Red vs. Blue: The Recollection/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Season 6: Reconstruction

  • Complete Monster: O'Malley/Omega, while evil, was at least both Evilly Affable and somewhat ineffectual. The Meta, however, has no such redeeming traits.
    • Agent South Dakota is a petty, self-obsessed murderer who is more than willing to betray and murder her closest friends and her own brother just for the sake of personal power.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: The Meta's theme, aka "(When) Your Middle Name Is Danger".
  • Epileptic Trees: Church took over the Meta and used Wyoming's time control ability to escape the "Ehmp"? Epsilon is in Caboose? For a web series created by a bunch of self-proclaimed drunk guys, Red vs. Blue seems to get a lot of plot analysis.
    • Burnie even addresses this by saying that people sometimes get the plot exactly right in the forums.
      • Although Word of God is that the above-mentioned bit isn't one of those times.
  • Fanon: Among other things, York and Maine's real names (James and Theodore, respectively,) and that Washington was a survivor of Reach.
  • Funny Aneurysm Moment: After Caboose leaves Rat's Nest, the blue in charge says that things are finally looking up for the team. The next time we see the Blue Base of Rat's Nest, all of the Blues have been killed by the Meta.
  • Spotlight-Stealing Squad: From here on out, the series is for all intents and purposes about the Freelancers, and the Blood Gulch boys simply happen to be caught up in a greater drama.
  • What Could Have Been: The commentary for Reconstruction reveals that an unused alternate scene (meant to be played behind the monologue of the final episode) was to show The Meta using Omega as a projectile, causing one Freelancer security agent to kill another, then leave the other vulnerable.


Season 7: Recreation

  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Lopez became more popular every episode, mainly because of the aforementioned reason.
  • Epileptic Trees: C.T. has created many, mostly in regards to who it was that ordered him to go to Sandtrap. The fact that Washington seems to know him (or rather, her) in Revelation and said that it was "impossible" for her to be there only adds to them.
  • Funny Aneurysm Moment: Remember this line from last season?

Delta: I believe that Agent Washington's sanity is well within acceptable deviations, for now.

    • Well, by the end of Recreation, "now" is officially over.
  • He's Just Hiding: When Wash shot Donut, theories involving holograms sprang forth from the discussion boards on the site. (These were quickly Jossed.)
  • Moral Event Horizon: Washington shooting Lopez and Donut. Neither had posed anything near a threat to him, and he just shot them. And while Lopez is a robot, Washington probably didn't know that. And even if he did... For Donut, there was no excuse. In fact, he killed the two characters who had nothing to do with his incarceration!
    • The sponsor-only ending of Episode 13 of "Revelation" confirmed that Donut is in fact alive. While this could be explained by Wash intending to kill but failing, think about it for a second. Wash has been shown to swiftly execute anyone he intends to kill. Somehow miraculously shooting non-fatally seems a little odd for him, so he probably knew Donut would survive. And technically, Lopez isn't dead.
    • Though considering that Donut managed to take out Tex, that may be more than enough reason for Wash to kill Donut the first chance he got.
    • He most likely had intended to put Donut into recovery mode so that he could interrogate him for information and still look like a cold blooded murderer to scare Simmons into co-operating.


Season 8: Revelation

  • Crowning Music of Awesome: During the showdown in Episode 10. The score can be found here. The link contains spoilers.
    • Also, the inspirational tune from Sarge's "Do you ever wonder why we're here?" Speech in episode 18.
    • The utterly epic battle in Episode 19 is accompanied by equally epic music. It's also in the credits and episode 20 and is in fact called "Red Versus Blue."
  • Funny Aneurysm Moment: Tucker tells Tex and Church not to come and ask the other Blues or the Reds for help if they die again, as they usually do, when they go to arctic Freelancer Base. A couple episodes later, The Meta stabs a two-foot spike into Tex's helmet.
  • Ho Yay: By this point, Caboose is practically Yandere for Church. The soundtrack takes this much farther.
  • Narm

Washington: Get them, Meta. Get them!

  • Nightmare Retardant: Before he cracked wise to his handler, lost most of his enhanced abilities, and carted around medics embedded in giant slabs of stone, The Meta was actually pretty terrifying. He gets back into Nightmare Fuel when he gets his powers recharged.
  • Tear Jerker: Episode 20 provides many moments:

Epsilon: Caboose, here, pick [the rapidly failing capture unit] up.
Caboose: I can't, Church.
Epsilon: Yes you can. You do this all the time.
Caboose: Yeah, I don't want to.

    • Later, in the same scene:

Epsilon: (To Caboose) If I don't come back, then... you're in charge of remembering me, OK? Don't let Tucker help, he'll just fuck it up. Goodbye, buddy.

    • Later...:

Caboose: Come on, Church. You can do it. Do you hear me? You can.. run towards my voice! ... Church...? Are you there? ... Church...?

  • The Woobie: Caboose. When you stop to think about it, after Reconstruction, he was alone. He needed someone in his life to look up to, but without his "best friend," he was the only Blue in Valhalla. And then, by the end of this season, Cabooses loses his closest friend all over again.
    • By the same token, Alpha/Epsilon-Church and Tex. The former has been put through hellish tortures by both his template and aspects of his own personality, all of his endeavours always wind up fruitless, he never accomplishes anything, and his love for Tex is largely unreciprocated on her part. As a result, Alpha became an antisocial Jerkass Woobie and Epsilon - being the much nicer incarnation of Church - an old fashioned Woobie. Tex, the latter, is literally designed to fail at everything she does. An Iron Woobie if I ever saw one. Since her "resurrection," she only wanted to find out why she existed, if she had any destiny outside her designated role. It doesn't turn out well for her. Hopefully, at the end of this season, there's some measure of happiness awaiting either.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks: This has been the reaction of part of the fan base towards the fancy new CGI moments. Many of the older viewers enjoyed Red vs. Blue for its use of a limited toolset (i.e. "pure" machinima) to tell stories, while others believe that the new focus on action detracts from the series' classic humor.
  • The Woobie: Epsilon-Church becomes this.
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