Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

The first five seasons of Red vs. Blue, with the official collection's name coming from the fact that they take place in the Blood Gulch level of the Halo series. The collection contains 100 episodes, as well as two miniseries, "Out of Mind" and "Recovery One".

Tropes used in Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles include:

Church: Well what about after? You think Omega's just gonna stop after he gets a whole species for an army? He's gonna take over everything Tex, and you're not gonna be able to stop him!

Sister: Wow, he's a badass. He's kinda hot.
Tucker: Tex isn't a guy, she's a girl.
Sister: Ohh, sorry, she's a badass. She's kinda hot.

    • And later, while she is naked during Doc's physical exam:

Sister: Is someone spying on us? Yes! Hot.

Caboose: I have an idea.
(silence)
Caboose: (louder) I have an idea!
Tucker: Yeah, we heard you the first time, Caboose. We were just ignoring you.

O'Malley: I need that computer to compile my evil formulas, and to rebuild the weather machine. Also to download music! Wuhuhahahaha!"

  • Art Shift: Several scenes set in the distant past were done in the style of Marathon, a trilogy of FPS games made by Bungie back in the '90s. And, of course, the series gets art upgrades with each new installment of Halo.
  • Ascended Fanboy:
    • Luke McKay originally began drawing his own fanart of the series and posting it on the main site. Later, he was hired by Rooster Teeth to do the comic strip on the site, after merely suggesting the notion.
    • And Rooster Teeth themselves to a much greater degree.
  • Attending Your Own Funeral:
    • Grif arranges for Sarge's funeral and delivers more of a roast while Simmons tries to take over as Red leader. Sarge himself bemoans how he was cut down in the prime of his life, before being asked to get in the casket.
    • Church arranges for both his and Tex's funeral. Caboose delivers the eulogy. Church is less than impressed.
  • Baa Bomb: The Blue Team tries calming down a bomb named Andy with imagination therapy. One of the images presented was a flock of sheep. "The kind that don't blow up."
  • Back from the Dead: Almost anybody that dies. Taken to an extreme when the characters find themselves in an alternate battlefield with two large, deeply idiotic, constantly respawning armies. Though besides Church and Tex except not (see later series), there are very few actual deaths. Just severe injuries.
  • Badass: Tex, especially when she finally takes it Up to Eleven.
  • Bad Bad Acting: Donut's play.
  • Big Bad: O'Malley. Though Vic, and by extension, Command, appear to be The Man Behind the Man.
  • Big No:
    • Grif provides us with the Big No big enough to end all Big Nos.
    • Church also performs a Big No both of the times Caboose is killed in the time loop.
  • Bi the Way: Sister thinks Tex is hot no matter whether she's a man or a woman.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Pretty much the standard throughout each arc of the series. Blood Gulch ends when Tex betrays the others and tries to help Wyoming and Omega escape with the alien. Instead she, and about a third of the speaking parts in the show, are seemingly killed in a massive explosion. The Freelancer plot is thwarted, but Church is left embittered and everything that's happened seems to have been for nothing. On the plus side, Grif finally gets shotgun!
  • Body Surf:
    • The AI O'Malley moves around through open radio channels.
    • As ghosts or rather, AI, Church and Tex can do this without the use of radio channels.
  • Bound and Gagged: Tex is tied to a tree with rope thicker than most people's arms when captured by O'Malley in season 3.
  • Brainless Beauty: Sister.
  • Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Caboose's dialogue after Tex is captured in season one. "Yep, he's definitely captured... or dead... captured or dead. (gasps) Or captured and dead!"
  • Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Sister is the patron saint of "Wait, what?"
    • "Yeah, I didn't think it was possible [to overdose on aspirin], and trust me, I've tried!"
    • "...but then I thought, who wants to be known as the girl who's had seven abortions?"
    • "I guess I don't have the skills you're looking for. Unless you want to see my ping-pong ball trick."
    • "Yeah? Well they also say girls can't ejaculate, but guess what?!"
  • Brick Joke:
    • "Aw shit, and I was gonna be in charge of confetti."
    • "Yep. I'm Sister. Church's twin brother. I came here in a spaceship that came from the moon."
    • "I guess now we have two bases in the middle of a box canyon." "Whoop-dee-fucking-do."
    • "All I did was rub his neck with some aloe vera."
    • "Why are there 6(4) levers when there are only 4(6) directions."
    • "You ever wonder why you're here?" Used in the last episode.
  • Brilliant but Lazy: Church thinks Grif is the craftiest of the Reds, but Grif never really shows himself as being anything but lazy (except when it comes to his creativity in finding ways of being lazy).
    • This says more about the rest of the Reds than it does Grif. That said, Grif is making a spirited attempt at succeeding where Corporal Klinger failed, deliberately being insubordinate and as useless as possible, so it may be that he actually is legitimately intelligent, but if he did anything to show it, it would screw up everything he's been working on since he got drafted.
  • Buried Alive: Sarge allows this to happen to himself in the fifth season when his dedication to Red Command orders causes him to think he's been killed in action.
  • Butt Monkey: Nearly the entire cast to some degree or another. Grif, Simmons, Grif, Tucker, Grif, Caboose, Grif, Lopez, Grif, Donut, Grif, and Caboose are some of the examples.

Church: Omega is on the loose and I think he may have infected one of your guys!
Sarge: Infected? Initiate Emergency Plan Delta men!
* Sarge shoots Grif*
Grif: OW! What the fuck?! * Collapses*
Church: I didn't say who! I think it's actually Simmons!
Donut: That's okay, that's how ALL our emergency plans start. * Sarge is kicking Grif*

    • Later…

Sarge: Donut! Initiate Emergency Plan Traitorous Simmons Number 11!
Donut: On it! * Shoots Grif*
Sarge: Donut! I said plan 11!
Donut: Where am I going to get a steamroller?

Tucker: Bow chicka bow wow!
Junior: Blarg chicka honk honk!

    • Not that everyone's attempt is appreciated...

Caboose: Hey chicka bum bum!
Tucker: Caboose! What did I tell you about that?

    • The entire cast has "Son of a Bitch!"
    • Sarge has created several, his favorite being "You just got Sarged!"
  • Cluster F-Bomb: The "Warning: Contains Adult Language" message on the DVD box feels like unintentional comedic understatement.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Caboose, who joined the army after mistaking the recruiting center for college and has totally incorrect versions of other characters running around in his head. For instance, Sarge speaks like a pirate, Donut is a girl, Grif is the wrong color, and Church is his stupid vulgar best friend while Caboose himself is intelligent. And Sister is Church's twin brother, who crashed on the 'island' in the "tail section" of the space ship.
    • The incident with Omega occupying his mind is also partially responsible for Caboose's crippling stupidity any time after season two.

Caboose: I know where you can find O'Malley. He lived inside my head for a while, maybe he left an address so I could send his mail. We were like roommates.
Sarge: Sounds like he took some of the furniture when he left. And the carpet. And the drapes. And I wouldn't expect to get that deposit back, if you know what I mean.

  • Cluster F-Bomb: The series is rife with it.
    • The fifth season's DVD acknowledges and has fun with this. One of the features is a "Previously On Red Vs. Blue", which contains every single swear in the series up to the Pelican crashing... and lasts over a minute and a half. If one was made of all eight seasons and the mini-series, it would probably be a good three or four minutes long.
  • Code Name: The Freelancers are named after different American states. Except for poor, poor, Florida... *sighs*
  • Color Coded for Your Convenience: Mostly due to Halo's game engine, each character is visually identified with a color. This changes somewhat once the series upgrades to Halo 3, as the bonus armors and increased customization options allow for more variety.
  • Compilation Movie: One for each season.
  • Conservation of Ninjutsu: One Wyoming: major threat. An army of Wyomings time-duplicates: Cannon Fodder for the Reds, even giving Simmons of all people a Crowning Moment of Awesome. Granted, the Groundhog Day Loop explains how Tucker could handle them, but not the Reds. Or CHURCH, who can be seen sniping a few while the Reds are observing from Blue Base. Notably, when there is only one Wyoming left, the negative affects of the trope apparently haven't worn off, as he is easily interrogated and executed.
    • Tucker is using his knowledge to tell Church where to shoot, and the Reds have the aid of the Warthog and its chaingun. Besides, Sarge, though not a great strategist, is a very competent fighter, so him being able to match Wyoming, especially at close range, is no surprise. And Tex is the one who executes him anyway.
    • Also, the series clearly shows that Wyoming is not a well-rounded combatant. He's more an assassin than a soldier, and only comes out victorious by sneaking up on his foes (ex. his killing of Phil, Crunchbite, trying to ram Tex with a car, and his capture of the blues.) His fight with Tex and York was almost successful simply because he had two soldiers fighting with him and a superior position.
  • Cosmetically Different Sides: Lampshaded
  • Comedic Sociopathy: Just about everyone at one point or another.
    • It's hard to determine just how much is really present, considering that every single character pretty much hates every other character, which may be the cause of a lot of the lack of caring.
    • Sarge is probably the purest example. "I've got a boner for murder!"
  • Commander Contrarian: Grif to Sarge, due to Sarge always having Grif suffer in his plans.
  • Cranial Processing Unit: Lopez the robot has his body blown up and spends season 4 onwards as a disembodied head. Later in season 4 Sarge wants to retrieve a secret message that was hidden in his databanks, and Grif asks if the data would actually be in his head and Sarge cites the logic behind this.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Caboose, when the Berserk Button is pressed, goes on a killing spree, decimating the Battle Creek Grunts. He also has super human strength, being the only one initially able to pick up Andy. Church and Tucker theorize that this is "God's way of compensating."
    • "Kittens covered in spikes! That makes me angry!"
      • "My name is Michael J. Caboose and I hate babies!"

Sarge: "Great Paul's Bunyan, he's like an ox!"
Caboose:"But I have no horns! Or lumberjack friends..."

"I think it would be ironic if we were all made of iron."

Tucker: That actually makes sense.
Church: I know.
Tucker: But Caboose said it.
Church: I know.

"I will devour their hearts and crap out their souls! They will all taste oblivion!... Which tastes just like Red Bull... Which is disgusting!"

  • Fan Fiction: Apparently, Donut has written some of Harry Potter. It involves a bartender and a sailor.
  • Five-Man Band:
  • Flanderization: Almost everyone, though Tropes Are Not Bad as this led to Caboose and Donut becoming even more popular, and funny moments becoming much more common. Caboose goes from being just a bit a slow at the start of the series to borderline insanity, unable to follow a simple train of thought. Tucker goes from being flirtatious to a sex maniac. Sarge's mild bullying of Grif goes to outright attempts at murdering him. Grif's initial laziness and apathy gets cranked up to a phobia of work. Donut goes from being ambiguously effeminate to Camp Gay. Simmons goes from teacher's pet to groveling sycophant. Tex goes from being a skilled special-ops soldier to a legendarily powerful badass. Doc begins a neutral pacifist without extensive medical training (but nevertheless treats Caboose during an active shootout), and ends a man panicked by any sign of conflict, completely incompetent in his supposed area of expertise.
    • Only Church arguably avoided it. He initially played it straight, progressing from rude and impatient to foaming Jerkass. But as his character developed further he came back down again, and actually finished more thoughtful and level-headed than he was at the beginning. Although he occasionally lapses into fits of rage (Attempting to kill Caboose when the latter shows up at High Ground being a good example), he has grown much calmer and even occasionally acts as a fairly kind big brother to Caboose, who, as Burns described, was originally just "a catalyst for getting Church pissed off." Overall, Church seems to have inverted the trope, going from complete Jerkass to more of a cynical, snarky Only Sane Man in a Crapsack World with his own fair share of Hidden Depths.
    • When Omega possesses someone, the result is often in-universe Flanderizaton. In episode 100 when Donut is briefly possessed he goes from being effeminate and Camp Gay to instead talking as though he were actually a woman. And Caboose famously becomes even more stupid after his contact with the AI.
  • Flip Personality: When O'Malley possesses Doc, their body frequently switches personality on a sentence by sentence basis; this is shown by voice and mannerism changes and camera angle changes. The two characters actually hold conversations with each other, or will cut in on what the other is saying to make some kind of wise-crack or amendment. For the most part O'Malley is in control of what they do, however.
  • Foreshadowing: In "Out of Mind", York refers to the fact that "Reginald" always told stupid knock knock jokes in reference to the merger between A.I.s and their partners. Astute viewers will take this, the fact that York says "Speak of the Devil" after Wyoming is mentioned, and the fact that "O'Malley" is a portmanteau of Tex's real name (Allison) and Omega, in order to realize that the time bending, knock-knock joke spouting A.I. Gary is actually Wyoming's partner.
  • For Inconvenience Press One: ("To mark this message as 'urgent', please press eleven.")
    • "THERE IS NO ELEVEN, YOU FUCKING WHORE!!!!"
      • "Ooooh, language!"
    • "For unconfirmed Dutch-Irish, press or say 1 too, as in also."
  • Friendship Moment
    • "CABOOSE! NNNNOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"
    • Also happens when Grif saves Sarge's life from a headshot wound... using CPR.
    • When Wyoming is stabbed by Tucker, Gamma cries out "Reggie!"
  • Fun with Foreign Languages: Lopez's Spanish is intentionally bad, partly because it was obtained using an online translator full of mistakes.
  • Fun with Subtitles: One of the trailers for the first season uses this to hilarious effect. Here it is.
  • Fusion Dance: The Freelancers and their AIs. O'Malley's name is even a portmanteau of his designation (Omega) and Tex's real name (Allison) to form Om-Alli.
    • So is Gary's. Gamma + Reginald = Gary (Ga-Re).
  • Grand Theft Me: Multiple occasions varying from possession by ghosts to O'Malley jumping from body to body.
  • Hammerspace: Characters frequently produce enormous guns out of nowhere. This is, of course, because that's precisely what happens in the Halo games when someone equips a weapon.
  • Have You Tried Rebooting: The Blues try this on Sheila due to her erratic behavior in the fifth season.
  • Heroes Want Redheads: Might be the case with Church and Tex. Virtually all depictions of Tex without her helmet in artwork depict her as a redhead (particularly works by Luke McKay, an Ascended Fanboy, and the image accompanying the page for Tex's theme on series band Trocadero's website).
  • Hidden Depths: Tex goes from a generic mercenary to the only person who seems to actually know what they're doing.
  • Hilarious Outtakes (Each season has a collection of them)

Simmons: The Blues are probably gearing up for an enormous attack right now! At any moment, they're gonna come over that hill, charging, guns blazing, yelling...(Gus loses composure)...fuck!"
(The Blues come running over the hill.)
Church: FUCK!

  • Hired Guns: Tex and Wyoming.
  • Hopeless War: Played for laughs due to the fact that the teams are in a never ending game of Capture the Flag. The creators state that one side exists because the other side exists.
  • Human Ladder: Sarge and Caboose form one to see into a high-level window.
  • Humans by Any Other Name: Apparently "Shisno", the word for humans in one alien language, literally translates to "the feces of the feces of the foulest smelling creature in the universe". Or something worse. It's also used, understandably, as an insult.
    • The character translating it peters out when Church tells him that a skunk's feces doesn't crap. He probably had farther to go.
  • I Am Not Shazam: A bit of an inversion: When Tex explains that every member of Project Freelancer was codenamed for a state, Tucker responds by asking the soldier nicknamed Tex what her codename was. She responds, "Nevada." Plenty of fans believed her, though in their defense the series seemed goofy enough for that to happen, and she delivers the line completely straight.
  • I Can't Do This by Myself: Tex has to rope in the Reds and Blues to carry a bomb for her because she doesn't have the upper body strength.
  • Informed Attractiveness: Tex and Sister. Being that all the characters use the same Master Chief player model (which is male of course) the only way the audience knows that they're attractive is through comments from the male characters (specifically Tucker). Though there was an episode where Sister took her armor off for a physical and the surveillance cameras in Blue Base caught it all much to the delight of Simmons and Sarge (though we the audience don't get to see).
    • Also, Tucker himself and his "striking metrosexual good looks," as noted by Captain Flowers.
  • It's Quiet... Too Quiet: Said by O'Malley:

(gunshot whizzes right past his ear)
O'Malley: ...Now, suddenly it's too loud. I preferred it when it was quiet.

  • Ironic Echo Cut: Played straight and played for laughs.
  • Jerkass: Church. Would be The Neidermeyer, except that he's not technically the commanding officer and is in charge only because Tucker isn't going to do it. Sometimes shows glimmers of being a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, but these redeeming qualities are ephemeral and change subject to the Rule of Funny.
  • Killed Off for Real: York, Crunchbite, Captain Flowers, and eventually Wyoming.
  • Knife Outline: Tex's introduction, using bullets against a wall, and Caboose as the outline.
  • Lampshade Hanging: Church does this after one of the (usually 5-10 minutes long) episodes ends on a cliffhanger:

Church: "Why is it that something dramatic seems to happen exactly every five minutes? I mean, I can't possibly be the only one out here noticing this trend."

    • The series became increasingly self-referential and fourth-wall breaking as The Blood Gulch Chronicles reached its end.
  • Last-Name Basis: Everybody, as they are in the military.
    • Everybody except Sarge, Sister, Doc, and all Freelancer agents.
  • Losing Your Head: Lopez
  • Love Triangle: Sheila to Lopez and Caboose. Type 4
    • For Caboose, this is also a case of Robo Ship.
  • Luke, I Am Your Father: During a near-death experience, Sarge regretted to never telling this to Grif... to mess with him one last time.
  • Made of Iron: Anyone can survive a devastating attack generally unharmed provided it would be funny for them to do so. Any pain or injury will be played for laughs and forgotten as soon as the joke is over. Conversely, this invincibility can be revoked at any point, if the character's death is important for plot reasons.
    • Grif may be the patron saint of this, given his state as the physical Butt Monkey and Sarge's constant attempts to put him in harms way. At one point he takes a shotgun round point blank to the chest, and shortly after takes a Five Rounds Rapid to the face, twice. He is fine.
  • Mental World: Caboose's mind.
  • Miniseries: Out of Mind (five episodes) and Recovery One (four episodes).
  • Mission Control: Vic, who it turns out is really the Mission Control for both teams. See also...
  • Mister Seahorse: Caused by Alien Impregnation.
  • Multiple Endings: In addition to the canonical ending where Status Quo Is Mostly God there are six alternate endings to Episode 100, "Why Were We Here?"
    • "Fight! Fight!": A poorly timed comment from Sarge prompts a free-for-all that ends with everyone dead.
    • "Insert Quarter": Sarge tries to call for support from Command, and when Vic proves uncooperative, Sarge destroys the computers controlling Blood Gulch, which then proclaim him the winner of "Red Vs Blue", the Japanese credits for which then roll. The episode then cuts to a Halo 2 postgame screen with the kill/death stats of the eight major characters throughout the series (Caboose's kills are at -1 because a teamkill subtracts from your score, Tex's kill count is at Halo 2's maximum of 99, etc.), revealing the whole thing as "the weirdest [death]match [they]'ve ever played". After some Xbox Live-style banter (which really makes it unclear whether it's the characters talking or just the creators using their handles in a game), they decide to play another match with "same teams" but a "new map".
      • And, as a matter of fact, they do. As of Recreation, the Blues and Reds have been resettled at Valhalla.
    • "Invasion": Starts the same way as "Fight! Fight!" but before Sarge can finish mocking the Blues, he is blasted by a Banshee. Everyone is killed by Aliens, who then proceed to take over the bases and act out the events of Episode 1.
    • "Ruby Slippers": Church back during Season 1, having only been knocked unconscious by Sheila's cannon fire. He describes his dream to Tucker, Caboose, and Jacobs, who he apparently forgot about, before Simmons and Grif show up. Church tries to speak to them about the events of his dream, but they just hose the Blues down with machine gun fire, killing them all. The Reds (complete with Sarge's original, nasally voice) then prepare to move on to the next zone.
    • "Tex Wins": When Church screams for Tex to come back, the ship turns around (with Andy presumably having been deactivated). The ship then fires a missile at the Blood Gulch soldiers, killing them all.

Sarge: ... Aw, snap.

    • "Where Are They Now?": The death scenes from "Fight! Fight!" play in sequence, but as each character is killed, a short caption comes up, revealing a strange future for each.
  • Multitasked Conversation: In season 5, before Sarge and Donut find Grif and Simmons after they fall into the cave beneath Blood Gulch, Sarge communicates with Simmons via their helmet radios. Donut's radio is broken, so he is completely unaware Sarge isn't talking to him.
  • My Friends and Zoidberg: How Sarge refers to his soldiers. And Grif.
    • There's also the occasional, "Men! Donut!"
  • My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels: Donut's high school Spanish.

"Lopez, do you know what time it is? I am going to the beach with my cousin who likes to play tennis. I ate a pencil. Adios!"

    • And Lopez' terrible Babelfish Spanish. One prime example is when he's translating Vic's message and somehow French gets in there.

"OK, hombre! Au revoir."

  • Not in the Face
  • The Not-Secret: When Simmons is pretending to be a Blue soldier, Church immediately knows it's him, but pretends not to in order to torment him.
  • The Neidermeyer: Sarge
  • One-Liner Echo: In Out of Mind, York and then Delta later on: "It's just part of what makes us human." Also used a few times in the main series, most notably in the time travel arc with "team-killing fucktard" and "Parabola of Mystery."
  • Once an Episode: Or once a season to be more specific. Once Tucker's "Bow-Chicka-Bow-Wow" catchphrase is introduced, he says it once and once only in each season (except for multiple times in one episode of season four).
  • Only Sane Man: Church, who is usually the only person to both understand when a crisis is happening and be motivated enough to do something about it. Most of the other characters are either one but not the other, or neither. Tex might qualify in some episodes, but she has a habit of going Axe Crazy, and often pursues her own agenda to the detriment of the others.
  • Other Me Annoys Me: Current Church isn't particularly fond of the Director; for his part, the Director seemed to get easily annoyed by Alpha!Church.
  • Our Ghosts Are Different: Church and Tex. Sarge, briefly. Then it turns out they aren't ghosts at all. Washington is incredulous at everyone's belief that they are- reacting in much the same way a person would in Real Life. Also, Sarge wasn't a ghost. Rooster Teeth confirmed that he was in recovery mode, like Donut in Revelation.
  • Our Lawyers Advised This Trope: The season one DVD had a parody of the FBI warning.
  • Pink Is for Sissies: Donut's custom color.
  • Precision F-Strike
    • Son of a bitch!
    • SON OF A BITCH!
    • MADRE DE DIOS!!! Translated as "Mother of God!", but captioned as "Son of a bitch!"
    • See For Inconvenience Press One for another gem.
    • In the episode "Where Credit Is Due":

Simmons: Sarge, I'm not sure Grif knows what he's talking about.
Sarge: Grif doesn't know what he's talking about, eh? Stop the fuckin' presses.

  • Pre-Mortem One-Liner:
    • "Or my personal favorite: You just got Sarged. "
    • Church attempts this with O'Malley in Caboose's mind, but fails utterly.

Church: I've got half a mind to kill you, and the other half agrees!

Donut: Caboose, stop reading your stage directions.
Caboose: You told me I was supposed to read anything with my name in front of it.
Donut: Just the lines, not the blocking. You're ruining my big debut!
Caboose: I do not think we are meshing, artistically. I think you should talk to my agent.

  • Reclusive Artist: Dan Godwin has gone on record that he finds any sort of fame or recognition from the series strange and uncomfortable. Others at Rooster Teeth have claimed this is why he avoids appearances at conventions, and on podcasts or commentaries (and is quiet when he does appear). Godwin has remained at his day job throughout the series (unlike most of the cast, who now work full-time at Rooster Teeth), resulting in Donut being written in and out of the series depending on Godwin's schedule and other commitments. (Similarly, Tucker was written out of Reconstruction during Jason Saldana's absence).
  • Reindeer Aren't Real: Episode 2:

Grif: No, like a puma. It's a big cat, like a lion.
Sarge: You're making that up.

    • And later...

Sarge: (pointing at the front of the Warthog) Look, see these two two hooks? They look like tusks, and what kind of animal has tusks?
Grif: A walrus.
Sarge: Didn't I just tell you to stop making up animals?!

  • Rule of Funny: Whether or not people can understand Lopez tends to be based on how funny it is (most notably O'Malley, who is generally able to understand Lopez perfectly, and yet can still be tricked into insulting himself in Spanish).
  • Rule of Three: The running "Son of a bitch" gag is usually done three times in a row.
  • Running Gag: Among others:

Donut: It's not pink, it's lightish red!

    • Tucker never gets the sniper rifle. The first time he did, he accidentally shoots Tex in the ass. Then he Took a Level in Badass with it.
      • After this, Tucker's obsession with using the sniper rifle died down significantly. The fact that he found his own badass weapon (the Sword) also had something to do with it.
    • Church's horrible aim, especially with the sniper rifle. He usually only hits people by accident, or when the Rule of Funny makes it possible. In Reconstruction this gets Flanderized to the point that he fires an entire clip at an enemy two feet away and misses every time.

I swear to God, I think somebody fucks with the sights on this thing when I'm not looking!

    • People who die say "HURK!...blehh." People react to hearing explosions by yelling "SON OF A BITCH!"
      • In the "Kill Them All!" ending, everyone says, "SON OF A BITCH!"
      • People being possessed say "HEEGAKURGURK".
    • Tucker gets covered in "black stuff" whenever going through teleporters.
    • Shotgun! (shouted by either Grif or Simmons every time a new vehicle shows up). Followed by "Fuck!" from whomever didn't win.
  • Samus Is a Girl: Tex.
  • Screams Like a Little Girl: Donut. Ironically, the actual girls don't.
  • Series Fauxnale
  • Set Right What Once Went Wrong: ... And failing multiple times.
  • Shout-Out: When Tucker notes that as a ghost, Church's gun would at best fire "ghost bullets", he quips "Hi, I'm Casper the friendly bullet!"
  • The Slow Path: In season 3, Church becomes trapped in the past and must wait until he catches up to the present...which takes about a thousand years. Fortunately, he has a robot body, which still somehow grows a beard. However, it could've been from Gary's deceit.
  • Snipe Hunt: Episode 3, and Hilarity Ensues afterwards.
    • Tucker's big quest with the alien is all just a ruse to get him knocked up. Yeah.
  • Spanner in the Works: Tucker and Sarge in the finale. To elaborate, Tucker's acquisition of the energy sword gave him the ability to remember events from alternate timelines created by Wyoming's temporal device and kill him. Sarge then leaves a bomb in the Pelican simply to kill the Blues, and in the process stops Omega's plan to conquer the universe. With the Revelation in chapter 17 of Revelation that the Reds and Blues are just low ranking simulation troops, this puts their defeat of Omega in a different light.
  • Sound Effect Bleep: Most swearing isn't censored, but in one instance, "Son of a..." is cut off by an Earthshattering Kaboom.
    • Due to e-mail requests and concerns about younger audiences, episodes of the second season had fewer expletives in general, and bleeps over those that made it in. This caused an even larger backlash from people demanding the swearing be put back in. Rooster Teeth, as explained in the second season DVD commentary, responded by introducing Caboose's mental image of Church, who swore more than any other character. Third season episodes were offered in censored and uncensored versions before the idea of censorship was abandoned.
    • Most of the swearing is intact on the episodes shown on Halo Waypoint; however a joke in episode twenty which probably could be considered particularly offensive was bleeped out.

Doc: I'm a pacifist.
Caboose: You're a thing that babies suck on?
Tucker: No dude, that's a pedophile.
Church: Tucker, I think he means a pacifier.

  • Something Blues: "Blood Gulch Blues", the show's theme.
  • Sorry I Left the BGM On: Played with when music begins to drown Church out and he angrily demands to know where it's coming from -- cue the Warthog coming over the hill blasting the polka station on the stereo that Lopez left on. This turns into a Running Gag whenever the Warthog shows up, until the radio is broken in "Reconstruction".
  • Stable Time Loop: Episodes 50-52.
  • Strange Minds Think Alike:

Donut: Maybe, that blue guy who got killed by the tank, came back as a ghost, and now he's possessing Lopez's body. That could also explain why Sarge went nuts when we had the prisoner; the blue ghost probably possessed him too. And the jeep going nuts was probably just a weird set of coincidences, while the guy learned how to use Lopez's body.
Simmons: I think I like the ray beam idea better.
Grif: Yeah rookie, your idea sounds a little dumb.

    • Most famously, episode two's "You mean like a puma?"
    • "Monkeying about" in episode 53.
  • Sword of Plot Advancement: Tucker's sword which he finds in Season 3 ends up being a key in season 4, and sends both him, the alien, and Caboose on a journey to redeem the aliens' race.
    • And then Wyoming goes and screws it all up.
  • Take That: Early in season three, the characters discuss Hollywood post-apocalypse cliches.

Tucker: Naw. Hollywood doesn't understand apocalypse. They think that just one thing from everyday life goes away and that changes everything. Like in Road Warrior it was gas, and in Waterworld it was land.
Simmons: What went away in The Matrix?
Tucker: Sunlight.
Grif: I thought the missing element was plot.
Tucker: I'm talking about Matrix One.

  • Talking to Himself: Several times, given that people play multiple parts. Burnie Burns plays Church, Lopez, Vic, and other voices when needed; he also does foley and sound effects with his own voice, such as grenades hissing and ominous wind. Matt Hullum plays Doc, Sarge, and Wyoming. Later, Nathan Zellner plays Crunchbite and Andy, and Jason Saldana plays Tucker and Junior.
    • Combined to a degree with Inner Dialogue when O'Malley possesses a character; whether O'Malley has what could be considered a separate voice from the possessed regular character varies by character/actor.
    • The first half of episode 43 is a climactic confrontation that gathers most characters from the series thus far. Of the ten characters who speak in this scene (including O'Malley), Burns (Lopez, Church, Red Zealot) and Hullum (O'Malley, Doc, Sarge, Wyoming) play all but three (those being Simmons, Grif, and Tucker).
  • The Faceless: Everyone, by necessity, as the Halo games give everyone helmets; The exceptions are the alien, and Vic. Semi-lampshaded when Church asks Tucker if he's black, after learning his first name (Lavernius).
  • The Password Is Always Swordfish: During episode 74, Simmons regains entry to Red Base by guessing Grif's password, which is "password". Simmons suggests that Grif's new password be 2dumb2live.

Sarge: Gentlemen. They know the code word. There's nothin' we can do.
Grif: Everybody knows our code words!

  • The Smurfette Principle: Tex is the only girl in the show for quite some time, though in a case of Positive Discrimination, she's definitely the best fighter on either team.
  • This Is for Emphasis, Bitch: Given the high amount of swearing, this one inevitably crops up once in a while quite a bit.
  • Throw Away State: Florida. Also a Noodle Incident and Take Our Word for It.
  • Throw It In: Many lines, including one notable case where Donut in the script was supposed to just scream once, but the actor decided that instead he'd run around babbling incoherently while the other characters delivered their lines. Most of the time the cast agrees that what was improvised was better than the actual script.
  • Took a Level In Dumbass: Caboose started out in the series much more normal; but the creators decided to just make him dumber and dumber over time. As a result, he's one of the most beloved characters in the series. There is an in-universe explanation that he became this way due to having O'Malley screw with his mind and witnessing Sheila blow up, but he was still somewhat stupid anyway.
  • Tonight Someone Dies

Sarge: I sure hope it's Grif.

    • It isn't.
  • Two-Act Structure:
    • The second half of the Chronicles is far more plot-oriented (going so far as to Retcon some of the sillier gags from earlier in the series) and ends on a relative downer.
    • The trend towards mythology is amplified further in Recollections, which retcons Chronicles even further and plays some scenes solely for drama; therefore, Chronicles and Recollections follow the trope for the entire Red vs. Blue saga.
  • Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Everybody.
  • Xanatos Roulette: By the end of the series, it appears that everything O'Malley, Wyoming, Gamma/Gary and Vic did was for the purpose of acquiring an Alien child and the sword that would elevate him to the status of leader of his race, so that O'Malley could possess the Alien and use his race as a weapon to win the war. The degree of planning and precision this would require, and using Wyoming and Gamma's time-bending powers to send them to the past and future in order to further manipulate them is implausibly ridiculous (quite in keeping with the tone of the series).
  • Weapon of Choice: Sarge always carries a shotgun, Church always has the sniper rifle (but can't hit anything with it), Tucker eventually gets The Sword, Doc uses the plasma pistol (described as a medical device), and O'Malley (in Doc's body) loves that rocket launcher. When the transfer from Halo 1 to Halo 2 was still fresh, Donut and Tex were usually always seen with Battle Rifles while the others had submachine guns, up until the creators decided to simply give everyone Battle Rifles.
    • When the show was using the Halo 1 engine, all the characters wielded the pistol (with the other weapons making the occasion cameo). This was due to the fact that the characters looked the most natural when their arms were all the way down while using the pistol. When Halo 2 came out, Bungie added a relaxed stance for all the weapons so the characters got specific weapons. Also on the DVD commentary, Rooster Teeth noted that the Halo 2 pistol looked tiny in relation to the characters so they switched to the SMG or battle rifle as a standard weapon.
  • What Could Have Been: According to Word of God, there was originally a concept in which the characters, in preparation for battle, would call out "Go Red/Blue for battle!" This would trigger a Transformation Sequence in which the character's armour would change to the standard red or blue, making the battles appear more like actual multiplayer games.
    • The story was originally going to be about the Reds, with Church and Tucker always observing from the cliff and making comments, a la Statler and Waldorf.
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?: From Looking For Group":

Sarge: I can obviously understand why you'd wanna attack your own base.
Simmons: You can?
Sarge: But painting yourself blue? Dear God man, don't you have any shame at all?!

  • Worth It
  • Why Am I Ticking?: At one point Church ends up in a body that Sarge had implanted a bomb into. Cue this line when it accidentally gets activated.
  • The Woobie: Donut becomes an in-universe example when the other characters briefly believe him dead and spend some time lamenting their deep affection for him. Even Church admits to having liked him. Church doesn't like anyone!
  • A Worldwide Punomenon: A little more obvious when put as a Visual Pun in the logo but "Rooster Teeth" => "Cock Bite".
  • Worst Aid: Doc isn't a very good medic. He was, however, able to safely deliver Tucker's... baby.
    • And for some reason got it to bite Caboose and drink his blood.
  • Writers Cannot Do Math: According to Simmons, he has a real knack for multiplying large numbers in his head. He doesn't.

Grif: What's... 32 times 56?
Simmons: 31,452.
Sarge: Is that right?
Simmons: Yes.
Sarge: That's pretty impressive!
Simmons: I know. It's a gift.

    • The real answer is 1792. Although the spoiler isn't necessary.
  • You Can't Fight Fate: "Nope, no matter how bad they seem, they can't be any better, and they can't be any worse, because that's the way things fuckin' are, and you better get used to it Nancy. Quit yer bitching."
  • You Will Be Spared: O'Malley promises that Vic can be his assistant to crushing every soul in the universe.


Out of Mind (Miniseries between Seasons 4 & 5)

  • Vitriolic Best Buds: York and Delta spend almost all their mutual screentime snarking at each other, but it's clear they're fond of each other especially since Delta is willing to potentially sacrifice his own existence to ensure York dies comfortably.


Recovery One (Miniseries after Season 5)

  • Changing of the Guard: Meet your new main characters, Agent Washington and Agent South Dakota (though the old cast does return in later seasons).
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