Dimension 20: Never Stop Blowing Up - Ep 1 "Be Kind, Rewind" Recap and Review

It's finally time for another side quest season of Dimension 20. This time, it's the action movie season called Never Stop Blowing Up.

Today, we will review the first episode of the season, "Be Kind, Rewind," which is a fantastic callback to the 90s, when millennials like me needed to rewind cassettes we used after watching or listening to them.

Kids today will never understand the physical part of enjoying media. On the other hand, digitization has created a vast world of content that nobody owns but can rent or buy.

We'll discuss it later during the part where the cast and Brennan comment.

Just a word of caution: this article will include spoilers!

Still here? Then, let's dive in!

Vic Ethanol / Wendell Morris

We begin the episode by introducing Vic Ethanol, an obvious homage to Vin Diesel from Fast and the Furious. He's on a train fighting someone when his wingman throws him a wrench.

This is a great way to set the scene for what this season will be like.

My first impression of Vic is he's tough. It's the character we all want to be in movies. We don't want to be weak, and we want to have good, loyal friends. Two things Vic demonstrates in his introduction.

On the other hand, we have Wendell Morris, a nerdy kid working at Dave's Video World.

Wendell has three brothers who treat him badly, but throughout the episode, he maintains loyalty to them by ensuring Dave doesn't find out about the donuts.

There's something about Wendell that reminds me of myself in high school. Nerdy had braces and was royally unsuccessful with the girls.

Liv Skyler / Kingskin

Liv is a very complex character. I was intrigued to see the university acceptance documents in her bag, coupled with her habit of stealing. Is it Klepto? I'm not sure yet. She doesn't seem to think about it too much, whereas Kleptomaniacs often feel extreme emotions of shame and guilt.

On the other hand, we have Kingskin, a character very similar to Spide-Man's Kingpin, only probably crueler.

That moment when Kingskin tells the person to open the door to a wall of bricks and then close it on them was terrifying. And that's just the introduction of the character. Imagine what kind of people this person interacts with daily.

Can I also comment on Alex's fantastic ability to create this nightmare scenario? I wonder what their brain has in

Usha Rao / G13

Rehka Shankar is back on Dimension 20, folks. That, alone, makes this season so much more fun for me.

I LOVED her in Desiquest, and I hope there's a sequel season to that show. For this season, Rekha is bringing the Indian lady's energy back to the table with Usha, who doesn't know anything about technology and is the "oldest woman in the world," as Rekha describes her.

On the other hand, we have G13, a nerdy hacker who seems to know a lot about computers and how to ruin people's lives.

It's going to be an interesting dynamic to see Rekha play a character who is trying to play that character.

Introducing Dave

Dave comes up to the store after introducing the first few characters and how they watch their "TV characters" in various scenes.

Dave is a Gen X'er trying to keep up appearances with the dye in his hair, and how he tries to keep it all together before the IRS comes for a visit.

He clearly has issues with donuts in his parking lot, as they "ruin his tires" or something like that. I think Dave is the character we all like to dunk on.

Russell Feeld / Jennifer Drips

Dave's introduction concludes by asking Liv to call Russell to take care of the leaks. That takes us away from the store and into the house Russell and Andy share.

Russell seems like an interesting handyman who is there to care for Dave's needs. However, something about his vibe is off to me.

He has many people on his phone but only a few contacts. Russell has this one person away who is sending him pictures. Overall, he seems to be suppressing a lot of issues.

In stark contrast, we have Jennifer Drips, who feels like a character who took inspiration from Natasha Romanoff, a.k.a Black Widow.

I wonder how Russell's abilities will come into play while "driving" Jennifer.

Andy 'Dang' Litefoot / Greck Stocks

Andy is Jacob's introduction to the dome. And we love to see an unhinged, chaotic character.

Andy seems unhinged as we discover that an entity talks to him daily at 16:20 (420). He seems to be working with Russell, but I'm still unsure what his expertise is.

As the episode progresses, we see Greg Stocks, who is heavily inspired by 007 James Bond. Just put him in an impossible situation, and you're golden.

I Can't Believe You're Closing Down!

Between all the introductions, we see some clients arriving. They ask why the store is closing, and a little discussion ensues. Wendell asks, "Are you planning to buy anything?" to which the client answers that he just likes being here. So that's why we're closing." Wendell responds.

Another discussion ensues. Imagine if you had a CD, you could pop it in and watch it whenever. But now, we don't have CDs anymore. We have streaming or perhaps renting and buying from the big content companies.

For example, I bought both of the Avatar movies on Apple TV+. I love that world and want to support it.

However, I couldn't lend that purchase to a friend. It's bound to me alone. If Apple's servers are not working, I might be unable to watch the movie even if I download it to a device. So, what am I actually purchasing here? The right to stream it and have it on my devices.

When you own a physical copy of a movie, you can do almost everything you want with it.

On the other hand, yes, the price went down a lot. I still have all of the Stargate Atlantis CDs I purchased for about $200 back in the day, but now I could buy the content for much less.

Paula Donvalson / Jack Manhattan

Last but not least, we have Isabella Roland (or should I say Mulligan? haha!) playing Paula Donvalson. I just LOVE the tired, divorced energy. Paula's interactions with Dave are out of necessity and feel forced. On the other hand, she swoons over Russell.

Just like Russell, Paula's in-world character is a different gender. I'm pretty excited to discover how Paula navigates being a man.

Her interactions with other characters are precious because she genuinely wants to help—except for Dave, whom she hates. When she perceives Liv stealing, that's one of those moments when she fights internally about what to do about it.

I wonder how it will go after Liv straight-up lied to her face when asked, "If you were breaking the law, would you tell me?"

It's gonna be fun!

Barsimmeon Higgs

Barsimmeon Higgs is the embodiment of Chaos. He was the agent through whom we discovered the "game" of the season, which we'll talk about below. He's also someone who takes Usha Rao's fancy. But first, let's take a moment to appreciate Brennan's ability to play unhinged characters.

This guy gave off Arthur Aguefort from Fantasy High. We meet him as the guy who Dave asks the crew to call to collect his huge debt after renting that one video over and over again.

Wendell calls him and asks for him to return the movie and come pay the bill. We later see Barsimmeon returning to the store to bring the movie. He suggests we all experience that movie one last time when everyone gathers together.

And that movie's name is...

Never Stop Blowing Up

The final moments of the episode depict how each of our characters gets sucked into their movie-world counterparts and how they don't know how to act.

It's really funny to see those moments. It's especially funny to know our cast are playing characters who now need to play other characters. If you go back up in this article and look at the character sheets, you'll see the cast members are playing characters who play other characters.

That's never been done before, especially in such a high-stakes season.

Now, I wonder how this will go. Is this adventure all going to happen in the moments leading up to the IRS agent arriving, and the season will actually end with the shop's closure, or is what the players are doing gonna have "real-life" consequences for their business?

I think it's probably the former, as you can't turn back time and make people buy more physical CDs when they have Netflix. Capitalism is the bad guy you can't ignore this time. So, we must focus on the movie villains we are bound to encounter inside Never Stop Blowing Up.

This way, all characters learn something from this experience and are free to go about their new ways after the season is over.

Predictions For The Next Episode?

I predict the next episode will be about finding each other in the Never Stop Blowing Up world.

We saw each character in their first moments as their new selves; now, we need them to find each other and discover what's happening. If this is a movie, it has a plot. And that plot will move forward by their actions and the actions of a villain or multiples of them to initiate conflict. What is a story without conflict, right?

What do you think will happen in the next episode? Let me know in the comments below!