The fight nights are always fun to watch obviously, but the real meat of the show is the final tournament. It's always a lot of fun to see who gets seeded where and who makes the tournament who doesn't. It also dials up the intensity and the stakes knowing that each fight matters even more than usual: there's no going back after a single loss, if that happens, it's the end of your season.
The fights this episode had a lot of great moments and none of the fights were duds or boring like they can be on a normal fight night. I also enjoyed the post-fight "show" and interview with one of the bot captains. Always fun to get a behind the scenes look at things we don't normally get to see.
One thing that's always struck me is how much most of the teams get along and support each other. It's really great to see the camaraderie on and off the stage and I think that's a huge part of what makes battelbots a pleasure to watch.
One thing that struck me this season in particular, however, was how much Riptide has seemed to not fall into that category. From what we see at home, the team seems consistently arrogant and aggressive. It's honestly hard for me to watch them sometimes because of the way they treat other teams. I won't spoil anything, but the way Ethan publicly kinda shamed the team he was up against just made no sense to me. It felt like they didn't like getting caught doing something they shouldn't be doing so they took it out on the other team. That seems like bad sportsmanship to me.
We only get to see what is aired, so maybe I'm just completely off on this team and they're awesome to be around in the pits and off camera. That's totally possible and I'd erase all this if I knew that. But on the small chance I'm on the right track, would love them and battlebots as a whole to consider how they affect the rest of the show and culture.