, I might as well go the whole mile. So I studied the Chaotix manuals, both English and Japanese, very thoroughly, and did my best to address every little quirk and oddity in there. Except, of course, Charmy’s age. What I should be saying is that I did my best to address the quirks without causing any contradiction with modern canon. This goes back to the whole “CP-Canon” thing. I’m basically establishing that something resembling Knuckles’ Chaotix happened, but those events just might not be exactly the same as you remember them.

Before we get to the trivia, I’ll mention a few last-minute changes that were added by recommendation of the editor (you should know his name by now). “The Chaotix” as an oldies band enjoyed by the Chief was a very specific recommendation used exactly as suggested. Originally, it was Charmy who simply brought up the name for the first time on the spot. Changing it simply tied the whole story together a lot better, giving real meaning to the name, and to the team as a result. Some major alterations were made to the Commander’s phone call as well. Originally, the Commander was much more forward with his information, simply asking Vector if he had anything to add, based on that information. By shifting things around a bit, having Vector put together the pieces without much outside help, it not only improved Vetor’s credibility as a detective, but also made a lot more sense in terms of the Commander’s motivations for calling Vector in the first place. Perhaps most importantly, it made sure that, by the time of S2 E6 Adventures in Hedgehog Hunting, the existence of SCOPE could be more of a suspicion and less of a certainty.

Now for the trivia!

• The title of this episode, “Who Framed Espio the Chameleon!?”, is a reference to the 1988 Disney animated/live action hybrid movie, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.”
  • Similarities between the episode and the movie exist in that both are crime dramas focusing on a world with a schism between humans and non-human characters (cartoon characters in the movie, animoids in the episode).
• Windopolis, “the windy city,” is inspired by the real-world city of Chicago, Illinois.
  By my understanding, Chicago is a popular choice of setting for crime dramas, hence the inspiration.
  • Somehow, this is the first newly-created, present-day settlement in the history of The Chaos Project to be both named and visited. All previous towns/cities have either been pre-existing locations (Westopolis, Central City, Metropolis), been in the past or future (Speed City, Neo Soleanna, unnamed town from Birth of Blacklight), or gone unvisited onscreen (Westside Village).
• Dixon Montse is named after Dixon Hill, a fictional detective within the universe of Star Trek. “Montse” is traditional Spanish for “jagged hill.”
• Stewart Butler is a steward and a butler. As in, “the butler did it.” Figured that one could at least get a pity chuckle.
• Graff’s name is intended to sound like “gruff.” It also may or may not be based on someone who may or may not be involved in the writing of certain Sonic games…
  • Whether it is or is not, there is no actual association between the character and the person, although it wasn’t really an accident that Captain Graff was an intentionally unlikeable character.
• Dunham’s name isn’t necessarily supposed to mean anything, I just liked the sound of it. There’s probably some inspiration from the name of a character from Marvel’s “Agent Carter,” one Chief Roger Dooley.
  • Dunham’s first name was originally intended to be Richard, making it sound even more like that character. It was changed to Charles so that Richard could be used as a name for someone else, about…four seasons from now.
• Several components of this episode were foreshadowed in Computer Room Caper.
  • It was in that episode that Vector revealed he was a former detective of “the force.”
  • It was stated in that episode that Vector’s thorough reports were a habit from those old days, hence why his paperwork was called “legendary” in this episode.
  • In that episode, Vector chose not to tell the story of the first Chaotix case to Cream, citing that it would be too dark for her. Accurately to his claim, this murder mystery was far darker than that comedy.
  • In that episode, Vector stated that he and the Commander had history, Vector having once been questioned about a case. That interaction happened at the end of this episode.
• Several references were made to Knuckles’ Chaotix, which would take place soon after the events of this episode.
  • Vector’s tape player and different headphones, as well as Espio’s simpler shoes and gloves, were intended to be their outfits from Knuckles’ Chaotix.
    It is assumed that it is just the outfits that are classic, and not the total character designs.
    • The injury to Espio’s wrist is implied to be the reason why he later wears what could be interpreted as protective devices around his wrists.
    • Charmy’s design change was not mentioned. He went through the least changes of the three, and I figured the point was made. Imagine him however you prefer.
  • Vector mentions “God” by name, a first in CP-Canon, referencing his strong belief in God as detailed in the Chaotix manual.
    • It was hidden within the phrase “Good God,” a common exclamation that could be interpreted as not having any actual religious meaning.
      • Vector also later said something about praying for a person’s salvation, which, similarly, sounds religious, but doesn’t necessarily have to be.
    • I chose to be coy about this detail because it just seemed so odd and irrelevant to his modern character. I didn’t want to push anything that was pretty clearly untrue. Plus, I have always elected to avoid the use of the word “God” in the past, electing instead for “gosh,” or more recently, the more canon-appropriate “Lords.”
  • Throughout the episode, Espio indicated that he was working on controlling his anger issues, a trait mentioned in the manual as well as in Out of the Shadows.
    • Espio’s other stated classic personality trait was a strong sense of justice, which turned out to be a bit difficult to reconcile with his hotheadedness in the context I was going for. I finally reached a nice reconciliation by having Espio admit that he desired justice, but was disheartened by the lack of it he saw in the world.
    • This moment was basically a direct quote to the manual, with Espio thanking Charmy for reminding him of his manners.
  • Graff calling Vector “Gator” is a reference to the fact that Vetor was actually called an Alligator in the manual, changed to a Crocodile for the modern incarnation.
  • In the manual, Espio’s occupation is listed as “detective,” yet Vector’s isn’t. In order to reconcile this with Vector being the leader in the modern incarnation, I had Espio claim that he puts “Detective” as his occupation on official documents, even though he doesn’t typically do that sort of work for anyone other than himself, which is the reason why he’d accept the proposition of becoming an actual detective later.
  • Vector encouragingly complements how fast of a sprinter Charmy must be, a reference to one of Charmy’s more random traits from the manual, in which “sprinter” is actually listed as his occupation.
  • At the end of the story, Espio claimed to hear a report of an island mysteriously appearing overnight. This island is assumed to be Carnival Island, and marks the instigating event of Knuckles’ Chaotix…
    • …at least, in Japanese. This marks the first clear preference towards Japanese canon over English canon for classic games. (I was surprised to learn how different they are. But in English, Carnival Island is an ordinary island with a carnival built on it, for which Knuckles was somehow hired as a security guard. Presumably by Eggman. Like, what?)
    • In the future, I hope to use, to the best of my abilities, an optimal balance that include elements of Japanese and English lore for all classic games.
    • Dunham living on 3210 (read as 32X) Carnival Street is also a reference to this location.
•  Vector stating the desire to be a jazz singer was not a reference to Chaotix, but to Heroes, where his terrible singing was a game mechanic.
  • As a plus, jazz and Chicago are often associated.
• A love of coffee as Vector showed is an existing detective trope (often as a kid-friendly alternative to alcohol), but in this case it was most specifically inspired by Detective Pikachu (more the game than the movie).
• Espio’s prized shuriken is assumed to be crafted by Shino the Hedgehog.
• Espio is shown using his camouflage ability, despite not having it in Chaotix. This was a purely plot-driven choice.

And that’s all for today! I’m afraid I must say now, with much more certainty than before, that starting now, you probably won’t be hearing from me for a while. Despite having about two and a half weeks to write the episode I’m on so far, I’m still only about a page and a half in (for an average of 20 pages per episode). So at this rate you might hear from me again in about…oh, ten weeks or so, when I might be able to provide a preview. Sometimes, life just gets in the way. But worry not! However slowly it may be going, The Chaos Project is still being worked on, and the next episode will come. Eventually.

-But until then, remember to live and learn every day!