Red Dead Redemption II | Ep. 20 – There’s a Grave Waiting Somewhere for Every Outlaw

Arthur Morgan returns as our Red Dead Redemption II journey reaches Episode 20. The world is changing, the law is never far behind, and life as an outlaw comes with the uncomfortable knowledge that every road eventually reaches its end.

Tonight gave us a bit of everything: the conclusion of a side story I have really enjoyed, another unpleasant visit on behalf of Strauss, a rescue mission that required considerably more restraint than I would have preferred, a pair of escaped convicts, and a trip through a Saint Denis cemetery that introduced us to another potential Death Loop.

We also somehow found time to plan what we are going to play after Red Dead Redemption II, despite the fact that we are nowhere near finishing it yet. Apparently planning stream nights years in advance is perfectly normal now.

🎮 About the Game

Red Dead Redemption II follows Arthur Morgan and the Van der Linde Gang, a group of outlaws trying to survive while federal agents and bounty hunters gradually close in around them. The gang has to rob, steal and fight its way across the rugged heartland while the world around them becomes increasingly hostile to the outlaw way of life.

It is also a game where the quieter moments matter just as much as the gunfights. You can spend one part of a stream slowly riding across some beautiful countryside, talking with chat and helping somebody take photographs, only for the next section to end with Arthur being completely destroyed by an ambush on the road.

🐎 Where We Are in the Journey

We are currently working through Chapter 4 around Saint Denis — I believe that is what it is called, and that is what I am calling it today. Episode 20 also brings us close to the 40% mark, so we have made a fair amount of progress while still having a very large game ahead of us.

Before moving further into the main story, I wanted to clear some of the side missions that were still scattered around the map. We are also continuing our refusal to use fast travel. The scenery is far too good to skip, so if a mission is halfway across the map, we are riding the horse all the way there.

⚠️ What Happens in This Episode

Our first destination was Albert Mason for what appeared to be the fifth and final part of Arcadia for Amateurs. Before touching any of the main story missions, I wanted to clear some of the side content still scattered around the map, and Mason was sitting roughly halfway north from where we had started.

That meant a fairly substantial ride, because we still are not using fast travel. The scenery in Red Dead Redemption II is far too good to skip, so if somewhere is on the opposite side of the map, Tesco’s Lasagna is getting us there the old-fashioned way. It also gives us plenty of time to get distracted, take the occasional wrong turn and wonder exactly where we were supposed to be going in the first place.

Eventually we reached Albert Mason, who was standing on a cliff edge photographing eagles. He looked dangerously close to the drop, confidently explained that he was not stupid enough to simply fall off, and then, to absolutely nobody’s surprise, fell off.

Thankfully Arthur managed to grab him and pull him back up. Mason decided that perhaps photographing eagles from the edge of a cliff was not worth dying for and headed home, bringing what seems to be his storyline to a close. I have really enjoyed those missions, so it was a shame knowing that we probably will not encounter him again. It reminded me a little of Cyberpunk 2077, where you could spend several missions getting to know a character before receiving one last quieter scene that wrapped up their part of the story.

With that finished, we had to ride all the way back south toward camp for Money Lending and Other Sins, which I believe was part five. Strauss sent us after money owed by Algie Davison at Catfish Jackson, although finding the actual house took slightly longer than it probably should have.

I first investigated a small outbuilding and spent some time trying to work out how we were supposed to get inside. Eventually I realised there was a considerably larger house sitting off to the side, which was a useful clue. Even then, nobody appeared to be home until I spotted what looked like someone slumped beside a log down near the water.

My first thought was that we had found a dead body and were somehow going to have to rummage around for the debt. Instead, it was Algie, very much alive and very much drunk.

He brought us back into the house and offered us a drink, which immediately made me suspicious. We have already encountered that strange brother-and-sister house earlier in the game where accepting hospitality turned out to be a particularly bad idea, so I was not in a hurry to repeat the experience.

It turned out that refusing the drink did not make things any safer. When Algie went to open the box supposedly containing the money, things became violent and we ended up in a fistfight. Unfortunately, I once again could not remember what the fighting controls actually were, so the tactical solution became pressing buttons until eventually the other bloke stopped being a problem.

After that, the debt collection became a full house search. We rummaged through cupboards, checked anything that looked remotely lootable and eventually found Nate Davison hiding underneath a bed. He told us there was money hidden in his footlocker, which covered what Strauss was owed.

Naturally, having found the money did not mean we immediately left. We had already gone to all the trouble of coming out there, so we continued looking around and helping ourselves to whatever Arthur could carry. Even the beans were apparently worth taking.

The ride back to camp then produced one of the more abrupt moments of the evening. A group had set up an ambush along the road and, before there was much opportunity to work out what was happening, Arthur was completely shredded by a hail of gunfire. There appeared to be a Gatling gun involved, so that particular road was immediately removed from the return journey.

That also introduced what I believe was the first proper Death Loop of the evening, a phrase that naturally kept returning whenever things went wrong afterwards.

We took a wider route back, handed the money in and spent another period crawling around camp at the painfully restricted walking speed. I still try to avoid spending longer than necessary inside camp because Arthur apparently loses the ability to jog the moment he crosses the boundary.

After turning the debt in, I noticed Strauss outside beside a carriage and assumed he was about to give us another job. He was not. He was simply standing there looking at his books, so with the debt collection complete we moved on.

While we were already in camp, No, No and Thrice, No became our next mission. Tilly Jackson had been taken by the Foreman brothers, so Arthur headed out with Susan Grimshaw to bring her back.

The rescue itself went fairly smoothly. We dealt with the men guarding the place, found Tilly and got her safely outside, but then learned that Anthony Foreman was away from the hideout and needed to be brought back alive.

That “alive” part immediately complicated matters.

On the first chase I assumed there was only one person we were supposed to be following, so I had the rope ready and dealt with the first target before realising there were more gang members further ahead. By then they had opened too much distance and the mission failed.

The second attempt went rather differently. Now that we knew what was coming, Tesco’s Lasagna was absolutely floored along the road. We kept much closer to the fleeing gang, took out the first two riders and eventually caught Anthony Foreman. Arthur managed to lasso him, tie him up and bring him back to Tilly.

Susan wanted him killed, but Tilly had a different idea. She wanted him left alive so he could return to the others and tell them exactly what had happened, hopefully making it very clear that coming after her again would be a poor life choice.

We sided with Tilly and let him go. Whether that act of mercy causes trouble somewhere further down the line remains to be seen.

From there we headed toward Rhodes, where another side mission appeared. The Ties That Bind Us introduced Mr. Black and Mr. White, two escaped prisoners who were hiding outside town while arguing with each other beside a tree.

They wanted food and clothes, but the immediate problem was that wanted posters featuring their faces had been placed around Rhodes. Their solution was to send Arthur into town to remove the evidence.

Finding the posters required a little wandering because they only seemed to become obvious once we were reasonably close to them. Most came down without much trouble, although one man insisted on standing directly in front of a poster and refused to move.

This naturally became a fight.

It was around this point that chat quite reasonably asked whether I could go five minutes without getting into one.

Once all the posters were removed, that appeared to end the current stage of the mission. I went back toward the tree where we had originally found Mr. Black and Mr. White and searched around for their campfire, because they had suggested we would find them nearby.

Nothing appeared. It was daytime, though, so there is a possibility that their next encounter only becomes available at night. That gives us another reason to head back toward Rhodes during a future stream.

There was also some horse confusion along the way because Arthur apparently now owns two horses. A second one started following us around, and Mr. Smith mentioned that the same thing had happened in his own playthrough after temporarily borrowing a horse for a mission. So for the moment, we appear to have accidentally acquired an extra member of the travelling party.

The stream itself was fairly busy outside the game as well. Flyingfox21 managed to win their first channel Hunger Games, while Frodo provided perhaps the most important gameplay assistance of the evening by asking, “You save lately?” Always useful in a game where several hours of progress can disappear because nobody remembered the save button existed.

Shimcraft also arrived after birthday drinks, so we naturally wished him a happy birthday. A conversation about the huge HMS Victory tattoo he is planning somehow wandered through other tattoo ideas and eventually reached Final Fantasy.

That ended up settling something we had apparently forgotten to plan.

Our Saturday Bethesda night has already followed Fallout: New Vegas into Skyrim, then Fallout 4, and we are currently working through The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. Whenever that eventually finishes, Starfield is already waiting.

Friday nights had a similar plan when we moved from Cyberpunk 2077 into Red Dead Redemption II, but I could not remember what we had decided would come afterwards.

It turns out we had not decided.

After talking it through with chat, we settled on trying Final Fantasy, a series I have somehow never played, and starting with Final Fantasy VII. I do not imagine we are finishing Red Dead Redemption II this year, so that may well become a 2027 project, but at least Friday night now has a destination somewhere far beyond Saint Denis.

Before worrying about that distant future, however, we still had a main story mission waiting. We headed back toward Saint Denis for Angelo Bronte, A Man of Honor, continuing the search for Jack.

Bronte was immediately an interesting character. Arthur and the gang needed Jack returned, but Bronte had his own small problem first: people had been robbing graves in the local cemetery without giving him his share.

That sent Arthur and John into one of those wonderfully atmospheric cemeteries filled with tightly packed mausoleums. I have seen that style of cemetery in films and television plenty of times and have always liked how they look, although wandering through one at night while hunting grave robbers probably is not the ideal sightseeing experience.

We made our way deeper inside, dealt with the grave robbers and recovered what Bronte wanted. Unfortunately, by that point the police had arrived.

This seemed like the perfect moment for what we call a Halo Run.

The principle is simple: instead of carefully solving the problem, run very quickly toward the end and hope the game gives up before you die.

It almost worked.

We got painfully close to the cemetery entrance before being gunned down, which meant repeating that section. While looking for alternatives on the restart, we found a fence that looked entirely climbable. There were plenty of obvious footholds, and I maintain that even with my broken hip I could probably have managed it.

Arthur and John apparently disagreed.

Instead, we had to make our way back through the cemetery properly. On the second attempt we slowed things down, crept through with our companion, reached the main gates and escaped before the police could turn the whole thing into another Death Loop.

With Bronte’s job complete, Jack was finally returned and brought safely back to Abigail. Camp immediately turned into a celebration, which was good news for everybody except me because it also meant various activities were temporarily unavailable.

For a moment there were no missions showing on the map at all, leaving me wondering whether we had somehow cleared everything currently available. Once the celebration moved along and we got far enough away from camp, the game finally started behaving normally again.

Most importantly, it allowed us to save.

The progress screen showed us sitting at almost 40% of the game, which is not bad considering there is still an enormous amount of Red Dead Redemption II ahead of us.

That seemed like the right point to stop for the week. Next Friday we may need to advance time a little to get the next missions moving, perhaps by setting up camp, doing some hunting or simply heading out to explore until something appears. I also want to head back toward Rhodes at night and see whether Mr. Black and Mr. White are waiting around that campfire.

Once we had finally climbed out of the saddle for the evening, we sent the stream onward with a raid into Kingyork1985, bringing another Friday night in the Wild West to a close.

So after one cliff rescue, an unpleasant debt collection, a Gatling-gun ambush, Tilly’s rescue, a convict poster cleanup, a failed Halo Run through a cemetery, Jack’s safe return and the unexpected scheduling of Final Fantasy VII sometime in the distant future, I think we can safely say we made reasonable use of the evening.

🎬 Watch the Episode

If you want to see Albert Mason’s cliff-edge mishap, the Catfish Jackson debt collection, the first Death Loop, Tesco’s Lasagna at full speed and our unsuccessful attempt at a Halo Run through the cemetery, you can watch the complete episode below.

Watch Red Dead Redemption II Episode 20

You can follow the full playthrough through the Red Dead Redemption II playlist, and you can find more videos on Dr Ravenholm on YouTube. If you enjoy the episode, please give it a like, leave a comment and subscribe so you can follow the rest of the journey.

🔴 Join the Adventure Live

The videos show what happened, but the livestream is where decisions such as sparing Anthony Foreman, remembering to save the game and apparently scheduling Final Fantasy VII for some point in the distant future actually happen.

Come and join us live on Twitch or YouTube. Chat is always welcome, whether you are helping with the game, joining the running jokes or simply reminding me that I really should save before the next Death Loop begins.

🏕️ Community & Links

The stream may end, but the conversation normally carries on afterwards. If you want to stay connected between episodes, you can find the rest of the community here.

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🌙 The Map Goes Quiet

By the end of the night Albert Mason’s story had reached its conclusion, Strauss had his money, Tilly was safe, Mr. Black and Mr. White had considerably fewer wanted posters to worry about, and we had survived another visit to Saint Denis with Jack safely back at camp.

For now the map has gone quiet, so next Friday we will see whether advancing the time brings the next missions into view. If not, there is always hunting, exploring and another trip toward Rhodes after dark. Hopefully Tesco’s Lasagna remembers which one of our two horses he is by then.

— Dr Ravenholm