Walker, Texas Ranger

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Walker, Texas Ranger was a combination of of martial arts and modern Western, starring Chuck Norris as Texas Ranger Cordell Walker. Other characters include Cordell's best friend and partner James "Jimmy" Trivette (Clarence Gilyard), Assistant District Attorney Alex Cahill (Sheree J. Wilson), who also serves as his love interest, and veteran Ranger C.D. Parker (the late Noble Willingham).

Subject to much Memetic Mutation in the 2000s. This is thanks, at least partially, to Conan O'Brien, who used to play unintentionally humorous clips from the series on his show by way of the "Walker Texas Ranger Lever". As well as the general Memetic Badassness of Chuck Norris.

Tropes used in Walker, Texas Ranger include:
  • A Birthday, Not a Break: In "A Silent Cry," Darcy Reynolds, the daughter of a deceased cop Walker was friends with is drugged and raped when she goes to her first bar on her 21st birthday. She's left so traumatized she refuses counseling to avoid talking about it. It's only after her mother speaks of her own past and Trivette and Walker beating the crap out of two of the rapists (the other was murdered for having remorse) that she goes through counseling and can recover.
  • Abusive Parents: Sadly some of the villains of the series have their own kids and are just as mean to them as they are to any of their victims.
    • Salvatore Matacio is a drug kingpin who took his son, Nicolas, away from his ex-wife with his high-priced lawyers and was forcing Nicolas to become a carbon copy of himself. His methods of this include blowing up Nicolas' remote control car with C4, letting him fall off a ladder in the library, threatening to have Nicolas' tongue removed when he overheard his father ordering his ex-wife's murder, and even striking him. This bites him in the ass when Nicolas hands Walker his father's gun after it was knocked from Salvatore's hand.
    • Max Kale, a mad bomber, planned to blow himself up along with Walker and his own daughter.
  • Action Girl: Ranger Sydney Cooke from the last two seasons. She hits exactly as hard as her heavier-built male counterparts. In "The Avenging Angel" during a fight, a mook punched her in the face and she looked more annoyed than hurt.
  • Action Series
  • All Just a Dream
  • Always Murder
  • Antagonistic Offspring: Two examples:
    • In "Eyes of a Ranger" the main villain, Brad Alt, is the son of Ramsay Alt, a very wealthy industrialist with so much influence that even Walker had to set his Cowboy Cop tendencies aside when Brad became a drug dealer that was stalking a high school country singer. When Trent (not Walker) defeats Brad in the last fight, Ramsay appears and points out even his lawyers can't get Brad out of the mess he made and wouldn't have helped his son even then. Disappointed, Ramsay walks away as his son is arrested.
    • In "Black Dragons" P.K. Song, the secondary villain, is the son of Edward Song, a Chinese diplomat who is a good friend of Alex Cahill. When P.K. assaults Gage, P.K. points out his father's diplomatic immunity which gets him off the hook. However, he's also helping the Black Dragons sell black dot heroin in Dallas and his father is forced to witness how evil his son has become including seeing the dead body of a man that got in P.K.'s way. When Gage defeats him, Edward accepts his son needs to pay for his crimes and lifts P.K.'s diplomatic immunity allowing him to be arrested. Walker then gives the Hard Truth Aesop that sometimes even Good Parents can't protect their children from bad influences.
  • Anticlimax: Given the amount of law-breaking, cop-fighting kickboxers Texas seems to have, when a villain is arrested with relative ease, it can feel like this.
    • Justified with Victor Larue in his last episode. Walker skips a final battle and just shoots him dead since he was now too dangerous and too criminally insane to be allowed to live.
  • Arch Enemy: Despite having only three appearances and being killed in Season 5, Larue was pretty much this to Walker due to his obsession with Alex Cahill and wanting Walker dead for defeating him in "Cowboys". First he kidnaps Alex who was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. When he first attempts to rape her, Walker screams at the phone calling him a "son of a bitch," one of the strongest swears he used in the show and threatens to kill him if he didn't release his hostages. Once he's released on a technicality, he becomes obsessed with revenge against Walker, even framing him for police brutality and even tied him up and put scorpions on his bare chest. Walker escapes and battles Larue after his second attempt to rape Alex. Although Larue had an upper hand due to Walker's scorpion stings, Walker still won in the end. By the time Larue is found fit to stand trial in spite of his insanity, Larue loses what little composure he had left and holds the court hostage demanding Walker's appearance. By the time he attempts to rape Alex for the third time, Walker finally shows up after chasing two convicts. Fed up with Larue's evil, Walker shoots the villain dead, ending his threat once and for all. While the Chairman was Walker's most powerful enemy and Lavocat was the final enemy, Larue was Walker's most dangerous enemy.
  • Attempted Rape: Victor Larue attempted this with Alex three times because of his obsession with her with each attempt foiled by Walker.
    • Brad Alt attempted this with Kelly Wyman when he is interrupted by the Rangers searching for drugs.
  • Badass Beard: Guess who?
  • Badass Police Force: Texas Rangers.
  • Big Damn Heroes
  • Big Brother Is Watching: And the theme song says so; "When the eye of the Ranger is upon you, any wrong you do he's gonna see; when you're in Texas, look behind you, 'cause that's where the ranger's gonna be." An Inversion of course because Big Brother Is Your Friend in this show. But it is a creepy song.
    • It probably was supposed to be creepy. To the evildoers, yeah.
    • Of course, it's the titular Ranger (or at best the people behind him) who gets to say who is an evildoer in the first place. Really, the song's lyrics are a prime example for Unfortunate Implications -- the idea may well have been to paint the ranger as the inevitable long arm of the law who always gets the bad guys in the end, but the way it comes across is definitely more "stranger, if you don't like the idea of being stalked by our all-seeing rangers who know wrong from right better than you anyway, don't come to Texas because we don't want your kind 'round here".
    • It is the law code of the State of Texas which decides who the Ranger has his eye on as with the lawmen of any other state, and those can be read by any visitor willing to take the trouble to. Said law code is made by the Representatives of the Citizens of Texas, subject to it's own Constitution and that of the United States, and in any case in the most important particulars is not to different from anyone else's. Of course, if unfortunately you are affiliated with organized crime or perhaps contraband smuggling, extortion, or speeding on a public highway you really cannot help being nervous of the Eye of the Ranger.
  • Billed Above the Title: Chuck Norris
  • Broken Aesop: How many characters stood up to bullies and thugs, only to get cut down by said thugs a scene or two later?
    • Not so broken: Stand up to evil, even if it means making the ultimate sacrifice.
  • Bulletproof Human Shield: Played ridiculously straight in an episode with a young woman who has been taken hostage and placed in front of a shotgun set to go off at a certain time. Walker finds the villain's hideout, beats him up, and drags him in front of the gun just in time to protect the girl and make the bad guy take the blast. Of a shotgun. True to form, only the bad guy is killed, when in real life, the shot probably would have gone through him, Walker, and the poor girl.
  • Bulletproof Vest
  • Bus Crash Noble Willingham left the show mid season 7, and in the series finale the Big Bad says that he killed his character.
    • Technically he was said to have died earlier (the beginning of the last season?) seemingly from natural causes, and in the finale the villain claims the murder, prompting a second autopsy that confirms cause of death was due to poison.
  • Butt Monkey: Trivette.
  • California Doubling: One of the most notable aversions, filmed on location in Texas.
  • Casting Gag: In one particular episode, at the very beginning, Trivette reads out a piece of literature describing in an almost poetic way of a stand off between two men. Walker questions who wrote it, and is told that Chuck Norris had. He simply shrugs and claims to have never heard of him, earning a track record telling by Trivette of Chuck's achievements in martial arts. Again, Walker says he never heard of him--yet corrects Trivette when the latter makes a mistake in listing Norris' accomplishments.
    • In Season 7's "Code of the West", the four main characters talk about who would play them in a movie. Trivette get Denzel Washington, Alex gets Helen Hunt, C.D. gets Paul Newman and Walker gets...Chuck Norris. When Walker complains they got Oscar winners, Trivette points out that Chuck was a six time World Karate Champion, which please Walker. Good thing since, of course...
  • Cast the Expert: TV reporter Clarice Tinsley plays a TV reporter.
  • Chuck Norris. What a surprise.
  • Clint Squint: Could've easily been called "The Norris Squint".
  • Cool Motive, Still A Crime: In "Trial of Larue", Victor Larue opts for an insanity plea to get out of standing trial. His lawyer says that Victor became insane because his father locked him in a closet and opened the door to whip Victor and feed him dog bones. The judge however asks for a criminal psychologist for his analysis. The psychologist points out that while Victor Larue is indeed insane and criminally psychotic, he still knew right from wrong and was deemed fit to stand trial.
  • Cowboy Cop: Taken literally, and a key element of the show's premise, though he isn't usually rebellious or rule-breaking.
  • Crash-Course Landing
  • Crazy Prepared: In one episode, Walker, in his pickup truck, is being chased by a bad guy in an attack helicopter. How does Walker deal with this? By pulling out an M72 LAW rocket launcher from the back of his truck. There's no explanation offered; he's just that kind of crazy.
  • Crossover Cosmology: Despite the heavy Christian undertones of the show, there's also episodes that involve other types of spiritual and cultural magic and mythology.
  • Cut and Paste Note
  • Disneyfication: The series starting around "Brainchild" in Season 5. The episode with the kid and his supercomputer best friend, with a script that would have been more at home in a Disney flick.
  • Damsel in Distress (Alex Cahill, nearly an example of Once an Episode)
  • Drowning Pit
  • Dynamic Entry - Chuck Norris flying kicks himself into so many scenes one would be forgiven for thinking this to be his primary mode of travel.
  • Entitled to Have You: In his first appearance, Victor Larue uses this as an excuse for his first attempted rape of Alex Cahill claiming that since he "found" her, she was his.
    • Also in "Eyes of a Ranger" where the main villain, Brad Alt, claims Kelly Wyman as his soulmate just because he discovered her singing talent and wants her to sing only for him. He plots to kill her after she defies him but is arrested for drug dealing before he can make any kind of attempt.
  • Every Car Is a Pinto Amusingly, once, after the villain flies through the back of a pickup truck carrying water cooler tanks, the WATER explodes.
  • Everything's Better with Spinning: His roundhouse kick is a vital part of the Chuck Norris jokes.
    • That's actually ... wait for it.. a spinning wheel kick. Roundhouse kicks involve no spinning at all. Chuck Norris studied Tang Soo Do.
    • Kind of an odd preference as a cop from professional pride if not humanity would in theory want a reasonable proportion of his collars to be alive when brought to the station.
  • Expy: All the characters in the initial Hayes Cooper story; later stories use the actors in different roles.
  • Friendly Enemy: Yoshi Sakaii from the Season 1 episode, "A Shadow in the Night," is a member of the Yakuza seeking to kill the congressman, Leo Cabe, for his role in the death of the Yakuza leader that took him in and sought to make the Yakuza profitable peacefully. Yet despite being a criminal, Yoshi is a good friend to Walker and is the son of the man who taught Walker the martial arts. Walker, despite valuing his friendship with Yoshi, makes it clear he won't hesitate to stop Yoshi from killing Cabe even when he learns of the congressman's corruption. Walker tries to convince Yoshi to testify against Cabe but when when Cabe aims a gun at Walker, Yoshi takes the bullet while making it clear only he can defeat Walker. He survives the gunshot and escapes from the hospital.
  • Good Cop, Bad Cop
  • Good Guns, Bad Guns: Strangely applied even to cars.
  • Good Guy Bar: C.D.'s Bar and Grill famous for its chili. It was closed after C.D.'s death.
  • Handy Cuffs
  • Hate Sink: From murderers, drug dealers, rapists, corrupt officials, child abusers, and Victor Larue, a lot of villains in this show have little to no redeeming qualities making it satisfying when Cordell, Jimmy, Gage, or Sydney beat the crap out of them.
  • Hello, Attorney!: Alex Cahill
  • Hero of Another Story: There was an additional pair of Texas Rangers that showed up when the plot required more police be involved, but their names escape me.
    • Previously stated Action Girl Sydney Cooke and Francis Gage, whom, amazingly, after being added to the cast got just as many or more story lines as the Originals - Trivette, Alex and Walker.
  • Hey, It's That Guy!: In the last season episode "Medieval Crimes," you'll spot Josh Holloway (aka Sawyer from Lost) as part of a cheesy Ren-Faire restaurant gang that robs jewelry stores. It was one of his first credited TV roles.
  • Hey, It's That Voice!: Cam Clarke is everywhere in this show. Usually he's just a background voice on the radio or TV, but occasionally he dubs over other characters when they're off screen. One time he actually dubbed a villain who was on screen, which created a huge dissonance the next time you hear the guy and he has a voice that actually looks like it would come out of him.
  • Hoist By His Own Petard: In the Episode, "A Father's Image", the villain Salvatore forces his son, Nicolas to go up a ladder and tells the boy to jump and trust that he'd catch him. When Nicolas jumps down, Salvatore lets him fall to the floor and tells his son not to be so trusting. During the final battle with the Texas Rangers, Salvatore's gun is knocked from his hand and grabbed by Nicolas. Salvatore tells Nicolas to trust him and give him the gun but his son instead hands it to Walker. Salvatore angrily yells at his son saying he trusted him. All Nicolas can say is he trusted his dad. Bobbie Hunt and even Salvatore's facial expressions lampshades this.
    • The final villain, Emile Lavocat, is killed when Walker pulls the pin on Lavocat's own grenade.
    • Zig Zagged with Max Kale in "Blown Apart." Max doesn't fear death but seeks to kill Walker and his own daughter with his last bomb strapped to his chest. Thankfully, Walker subdues the mad bomber giving his daughter time to escape. In the scuffle, the previous detonator used to bomb Max's old neighborhood falls on the suicide vest's detonator but Walker escapes the blast leaving Max to face the one thing he did fear.
  • Holding Out for a Hero
  • Humiliation Conga: In the episode, Lost Boys, Lawrence Patterson is a corrupt yet charismatic lawyer that's up for a Humanitarian of the Year Award who used his powers to recruit juvenile delinquents into the ranks the main villain's gang. When his attempt to force Carlos's nephew to take the blame for the death of a cop is revealed, he is faced with the following before he can receive the award:
    • Walker announces he has a warrant for Lawrence's arrest in front of the crowd honoring Lawrence.
    • Carlos calls him a bloodsucking lowlife that frames little kids for murder.
    • Carlos slams Lawrence's head on the table smearing his face with a cake when he resists arrest and forced out of the building.
    • Off screen he is likely found guilty of his crimes, sentenced to prison, permanently disbarred, his Humanitarian of the Year Award rescinded, and a lot of people who may have looked up him now see him as the criminal he is and his reputation forever tarnished.
  • Identical Grandson
  • Indian Burial Ground
  • Insanity Defense: Victor Larue attempts this to get out of the death penalty. Unfortunately for him, while he was insane, he still knew right from wrong and was deemed fit to stand trial.
  • Invincible Hero: Most "fights" in the series are short, one-sided beatdowns, though this is partly due to most of the criminal population of Texas having "punch cop" as their default response to feeling threatened.
  • It Never Gets Any Easier
  • Karma Houdini Warranty: Because Dallas is so infested with crime, many criminals have gotten away with their actions for years and profited from it with Salvatore Matacio having a computer system to rival NASA just from dealing drugs as one such example. However the episode they're in means it's finally time for Walker to bust them.
  • Kick the Dog: The villains tend to do half a dozen of these before the episodes are over.
  • Kung Foley
  • Magical Native American
  • New Old West
  • Never Bring a Knife to A Fist Fight: All the damn time.
  • Nice Hat: Walker, Trivette hell it's Texas so lots of people have nice Stetsons.
  • Or Was It a Dream?
  • Poorly-Disguised Pilot: Sons of Thunder.
    • Averted and played straight. To elaborate, the two-parter Sons of Thunder spends an absorpent amount of time focusing on new characters Trent Malloy, a Mini-Walker Expy that Doesn't Like Guns, his best friend Carlos, and Trent's troubled family. Despite the set up, Trent and Carlos continue to appear on the show afterwards to help the main characters. It wasn't until two years later that a spinoff did happen. It didn't last long, and the characters were never seen or mentioned again in spite of Walker lasting for several years after the fact.
  • Ranger
  • Rapid-Fire Typing
  • Reality Is Unrealistic: Walker is clearly White, so why are they trying to get the audience to believe that he's half Native Am--wait, what do you mean Chuck Norris is half-Cherokee?
  • Redemption Rejection: Alex tries this the first time she meets Victor Larue, telling him that any attempt to do the right thing would be taken into consideration by the judge. He rejects the offer and later attempts to rape her.
    • Alex also attempted this with the Trammel brothers in "Survival". The eldest brother's response is to pelt her in the stomach so hard she starts coughing.
    • Mad Dog in the episode "Mr. Justice" rejects any attempt at rehabilitation and attempts to escape after knocking out Walker and stealing a gun. Averted with the other delinquents who end helping Walker and subduing Mad Dog. This gets Mad Dog sent to real prison with no hope of escape while the other delinquents not only redeem themselves but become officers of Camp Justice to rehabilitate other teens and young adults.
  • Remember the New Guy?: The series finale revolves around a gang of criminals, that we had never seen before, breaking out of prison and taking revenge on Walker who supposedly arrested them around the time the first season would have taken place.
  • Repeat Cut (Walker's signature roundhouse kick, often in slow motion, no less)
  • Roundhouse Kick (Walker's famous finishing move)
  • Salt and Pepper: Walker and Trivette.
  • Shout-Out: The scene in the episode Lost Boys where Lawrence Patterson's crimes are exposed just as he is to receive the Humanitarian of the Year Award could be a reference to the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Heart of Ice" Where Ferris Boyle's crimes are exposed just as he is to receive the Humanitarian Industrialist of the Year.
  • Small Role, Big Impact: Yoshi Sakaii from the Season 1 episode, "A Shadow in the Night," is the son of the man who taught Cordell Walker the martial arts.
  • Sniff Sniff Nom: "A plane crashed here."
  • Spy Catsuit
  • Stalker with a Crush: Victor Larue with Alex Cahill in "The Return of Larue." Well as much as a purely evil psychopath can have a crush on someone.
    • Also Brad Alt with Kelly Wyman in the episode, "Eyes of a Ranger."
  • Stuffed Into the Fridge
  • The Aggressive Drug Dealer
  • Too Powerful to Live: The Chairman.
  • Turn in Your Badge: Trivette is temporarily suspended due to accidentally shooting a child but it turns out the shot came from the criminal.
  • Unconvincing Instant Ecstasy[context?]
  • Very Special Episode
  • Villainous Breakdown: The entirety of "Trial of Larue" is this. While he was always insane, Victor Larue often managed to keep himself together and hide his madness, albeit very poorly. However once he is deemed fit to stand trial, he knows he'll get the death penalty and loses all composure and becomes an even worse monster than he already was and showing how insane he really is by threatening a little girl, killing several people, including the judge, his own lawyer, the criminal psychologist, and even another criminal disgusted with Larue. When Walker, a man that spared the lives of the criminals that murdered his first love and even his own parents, finally shows up, he shoots Larue dead, without a word.
  • Visions of Another Self: The Series Finale has parallel stories of the modern day characters and a set of Old West counterparts.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: One episode where Cordell Walker was supposed to rescue a girl who was trapped in a Christian cult camp ended up having the last several minutes of it focused on Walker rescuing Alex Cahill from the cult camp, leaving the intended rescue target's status in question.
  • World of Badass
  • Would Hurt a Child: Several villains on the show have shown a willingness to either harm or even kill children.
  • Wouldn't Hit a Girl: There are rarely female villains presumably because of this, and if it comes to a fight, another woman has to do it. That said, the moments where Chuck does indulge in this showed up quite frequently on Conan, such as the third one in this segment [dead link].
    • However, this trope has not applied to villains, as there are many episodes where the bad guys freely and remorselessly strike women at will, only to get it from Walker and Trivette in the end.
  • You Have Failed Me...: Several villains have killed their underlings for failure.
    • Victor Larue shot and killed his lawyer for failing to get him an insanity plea.
  • Your Days Are Numbered: In "Trial of Larue", in spite of his insanity, Victor Larue is deemed mentally fit to stand trial for his past crimes. Because of this he knows he was going to get the death penalty and even if he was given a helicopter and money, it'd be a trap.
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