Red Dead Redemption II | Ep. 21 – The Devil Rides Fast, So Keep Your Horse Faster

Arthur Morgan returns for another chapter of our Red Dead Redemption II journey. Trouble is never far away, the frontier keeps getting more dangerous, and when the devil comes riding after you, there’s only one sensible response: hope your horse had a decent breakfast.

Tonight’s episode brought two unexpectedly cooperative trains, another encounter with Mary Linton, a trip to the theatre, and some rather unfortunate events in Rhodes. We also attended an extravagant party in Saint Denis, where I discovered that being invited into polite society doesn’t necessarily mean behaving politely.

Of course, with chat providing plenty of distractions along the way, things didn’t always go quite as planned.

🌄 About the Game: Life on the Run

Red Dead Redemption II follows Arthur Morgan and the Van der Linde gang, a group of outlaws struggling to survive as the American frontier begins to disappear. With federal agents and bounty hunters closing in, the gang must rob, steal and fight their way across the country while trying to stay one step ahead of the law.

It’s an enormous open world filled with towns, wilderness, characters and side stories. Alongside the main storyline, there’s always something else to investigate, whether it’s an unusual encounter, an unexplored location or a mission that doesn’t turn out quite as expected.

🧭 Where We Are in the Journey: Chapter Four

We’re continuing my first-ever playthrough of Red Dead Redemption II, having reached Chapter Four. Although I’ve played through the original Red Dead Redemption and Undead Nightmare several times, this is my first experience of Arthur Morgan’s story, so I’m discovering everything as we go.

Last time, we’d completed the cemetery mission in Saint Denis and returned young Jack Marston safely to camp. We’d also worked through the available side missions, leaving us ready to explore what the next part of the story had to offer.

My usual approach is to complete side quests before progressing too far through the main story. Tonight, that meant revisiting some familiar characters before getting involved in Dutch’s latest plans.

🔥 What Happens in This Episode

We opened the evening with a crash, which seemed like a fitting introduction to another Red Dead adventure. Once everything was running, we found ourselves somewhere in the wilderness, conveniently close to some railway tracks. Hearing a train approaching, we immediately jumped onto Tesco’s Lasagna and headed off to investigate. Moving trains have been surprisingly elusive throughout this playthrough, so naturally we had to ride alongside it for a closer look.

Even more surprisingly, another train appeared while we were heading back towards camp. We’ve spent entire evenings travelling alongside railway tracks without seeing a single one, and suddenly two appeared within minutes. Apparently, the railway company had finally decided to run a service.

Back at camp, we encountered one of my regular frustrations with Red Dead Redemption II: the painfully slow walking speed. Arthur can gallop across the countryside, outrun trouble and survive gunfights, but the moment he enters camp, we’re reduced to crawling along at a snail’s pace. We couldn’t even jog, and naturally the next mission required us to go upstairs.

Eventually, we found a letter from Mary Linton, beginning “Fatherhood and Other Dreams.” Mary needed Arthur’s help again, this time because her father had been drinking, gambling and getting himself involved with some rather questionable characters. He had also managed to sell her mother’s brooch, which was understandably causing a bit of a problem.

Our destination was Saint Denis, or “Dennis” as I continued calling it, where we met Mary at her hotel before accompanying her towards the warehouse district. Things were going reasonably well until we became rather distracted by conversations with chat. Between discussions about GTA 6, Xbox cloud gaming and tictaqjim’s plans for a Raspberry Pi-powered alien-tracking project, keeping track of the actual mission became increasingly difficult.

At one point, we completely lost the person we were supposed to be following, resulting in the first #Deathloop of the evening. After recovering from that little mishap, we eventually found ourselves chasing a carriage through the streets. I wasn’t entirely sure what the game expected us to do, having missed some of the instructions while chatting, but eventually discovered that we could leap onto the carriage.

With the carriage stopped, we dragged out the gentleman responsible for acquiring Mary’s brooch and gave him a good slapping until the situation was resolved. The brooch was recovered, Mary was happy, and I was left wondering whether we could steal the carriage as well. It seemed a shame to leave something potentially valuable just sitting there.

With that little adventure completed, Mary suggested a trip to the theatre. I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d agreed to, but we accepted and settled in for approximately fifteen minutes of entertainment.

The performance itself featured several acts, including music, stage tricks and plenty of theatrical spectacle. Unfortunately, it was about halfway through before I realised we could actually applaud and cheer. As I’ve mentioned before, the microphone arm covers the bottom corner of my ultrawide monitor, which occasionally hides rather important gameplay prompts.

The theatre also introduced a copyright problem. Some of the music couldn’t be broadcast, so I had to temporarily mute the stream audio. I suggested using our jukebox to provide an alternative soundtrack, only to remember that it uses the same audio output. Cheesecollector31 redeemed a record, but nobody could hear it anyway. We briefly considered singing along with the subtitles instead.

Meanwhile, chat was providing its own entertainment. Happy_cat_lady’s jump scare had startled Cheesecollector31, while Stryker_500 was trying to find an Australian Panadol advert involving cheese. Naturally, this became an important mission of its own, although finding the advertisement proved surprisingly difficult.

There were also conversations about ghost-hunting programmes, Netflix’s Haunted Hotel, and the ongoing alien-tracking project with tictaqjim. I even shared the discovery of Foiling the Dragon, a childhood book I’d been trying to identify for roughly thirty years. Somewhere among all this, asmith501 attempted a Pokémon hunting contract and failed to defeat a Grumpig. A fairly normal evening, really.

Once the theatre performance finally finished, Arthur and Mary shared a quieter moment as he escorted her towards the trolley. Mary wondered whether they could leave everything behind and run away together, but Arthur’s responsibilities to the gang prevented him from making that commitment. It was a rather touching end to the mission, although I still questioned why anyone needed a trolley to travel such a short distance across town.

Leaving Saint Denis behind, we headed out beneath an absolutely beautiful misty skyline. One thing Red Dead Redemption II does exceptionally well is its scenery, and there are countless moments when the landscape looks good enough to use as a desktop wallpaper.

Our next destination was Rhodes, where I wanted to investigate a possible continuation of an earlier side mission. We’d previously helped Mr Black and Mr White, two escaped prisoners, by removing their wanted posters. They had mentioned finding them around a campfire, so I wondered whether returning to the area after dark might reveal another mission.

Unfortunately, nothing appeared on the map. We did, however, discover another wanted poster being held by someone in town. I attempted to take it, fumbled the controls slightly, and somehow ended up shooting the poor fellow instead.

As you can imagine, the residents of Rhodes weren’t especially pleased with this development. We tried making a quick escape, but things escalated rather rapidly, and Arthur ended up getting gunned down. Another #Deathloop, and another reminder that accidentally shooting the locals tends to have consequences.

After respawning, we decided that perhaps the next encounter with Mr Black and Mr White wouldn’t become available until we’d progressed further through the story. This is my first playthrough of Red Dead Redemption II, so I’m discovering these things as we go rather than knowing precisely when everything unlocks.

With that little mystery temporarily put aside, we returned to the main story and began “The Gilded Cage.” Dutch and the gang had received an invitation from Angelo Bronte to attend a rather extravagant party at the Saint Denis mayor’s mansion. This meant abandoning our usual outlaw appearance and getting dressed up in some considerably more respectable clothing.

Unfortunately, the party also meant surrendering our weapons, which didn’t seem particularly sensible considering the company we were keeping. I immediately wondered whether we could bring dynamite instead. Apparently, this wasn’t the sort of social gathering where shooting everyone was considered acceptable behaviour.

Once inside, we were introduced to various influential figures from Saint Denis, with Bronte helping Dutch establish connections among the city’s wealthy and powerful. There were conversations to overhear, opportunities to investigate and plenty of guests wandering around the mansion.

I discovered afterwards that there were several different things we could have explored during the party. Somehow, though, I managed to find the person we needed remarkably quickly.

Our first little assignment involved an argumentative drunk who was making a nuisance of himself. We escorted him away from the gathering before returning to speak with the mayor. From there, our attention turned towards a servant moving through the mansion, and we began following him inside.

What followed was a rather awkward stealth sequence. Some of the NPCs seemed remarkably oblivious to Arthur wandering around where he probably shouldn’t have been, but we still needed to avoid drawing too much attention.

There was also one gentleman who had been particularly unpleasant towards a woman working at the event, going so far as to slap her. Naturally, I wanted to give him a good hiding. Unfortunately, trying to confront people during a stealth mission isn’t necessarily the best approach, and we had to concentrate on the actual objective instead.

We eventually followed him upstairs, waited for an opportunity and managed to get into the desk containing the ledger we needed. With the document secured, we made our way back out and rejoined the others before leaving the party.

The evening had provided Dutch with several promising opportunities, including talk of the trolley station, high-stakes gambling and other potential targets around Saint Denis. Of course, whenever Dutch starts talking about another grand plan, I immediately become suspicious. His schemes rarely seem to unfold quite as smoothly as he promises.

By this point, we’d made some decent progress through Chapter Four, with the overall story sitting at approximately 45% completion. We’d helped Mary, recovered her brooch, survived the theatre, investigated Rhodes and gathered information at one of Saint Denis’s most exclusive gatherings.

We also had plenty of unfinished business. Mr Black and Mr White remained missing, Arthur’s relationship with Mary was still unresolved, and Dutch had several potentially dangerous ideas waiting to be explored.

With our objectives completed for the evening, we decided to leave things there rather than begin another lengthy mission. I thanked everyone for joining us, mentioned the upcoming streams and movie night, and we finished by raiding into OurChickenLife, swapping the increasingly troublesome Wild West for something a little more peaceful.

Next time, we’ll return to Red Dead Redemption II and see where Dutch’s latest plans take us. Whether that involves a successful robbery, more trouble with the law or another entirely avoidable Deathloop remains to be seen.

At least Tesco’s Lasagna is ready for another ride.

🎬 Watch the Episode

If you missed the livestream, you can catch the complete adventure below, including the train encounters, the rather distracted carriage chase, our theatre visit, the unfortunate events in Rhodes and the party at Saint Denis.

Watch Red Dead Redemption II Episode 21 on YouTube

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You can also catch up with previous episodes through the Red Dead Redemption II Series Playlist.

🔴 Join the Adventure Live

There’s always something happening during our livestreams, whether we’re progressing through the story, investigating side quests or getting distracted by something entirely unrelated to the game.

If you’d like to join us while we’re playing, come along to Twitch or YouTube Live. Chat is a big part of these evenings, and you’re always welcome to join the conversation.

You might even help prevent another Deathloop. Although, judging by tonight’s events, I wouldn’t guarantee it.

🤝 Community & Links

Our adventures don’t have to end when the stream finishes. There’s plenty happening across the community, from discussions and upcoming streams to music, other projects and the occasional unexpected distraction.

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🐎 Two Trains, Two Deathloops and More Trouble Ahead

We’ve made some decent progress tonight, although we still haven’t discovered what happened to Mr Black and Mr White, and I’m not entirely convinced Dutch’s next plans are going to end particularly well.

We’ll continue with more Red Dead Redemption II next time and see what Chapter Four has waiting for us. Hopefully, Tesco’s Lasagna will be ready for another ride, and perhaps we can get through an entire evening without accidentally shooting somebody we’re trying to help.

Thank you, as always, for watching and joining us in chat. Have a lovely day, and I’ll see you in the next one.

— Dr Ravenholm