Red Dead Redemption II | Ep. 24 – We Escaped the Law Just to Find Another Man’s War

Arthur Morgan rides again as our Red Dead Redemption II adventure reaches Episode 24. Escaping the law should have brought some peace and quiet, but apparently we’d found somebody else’s conflict instead. Different place, different problems, same extraordinary talent for attracting trouble.

We were still on Guarma, hoping to return the favour to the revolutionaries who’d helped us escape. Getting off the island was another matter entirely.

🤠 About the Game

Red Dead Redemption II follows Arthur Morgan and the Van der Linde gang, outlaws on the run as federal agents and bounty hunters close in. They must rob, steal and fight across the rugged American heartland to survive.

Keeping the gang together is becoming harder, especially when the people making the decisions aren’t exactly inspiring confidence. Dutch is a particular concern, as this episode demonstrates.

🏝️ Where We Are in the Journey

Last time, we’d begun Chapter Five on Guarma. After being captured and escaping with help from the revolutionaries, I saved at the first point where we technically had free roam again.

The map offered two markers: Dutch and a highlighted stranger mission. I chose the stranger mission first, hoping to repay our hosts before finding our way back to the gang. This is still my first playthrough, so I don’t know how much of the game remains.

💥 What Happens in This Episode

We started by having a look around Guarma and checking the map to see what we could actually do. There were two mission markers available: one for Dutch, who I still don’t understand as the leader because he’s completely useless, and another for a stranger mission. I decided to tackle the stranger mission first, figuring it was about time we returned the favour to the revolutionaries who’d helped us escape.

That mission was Savagery Unleashed, and things went wrong almost immediately. We approached a man hanging from a tree, and I thought we’d probably have to pull out our gun and shoot him down. No sooner had I thought that than Arthur was hit in the neck by a poisoned dart. Next thing we knew, we’d been captured, tied to a chair and were being interrogated by a very angry chap.

Fortunately, we managed to rock ourselves out of the chair and escape with the help of another captive. We then had to sneak through enemy territory, avoiding guards and spotlights, to rescue three more prisoners who were hanging by ropes. I thought our companion might help by cutting them down while we dealt with the guards, but apparently that was asking too much. Instead, I had to shoot down their ropes while enemies started attacking us, eliminate everybody who was causing problems, and finally cut the remaining captives free ourselves. We got out of there okay, though, and at least we’d managed to help the locals.

Next, it was time to visit Dutch and begin A Kind and Benevolent Despot, which involved rescuing Javier. Getting there was interesting enough because the cowboy sat nav seemed determined to send us on a completely different route. I was convinced there must be a more direct way across, and eventually discovered a path near the top of the waterfall that led underneath the town.

Once we caught up with Dutch, the mission started pretty much how you’d expect when he’s involved. We met an old woman called Gloria, who was supposed to guide us through the caves, but she demanded more gold for helping us. Dutch responded by killing her. Whether or not she was actually planning to betray us, I think he was going to kill her anyway. I really don’t understand why anybody continues to trust him. He’s a terrible leader, and he seems to make every situation worse than it needs to be.

We continued through the caves, made our way into the compound and started sabotaging the equipment in the sugar refinery. The idea was to blow up the factory, create a diversion and rescue Javier while everybody was distracted. Naturally, once we’d done the difficult part, Dutch made his escape and left us dealing with the soldiers who were chasing us. We had to hold our position, fight off the attackers and gradually fall back until we could finally get away ourselves.

Shortly afterwards, we moved into Hell Hath No Fury, and this was where the game seemed to become absolutely glitched to hell and back.

When we climbed up into the tower, I noticed two enormous wheels standing by themselves. There was clearly supposed to be something between them, because I couldn’t walk through the gap. Some invisible force was stopping us. It turned out there was supposed to be a cannon there, but the cannon itself hadn’t rendered properly!

We then had to push this cannon into position while the fort was being attacked. Visually, however, it looked like Arthur was pushing thin air with a couple of wheels attached. The whole thing was quite amusing, especially considering how serious the battle was supposed to be.

It reminded me of an episode of The Penguins of Madagascar, where Kowalski invents an invisibility ray. While he’s testing it, something goes wrong and the machine accidentally turns itself invisible. King Julien thinks somebody is performing a mime routine and starts jumping around pressing the invisible buttons, eventually sending the weapon on an invisibility-ray shooting spree. Watching Arthur push this invisible cannon immediately brought that scene back to mind.

Chat noticed the problem too. EntertainJD called it the invisible cannon, Frodo thought it was brilliant, and asmith501 pointed out that Rockstar had one job. At least we could all have a laugh about it, because the mission itself was about to become rather frustrating.

After getting the cannon into position, we were supposed to defend the fort from the attacking forces. We had a perfectly good position up on top of the tower, where we could have been shooting down at everybody. Naturally, the game decided we needed to leave that position, head down towards the beach and fight the enemies on the ground instead.

I’m convinced this sort of stupid strategy must have been Dutch’s idea. He’s certainly demonstrated that he’s no strategist whatsoever.

The problems didn’t end there, either. Once we’d dealt with the initial attack, we started making our way back through the area, but I wasn’t entirely sure where we were supposed to go. We kept getting into firefights, and our companion, who we were meant to be following and protecting, kept getting killed.

I assumed he was standing somewhere near us while we were dealing with the soldiers. Apparently not.

We died several times, restarted from checkpoints and repeatedly found ourselves fighting the same enemies. The game wasn’t particularly helpful about where we were supposed to be going, and it didn’t help that our weapons sometimes seemed to change back to the pistol when I wanted something with a little more stopping power.

Eventually, after another failed attempt, I decided we’d simply follow our companion and see where he went. That was when we discovered he was actually running through the bushes and climbing up a completely different route. We’d been standing there fighting enemies we didn’t really need to deal with, while the person we were supposed to be following had disappeared in another direction.

Once we worked that out, things started going rather better. We eventually reached the cannon and used it to destroy the approaching boat, bringing the mission to a conclusion.

By this point, we’d certainly earned a few appearances from the channel’s running Death Loop joke. EntertainJD even activated JD’s Death Loop Inc., our unofficial sponsor for those occasions when we find ourselves repeating the same section over and over again. It was particularly appropriate tonight.

With the fort defended, we moved straight into Paradise Mercifully Departed. We finally had access to a boat that could get us away from Guarma, but there were still enemy cannons positioned to prevent us from leaving.

This meant another trip into enemy territory, this time under cover of darkness, to destroy the artillery before it could be used against our escape boat. Fortunately, compared with the previous mission, this one went rather smoothly. I still seemed to be doing most of the work, as usual, but we managed to destroy the cannons, deal with the opposition and get ourselves out of there.

Finally, after all the trouble on Guarma, we were heading back to the mainland.

We arrived back in Lemoyne, somewhere along the eastern coastline, and were given a marker to follow. I started running towards it before realising it was actually miles away. That wasn’t going to work, so we turned around and went back for the horse that had very conveniently been left nearby.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t our own horse, Tesco’s Lasagna, but I was hoping we’d be reunited before too long.

The ride back included a rather lovely piece of music, although I had to mute the game’s audio because it was copyrighted. Chat had warned me that the song would start once we got on the horse and began heading back towards camp. It was a very nice song, and I’d quite like to find out what it was called so I can listen to it properly.

Our next mission was Dear Uncle Tacitus, which took us back to our previous camp at Shady Belle.

When we’d originally escaped and ended up on Guarma, I was already convinced that the authorities knew exactly where our camp was. Without Arthur and the others there to defend it, I fully expected the place to be overrun.

Sure enough, when we arrived, everybody had gone.

The Pinkertons were still making visits to the property, presumably hoping somebody from the gang would return. We dealt with the investigators who were there and had a look around the abandoned camp to see if there was any indication of where everybody had gone.

Eventually, we discovered a letter that pointed us towards Lakay, in the swampy area north of Saint Denis. It was written to sound like an ordinary family message, but the reference to where everybody had gone seemed rather obvious.

Surely the Pinkertons must have seen that letter too? I would have thought they’d know perfectly well where the gang had relocated. If you’re going to leave a secret message telling everybody where to find you, it might be a good idea to disguise it a little better!

Nevertheless, we followed the clue north and eventually found the others hiding out at Lakay.

It was good to discover that most of the gang had managed to survive while we were away. Sadie and Charles had done a considerable amount of work keeping everybody together, although things were far from ideal. We also learned that Hosea had been buried and that John was still imprisoned at Sisika, with the possibility of being hanged.

That obviously gives us something important to deal with, although Dutch didn’t seem particularly keen to make John’s rescue an immediate priority.

Speaking of Dutch, he eventually arrived at the new camp, and almost immediately afterwards we found ourselves under attack by the Pinkertons.

I couldn’t help thinking he’d probably been followed. We’d only just managed to find everybody again, and already the authorities were descending on our new hiding place. Another excellent piece of leadership from Dutch, apparently.

This brought us into Fleeting Joy, where we had to defend the camp against Agent Milton’s men. We took up positions, fought off the attackers and eventually managed to turn their own mounted machine gun against them. That made dealing with the remaining soldiers considerably easier, and we were finally able to push the Pinkertons back.

There were a few more problems along the way, including another death and some confusion over our weapons, but at least we managed to get through the attack. The gang survived, although once again it looked as though everybody would need to think about moving somewhere safer.

Throughout all of this, chat was keeping itself entertained as well. We celebrated vvoornth’s 41-month subscription, wished Frodo a happy birthday, and had a couple of rounds of the community Hunger Games. Papasoup60 won one round and immediately declared it rigged, while cheesecollector31 took victory in another.

There were also discussions about upcoming games, fireworks, Star Trek, tea and various other subjects that had very little to do with rescuing anybody or escaping the law. Chat even found time to cast distractions while I was trying to concentrate on the fighting. It wouldn’t be one of our streams without everybody finding something else to talk about while I’m supposed to be playing the game!

We also had a lovely raid from nazx29, which led to an unexpected conversation about how close we were geographically, including Tynemouth and the surrounding area. It’s always nice when somebody new joins the stream and we discover a connection like that.

Towards the end of the evening, we were finally reunited with Tesco’s Lasagna, which was certainly welcome after having to make do with a borrowed horse. We also checked our progress and found that we’d reached 59% of the story.

I had a brief look at a flashing marker around the post office, thinking there might be something we needed to deal with, but there didn’t appear to be an outstanding bounty to pay.

That left us with two mission markers on the map: one for Dutch and one for Sadie.

When we return next Friday, I’m planning to start with Sadie’s mission. After everything that’s happened on Guarma and the mess Dutch seems determined to keep creating, I’d quite like a break from working with him. Anything is better than another Dutch mission, at least for a little while.

I believe we’re probably getting close to the end of Chapter Five, although I really don’t know how much more of the game there is to go. Since this is my first playthrough, I’m discovering it all as we go along.

We finished by saving our progress, thanking everybody for joining us and looking ahead to the next evening’s Mass Effect Legendary Edition stream for N7 Day. We then raided TheGamerDad1287, who was playing Retro Rewind: Video Store Simulator.

So we’ve finally escaped Guarma, found the rest of the gang and survived yet another attack from the Pinkertons. We still need to do something about John, though, and I suspect Dutch has plenty more terrible decisions waiting for us.

At least we’ve got Tesco’s Lasagna back.

▶️ Watch the Episode

You can watch Episode 24 here and see exactly what happened with that invisible cannon and the rather frustrating death loops.

If you’re following the story, there’s the Red Dead Redemption II playlist and my YouTube channel.

Leave a comment, give the video a like if you enjoyed it, and subscribe to follow the next episode.

🔴 Join the Adventure Live

You don’t have to watch the confusion unfold afterwards! Come along to Twitch or YouTube when we’re live.

Help us work out where we’re supposed to go, have a laugh when the game refuses to cooperate, and enjoy the inevitable Death Loop jokes with the rest of chat.

🧭 Community & Links

If you’ve survived Guarma with us, there are plenty of places to keep in touch between streams. Here’s where you can find the community and everything else I’m working on.

Live — Find the next stream and join us for whatever happens:
Twitch | YouTube

Community — Keep the conversation going between adventures:
Discord

Socials — Follow the updates, clips and occasional chaos:
TikTok | Bluesky | Instagram | Facebook | Threads | X

Music — Find my music away from the game’s soundtrack:
Spotify | Apple Music

Support — Help keep the channel going:
Fourthwall | Teespring | Streamlabs

More — Explore my other projects and services:
Business Centre | Download the Brochure | About Me | Blog

🐎 Back with Tesco’s Lasagna, but Not Finished Yet

We’ve escaped Guarma, found the gang and survived another Pinkerton attack. I think we’re near the end of Chapter Five, although I don’t know how much more lies ahead.

Next week, I’m choosing Sadie’s mission first. Anything is better than another job with Dutch for a little while!

Thanks to nazx29 for the raid and everyone who joined us. We finished the night by raiding TheGamerDad1287. See you next Friday for more Red Dead Redemption II!

— Dr Ravenholm