Characters / Red vs. Blue - Blue Team

Red vs. Blue Main Character Index
Blood Gulch Crew
Red Team | Blue Team (Leonard L. Church)
Supporting Cast
Project Freelancer (Simulation Troopers | Artificial Intelligences) | Charon Industries | Chorus | Cosmic Powers | Alliance of Defense | Others

Tropes pertaining to the Blue Team of Red vs. Blue. All spoilers for the first fifteen seasons will be unmarked below.

Church

Private Leonard L. Church

"I just want you guys to know that... out of everyone I've ever met, I hate you all the least."

"There's a very fine line between not listening and not caring. I like to think I walk that line every day of my life."

Voiced By: Burnie Burns, Ashley Jenkins ("Get Bent")

The closest the series has to a proper protagonist in the first several seasons — the Only Sane Man, a Deadpan Snarker, and world champion Jerkass, though he does have moments of kindness. A neurotic and almost perpetually angry individual who barely gets along with his teammates, Church is the defacto leader of the Blue Team since their commanding officer, Captain Flowers, died of a heart attack (or an aspirin overdose; it's kind of ambiguous).

Church is killed in a friendly fire incident very early in the series, but quickly returns as a ghost, and later possesses a robotic body. Despite wielding a sniper rifle and acting as the team's designated marksman, he is an awful shot, often emptying an entire clip without hitting anything (in one incident, from two feet away from his target). He wears light blue/cobalt armor, though in "ghost" form his armor is white (and transparent).

Reconstruction offers some surprising character development that explains Church's ability to survive death and possess people: he is actually the remains of the Alpha AI based on the mind of Project Freelancer's Director. Church vehemently insists he's a ghost, not an AI, but is nonetheless willing to work with Agent Washington to fight the Meta, culminating in his erasure by an "emp" at the end of the season.

In Recreation and Revelation, Church is "resurrected" in the form of Epsilon. At first a simple shell of his former self, he slowly begins to reassemble his personality (with the help of Caboose, the other Reds and Blues, the Freelancer Offsite Storage Facility's database, and other digital records), as he tries to reunite with Tex. In the process, he mellows out considerably before trapping himself inside a broken Memory Unit to reunite with and save Tex, whom the Meta had previously trapped inside. Inside, he begins to relive the Alpha's memories of Blood Gulch, reconciling with his past, and realizing that despite the low points, his life was pretty good.

Throughout Season 9, he relives his memories of the Red vs. Blue war through a simulation inside the Memory Unit, eventually reuniting with Epsilon-Tex and reconciling his relationship with her. However, the Memory Unit begins to fail, as the world experiences quakes and he succeeds in resolving his issues with Tex by finally letting go of her memory and deleting her from the simulation. He resigns himself to death, only to discover that the Unit wasn't failing, but was being broken open by the Reds and Blues (now with Agent Carolina) as an attempted rescue mission.

In Season 10, Church begrudgingly goes along with Carolina to find the Director, but they both unexpectedly warm up to each other (much to the chagrin of the others). Church eventually remembers the full story of what he went through as Alpha and how he was created as Epsilon, but after having an outburst when the other Reds and Blues refuse to help (at first) and what he saw the Director become from similar obsessions with the past, both he and Carolina finally decide that it wasn't worth it. After the Blood Gulch Crew crash on Chorus, Church and Carolina leave to investigate without saying a word.

Church and Carolina later return in the second act of The Chorus Trilogy to save the Blood Gulch Crew from the Space Pirates, tell them what's really going on, and work together to save Chorus... as well as bickering with Tucker, who is initially pretty upset about what he did. In the final part of The Chorus Trilogy, Church eventually begins to wear down due to both being overtaxed by Carolina and him ultimately realizing just how old of an A.I. fragment he actually is. Inspired by Doyle's sacrifice, he erases his memories to give the others a fighting chance in their Last Stand against Charon Industries.

It remains to be seen whether this is truly the end of Private Church, but even if it is, his impact on the series is undeniable.

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See his page for more info

Tucker

Captain Lavernius Tucker

"Bow chicka bow wow!"

^{Click here to see him in the Meta's armor} "...I could get used to this!"

"Women are like Voltron. The more you hook up, the better it gets!"

Voiced By: Jason Saldaña, Miles Luna (Season 12 Trailer)

Second-in-command (it was either him or Caboose) and often clueless Bumbling Sidekick to Church, Tucker is the longest-serving of the surviving Blues at Blood Gulch and the main character of the Chorus Trilogy. As disinclined towards work or combat as Grif (he's actually the highest-ranking Blue as a Private First Class, but is happy to let Church take the reins), he repeatedly claims to be a "lover, not a fighter," and utters his Catchphrase at the first sign of a Double Entendre. He's somewhat juvenile in personality, offering pick-up lines to any females he isn't terrified of. He called dibs on Capt. Flowers' blue-green armor when the former died of an aspirin overdose. Tucker may or may not be black, and is quick to point out this shouldn't matter. Despite his reluctance to fight, Tucker's a great shot due to his keen eyesight (which developed because Church always hogs the sniper rifle).

Tucker's role in the plot is increased after he accidentally learns the secret about Red and Blue Command, prompting the hiring of Wyoming to assassinate Tucker before he can spread the news. After the "time travel" incident, Tucker stumbles upon an alien sword that can then only be wielded by him, supposedly proving he is "the chosen one" destined to save an alien race. This results in a failed quest, a dead alien, and Tucker's "impregnation" which culminates in Junior (see below). Tucker somehow manages to figure out Wyoming's temporal loop ability.

Tucker is Put on a Bus along with Donut and Doc sometime before Reconstruction, though an intercepted radio transmission at Command reveals that he's evidently out recovering something buried under some sand. He eventually makes his triumphant return in Recreation, by taking on a group of heavily armed Marines, Elites and a Freelancer Agent by himself (though said Freelancer turns out to be the leader of the Insurrection as opposed to the actual Connecticut).

Tucker is devastated by Church's desertion, and becomes one of the most prominent protagonists in the series in his stead in Season 12. He leads the Green Team in the New Republic, but his squad is reduced to one soldier by the second episode of the season. Tucker holds Church's actions against him when he returns mid-season, but the two eventually reconcile. At the end of Season 13, Church convinces Tucker to don Maine's armor, recovered by Hargrove, in an attempt to give the Reds and Blues a fighting chance against Charon's forces. By Season 15, Tucker's unofficially inherited Church's status as being the closest thing the series has to an overall protagonist.

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Associated Tropes:

• Absurdly Sharp Blade: His sword seems to have the power to cut through any object regardless of size. It's perhaps best shown when he slices a truck sized crate clean in half during "This One Goes To Eleven."
• Accidental Murder: During The Shisno Paradox when he and Sister travel back in time to the events of "Why Were We Here?", Tucker accidentally assassinates Captain Butch Flowers/Agent Florida with a Sniper Rifle when he's trying to see how events are playing out.
• Action Dad: After his Mister Seahorse incident.
• Aesop Amnesia:
  • Season 16 has him backslide into his old womanizing and egotistical ways after Sister shows up, which can partially be chalked up to an overuse of time travel ring him crazy. He eventually has a Jerkass Realization about his behavior.
  • After Season 17 has him realize his ego was majorly affecting his leadership and judgement calls, Season 18 has him bragging about saving the universe to the officers he is training and giving himself all of the credit. Though with Season 19 retconning this into a simulation by Epsilon during the end of Season 13, it doesn't really apply anymore.
• Acquired Situational Narcissism: Deconstructed. He admits him taking a level in jerkass in Season 16 was partially caused by him taking the wrong lessons from Chorus and trying to act like what he thinks a leader should be, rather than actually applying the tactics he learned.
• All Love Is Unrequited: After Kaikaina and Tucker blow up at each other during The Shisno Paradox and he eventually realizes how he's been acting like a raging Jerkass towards her, she quietly tells him in "Lights Out" that she doesn't share his feelings towards her anymore and they would be Better as Friends. While he's visibly crestfallen by this, he seems to ultimately accept it.
• The Aloner: According to Singularity, Tucker's Labyrinth illusion is being left completely alone with the knowledge that his friends are in trouble and there's no way he can help them.
• Ambadassador: By the time of Recreation, he and Junior are this for Sangheili-human negotiations.
• Ambiguously Brown: There's numerous hints that Tucker is black, but nothing's ever confirmed since the Reds and Blues are always in armor and he's voiced by a Latino actor. Notably, his response to Church asking this outright is simply to ask if it matters, and he accuses Sarge of being racist when Sarge says Tex "knocked the black right off him". The fandom generally interprets him as being black, with the majority of fanfiction and fanart depicting him as such.
• Anti-Hero: Like Church, he has shades of the classical variety with his numerous insecurities. Also like Church, he can be a huge Jerkass.
• Arch-Enemy: To both "C.T." (a.k.a. the Insurrection Leader) during Recreation and Felix during The Chorus Trilogy.
• Audience Surrogate: In the later, more serious seasons, particularly The Chorus Trilogy, Tucker represents the viewers who liked the more lighthearted seasons better, and many times mentions he wishes he could just go back to the simpler days at Blood Gulch.
• Badass Bystander: He is more or less the "normal" guy on the Blue Team in Blood Gulch. He has also killed two Freelancers^note Wyoming and Florida/Captain Butch Flowers, though the latter was admittedly on accident and helped kill a third^note The Meta/Maine.
• Badass Normal: Compared to the nigh-superhuman Freelancers, Tucker's relatively weak despite the training he received after The Blood Gulch Chronicles. But he's still leagues above the other Blood Gulch veterans (well, at least when excluding maybe Sarge - who used to be an ODST - and a sufficiently angered Caboose) and even standard UNSC Marines. After all, this was the guy who managed to take out a combined team of Elites and human mercenaries led by a fake Freelancer (albeit one that held his own against Tex) by himself. It should be noted that Tucker has taken on at least 4 Freelancers^note Wyoming, Tex, the Meta/Maine, and Florida (albeit by accident) in the course of the series, and killed one of them twice with both a Sniper Rifle and a Cool Sword.
• Beneath the Mask: After spending the series as a laid-back, egotistical Casanova Wannabe, The Chorus Trilogy has his mask peeled away by the stress of the situation he's in to reveal he's actually massively insecure and far more similar to Church then he'd like to admit.
• Berserk Button:
  • Generally speaking, he gets really pissed off when people don't recognize his armor color as aqua.
  • On a more serious note, don't violate his trust. You will pay for it, as Felix and Temple learn the hard way.
• Better as Friends: He and Kaikaina ultimately seem to decide this by the end of The Shisno Paradox, though it's a bit more reluctant on Tucker's end since he still has feelings for her.
• Big Brother Instinct: Develops this for Caboose as the series goes on. For instance, he admonishes Sarge (who is suffering from sleep deprivation-induced Sanity Slippage at the time) for scaring Caboose in "Nightmare on Planet Evil" during Season 15, and instantly runs to his aid in the same episode when he later hears Caboose yell out in apparent pain. Furthermore, in "Grif Does a Rescue", he threatens to kill Temple for mercilessly breaking it to Caboose that Church is dead for good, and later promises to make the Blues & Reds pay for their transgressions.
• Big "NO!": Played for Laughs in Season 15, with him even giving a Skyward Scream when Spencer Porkensenson serves him a court order for child support payments concerning the multiple children he sired on Chorus.
• Big Ego, Hidden Depths: Tucker's massive ego hides a massively insecure man with a heroic streak.
• Bow Chicka Wow Wow: This if famously his Catchphrase, which he uses whenever someone makes an Innocent Innuendo or Double Entendre.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Possibly even more so than Grif. Though normally a lazy, immature womanizer who spends more time mouthing off to his commanding officers than actually applying himself, Tucker has shown that when he does apply himself, he is capable of some absolutely brilliant tactical decisions. It's best shown with his plans to first break into the Federal Army's Arctic outpost and then to reveal the truth behind the Chorus Civil War in Season 12.
  Washington: You're a capable soldier, Tucker. At least, compared to your usual acquaintances. You just need to... try.
• Butt-Monkey: Tucker is subject to a lot of humiliation over the course of the series, though it alternates between being hilarious (getting punched out by Tex, any time he is subject to Amusing Injuries, being thrown several feet in the air after failing Santa's test) and dramatic (his Humiliation Conga in Season 15, getting stabbed by Felix and nearly bleeding out, nearly losing his son thanks to Sarge's bomb).
• The Bus Came Back: In Recreation, he returns with a major role after making a voice-only cameo in Reconstruction.
• Calling Your Attacks: When using his sword in Revelation, he calls out his "swishes" and his "stabs". It doesn't work with Tex, but does work when he stabs the Meta.
• Casanova Wannabe: His onscreen success rate with women is very low, though not for lack of effort. After activating the Chorus Temple of Procreation following the end of the war on Chorus he finally gets some action, but it bites him in the ass when the many new mothers of Chorus file a lawsuit for child support payments.
• Catchphrase: Says "Bow chicka bow wow" at least Once a Season since Season 4.
• Character Development: Goes from being a Casanova Wannabe to a hero and a leader throughout the series. Season 12 actually has him as the protagonist, focusing on his personal growth and him stepping up to a leadership position. The Shisno Paradox also has him realizing how uncomfortable his Casanova Wannabe traits can be, with him taking a resultant level in kindness in Singularity.
• Character Focus: He is the main protagonist of Season 12 of The Chorus Trilogy.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Makes countless inappropriate comments, but treats the female members of the series' cast with respect and seems to do it all in good fun.
• The Chosen One: He is chosen for the quest with the "Great Weapon" by the Alien. Subverted for the most part, in that the real quest was a Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong. Played straight in Season 7, with him being an ambassador between aliens and humans.
• Classical Anti-Hero: He's an insecure, perverted, arrogant Jerkass, but his heart's in the right place and he's firmly on the side of good.
• Cool Bike: The Sangheili gifted him with one back when he was an ambassador. He had to get rid of it when it ran out of gas while he was being chased by those same aliens.
• Cool Key: Or rather, not all that cool at all for being a key for a Covenant Banshee. But it is cool for being a key to a variety of other alien tech on Chorus.
  Tucker: The sword is a key? Just when I thought this quest couldn't get any lamer.
• Cool Sword: The "Great Weapon", which only he can use, is an Energy Sword that functions as a key in several different holographic terminals, and renders him immune to Wyoming's Time Master skills. By Recreation, it's become his favourite weapon.
• Deadpan Snarker: This gets accentuated as his personality develops.
• Defiant to the End:
  • A non-lethal one. Despite getting his ass handed to him just as badly as the Reds by Tex, he still retains his dignity and badass levels by practically snarking his way through and refusing to give up through almost the entire beatdown.
  • Again in Season 12 when he goes up against Felix, he still manages to get his verbal licks in after being stabbed a couple of times and no longer able to stand. Of course the fact that he just got Felix to spill his deception, his partnership with Locus and the fact that the entire Chorus Civil War was being stage-managed on camera was a pretty good reason to remain defiant. Only when Locus and Felix turn their backs on him, Tucker finally lets his guard down.
• Demoted to Extra: After serving as one of and the closest thing to the main protagonist, Season 18 has Tucker serve as a side character who has a minor role in the plot.
• Deuteragonist:
  • He's actually the tritagonist during The Blood Gulch Chronicles, with Church being the sort-of protagonist and Tex as the actual deuteragonist. In each of the following seasons, either Church or Tucker gets left Out of Focus, but Tucker remains the second most important character in the series overall.
  • He also serves as one during Season 11, with a large portion of the season's plot dedicated to him (and by, extension, Caboose) coming to terms with Church leaving them behind. Tucker again serves as the tritagonist of Season 13, with a large part of the season's storyline revolving around his rivalry with Felix and his struggle to make sure the peoples of Chorus are united against the Space Pirates.
• Disappeared Dad: To Junior from Recreation onward, though they seem to have a good relationship, all things considered. Also to his numerous children on Chorus.
• Double Entendre: He's made of these. He always follows them up with "Bow-Chicka-Bow-Wow!" Even to introduce Episode 69 of The Blood Gulch Chronicles.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Downplayed. In Season 18, he has been brought back into the military to train soldiers, and while he does rib on his troops a bit, he's mainly trying to hype himself up to get them to listen to him.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: The main reason for him and Church butting heads in Season 12 outside of Tucker's anger at Church for abandoning the Reds and Blues from both of them having this with each other, moreso from Church's end. Church treats Tucker like he's the same idiot he was back in Blood Gulch and thinks his attempts at leadership are another display of Tucker's ego, while Tucker treats Church as the same Non-Action Guy he was and becomes overprotective of him, which fuels Church's resentment of him.
• 11th-Hour Superpower: At the end of Season 13, he gets to wield the Meta's armor.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Actually violating a person's consent seems to be utterly off-limits for him. Sure, he might flirt relentlessly and generally act super sleazy, but actually trying to have sex with someone against their will is a line Tucker will never cross.
  • invoked He also finds the Double Entendres made by Buckey - his Evil Counterpart among the Blues and Reds - to be creepy and unsettling.
  • invoked Played for Laughs in The Shisno Paradox, where he gets majorly Squicked out upon learning that the Cosmic Powers practice Brother–Sister Incest.
  • Again Played for Laughs and combined with Hypocritical Humor in Singularity, with him telling Donut (who is using Mental Time Travel to contact him during the events of Season 15) that he's not going to listen to whatever he has to say since he's sick of constantly hearing Donut's Double Entendres and "values his time".
• Everyone Knew Already: Hilariously inverted - If the events of Recreation are anything to go by, he was the only member of the Red and Blues to figure out Church was an A.I. before Reconstruction.
  Tucker: (to Sarge, Grif, and Caboose) Yeah, wait, you guys didn't? Gah, pay fuckin' attention, what the fuck are you guys paying attention to?!
• Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong: The Alien somehow impregnated him with Junior by hovering over him every night.
• Fanboy: For Quentin Tarantino, with Reservoir Dogs specifically being his favorite film ever.
• Fatal Flaw: Lust, Wrath, and Pride.
• Flanderization: Tucker goes from being a flirtatious ladies' man of questionable success to a Casanova Wannabe who attempts to sleep with any woman that'll listen to him for more than ten seconds.
• Foil: To Donut. Both favor weapons that need a strong arm (Donut's grenades and Tucker's Great Weapon), have a knack for alien technology and Double Entendres, and constantly quibble about their respective armor colors. However, Donut consistently claims his armor is lightish-red while Tucker doesn't even know what color armor he is and Donut makes homoerotic Innocent Innuendos while Tucker intentionally makes Double Entendres as part of his Casanova Wannabe schtick.
• Freudian Excuse: invoked While it's never directly said, both later seasons have and Word of God have stated that Tucker intentionally sets up a facade of being a Lovable Sex Maniac to compensate for having massive insecurities and abandonment issues.
• Friendly Sniper: Though he's not really aware of it, Tucker is actually a very good shot, as evidenced when he finally gets to briefly use the Sniper Rifle in Season 5. Also subtly enforced post-Season 10, as he's taken up a Designated Marksman Rifle as his weapon.
• Genre Savvy: Comes with him being a Pop-Cultured Badass. For instance, he's the first to suggest that Grif was still alive after having gone over a cliff at the end of Revelation, and tried to use ideas he had seen in Star Wars to infiltrate a Federal Army base in Season 12. That being said, when his ego gets in the way, he can be quite Genre Blind (such as him not noticing how incredibly suspicious Temple and the rest of the Blues and Reds are for most of Season 15).
• Good Parents: Surprisingly, he turns out to be one for Junior, who he loves and dotes on, and goes full Papa Wolf when he is kidnapped.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: Essentially gets trapped in a small one of these in "Same Old, Same Old" when he learns that he's the only one who can retain his memory in Wyoming's loops. He eventually breaks it by playing dumb and then stabbing a distracted Wyoming.
• Guile Hero: Shows signs of this in Recreation, and has undeniably become one by Season 12.
• Heroic BSoD: Has one after Wash gets shot in the neck, blaming himself for it, as well as for letting Temple manipulate everyone and his sword being stolen.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Downplayed. Getting stabbed by Felix near the end of Season 12 likely wasn't part of the plan, but it still worked.
• The Hero: After Season 10, Tucker takes over Church's role as the closest thing Red vs Blue has to a definitive main protagonist after the latter was Put on a Bus for Season 11 and the first half of Season 12 and then Killed Off for Real at the end of Season 13, usually being the one to lead the Reds and Blues into action and get the most Character Development each season.
• Hidden Depths:
  • It can be a bit surprising to see at first how affectionate and caring Tucker is for his son when he's a real Jerkass the rest of the time (at least in the first few seasons before he Took a Level in Kindness).
  • "Mr. Red vs. Mr. Blue" reveals that he's a massive fan of Quentin Tarantino.
  • His Labyrinth illusion in Singularity shows that he's heavily reliant on having his friends and family around - and not just in terms of needing people to support his ego, but more in that he needs them to help support his own mental issues. It gets to the point where he suffers a panic attack and passes out after only a few hours of being alone.
• Hollywood Atheist: Averted, as while he claims to not believe in any religion or god in The Shisno Paradox, he doesn't really display any personality traits seen in stereotypical atheists.
• Hot-Blooded: Suffers from concealed anger issues, with him slowly growing a shorter temper over the course of the series due to him getting shoved into the status of the Only Sane Man.
• Humiliation Conga: invoked Season 15 is not kind to him. Not only does he learn that his activation of the Temple of Procreation on Chorus led to numerous children he has to pay child support for, but Temple plays him like a fiddle and gets him & his friends thrown in the brig. Then, he learns that the entire reason that he and the rest of the Blood Gulch Crew went out on their mission in the first place - to supposedly rescue Church - was just a massive ruse on part of the Blues and Reds. Finally, his Leeroy Jenkins moment in Episode 17 (caused by his hatred for Temple and desire for vengeance) nearly gets Wash killed and sends him into critical condition. Tucker even bitterly lampshades this, angrily pointing out that just when he thought he was getting "good at this hero stuff, I crashed and fucking burned!"
• Hypocrite: Tucker spends most of Season 12 angry at Church for abandoning the Reds and Blues, even if he had good intentions and was doing something legitimately important (investigating and stopping the Space Pirates), only to do the same thing for almost the exact same reasons to the residents of Chorus. He's eventually called out on it, which ultimately gets him to bury the hatchet with Church.
• Hypocritical Humor: In Season 17, he proclaims he is sick of Donut's innuendos and refuses to listen to them, saying that he "values his time". This is coming from Tucker, king of Double Entendres.
• I Banged Your Sister: He's taunted Grif with this at times. Of course, when Kai returns to the main cast in Season 16, she disagrees ("We had a sex!" "No, we almost had a sex!"), and turns out she was right. Through Tucker's own undoing!
• If You Die, I Call Your Stuff: He called dibs on Butch Flowers' "greenish-blue" armor after his death, replacing his standard issue blue armor (the kind Caboose later has).
• Image Song: "Bow Chicka Wow Wow Wow".
• Improbable Aiming Skills: When he finally gets his hands on a sniper rifle, he gets headshots every time.
• Informed Attractiveness: Captain Butch Flowers describes him as having "striking meterosexual good looks." Being that the series is primarily filmed in machinima and that Tucker is The Faceless regardless, his actual physical attractiveness is obviously left up in the air.
• Interrupted Declaration of Love: When the timeline is about to collapse due to a paradox, Tucker tries to give one to Sister, who he had a large amount of Ship Tease with during the season. Sister interrupts him by saying she already knows before the timeline resets.
• Irony:
  • During Season 2, he tells Church that Grif and Simmons argue like an old married couple, saying how obvious it is that they're "really in love." In Season 11, Sarge and Grif attack Blue Base while Tucker is having an argument with Wash (who's taken Church's place on Blue Team). Grif asks if they're "interrupting some lovers' quarrel or something." The attack itself is also ironic in that it occurs directly after Tucker verbally attacks Wash for his intense training regimen, saying that nothing's going to attack them. Since this is Tucker that we're talking about, you know that it's lampshaded hilariously.
  • Despite the fact that Caboose initially dislikes him for being Church's actual best friend, Tucker actually becomes more like Church (as the Reds and Blues' resident Only Sane Man, Deadpan Snarker, Jerk with a Heart of Gold, and even group leader when Carolina & Wash aren't around) than even Wash has as the series goes on, to the point that he and Caboose eventually develop a closer relationship.
  • In the Halo franchise (which Red vs. Blue takes place in from a Broad Strokes perspective), the ability to wield an energy sword is considered so impressive in Sangheili/Elite society that anyone who can master one can mate with any female they desire. Tucker can't pick up a woman to save his life. But he does get impregnated with an Elite parasite!
• Jerkass Realization: During Singularity, he realizes after he starts listening to Donut's orders as they're fixing the timeline that he's taken the wrong lessons from Chorus, and shouldn't be an arrogant and assertive Jerkass as one of The Leaders of the Reds and Blues. Instead, he should just Be Himself and not be someone that he isn't.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Tucker is a sleazy, immature womanizer, and even cutting that aspect of his personality doesn't make him a Nice Guy. However, he has shown himself to be a brave and loyal soldier as the series goes onward, along with being a considerate and empathetic friend several times over. Furthermore, he significantly matures over the series' course, even becoming the de facto leader of the Reds and Blues when Wash and Carolina aren't around.
• The Lancer: To Church, The Hero. Starting from his takedown of Wyoming, Tucker gradually develops into this by default.
• The Leader: Of the rescue team in Season 12. He also leads the Blood Gulch Crew when Wash and Carolina aren't around in Season 15.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Acts as one in "Quicksave." When Locus suggests a stealthy approach to eliminate the Blues and Reds' grunts guarding the hanger, Tucker prefers to take a straightforward approach, ruining their element of surprise and resulting in them being pinned down. Furthermore, due to provoking a firefight, when a loopy, dehydrated Washington walks straight into the fight, he gets shot in the neck.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: Evolves into this over the course of the series. For all of his rude comments, he treats the female members of the cast with respect and seems to make his Double Entendres only in good fun. What certainly helps is that he takes a beating whenever any of his comments comes across as legitimately offensive and not just absurd-sounding. Notably, when he actually insults Kaikaina and she rightfully blows up at him over it during The Shisno Paradox, he feels immensely guilty over it and (reluctantly) decides that they would be Better as Friends by the end of the season.
• Master Swordsman: Has shades of this in Season 7, but he definitely grows into this by the time of Season 10. Though he still isn't quite as good against faster opponents.
  Doc: And Tucker, you learned to use your sword like a pro!
  Tucker: (confused) Bow chicka bow wow?
• Meaningful Name:
  • The Old English origins for "Tucker" mean "to torment," which can serve as an allusion to his relentlessly teasing personality as part of his Casanova Wannabe attitude.
  • "Lavernius" is also descended from Laverna, a Roman goddess of thieves. Tucker accidentally stole an Elite Laser Blade from Crunchbite in Season 3.
• Mirror Character: Tucker becomes increasingly similar to Church as the series goes on, revealing himself to be using his ego to mask his self-loathing and to have issues with anger and grudge-holding.
• Missing Mom: He reveals in The Shisno Paradox that his mother is dead.
• Mister Seahorse: Courtesy of Crunchbite's parasitic embryo.
• My Greatest Failure: Getting most of his team killed in Season 12. This really gnaws at him for the rest of the season, and spurs a significant amount of Character Development.
• My Significance Sense Is Tingling:
  • Implied to be how his Double Entendre detection works, at least in The Blood Gulch Chronicles.
    Tucker: (after running over to Church and Tex from a long distance away) I just wanted to say, I got a hardline Tex can use. Bow chicka bow wow!
    Tex: ...How did you even hear that?
    Tucker: I'm like Superman, I know when I'm needed!
  • Taken up to eleven in one instance, where he ends up Breaking the Fourth Wall to give his Catchphrase for the introduction for Episode 69.
• Never My Fault: He activated the Tower of Procreation on Chorus after he and the others captured Hargrove so the planet could party. He is eventually tracked down by Spencer, a process server, who delivers him a class action lawsuit for all the mothers he got pregnant during this, demanding child support. He spends a lot of time blaming Dylan for this because she ran into Spencer earlier and knew he was searching for him but didn't warn him, as if it is her fault he is being sued. He also keeps referring to Spencer as a "bounty hunter" even though he knows he was only a process server and was just delivering him the lawsuit papers.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Both Tucker and Carolina convince the rest of the Blood Gulch Crew to help them go back in time and save Wash from his neck injury, which results in them all causing a Reality-Breaking Paradox.
• Nostalgia Filter: In Season 11 and Season 12, Tucker longs for the goofier, more lighthearted days at Blood Gulch and views Church as the same person he was originally, unaware that he has Taken a Level in Badass. He gets over this later.
• "Not So Different" Remark: From Church. Tucker initially seems to be a more laid back and goofy foil to Church, but later seasons, particularly The Chorus Trilogy, shows that Tucker has a short temper, large ego, and endless insecurities and an inferiority complex, much like Church. Seasons 11 and 16 lampshade this.
  Season 11: I hate everyone else's lives, wish they didn't have 'em. Oh my God, am I turning into Church?
  Season 16: I'm basically the new Church, but way less whiny.
• Odd Friendship: Out of all of the Reds and Blues, Tucker gets along probably the best with Lopez, of all people. Notably, he's the first to express concern for Lopez after the Reds and Blues all meet back up on Chorus in the finale of Singularity.
• Only Sane Man:
  • Tucker generally takes this role when either Church or Wash/Carolina isn't around. Case in point - he's the only person pointing out the flaws with Sarge's absurd "we're in the future" idea in Season 3.
  • When he, Simmons, Grif, and Caboose take refuge in the New Republic base in Season 12, Tucker is the only person competent enough to lead the group into saving Washington, Sarge, Lopez, and Donut from the Federal Army. This is because he doesn't have Simmons' insecurities, Grif's laziness, or Caboose's insanity.
• Only the Chosen May Wield: He's the only person in the series (aside from in Caboose's head, since he doesn't understand it) who can use his sword, as it short circuits in anyone else's hands.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • In "Mr. Red vs. Mr. Blue," he forces the rest of the Reds and Blues to watch his favorite film - Reservoir Dogs - with him several hundred times] in the period between Season 5 and Reconstruction, with it being all but stated that it was Tucker's attempt to make himself feel better while grieving over Junior's apparent "death." So, when Caboose accidentally ruins the movie due to Church and Grif's machinations, it really says something about how utterly devastated Tucker is by this when he falls into a depression instead of blowing up at Church.
  • In "Greenish-Blue With Envy," Tucker is so pissed at being dragged around everywhere by Carolina that when he says something that could be construed as innuendo, Church is baffled that he doesn't follow up with his Catchphrase.
    Tucker: Church, just because you want to get close to someone doesn't mean you have to end up inside them!
    (Beat)
    Church: Oh, come on, aren't you going to say it?
    Tucker: No, because I'm pissed off!
  • In the finale of Season 11, when the leader of the New Republic is shown to be a woman, Tucker makes no attempt to hit on her (at first). When Tucker passes up a chance to hit on a lady, you know that things are screwed-up.
  • Similarly, he becomes very distraught after both learning of Wash's cerebral hypoxia and getting a "The Reason You Suck" Speech from Kaikaina in The Shisno Paradox, and doesn't lampshade his own Double Entendre when discussing this with Sister.
• Papa Wolf: He shows traits of this after Junior is kidnapped. And even going into the later seasons, Tucker proves to be pretty defensive of his son.
• Pet the Dog: Tucker's actually very affectionate toward his son. He's also often one of the first members of the Blood Gulch Crew to be concerned about some of the side-effects of their actions (post-Character Development, at least). Furthermore, he noticeably Takes A Level In Kindness in Singularity and even admits to Donut during the same season that "I could relearn some things from you."
• Politically Incorrect Hero: He has a very immature and derogatory view of women, and has also made several homophobic comments over the course of the series. Part of his Character Development into being more of a Lovable Sex Maniac is this element of his personality getting increasingly downplayed, with The Shisno Paradox having Kaikaina even bluntly tell him how uncomfortable and misogynistic his comments can come across.
• Pop-Cultured Badass: Reservoir Dogs is his favorite film, and he forced the rest of the Reds and Blues to watch it several hundred times as it was the only movie in Blood Gulch. Additionally, he tries to use ideas from Star Wars in order to have his soldiers infiltrate an enemy compound during the Chorus Civil War (though it unfortunately ended disastrously).
• Pride: One of his fatal flaws. Tucker has a pretty big ego, which often results in him being met with some sort of humiliation, and when he begins serving as the leader, he often makes mistakes due to overestimating his abilities and reacts badly when his pride is bruised. Growing out of this is one of the biggest parts of his Character Development.
• Put on a Bus: Only his voice is heard during Reconstruction, and he doesn't physically appear until halfway through Recreation.
• Required Secondary Powers: An amusing variant. Since he never got to use the Sniper Rifle for almost all of The Blood Gulch Chronicles, he developed excellent eyesight by Season 5 so as to compensate.
• Ripple-Proof Memory: Due to having his Cool Sword, Tucker is immune to the memory-erasure effects of traveling back in time during Season 5. This makes him the perfect Spanner in the Works for Wyoming's plot in The Blood Gulch Chronicles.
• Running Gag:
  • Tucker can't go through a teleporter without getting covered in black stuff. Even if no one else going through the same teleporter does. Though whether or not other characters are affected seems to be dependent on its usefulness to the plot.
  • He also never gets to use the Sniper Rifle throughout The Blood Gulch Chronicles outside of two scenes late into Season 5.
• Ship Tease: Gets a lot of Belligerent Sexual Tension with Kaikaina over the course of The Shisno Paradox.
• Shipper on Deck: invoked For Grif/Simmons during The Blood Gulch Chronicles.
• Spanner in the Works:
  • The source of why he's badass. Figures out how to counter Wyoming's time-looping ability, prevents C.T. from breaking into the desert temple, wipes out half of C.T.'s army single-handed and destroys C.T.'s jeep during a chase scene.
  • On Chorus, the bad guys try to keep the sim troopers separated between the Rebels and the Feds so that the truth of the civil war is further concealed. Fortunately, Tucker screws that up by disobeying an order from Felix and stealing intel from a Federal Army base; intel that leads his group straight to their friends. The evil plan has to go through drastic changes to make up for that one.
• Stepford Smiler: As alluded to in both The Chorus Trilogy and Singularity, Tucker has countless insecurities and suffers from severe self-loathing issues, with his Casanova Wannabe traits being a cover he intentionally exaggerates so as to build himself up.
  • "Mr. Red vs. Mr. Blue" has a good example of this in action, with him forcing the Reds and Blues to watch Reservoir Dogs with him several hundred times since he doesn't want to think about his son likely being dead.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Deconstructed in Season 12. With Church and Wash M.I.A., Tucker is forced to step up into their role as leader, and deeply resents having to serve as their substitute and longs for the days back at the canyon where he didn’t have to do much. It gets worse when Church returns, as by this point Tucker can't back down from being the leader and Church is trying to get back into his old role.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Averted. While Tucker claims to be a pacifist during his quest in The Blood Gulch Chronicles, even outright stating he didn't want to kill a monster, he's really just making excuses for himself. He gives this up altogether when he realises that he is the only person who can stop Wyoming's time loops due to his sword giving him a reliable way to kill Wyoming. This is outright inverted in Season 11 when the Feds attack, and he points out that they'll be killed if they don't kill. This comes back with a vengeance after the true nature of the war was revealed, and it hits him pretty hard.
• Token Minority: invoked It's kind of ambiguous. After revealing his first name to be Lavernius, he's asked by Church if he's black. Tucker response is to ask if it matters (and only expresses annoyance that Church never picked up on his first name prior to this point). In "This One Goes To Eleven," he even says "That's racist!" in an annoyed tone to Sarge saying Tex "knocked the black right off [him]". Fanon picked up on this, with a lot of fan art making Tucker a black guy when out of his armor.
• Took a Level in Badass: Probably one of the most stark examples out of the original Blood Gulch Crew. Justified by the fact that he spent most of the time between Season 5 and Reconstruction training with his sword on Sangheilios and that his training as an UNSC-Sangheili ambassador apparently helped him become less of the immature moron that he was during The Blood Gulch Chronicles.
  • He goes from being about as useful as Grif in a fight to becoming the most badass member of the Blood Gulch Crew (at least until the reintroduction of Tex). As said above, he remains the most badass non-Freelancer aside from maybe Sarge.
  • He stabs the Meta with his sword in close combat. The Meta is powerful enough to fight Tex one on one (well, two on one) without any AI support, and yet Tucker still manages to land a solid hit on him. Even more so as it's revealed the Meta did not die from the impact of being thrown off a cliff by the Reds, but drowned when water at the bottom of the cliff entered his suit through the holes Tucker's sword made. In effect, Tucker's one hit was what ultimately killed the Meta.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: He's noticeably angrier and more of a general prick during The Shisno Paradox. Justified In-Universe due to him being driven crazy by an overuse of Time Travel.
• Took a Level in Kindness:
  • Over the course of the series as a whole, Tucker noticeably matures and become a much nicer person than he was during The Blood Gulch Chronicles.
  • After being rather rude and obnoxious in The Shisno Paradox, he becomes significantly nicer in Singularity after having a Jerkass Realization, even gaining a newfound respect for Donut along with striving to Be Himself rather than what he thinks a hero should be.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: A variant; Tucker's too frightened of Dr. Grey to even consider hitting on her.
  Tucker: (terrified, to Caboose) Don't ever stick your dick in crazy.
• Unstoppable Rage: He goes into this in Season 15 after Temple exploits Church's memory to manipulate them, sends Caboose into a Heroic BSoD when he reveals this, and Temple's men shoot Wash in the throat. It gets to the point where he destroys a tank just by punching it.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Church, Caboose (at least initially before Tucker develops a Big Brother Instinct towards him), Carolina, and the Reds (particularly Grif and Sarge).
• Vocal Evolution: Jason Saldaña's voice as Tucker gets progressively higher-pitched and faster (albeit not to a cartoonish level) as the series goes on.
• The Worf Effect: After kicking the asses of C.T.'s crew, he meets Tex to have his ass utterly spanked. Though he still did better than the rest, and it doesn't really diminish his badass rating at all. And his plan with Simmons to ambush Tex would've worked if Caboose hadn't acted as a Spanner in the Works.
• Wrath: From Season 11 onwards, Tucker gains anger issues stemming from Church abandoning the Reds and Blues, and Felix's betrayal exacerbates it, giving a tendency to be insanely pissed at those who violate his trust, to the point that it blinds his common sense.
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: He's pretty upset over getting most of his squad killed to secure some intel near the beginning of Season 12, but is even more upset when Felix starts heaping praise on him for it.

Caboose

Captain Michael J. Caboose

"Timeline? Time isn't made out of lines. It is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round."

"Last time I was shot, I got a purple heart. Yeah, I hope this time I get a purple lung. You see, eventually I hope to build an entire purple person. And we will be best friends."

Voiced By: Joel Heyman (Seasons 1-17), Michael Malconian (DEATH BATTLE!, Season 19: Red Vs Blue: Restoration)

Caboose, who accidentally enlisted in the Blue Army after mistaking a recruitment center for a college, is introduced as The Fool, but quickly devolves into a complete idiot. As his name suggests, he is the last to arrive at any train of thought's destination. Occasional journeys into his mind have revealed that Caboose's view of the world is at drastic odds with reality - he has mental constructs representing the rest of the cast running around inside of his head, ranging from a Church who vehemently insists that Caboose is his best friend, to a Sarge that talks like a pirate. Caboose is a bigger danger to his teammates than to his enemies, to the extent that the surest way to get him to shoot someone is to tell him they're on his team, and Command has a keyboard shortcut to report his teamkills (Ctrl+F+U). He is also the only consistent member of the Blue Team over the series, thanks to Tucker's absence from Season 6 and the first half of Season 7 and Church's absence from the first half of Season 7, all of Season 9 (to the real-world Blues at least), and Season 11.

Caboose primarily serves as a comic relief character and gets some of the series' best lines, but he has occasional impact on the plot. After Tex's death he's briefly possessed by O'Malley (and the resulting mental trauma may explain his lowered IQ afterwards), and when the Red and Blue Teams have to work together to track down the rogue AI, he helps Sarge combat the Zealots of Battle Creek thanks in part to his superhuman strength ("God's way of compensating"). Caboose gets along (marginally) quite well with machines, hence his "relationship" with Sheila and his friendship of sorts with Andy the bomb. And once in a great while, he has a useful idea, such as the plan that gets Washington and both teams into Command near the finale of Reconstruction. He wears dark blue armor, and in episodes created using Halo 3 is easily distinguishable due to his Mark V helmet, as the rest of the cast have upgraded to Mark VIs.

In Recreation, he is the only member of the Blue Team due to Church/The Alpha's Heroic Sacrifice at the end of the last season and also due to Tucker's absence. Throughout the season, he uses various bits and pieces to try and rebuild Church, leading to Epsilon's memories being based on Caboose's view of the Red and Blue teams... though exposure to slightly more in-touch individuals seems to have alleviated this.

He is one of the few real-world characters (the others being Sarge and Carolina) to appear in the present-day storyline of Season 9. He shows up at the end, leading a rescue mission to retrieve Epsilon from the broken memory unit.

In Season 11, he hits a Heroic BSoD due to Church's sudden departure, but this is alleviated when he gets a new friend - Freckles, the giant battle robot. Due to a misunderstanding, he's temporarily made the leader and Commanding Officer of the Blue Team, demoting Washington in the process.

In Season 12, he has joined the New Republic along with Tucker, Simmons and Grif, and is the captain of his own squad, the Blue Team. In the following season, it is thanks to him passing the test to be a "true warrior" that everyone makes contact with an Alien A.I. that Caboose names "Santa".

In Season 15, he has once again become depressed over Church's absence from the group and is overjoyed when the group receives a message that is apparently from Church. He is shown to not understand basic concepts like death, and is eventually forced to accept that Church is gone & he needs to move on with his life.

In The Shisno Paradox, he gets sent back in time with Lopez, and through several off-screen adventures he ends up accidentally starting several real-life historical events, as well as a few events in-universe. When the Reds and Blues later meet the Cosmic Powers, Caboose is the only one to not ask for his own Laser Blade, instead wanting to have Genkins' golf club, which Atlus lets him keep.

In Singularity, Caboose is trapped reliving his past constantly along with most of the other Reds and Blues. After he is saved by Donut and Agent Washington, he displays a surprising amount of intelligence with time travel, immediately understanding the situation and making a plan to fix the timeline with help from Huggins. The golf club he obtained the previous season also plays a major role in the climax of the season.

---

Associated Tropes

• Accidental Hero: He shoots South Dakota in the back after Church informs him that she needs their help, which Caboose interprets in his usual way.
• Acquainted with Emergency Services: Due to Caboose's track-record for managing to accidentally kill his own teammates, Freelance Command had managed to create a Keyboard Shortcut to better report them on their computers whenever Caboose manages to kill another simulation trooper in the same fashion.
  Caboose: CTRL-F-U.
• Alas, Poor Yorick: We don't actually get to see this happen, but after Epsilon's Heroic Sacrifice in Season 13, Caboose would apparently do this with Alpha-Church's helmet to help him work through his grief over Church's death(s).
• All-Loving Hero: Caboose doesn't have a mean bone in his body and tries to be friends with just about everyone he meets, even people who are actively trying to kill him. This is best shown in the final fight against Felix; as everyone else takes turns shooting at or beating up Felix in some way, Caboose just greets him with a happy "Hey Felix!" as though Felix hasn't been trying to kill everyone on the planet for the past two seasons.
• Animal Motifs: A fairly subtle one, but Caboose often behaves like a big, dumb dog. He's friendly, slow to pick up on things, and has somewhat unrefined manners. Additionally, he treats Freckles like he's a puppy when he starts taking care of him in Season 11. During Season 12, he worries about being taken to "the vet," and is mentioned to often have to go on long walks through Chrous' few remaining parks during Season 13 so as to help exercise. Season 15 even reveals that he's colorblind much like dogs are.
• The Antichrist: Played for Laughs. The Badass Boast that presages his Curb-Stomp Battle causes the Red Zealot to deem him in sheer terror, "The Beast! The Anti-Flag, come to live among us and rule us for seven years!" This comes in handy in Season 15, Episode 18, when his reputation returns to haunt them.
  Red Zealot: Gods be damned, it's the Beast!
• The Anti-Nihilist: In a sense. Caboose is probably too much of a Wide-Eyed Idealist to play this trope completely straight, but despite having been gone through Hell and back multiple times over the course of the series, Caboose still always chooses to be positive, caring, and forgiving towards other people.
• Awesome Anachronistic Apparel: Arguably; once the series allows for armor customization, Caboose is distinguished from the other Blood Gulchers by wearing the Mark V (Halo: Combat Evolved) helmet, while everyone else is wearing Mark VI (Halo 2 and Halo 3); with Church angrily asking why he refused to upgrade. The fact he's wearing outdated armor becomes a plot point later on.
• Badass Adorable: An odd example since we never see his face, but he has a very friendly personality that hides his fighting prowess.
• Badass Boast: Speaks this way when he taps into his "mean" side. At least, attempts to.
  Caboose: I will eat your unhappiness!
  Caboose: Your toast has been burned! And no amount of scraping will remove the black parts!
  Caboose: MY NAME IS MICHAEL J. CABOOSE. AND I...HATE...TAXES!
• Berserk Button: As Genkins learns the hard way, desecrating Church's memory in any way will earn you a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
  Caboose: Put. His body. Down.
• Beware the Nice Ones:
  • He maybe one of the more naive & nicer characters and while he does have a habit of being a team-killing Lethal Klutz. But when you get him genuinely angry (even without the need of his O'Malley side) you better watch out because you're in for a world of hurt.
    While beating up the Battle Creek Reds and Blues after Wash was shot in the throat YOU! (WHACK) HURT! (WHACK) MY! (WHACK) FRIEND!
  • On a similar note, Genkins also learns this the hard way when he refuses to stop possessing Church's body. Caboose enters a state of Tranquil Fury and then tackles him followed by putting Genkins in a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
• Beyond the Impossible: Caboose somehow found a door in the men's restroom that led him to Vic's intro in Season 14. Vic is so impressed he gives control of an episode to Caboose.
• Big Brother Instinct: Inverted. While he was initially jealous of Tucker's friendship with Church, Caboose and Tucker's relationship significantly improves over the course of the series. Notably, when Tucker is suffering through a Heroic BSoD in Season 15 after Wash is shot through the neck, Caboose immediately goes to comfort him before Dylan Andrews tell him that Tucker needs some time alone.
• The Big Guy: Served in this role for Blue Team during The Blood Gulch Chronicles by virtue of having Super-Strength.
• Big Stupid Doo Doo Head: In Revelation, when everyone is trying to insult Church to get him angry enough to use his "laser face" again in the season premiere, Caboose's attempt at insulting Church boils down to him saying Church can't wear pants now that he's possessing the spherical body of a Forerunner Monitor. Hilariously enough, this is the only insult that works, since Church gets depressed when he realizes Caboose is actually right.
• Borrowed Catchphrase.
  • In Season 10, he and Tucker - not on purpose - borrow Wash's "Worst thing ever. Of all time." catchphrase multiple times.
  • Caboose will also occasionally mangle Tucker's "Bow Chicka Wow Wow", much to the latter's frustration.
    Caboose: Hey chicka bum bum.
• Book Dumb: While Caboose is genuinely dumb, he's this concerning machinery. Caboose is a borderline expert at handling and repairing them, even with advanced A.I.s like Epsilon, but he believes that electricity is "invisible magic" and randomly producing fires whenever he tries to repair something.
• Break the Cutie: In Season 15, he does not take the realization that Church has been Dead All Along, and there's no coming back for him this time, very well.
• Breakout Character: Thanks to his hilarious Cloudcuckoolander tendencies, friendly personality, and surprising Hidden Depths, Caboose is by far the most popular character out of the whole cast, and is the most likely character to be featured in PSAs and other special episodes.
• Broken Pedestal: In Episode 18 of Season 10, an enraged Epsilon-Church gives the whole of the Blood Gulch Crew a vicious "The Reason You Suck" Speech. Caboose walks away without a word. However, he seems to have gotten better by Episode 20 of the same season, so it's hard to tell how much of a Broken Pedestal it really is.
• Brutal Honesty: After Tucker and Church spend most of Season 12 at each other's throats, Caboose takes it upon himself to force Tucker to try and bury the hatchet by bluntly telling him that his worthless antagonizing of Church over a mistake is only going to keep their fight going, and he just needs to "shut up and get over it!" Tucker actually takes it to heart, and goes to apologize.
• Captain Oblivious: Is almost always oblivious to what's going on around him as a result of his bizarre mental state. His thoughts on Doc trying to take over the world while losing his mind from his O'Malley Split Personality?
  Caboose: Yeah, it's like an inside joke.
• Catchphrase:
  • He doesn't use it that often, but...
    Caboose: Neat.
  • Whenever he does something wrong, he will usually follow it up with "Tucker did it."
  • Whenever he brings up a teamkilling incident, he will always end his sentence with "...which is nobody's fault!"
• Character Development:
  • Downplayed, but from Season 7 onwards Caboose has slowly started to regain some of the intelligence, Genius Ditz elements, and even Deadpan Snarker tendencies he had before his Flanderization.
  • In Season 15, while he's depressed that he Never Got to Say Goodbye to Church when Temple makes it clear that Church is permanently dead, he refuses to pull a time-displaced Season 1-era Alpha-Church to the present in the finale. Also, he comes to terms with his grief and says his goodbyes to Church while making it clear that he will be able to move on with his life because of his other friends. Additionally, he seems to have finally given up on his childish grudge towards Tucker, instead now having formed an Odd Friendship with his comrade after Church's death.
  • Singularity further highlights Caboose regaining more intelligence, working together with Huggins to come up with a plan to simplify the Reds and Blues' efforts to fix Genkins' paradoxes. Additionally, he admits his issues regarding processing grief when confronting Genkins!Church on defiling his best friend's memory, and muses how he's been "working on my assertiveness" later on in the season to Tucker.
• Character Focus: He's the main protagonist in Recreation, with the season focusing on his efforts to revive Church through Epsilon. He also shares the role of tritagonist with Simmons and Tucker respectively in Season 11 and 15.
• Characterization Marches On: It's easy to forget that the Caboose in the early episodes was just a mildly dimwitted Deadpan Snarker as opposed to being an idiot almost completely divorced from reality.
• Classical Anti-Hero: He'd probably be the most heroic character in the entire series, let alone Blue Team, if he wasn't both dumb as a stump and a danger to both enemies and allies.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Far from being just plain stupid, Caboose is almost completely divorced from reality and utters many bizarre yet occasionally insightful non-sequiturs. His Season 9 incarnation from within the Epsilon Unit takes this up to eleven when Epsilon makes up a story about Andersmith, a soldier who supposedly died and got buried and removed from records by the Blue team, all to justify Tex's arrival at the base. This is all somewhat within reason, and Caboose and Tucker play along (poorly, in Tucker's case), but then Caboose continues to mourn Andersmith even after Tex leaves the conversation. Tucker even notes at one point that he's getting worried about Caboose's mental state. It doesn't help that he's apparently been regularly drinking gasoline since his first week at Blood Gulch.
• Comically Missing the Point: A recurring trend with him.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: His hatred towards Tucker is implied to stem from his jealousy of his status as Church's favorite teammate.
• Creepy Good: In Relocated, his secrecy about his attempts to revive Church through the Epsilon unit makes him surprisingly unsettling (albeit in a Played for Laughs manner), but his goals are still completely benevolent.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Despite his many mental quirks, Caboose has been shown to possess immense superhuman strength and, when sufficiently angry, is able to single-handedly wipe out both the Red and Blue Battle Creek Zealots. He's also easily the best shot on the Blue Team (although Tucker is starting to give him a run for his money). It just happens that he's usually shooting at the Blue Team.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: Several of Caboose's seemingly bizarre non-sequiturs turn out to be actually correct in hindsight. Examples include:
  • His belief that Tex is a robot in Season 1, him implying that the Red and Blue Teams aren't real soldiers, and his statement that "Time isn't made out of lines, it is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round", which nicely sums up the "You Already Changed the Past" and "You Can't Fight Fate" themes of the time travel episodes in Season 3 (along with the larger theme of circular memory loops in both The Recollection and Season 9).
  • His "time is made of circles" comment is also proven to be correct yet again in Singularity when Huggins reveals that black holes in the RvB verse loop time backwards to the Big Bang. Additionally, Caboose's comment that Church is a "gay robot" would be proven to be correct From a Certain Point of View twice over - Alpha-Church was an A.I. who would later inhabit two different robot bodies, and Epsilon-Church was perfectly fine being with a male version of Tex while in the Memory Unit.
  • Caboose also shows a remarkably consistent and accurate understanding of Project Freelancer, the Freelancer A.I.s, and the Director throughout both The Recollection and Season 10. And then he actually comes up with a good plan when breaking into the Fed base in Season 12, leading to Tucker honestly congratulating him. His strategy of tying his enemies' shoelaces together in Season 15 is also surprisingly effective when the Blood Gulch Crew are assaulting the Blues and Reds' volcano base on Earth.
  • While it's almost certainly a coincidence, his pick of Genkins' golf club instead of a Laser Blade during The Shisno Paradox would later prove to have actually been the right choice after all since Singularity would reveal that Genkins' golf club is the only weapon that can harm Chrovos and Genkins.
• Cuckoosnarker: Has his moments in the later seasons as part of him regaining a little bit of his sarcastic side from the earliest episodes of the show. For instance, when he, Carolina, Epsilon, Dr. Grey, and Tucker are investigating the Jungle Temple in Season 13 (which requires a "true warrior of great strength and mental clarity"), Tucker defensively states that he's strong and intelligent enough to get through the trials - and Caboose muses aloud that Tucker only "has his moments."
• Cuteness Proximity: invoked Word of God claims that one of the reasons why he acts so dumb around the other Reds and Blues is that he sometimes sees/treats the rest of the Blood Gulch Crew like they're cats, and so often he finds it hard to take them seriously.
• Deadpan Snarker: He actually had elements of this before his Flanderization. As his personality started to slowly move back toward what it was pre-Flanderization, he regained some of this, albeit heavily downplayed.
• Determinator: He's Church's best friend (whether Church likes it or not), and nothing will stop him from rescuing Church if he's in trouble.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: He beats the shit out of Genkins when the Trickster God possesses his dead best friend and refuses to leave his body.
• Disappeared Dad: Implied. When he thinks Washington is about to report the death of one of his family members during their first meeting in Reconstruction, he asks if his dad died "again", hinting that his father has already died before.
• The Ditz: Easily the dumbest member of the cast. To say that this is one of the reasons he's quite popular with the audience would be an understatement.
• The Dreaded: His mere presence sends the Battle Creek Zealots working for the Blues and Reds into a panic, and him killing five of them out of anger causes the rest of them to retreat immediately.
• Driving Stick: Can do this, but can't drive automatic shift.
• Dumbass Has a Point: Occasionally has surprisingly good ideas. For instance, he actually develops a pretty clever idea for fixing the non-functional Sheila (namely, have Church leave Lopez's body for a while so that Lopez can do it), and it only fails because Caboose & Tucker Failed a Spot Check. He also accurately predicted that he, Tucker, the Alien, and Andy would have to travel through a swamp while on their "Great Journey" since there would logically be "wet plains" in-between the Great Burning Plains and Great Freezing Plains. Furthermore, as alluded to above, Caboose was also the one to come up with a way to break into the Federal Army of Chorus' Arctic base (melt their way in under the frozen walls). And as noted below, he's the one who comes up with the plan to get everyone inside of Freelancer Command during Reconstruction:
  Washington: But you don't look like Freelancers. Or Recovery Agents!
  Caboose: ...They can't see inside of a tank!
• Dumb Muscle: He's physically the strongest of the Reds and Blues, being the only one who was able to pick up Andy the Bomb at first, flip a warthog effortlessly, beat up several Tex Drones with his barehands and was able to survive 10x Earth/Chorus' gravity without even noticing it. He's also about as bright as the space between galaxies.
• Dumb and Drummer: As revealed in Season 15's Previously On... he took part in a band that was comprised of Carolina (Vocals), Grif (Bass), Tucker (Guitar) and lastly with Caboose as the band's drummer. They made a song named VelociROCKtor and shows that he is a pretty damn good drummer. Check out his drum solo.
• Easily Forgiven: His stupidity constantly destroys the crew's plans, nearly gets them killed, or (for Church and Sarge) actually gets them killed. And yet he consistently gets off scot-free, and is constantly coddled by the others. Instead of viewing him as an unwitting menace to themselves and their objectives, the team still allows him to be involved in things, and treats him more like a confused child. To Caboose's credit, he does make it up at times by being quite helpful when the situation calls for it.
• Even the Loving Hero Has Hated Ones: He is a Kindhearted Simpleton who's friendly to whoever he meets, even his enemies. The sole exception is the time-traveling ancient AI Genkins, who manages to drive Caboose into an Unstoppable Rage after he sees him possessing his late best friend Church, resulting in him mercilessly beating Genkins until he leaves Church's body.
• Everyone's Baby Sister: The "Brother" version of this for the Blood Gulch Crew. Even more so than Donut, when someone does something mean to Caboose everyone seems to take offense, or at least seems more likely to apologize or speak nicer to him about how things go, even when they are insulting everyone else. This includes even the pre-Recollection Reds, and very quickly includes Washington in his Straight Man phase and Carolina post-Character Development.
• Excellent Judge of Character: Caboose can be surprisingly good at judging someone's character in occasion. He immediately picks up that Washington, in spite of his meanness, is a good man trying to bring Project Freelancer to justice (though granted this means he believes him to be a superhero), he quickly cottons on that Epsilon essentially feeds on memories and starts telling it stories about Church in the hopes of reviving his friend, and by The Recollection he's realized that the Reds don't really pose a threat to him.
• Expy: Unintentionally so, but after his Flanderization kicked in, he basically became Brick Tamland if he was a Space Marine.
• Failed a Spot Check: Often suffers from this due to him being The Ditz. Heck, his entire military career is the result of one, as he first joined the UNSC military when he mistook an army recruiting center for college.
• Flanderization:
  • He killed Church twice, once while in a malfunctioning tank, the other while Church was possessing the enemy commander (and a third time with the tank again in two non-canon endings to The Blood Gulch Chronicles). And yet in later seasons, being called his ally is the fastest way to get him to shoot you. By the time of Reconstruction, Project Freelancer Command has even developed a keyboard shortcut for reporting his teamkills: Ctrl+F+U.
  • He wasn't nearly as stupid or naïve at the start of the show as he is now. He got Tucker's joke about how Freelancers are like Your Mom asking when the rent's due, responded with a resoundingly sarcastic HA HA HA—No when Tucker mocked him about his teamkilling, and realized he was in real danger when Sarge strafed Sheila. The current Caboose would be completely oblivious to all three of those events.
• Fluffy Tamer: In Season 4, Caboose somehow gets the Alien to stop attacking everyone. In Season 11, Caboose manages to rebuild and befriend a MANTIS-class assault robot, whom he names Freckles. And in Season 15, we learn that after Chorus, he somehow managed to tame the dinosaurs native to Iris (the moon the Reds and Blues were staying on), to which Grif notes, "Because of course he did."
• Foil:
  • To Donut. Both are easily the friendliest, dumbest, and silliest members of their respective teams along with being Made of Iron to an absurd degree. Caboose and Donut also both use (relatively) archaic weapons for the setting (Caboose has a standard assault rifle and Donut uses (plasma) grenades), and wear colored armor that makes them stick easily out from the rest of their teams (Donut wears bright pink armor, and Caboose has both dark blue armor and a MJOLNIR Mark V helmet). The parallels between the two are certainly helped in that both are surprisingly good friends with each other even going into the later seasons, and they both also have goofy-sounding last names that fit their remarkably silly personalities. However, they differ in that Donut is more emphasized to be absurdly naive rather than almost completely divorced from reality like Caboose is. Furthermore, Donut is highly Ambiguously Gay, with almost all of his dialogue consisting of Double Entendres, while Caboose is more like a little kid, to the point where he didn't even know where babies come from in Season 5. And finally, Caboose is a Fourth-Wall Observer and is aware on some level that he's a fictional character, whereas Donut isn't.
  • Oddly enough, he's this to Felix of all people. Both of them are childish men who are unable to take responsibility for their mistakes, are highly possessive and clingy towards someone close to them (Church for Caboose, Locus for Felix) and are highly skilled in combat. However, Felix is a cunning and self-serving Psychopathic Manchild who manipulates Locus for his own ends and boasts repeatedly about his skills, while Caboose is a kindhearted, dimwitted man who is deeply loyal to Church and his friends and only uses his combat prowess in desperate situations and never really calls attention to it.
  • To Temple. They're both Psychopathic Manchildren coping with the death of their best friends, who they refuse to move on from. However, Caboose is naively convinced that Church is still alive and doesn't comprehend that he's dead until it's literally spelled out to him, while Temple is well aware that Biff is dead and insanely bitter and vengeful about it. Furthermore, while Caboose is generally kind and has willingly put his own life on the line to help others, Temple is a sadist who loves watching other people in pain. And whereas Caboose eventually moves on and says goodbye to Church, Temple continues to obsess over said death until it drives him insane and turns him into a psychotic and cruel shell of his former self.
• Foreshadowing: During Church's time loops in Season 3, one of the copies mentions offhand that when they tried to explain the situation to everyone, Caboose was the only one to understand everything immediately. Fast forward to Season 17 and he is arguably the most knowledgeable person in the cast regarding time travel, picking up the concept so fast that Donut doesn't even have time to explain it before he and Huggins are already fixing paradoxes.
• Forgot Flanders Could Do That: His "being mean" from Season 3 would been a rather useful skill to repeat, but it takes until Season 10 for someone to try and get him angry, and he says that he "forgot how to do that." With a little help from Epsilon, he remembers. This also reappears in Season 15 after Wash is shot, right down to the same ones targeted by his first outburst of anger.
• Fourth-Wall Observer: Part of Caboose's kookiness is all but stated to be due to the fact that he's aware of being a fictional character.
• Freak Out: Wash being shot in the throat and Genkins possessing Church sends him into an Unstoppable Rage and results in him beating whoever incurred his wrath.
• Friendly Enemy: Up until Revelation, where the Reds and Blues become permanently allied, Caboose usually treats them as friends and is nothing but kind to the Reds.
• Funny Background Event: Sometimes while other members of both teams are in the middle of something important or just talking about something, he can be seen in the background looking at something else instead of paying attention to what's going on.
• Genius Ditz:
  • While in Valhalla in Recreation, he's more productive than any member of either team^note Although to be fair, he was the only remaining member of the Blue Team at that point.. Sure, there's a fire, but he's still getting stuff done. Especially considering he manages to revive Church, by himself, by reprogramming the Epsilon Unit and feeding it memories during this time. These moments have become more frequent in Season 9 and beyond as Caboose is reverted to his personality pre-Flanderization.
  • Caboose has also been shown to be very knowledgeable concerning time travel. In a throwaway line by Church in Season 3, he claimed that Caboose was the only one who seemed to understand his time travel experience right away. This is eventually shown in even more detail in Singularity. After being rescued by Donut and Washington from the Everwhen, he instantly understands everything that is going on and even offers to explain for everyone but instead allows Donut and Washington to explain for everyone else's sake. He also knows how to time travel without Donut or Washington explaining how to do it or that he even could, and immediately begins fixing the timeline himself before the others catch up to him. When they do finally catch up, he and Huggins have already figured out how to find the various paradoxes they need to fix and he explains why they need to fix them in a simple way for everyone to understand, which even impresses Donut.
    Washington: (stunned) Is... is Caboose a genius?
    Sarge: (irritated) If he is, I just prefer not to know.
• Genre Savvy: Concerning time travel, Caboose is a total expert and figures it out instantly, even realizing how to fix the various paradoxes.
• The Heart: His overall role in the Reds and Blues is more or less this, with him being both Everyone's Baby Sister and the most emotionally aware member out of the entire Blood Gulch Crew.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Falls into one during Season 11 due to him missing Epsilon after he and Carolina left the Blood Gulch Crew, with him focusing on Freckles so he doesn't have to come to terms with his grief.
  • Has a brief one in Season 15 when Temple makes him realize that Church has been Killed Off for Real and won't be coming Back from the Dead like he previously did.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Caboose not only has his occasional moments of brilliance, but is surprisingly good with machinery & A.I.. He even has his occasional Deadpan Snarker moments.
  • In Season 12, after being overjoyed at Freckles being reduced to his CPU, he shows surprising pragmatism when he points out that, on top of Freckles “being really tiny now”, he will no longer be able to pose a threat to the other Reds and Blues.
  • According to "Mr. Red vs. Mr. Blue," he is a dedicated method actor.
  • He, Grif, Tucker and Carolina all started a band during the group's vacation in-between The Chorus Trilogy and Season 15. And as shown in the end credits for the season, Caboose is pretty great at playing the drums.
  • According to the "Cultural Appreciation" PSA, he apparently attended Harvard. As a back-up school.
  • And on a more general level, Caboose is remarkably emotionally aware, and is probably the most emotionally well-balanced and insightful member of the Blood Gulch Crew. For instance, he gives Tucker his own equivalent of a Rousing Speech in Season 12 when the latter is still feeling resentful towards Epsilon, being equal parts forgiving and firm on the situation and saying everything necessary so as to help Tucker bury the hatchet with Church. Relatedly, in "Nightmare on Planet Evil" during Season 15, Caboose goes to Simmons instead of Tucker^note who Caboose is more familiar with, Donut^note who Caboose is friends with, and Sarge^note who is both the only member of the Reds and Blues to actually treat Caboose like a soldier and essentially a surrogate father figure towards Caboose while they're all on the "scary planet." Caboose then tries to help Simmons feel better (as Simmons is still upset over Grif having left the Blood Gulch Crew in the previous episode), with Caboose even tapping into his own grief over Church's previous deaths to try and relate to Simmons' pain.
• Idiot Savant: He can fix an A.I. and a MANTIS, but just isn't very smart. Although he has an impressive amount of knowledge when it comes to time travel.
• Image Song: "Your Best Friend".
• Insane Troll Logic: Caboose’s thought process runs on this; whether it be blaming something else for his own failures or wildly reinterpreting what is actually happening, actual Logic almost never enters the equation. That said, sometimes his conclusions are eventually proven right, though other times they’re just nonsense.
• Insistent Terminology: Whenever his teamkilling is brought up, expect Caboose to say that they were nobody's fault.
• Irrational Hatred: In the early seasons, he has an inexplicable hatred towards Tucker, though it's implied to stem from jealousy of Tucker's status as Church's favorite teammate.
• Irony:
  • Season 2 has one of the very few times that Caboose offers up a legitimately good idea that his teammates follow through on (namely, having Church temporarily leave Lopez's body so Lopez can fix his broken leg motors and Sheila). Why doesn't it work? Because Lopez is able to escape when Caboose and Tucker are distracted by the latter complimenting the former on how unexpectedly brilliant their plan was.
  • Church offhandedly reveals in Season 3 that when he tried to explain the time travel situation to the Blood Gulch Crew, Caboose was the only one who understood the situation immediately. In a later episode, he's also the only person to suspect there are holes in Church's story (Church claimed that he didn't change anything during his travels, which is only technically true), though that time it's Played for Laughs.
  • Caboose - the Team Killer of the Blue Team - is the only member of the Reds and Blues to have not helped cause the Hand of Merope to crashland on Chorus.
  • Despite being the only human member of the Reds and Blues to have incredible Super-Strength, The Ultimate Fan Guide claims that Caboose is actually a Lightworlder since he grew up on Earth's Moon.
• I Reject Your Reality:
  • Caboose firmly believes he and Church are best friends, and anything that could contradict this is either ignored or wildly reinterpreted. As time goes on, however, it becomes clear Church does legitimately consider Caboose a friend, and Caboose's grasp on reality is always baffling in general, though he does get better at understanding the situation around him in The Recollection.
  • A more tragic case happens in Season 15, where he refuses to acknowledge that Church is gone for good and continues to believe he'll come back.
• Jerkass to One: Caboose is a Nice Guy to everyone, even his enemies... except for Tucker, who he loathes with a passion and frequently insults. This gets mostly dropped as he gains Character Development and he even gains an inverted form of Big Brother Instinct for Tucker.
• The Juggernaut: On the rare occasions he gets angry, he’s utterly unstoppable on the battlefield and will wipe the floor with any opponent, as the Battle Creek Grunts and Genkins learn the hard way.
• Kid with the Leash: Becomes this in Season 11 when he manages to find a MANTIS and convinces it to be his friend.
• Kindhearted Simpleton: While he's dimwitted and generally oblivious to the goings-on around him, his enthusiastic friendliness and lack of malice generally leads to the Blood Gulch crew treating him more like an annoying but otherwise inoffensive child, often with a wry fondness that they won't admit to.
• Large Ham: Especially since it's pretty easy for him to start randomly shouting & yelling.
• Lethal Klutz: He has a history of team-killing people he tries to help. So much so that, not only does the Blue Team tell Caboose to help someone they want shot, Freelancer Command has their own keyboard shortcut for his TKs (Ctrl+F+U). He apparently caused so much mayhem on Rat's Nest that the Blue Team over there didn't just keep him in the brig, they kept him tied up in the brig just to be absolutely sure.
  Caboose: Fire in the hole. (promptly tosses a flashbang at the crate right in front of him)
• Lightworlder: The Ultimate Fan Guide reveals he grew up on Earth's Moon, making him one of these. Ironically, he is physically the strongest of the Reds and Blues outside of the Freelancers.
• Lightning Bruiser: Most of the time he's almost as much of a Non-Action Guy as Donut is. On the extremely rare occasions in which he becomes mad, however, he turns into The Juggernaut. As the fight against the Tex Drones shows, when he wants to run, he can sprint about as fast as a Freelancer with a speed unit, and when combined with his raw strength, he essentially becomes a bulldozer.
• Loon with a Heart of Gold: Caboose doesn't have a mean bone in his body, and is also completely divorced from reality.
• Made of Iron: Caboose seriously rivals Donut in terms of being Nigh-Invulnerable by the standards of this series.
  • He gets blown up by a landmine and flung 50 feet in the air in Recreation, and then gets up like nothing happened when he lands.
  • After he falls off a cliff in Season 15, he shows up again minutes later with no signs of injury. He states that he landed on the part of him most used to trauma... his head.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: According to the character profiles on the Season 3 DVD, Caboose comes from a family of 17 siblings. Dialogue in Reconstruction would suggest they’re all girls.
• Meaningful Name:
  • His mind always comes in dead last. If the characters are discussing something, Caboose will always be the last person to understand what's going on, and can usually be relied on to bring up whatever started the conversation by the time the other guys have finished talking about it.
  • On a more subtle note, Caboose's first name is "Michael," as in the Archangel Michael, the most powerful member of the Heavenly Host in The Bible. While Caboose doesn't show it much, he's (physically) the strongest member of the Reds and Blues by a wide margin.
• Medium Awareness:
  • According to his voice actor, Joel Heyman, he's the only person in the series who's aware he is in a video game. With this in mind, some of his actions at least make some more sense.
  • And as it turns out, he's also aware he's in a show, since in Season 15, he says the time he shot Church with the tank "was an exciting episode."
• Meta Guy: An amusingly downplayed case. While he's aware of being in both a video game and a web series, Caboose is too stupid/crazy to really take advantage of/understand this and more or less just keeps it to himself aside from making some particularly odd comments every once in a while.
• The Millstone: In the early seasons, Caboose poses as much of a threat to his teammates as the enemy does thanks to his constant teamkilling during his attempts to help. It gets to the point that the Rats Nest Blues lock him up so that he'll stop shooting his fellow Blues. He gets better about this as time goes on.
• Mood-Swinger: Downplayed. Caboose isn't usually prone to mood swings and simply alternates between speaking at a normal volume or yelling at the top of his lungs most of the time, but he can and will on occasion shift into hysterics before going back to his usual cheerful self.
  "I AM AN EMOTIONAL TIME BOMB!"
• Mook Horror Show:
  • During the first encounter with the Zealots, he figures out how to be mean due to remembering what it was like to be possessed by O'Malley. He leaps screaming off a cliff, nonsensically declares that he "hates babies", and tears through both sets of fanatics. One poor guy even thinks he's the beast, come to usher in the End of Days.
  • He ends up encountering the same group in Season 15... and after they shoot Wash, he is more than happy to give them a repeat performance.
• Mr. Fixit: Caboose seems to have a knack for getting along with machines (given his relationships with Sheila, Andy, Delta, and even to a degree Church and Tex), and has the technical skills to transfer Epsilon into a Monitor body, extract Tex from Epsilon and implant her into a robot body, and extract Epsilon from the failing memory device. In Season 11, he manages to repair and befriend a MANTIS combat mech, and managed to fix Lopez up after the latter temporarily lost his head in The Shisno Paradox. Noticeably, his skills only seem to apply to stuff that features an A.I., as whenever he tries to work on regular machinery they tend to catch fire.
• Mr. Vice Guy: Caboose is undoubtedly the nicest guy in the Blood Gulch Crew (next to Donut, of course). However, unlike Donut, Caboose's flaws are far more apparent, what with his constant team killing, his dislike of Tucker (though that gets downplayed as the series goes on), and his inability to take responsibility for his more destructive actions.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: He's entertained the idea of having Tucker killed or discredited so that Church will have no choice but to make him his favorite teammate.
• Never My Fault: His usual response when he makes a mistake (which, as we've established, is often) is to try and avoid blame. One of his many catchphrases is even "Tucker did it!"
  Washington: That was the worst throw... Ever. Of all time.
  Caboose: Not my fault, someone put a wall in my way.
• Nice Guy: Not quite to the same extent of Donut, but Caboose is still the nicest guy on Blue Team and the second-nicest person out of all of the Blood Gulch Crew. For all of his ditziness and status as a Lethal Klutz, Caboose possess a shining heart of gold and truly cares about both his friends and people in general without holding any grudges, having willingly walked through fire (both literally and metaphorically) for what he thinks is right.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Beats the absolute shit out of Genkins for using Church as a disguise during Singularity. Even before that in a previous season (Season 15), Caboose goes into a fit of rage after Washington gets shot in the throat, teaming up with Sarge in beating up and killing the remaining Blue and Red Zealots. (Who also remember them from their previous encounter.)
• No Social Skills: Caboose tends to be Oblivious to Hatred and several social norms, particularly in the early seasons, where he inadvertently insults several characters, and Recreation, where he winds up convincing Sarge and Simmons he's plotting something with his secrecy and general creepiness about his plan to make a new best friend, though they prove to be to inept to actually do anything about it.
• Noodle Incident: If the "Hard Truths" PSA is to be believed, Caboose doesn't have a belly button. The reasons behind this are never explained, though Sarge apparently knows.
• No-Sell: Caboose has a tendency to completely ignore things that would leave others either incapacitated or dead.
  • In Season 5, Tex shoots him in the back of the head, and aside from a brief “Ow”, he’s completely unaffected.
  • In Season 7, he steps on a landmine and goes so high in the air that it takes at least a minute and a half to come back down. All he has to say is "that was a big explosion".
  • He spends the entire fight against the Tex Drones in Season 10 plowing straight through them while the others have to spend the entire fight keeping their distance.
  • Santa’s test for a “true warrior” in Season 13, which even Felix and Locus were affected by, does absolutely nothing to him.
  • Similarly, while the Labyrinth shows everyone their worst fears and tends to leave them as emotional messes in Singularity, Caboose just gets hungry.
• Oblivious to Hatred: He’s completely oblivious to any resentment Church has towards him, and he’s even more oblivious of how much Captain Miller and the other Rat’s Nest Blues despise him.
• Odd Friendship:
  • Caboose became BFFs with Donut after the latter was temporarily captured by the Blues in the tail end of Season 2.
  • Wash is a grumpy and bitter Guile Hero. Caboose is friendly, optimistic, and dumb as a box of rocks. They get along famously.
  • While it's primarily limited to the PSAs, Sarge and Caboose actually get along quite well.
• Offscreen Teleportation: Seems to be a thing for him; he completes Wash's insane obstacle course from Season 11 in two seconds, Grif and Simmons somehow pass him twice in Season 12 while crawling through a corridor, he goes from the ground below Temple to standing on the cliff with him in the span of a single camera movement in Season 15, and he somehow pops up from the screen border when talking to Huggins in Singularity.
• Oh, Crap!: When Sheila is about to shoot Church in Season 1, Caboose starts to panic and tries to stop her from firing.
• One-Man Army: He doesn't show it that often, but damn, Caboose can be legitimately terrifying on the battlefield when he really wants to.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Him turning away from Epsilon during "Change of Plans" shows that even he now has a Broken Pedestal for Church after being on the receiving end of Epsilon's "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
  • It really says something about how utterly furious Caboose is with Genkins during Singularity for possessing Church when he actually starts to show some Tranquil Fury when talking to the demigod.
• Outdated Outfit: He still has Halo 1 (Mark V) armor. Downplayed, in that his armor is only outdated in-universe, and it looks mostly the same to viewers (ignoring the helmet).
• Out of Focus: In the first half of Season 12, Caboose is relegated to a more minor role, simply playing comic relief and standing in the background most of the time. This ends after the Blood Gulch Crew are reunited, and he plays a more significant role for the rest of The Chorus Trilogy.
• Psychopathic Manchild: He may be goofy, but he's far from harmless. However, this isn't played into him being evil, just as a really oblivious and often comical Team Killer. He's more like a "Mutually Dangerous Manchild" than anything else. Interestingly, Season 15 actually deconstructs this: thanks to Caboose's low intelligence and the Blood Gulch Crew's subsequent coddling of him, he is literally too immature to understand basic concepts like how death works, and it takes Temple, of all people, to tell him that when someone dies, they never come back.
• Rebuilt Pedestal: A couple of episodes after his Broken Pedestal moment with Epsilon-Church in Season 10, he comes rushing to his aid with everyone else, and goes back to practically worshipping the ground he walks on.
• Rookie Red Ranger: He's temporarily made the leader of Blue Team in Season 11 thanks to Freckles. It isn't official, as Washington sarcastically says he should hand leadership over to Caboose during an argument with Tucker, and nobody is in the mood to argue with a MANTIS assault robot when it takes him seriously, and Caboose at first humbly accepts the "nomination", but then eventually realizes he shouldn't be placed in a position of command.
• Sanity Slippage: After suffering from brain damage when Omega is ejected from his mind, Caboose goes from mildly dimwitted to almost completely divorced from reality and legitimately insane. However, later episodes have implied that he's always been this crazy.
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud:
  • In Season 10 Episode 12, while sneaking up behind Wash. It makes him something of a Highly-Visible Ninja.
  Caboose: Sneaking. Sneaking. Sneaking. Sneaking.
  • He also did this when he snuck into Red Base's holo-deck during Recreation. Amusingly, Grif was the only one to notice.
• Series Mascot: While sometimes the series is represented by Sarge and Church together (as they're the primary leaders of Red Team and Blue Team), Caboose is the most memorable character, with his endless quotable idiocy and adorable naivete. He is also the one most probable to get special episodes/PSAs and dedicated merchandise (including a plushie!).
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: "Self-Fulfilling Odyssey" heavily implies that he suffers from this in some fashion due to Church's deaths, with him claiming that "When someone dies, my brain likes to hurt me with memories."
• Shipper on Deck: As of "Change of Plans," he's apparently one for Washington and Carolina.
  Carolina: We have big news.
  Caboose: (gasp) You and Wash are taking your relationship to the next level! I knew it, the writing was all over the walls!
• Shout-Out: He's one of two characters (the other being Donut) named after one of the randomly generated names assigned to temporary multiplayer profiles in Halo: Combat Evolved.
• Simpleton Voice: While he didn't start with it, Joel Heyman eventually evolved Caboose's voice into a high-pitched one that makes it clear that he's a moron.
• Status Quo Is God: Season 11, Episode 15 has Wash give Caboose a Mark V helmet - the same one he constantly wore in the Halo 3 engine.
• Stealth Pun: invoked According to The Ultimate Fan Guide, Caboose hails from Earth's Moon. In other words, he's a lunatic.
• Suddenly Shouting: He's prone to SUDDENLY YELLING AT THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS!
• Super Gullible: Like you wouldn't believe. Sarge once got him to look away by literally saying that he heard a noise behind him.
• Super Mode: When he's able to work himself into a killing frenzy, he's terrifying. He immediately forgets how to do this, by the way (which honestly might be for the best).
• Super-Strength: He doesn't have any known enhancements, and his strength's still not to the level of Tex, but he's often stated as being very strong. The Blues have theorized that it's "God's way of compensating" for his low intelligence. He has actually proven to be stronger than her on a number of occasions; she has to ask him for help moving something (although that was because she was currently stuck in an inferior robot body compared to the older one she used during the Project Freelancer Saga), he flips a Warthog with ease in the finale of Recreation, fights the army of Texas Drones with little to no effort in Season 10, and in the Training Montage during Season 12, he comes in first when running and beats everyone else when doing push-ups by a wide margin. Additionally, when he enters an area where gravity was increased tenfold in Season 13, he doesn't even notice. In Season 16, when charging at one of the Battle Creek Reds, he sent them flying through the room with a golf club and even made his body pinball around said room.
• Talkative Loon: Becomes more prevalent in later seasons, where he’s prone to rambling nonsense at length and spurting out non-sequiturs.
• Team Killer: He often (accidentally) kills his own allies. Tucker once jokes that he couldn't hear what Caboose just said "over the sound of your constant team killing".
• This Is Gonna Suck: After initially freaking out, he awkwardly mutters "Uh oh..." when he realizes that Sheila is about to shoot Church and he can't do anything to stop her.
• Through the Eyes of Madness: The few times Church spends inside of his mind shows Caboose’s perception of the world is markedly different from reality. Among the more outlandish things he believes is that Sister is Church’s twin brother from the moon, Sarge is a pirate, and that Agent Washington is a superhero named "Agent Washingtub" with "Freelancer powers". The dubiously canon 360 episode "The Flag" gives more insight to Caboose's view of the world: it's filled with delusions and can become almost completely divorced from reality at times, but he can still partially comprehend some of what's going on around him and focus on certain instructions.
• Took a Level in Badass: As the series goes on, Caboose becomes less and less of a liability to his teammates and becomes a more efficient combatant (though still quite goofy) when on the battlefield.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: Was originally written as merely somewhat foolish early in Season 1, but quickly became outright insane by Seasons 2 and 3. This has been attributed to Sheila's initial destruction, and later O'Malley's forced ejection from his mind. Later episodes seem to have somewhat retconned him as having always being this dumb, but still implying he suffered from some form of brain damage being a part of Blue Team, such as when he was tricked into thinking gasoline was lemonade, and kept on drinking it for years.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Downplayed. Caboose was always pretty nice, but in later seasons his virulent hatred and jealousy of Tucker gradually disappeared.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: In Season 13, he confronts an alien A.I. he names "Santa", who was designed to test people to see if they're a "true warrior". Being an abnormally strong Fearless Fool, he easily passes both physical and mental challenges, and Santa spends a long period questioning Caboose. Upon seeing the rest of the Blood Gulch Crew, he immediately asks to talk with anybody else. And during the events of Singularity, the Labyrinth completely fails to make him kill himself, instead only making him feel hungry for pancakes.
• Tragic Keepsake: "Self-Fulfilling Odyssey" reveals that he took Alpha-Church's helmet as his own after he accidentally killed him in Season 1.
• Tranquil Fury: Caboose, of all people, showcases this when talking to Genkins!Church in "Self-Fulfilling Odyssey". After politely asking Genkins to leave his dead best friend's body, he then growls with barely disguised rage "Put. Him. Down." When Genkins yet again dismisses this, Caboose furiously tackles him and starts beating the shit out of him.
• Unreliable Narrator: In the 360 episode "The Flag", which takes place completely from his perspective.
  Church: Best friend powers activate!
  Caboose: Gasp! Did I hear you right or is my mind just playing tricks on me again?
  Church: I don't know, Caboose! I guess we'll never know! (flies away into the sky Iron Man-style, leaving behind a rainbow as a contrail) Whee!
• Undying Loyalty: For all his teamkilling tendencies (that were nobody's fault!), he's also twice gone to the ends of the Earth to resurrect/rescue Church.
• Unstoppable Rage: Very rarely displayed, to the point Season 10 reveals he had forgotten how to get angry. But when he does, he's The Juggernaut. The Battle Creek Grunts and the Tex Drones both found this out the hard way.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: A one-sided example with Church. There is absolutely no vitriol from Caboose's end, but Church at some points seems to flat-out despise him and repeatedly snarks at and insults him even after he takes a level in kindness. He also develops this dynamic with Tucker later on in the series.
• Vocal Evolution: One of the most stark examples in the series, with Joel Heyman having Caboose go from sounding fairly normal during the majority of Season 1 to having his now-signature Simpleton Voice by the beginning of Season 3. His voice has also gotten deeper and slower/more lethargic in recent seasons.
• Walking Techbane: Caboose is actually very good at working with or repairing A.I.s, but anything else generally results in something being set on fire.
• Weapon-Based Characterisation: Caboose has a habit of getting allies killed in friendly-fire and making friends with AI killing machines. He eventually ends up with an assault rifle controlled by his friend, killer AI "Freckles", who actively prevents friendly-fire from being possible. Thanks to the AI, Caboose can let rip to his heart's content without harming allies.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: He's always had shades of this, but it's best exemplified by his views on death. Church coming Back from the Dead so many times has made him believe that dead people will always come back to life if someone cares about them. Temple brutally shatters this belief when he reveals that Church is still dead and isn't coming back.
• With Catlike Tread: Caboose's idea of being stealthy is to either narrate aloud what he's doing, tell whoever he's spying on what he's doing, or fire his gun wildly while screaming at the top of his lungs.
• Yandere: He would literally kill to gain Church's love and attention.

Sister

Private Kaikaina "Sister" Grif

"Yeah, sorry, doesn't sound like I have the skills you need. Unless you want to see my ping-pong ball trick!"

Voiced By: Rebecca Frasier

Grif's younger sister, who joined the army in order to reunite with him, since she was lonely and scared after he left. Being colorblind and more than a little stupid, (the Ultimate Fan Guide actually states that she's dumber than Caboose) she joined Blue Team by mistake. She tags along with the Reds upon arriving (and landing on Donut), in the process convincing them that Sarge is dead and Simmons should be promoted, until her true affiliation is revealed and Grif hands her off to the Blues before Sarge gets the chance to shoot her. Roughly as lazy and useless as her brother, Sister's main purpose seems to be to embarrass Grif, whether through off-hand references to her promiscuous personal life, revealing the family's freak-show roots, or unintentionally televising her routine physical.

As of Reconstruction, she is the only Blue remaining at Blood Gulch, where she uses the base to host raves for five bucks a head (in one memorable night, making ten dollars). She wears yellow armor. In Relocated, Lopez claims to have killed her via choking, however Grif doesn't believe this, claiming she's Made of Iron and has Super Not-Drowning Skills. She disappears from the plot entirely after this. She finally makes a brief re-appearance in Episode 19 of Season 13, still living alone in Blood Gulch Alpha. Season 15 had her both visited in Blood Gulch in Episode 2, and reuniting with her brother on Earth in the season finale, leading to her return to the main cast in the following season (where the Party Scattering ends up partnering her with Tucker).

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Associated Tropes:

• All There in the Script: For the first thirteen seasons, there is no mention of her first name, which only appeared outside the show, like on DVD character profiles. It's finally shown on a computer screen in Season 14, among a roster of other names, and spoken aloud in Season 15.
• Better as Friends: She and Tucker ultimately seem to decide this by the end of The Shisno Paradox, though it's a bit more reluctant on Tucker's part since he still has feelings for her.
• Big Beautiful Woman: Kaikaiana reveals in The Shinzo Paradox that she is chubby which, considering her active sex life, clearly isn't a detriment to her attractiveness.
• Brainless Beauty: Doc comments on her fitness and flexibility during her physical, and Grif attests to her stupidity by telling how she repeatedly got kicked off her high school cheerleading squad for cheering for the wrong team. However, her dumbness is hardly a part of her character by the time she returns for The Shisno Paradox.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: All the time, to the point of it being a trademark of hers. Even Tucker gets confused sometimes.
  Sister: I thought about having a kid once.
  Tucker: Oh, really? It's a lot of work.
  Sister: Yeah, it seems like it would be hard. But, I thought, y'know, who wants to be known as the girl who's had seven abortions?
  Tucker: Heh, yeah... Wait, what?
• Character Development: While she's still a promiscuous airhead come The Shisno Paradox, she's also matured into someone who's emotionally intelligent and perceptive. Furthermore, she became a competent businesswoman in the years since Season 5.
• Characterization Marches On: Her Cloudcuckoolander tendencies and status as The Ditz are both barely a facet of her character come The Shisno Paradox, with her business acumen, emotional intelligence, and Lust instead being emphasized.
• Color Blind Confusion: The reason she ended up on the Blue Team in the first place.
• Cop Hater: She immediately turns hostile when she believes that Washington is a cop, apparently convinced he's trying to arrest her for something.
• Commuting on a Bus: Has been in a state like this since the end of Season 5, with brief appearances in Seasons 6, 13, 14, and 15. Only after Season 16 is she made a consistent part of the main cast again.
• Deadpan Snarker: Come The Shisno Paradox, she's forced to become the Straight Woman for Tucker as he goes increasingly Off the Rails.
• Driven to Suicide: Implied when explaining to the Reds that her team's leader (Captain Butch Flowers of Blue Team) died of an aspirin overdose. This gets a Cerebus Callback come Singularity, with it being implied that she first tried to kill herself out of guilt when she accidentally burned down her family's home since that resulted in their mother being forced to live in a trailer park.
  Simmons: You heard what Command said. Sarge is dead. He died of... what'd he die of?
  Sister: Aspirin overdose.
  Simmons: See, Sarge is dead of a- an Aspirin overdose? Really?
  Sister: I know! I didn't think it was possible. And trust me, I've tried.
  Simmons: Yeah... wait, what?
• Dumbass No More: She started out as The Ditz in Seasons 5 and 6, but after The Bus Came Back, she's shown to be remarkably emotionally intelligent and a good business woman.
• Everyone Has Standards: She might be kinky and willing to date a lot, but discovering her work fling is married (to the head of HR, to make things worse) is too messy for her.
• Fatal Flaw: Surprisingly, it isn't her Lust - Rather, it's her countless insecurities and habit of running away from her problems.
• Foil: To Tucker. They're both Lovable Sex Maniacs, but while Tucker is just putting on a mask to compensate for his numerous insecurities, Sister is completely genuine about it. Tucker's also a Casanova Wannabe and a misogynistic dick, while Sister has a better success rate and, outside of her promiscuity, is generally a friendly Nice Girl who just wants to have a great time wherever she goes. Whereas Tucker takes several seasons to step up to the plate and show off that he's a genuinely good soldier when he tries, Sister becomes a Young Entrepreneur the season after she's introduced. And of course, Tucker's a man while she's a woman.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Subverted in terms of her relationship with Grif, as both have elements of the "Responsible Sibling" (Grif's Big Brother Instinct towards her and Kaikaina becoming an event coordinator) and the "Foolish Sibling" (Grif is a Lazy Bum par excellence and Sister was originally written to be a "loud slut").
• Generation Xerox: Based on Doc's description and Grif's reaction, it is implied that Sister's mother is just as promiscuous as she is.
• Genius Ditz: Intelligence-wise, she's (ostensibly, at least) about on par with Caboose, but it turns out she's really good at running conventions, of all things.
• Hidden Depths: According to Season 15, she's a surprisingly good event coordinator. The Shisno Paradox also reveals that she's remarkably aware emotionally speaking, and has busloads of insecurities.
• In Love with Your Carnage: Kaikaina is attracted to displays of violence, with Jack the Ripper being one of the people she wanted to sleep with when she and Tucker got a time machine. She also gets turned on by Locus kneecapping several of the Blues and Reds' Grunts during Singularity.
• In-Series Nickname: Most people call her "Sister" instead of her real name, but Tucker eventually takes to calling her "K", and other characters also use "Kai".
• Ironic Name: Kaikaina is the Hawaiian word for "Little Sister" - or, more accurately, the Hawaiian word for "younger sibling of the same sex". She might be Grif's younger sister, but they're rather obviously not of the same sex.
• Killed Offscreen: An ambiguous fate; Lopez reports to have murdered her in Relocated, at which point she disappears from the series. Subverted in Season 13, where she makes a brief appearance in Episode 19.
• Large Ham: She really Chews The Scenery during "Mr. Red vs. Mr. Blue" in Season 14 when she's objecting to her not being allowed to participate in their remake of Reservoir Dogs.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: Even more so than Tucker is. Though unlike Tucker, whose sexually charged humor is essentially a front that he uses to hide his insecurities and build himself up, Kaikaina knows who she is, owns who she is, and anyone else can either accept her or get the hell out of her way.
• Made of Iron: Grif claims that when they were kids she once fell through the ice while they were ice skating. She was underwater for three hours, but when they finally brought her up, she was not only unharmed but also pregnant, meaning that technically, she survived the same thing that finally killed the Meta. The credibility of Grif's assertion is made much stronger considering he makes it right after he survives an eight hundred foot drop with seemingly no ill effects. Guess It Runs in the Family. Lopez's attempt to strangle her to death also failed to kill her.
• The Merch: In-Universe, she now makes a living running conventions and selling merchandise.
• My Greatest Failure: Her Labyrinth illusion in Singularity is being confronted with having accidentally burned down her and Grif's family home.
• Nice Girl: Once you get past the foolishness, kookiness, and promiscuity, Kaikaina is actually quite sweet and friendly to others and seems to only be interested in having a great time wherever she goes.
• Non-Action Girl: By the end of Singularity, she's the only member of both Blue Team and the Blood Gulch Crew as a whole to have never killed anyone^note (well, at least outside of the "Fight! Fight!" Alternate Ending to "Why Were We Here?", where she killed Grif as revenge for murdering Tucker after she flirted with him).
• Not Quite Dead: As it turns out, Lopez failed to kill her in Relocated and only succeeded in knocking her out. Sister, of course, thought it was hot.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Which is odd, because she's only Grif's sister, yet everyone else calls her that also. In Season 16, Tucker also calls her "K", and most other members of the Blood Gulch Crew seem to now call her "Kai".
• Phrase Catcher: Due to her Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick tendencies, about 90% of the things she says are responded to with the line "Yeah... wait, what?"
• Put on a Bus: Disappears after Reconstruction, and is supposedly dead, though Grif seems to doubt this. She makes a brief appearance in Season 13, and then two slightly longer ones in Season 15. And then The Bus Came Back in The Shisno Paradox.
• Really Gets Around: Her major character trait. To keep it short, her DVD character bio has "Rated: X".
• Ship Tease: With Tucker, although mostly in the "Fight! Fight!" Alternate Ending to Season 5. ^note Tucker proposes the idea of them spending their supposedly final moments together as lovers instead of fighters and Sister shows interest in the idea, even impatience. Then, when Tucker is "killed" by Grif, Sister responds angrily, saying she liked Tucker and that he was nice to her before "killing" her own brother.[ It comes back during their interactions in The Shisno Paradox, with Tucker even giving her a Dying Declaration of Love as they're sucked into the Everwhen in "Paradox."
• Ship Sinking: When they reunite in The Shinzo Paradox there is clearly an attraction between Kai and Tucker. However, Tucker's increasingly dickish behaviour starts turning Kai off from him which reaches its head when Tucker says she's acting "frigid" to him leading her to give him a "The Reason You Suck" Speech. While Tucker clearly regrets what he said and the two bury the hatchet by the end of the season Kai admits that Tucker's behaviour has caused her feelings for him to evaporate. By the end of Singularity the two decide they are Better as Friends with Tucker accepting that his attitude means he destroyed his chances with her.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: Seemingly. She isn't happy about this. However, she eventually returns in The Shisno Paradox and Singularity, and gains a lot more character depth as a result.
• The Smurfette Principle: Even though Tex was technically the first girl, Sister fits this far better, as she's both an actual member of Blue Team and also an actual human being and not an A.I.
• Straw Feminist: Parodied. Her heart's in the right place, but Sister clearly has no idea what the fuck she's talking about.
  Sister: END WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE! WE'VE SUFFERED LONG ENOUGH!
• Super Not-Drowning Skills: As discussed by Grif in Relocated.
  Grif: Listen, once when we were kids, we went ice skating, and she fell through the ice. She was under there for three hours, and when they pulled her out, not only was she still alive, she was pregnant. If you can explain that to me, I'll believe you when you tell me she's dead.
• Token Minority: invoked Downplayed, but due to her name being "Kaikaina" (which is an actual Hawaiian name) and Geoff Ramsey claiming Honolulu was the Grif siblings' hometown, Fanon has interpreted this to mean that both her and her brother are native Hawaiians. By consequence, most fan art depicting the Grifs has them as Hawaiian.
• Troll: Due to her still being annoyed by Tucker's more Jerkass behavior towards her during The Shisno Paradox, she tries to gaslight him for revenge before Donut "wakes" him up in Singularity.
• Twofer Token Minority: If she and Grif are both native Hawaiians, then Kaikaina counts as this by virtue of being both a Pacific Islander and a pansexual woman.
• Undying Loyalty: She never believed for a second that Grif, and by extension the other Reds and Blues, had turned evil despite the massive amount of evidence against them in Season 15.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: While it's still more the direct result of Tucker and Carolina, she's the one to initially plant the idea in the former's head for traveling back in time and saving Wash, which would go on to cause a Reality-Breaking Paradox.
• Vocal Evolution: In a contrast to the vast majority of the cast, Rebecca Fraiser's voice acting as her in the later seasons is actually deeper and not as breathy as her performance in Season 5 was.
• Weird Aside: She tends to make references to the countless insane and/or Squicky things she's done in otherwise normal conversation, to which someone will inevitably respond, "Wait, what?"
• What Happened to the Mouse?: One of the more notable examples of the series. Despite being a main character of Season 5, she only makes a single appearance in Season 6, and is supposedly killed by Relocated. She eventually shows up seven seasons later in Season 13, and Season 15 gives some insight into what she's been doing in all that time.
• Young Entrepreneur: Surprisingly enough, she became this during her time off-screen. Her raves turned such a profit that she eventually hosted a week-long music festival, which also sold incredibly well. Now she runs several cons for different demographics and even has a merch line.

Equipment and Mercenaries

Tex

Agent Texas (Allison / Beta)

"I wouldn't say I'm mean. I just get paid to do mean things."

"Agent Tex is a bit of a badass."

— FILSS

Voiced By: Kathleen Zuelch, Burnie Burns (voice filter), Rahul Kohli ("Get Bent")

AI Attribute: Failure

A black-armored mercenary and former agent of Project Freelancer, the biggest badass in all of Blood Gulch, an infiltration expert thanks to a cloaking device, and a better fighter than both teams combined. Her real name is Allison, and her Freelancer handle is Agent Texas. Tex is contracted to support the Blues after Church's death and proceeds to terrify Tucker and Caboose while leading a one-(wo)man assault on Red Base to recover the Blue flag. Unfortunately, a prodigious grenade toss by Donut eventually kills her, but she returns as a ghost some time later, inhabiting a robot body in a manner similar to Church. This experience mellows Tex out somewhat, as it frees her from the influence of her AI partner O'Malley (see below) - though by no means is she someone you should make angry. Tex hangs out with the Blues when she isn't off on her own, usually attempting to foil O'Malley or Wyoming's plans, but as the series progresses she gets more and more entangled in the plots surrounding the dupes at Blood Gulch.

Revelation reveals that, as many suspected, she is also an AI-based on the memories of Director Leonard Church. Created from his memories of Allison, his wife who had died, she apparently came into existence as Beta around the same time Alpha was created. Presumably as a result of the Director's feelings for the original Allison, she was not subjected to the same tortures as Alpha. Church eventually realizes that, like her original self, she's always doomed to failure.

In the Season 5 finale, she voluntarily reunites with O'Malley in an attempt to manipulate Junior and the alien race into helping humanity win the war, and is seemingly killed when Sarge sets off a bomb in the spaceship she hijacked. Although Tex gets kidnapped in AI form by the Meta and then destroyed in an EMP blast in Season 6, she's resurrected through the memory of the recently re-activated Epsilon during Season 8. This version of her is trapped inside the Epsilon Unit by the Meta after attempting to lure out and ambush both it and Washington. Church spends Season 9 trying to come back into contact with her, until inevitably deciding that it isn't worth dooming her to repeat her failures over and over again, and letting her go by "forgetting" her, removing her from existence.

For information about the woman she was based on, see Allison's entry.

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Associated Tropes:

• The Ace: She's the closest thing the setting has: She's pretty smart and knowledgeable enough to make a bomb from scratch, set up pretty tactical plans and decimate even fellow super soldiers with relative ease. If not for her curse to fail whenever she gets close to winning with something on the line, she'd probably have no competition.
• Action Girl: Quite easily the toughest person in the main cast.
• Alpha Bitch: Her (off-screen) jealous, vindictive, and abusive treatment of Sister makes her sound like this. Of course, Sister laughs it all off as "just girl stuff".
• Always Someone Better: And Carolina isn't all too happy about that.
• And Then What?: Church calls her out on ignoring this in the Blood Gulch Chronicles finale during her Face–Heel Turn. He points out that while Project Freelancer's plan to end the Great War with Junior may work, it'll also result in giving the Anthropomorphic Personification of rage an entire species of Proud Warrior Race Guys (the Elites) as an army for ravaging the galaxy with. She dismisses this by saying, "We'll just have to find out."
• Anti-Hero: While she has sympathetic motivations and is never an outright villain, she's cruel, brutal, and oftentimes ruthless in the pursuit of her goals.
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Girl: Her second self in Revelation, and all of her showings after that (including her original persona in flashbacks when wielding Omega), sports shades of this.
• Artificial Intelligence: Not only is she a natural fragment that broke off of the Alpha in its creation, but she's the "Beta" A.I.. In Season 10, it's shown that she's known this long before meeting up with Alpha-Church.
• Artistic Licence – Anatomy: Tex is capable of ripping out someone's skull and beating them to death with it. Her unfortunate victim even questions how she's able to do that.
• Autobots, Rock Out!: Anytime she's about to open a can of whoopass, expect a badass background theme.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Shares a touching moment with Church as the dream world falls apart in Season 9, and also gets some other pleasant moments with both the Alpha and Epsilon before each of her "deaths." "Why Were We Here?" also has the Blood Gulch Crew being spared by Omega's wrath as one of the conditions for letting him possess her, and she earlier describes Blue Team as "her idiots" to Sister in Season 5.
• Back from the Dead:
  • After her death in the EMP blast at the end of Season 6, she's resurrected by Epsilon-Church when he splits off his memories of her. She is not happy about this.
  • After Epsilon-Tex dies, a copy of her is found at the Director's lair at the end of Season 10. Unfortunately, this Tex has been Mind Raped beyond repair by the Director.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: After being taken by the Meta, Sigma does... whatever it is he does to the other AI to get her to go along with his mad schemes.
• Brought Down to Badass: While she's still a One-Woman Army during The Blood Gulch Chronicles, she's not nearly as superhumanly awesome as she was during The Project Freelancer Saga. While part of this is obviously just a case of Early-Installment Weirdness, it's justified In-Universe due to her both being cursed to always fail at the last moment whenever she puts her mind to something and the new robotic body she takes control over for the majority of the first five seasons being significantly weaker than the one she had during her time in Project Freelancer.
• Came Back Wrong:
  • The Tex Drones in Episodes 20 and 21 of Season 10 talk in a broken variation of her voice (to the point where they sound more like Omega than Tex herself), and don't seem to have quite the same level of badassery as the original. Aside from that, there is the fact that the controlling version of Tex is in less than stable condition.
  • We never get to meet the real Allison, as the one we do see is actually the result of the Director's attempts to bring her back. The Tex we know is in fact the A.I. known as "Beta", and essentially a memory of the original Allison. This memory is derived from those of the Director, so while she's close, she's never quite close enough to be a true replacement for Allison and is really little more than a shadow of her. What makes the situation even worse is that the Director's overriding memory of Allison was that she died in the Great War - she failed. This colored all of his other memories of her to the point where Beta's fragment attribute is that she's the Alpha's failure made manifest: No matter how hard she fights or how badass she might be, she will always ultimately fail whenever something heavily important is on the line because that's what the Director and the Alpha unconsciously designed her to do.
• Characterization Marches On:
  • The Project Freelancer Saga would reveal that she went to Blood Gulch to watch over the Alpha A.I. since she felt that it was all she could do to atone for failing to save him the first time around. This really doesn't fit in with her being a Wild Card that eventually betrays Church to help Project Freelancer (a.k.a. the organization that she abandoned), but it can be Hand Waved under Tex taking The Needs of the Many into account.
  • Additionally, the version of Tex seen during The Blood Gulch Chronicles is shown to be very greedy, to the point where it's her Fatal Flaw. This aspect of her personality isn't seen at all both during the flashback sequences in Seasons 9 & 10 along with her time in the present day as Epsilon-Tex.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Throughout The Blood Gulch Chronicles, she repeatedly betrays the Blues, though it's Played for Laughs. At the end of Season 5, her last betrayal, albeit done with good intentions, is played dead straight for drama. She also shoots Church and leaves him as bait for Wash and the Meta in Revelation, albeit so as to be able to finish their fight once and for all so she can finally kill the Director.
• Combat Pragmatist: She doesn't fight fair, be it kicks to the groin or beating you to death with your own skull. Also see Crazy-Prepared below.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: Towards the end of Season 10 there's about two or three dozen clones of her guarding the director. Where the original Tex could effortlessly curbstomp all of the Blood Gulch Crew at once without breaking a sweat, the clones don't seem to have quite the same level of badass as the original as the Crew manages to put up a pretty good fight against them. Although it's likely these bodies were mass produced, and not customized for battle like her first and third bodies. It also fits into her being cursed to always fail at whatever she does at the last minute.
• The Corruptible: Omega does this to every one he infects (sans Church) in some way, but his nature has the strongest hold on Tex's persona.
• Covert Pervert: Not really ever discussed about, but Tex can be pretty perverted, like at the way she repeatedly stared at the Alien's crotch.

Tex: "That's just a matter of a penis- O-opinion."

• Cosmic Plaything: Not quite as much as Church, but Tex's nature makes her life absolutely miserable. Many of her failures aren't even her fault in any way, just spectacular examples of bad luck. It gets to the point where she angrily asks Epsilon why he even brought her back if all she's going to do is fail for no reason and at whatever she sets out to do.
• Crazy-Prepared: Most evident in Episode 19 of Revelation, where she has the battlefield rigged with tons of mines, explosives, and hidden weapons, just to give herself an even greater edge over Washington and the Meta.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Her fight with the Reds and Blues in Revelation is just her kicking the crap out of them for two episodes. A good chunk of her fights in Seasons 9 and 10 are also this, most notably her training match with Wyoming, York, and Maine.
• Dark Action Girl: Although at the end of the day she is still a good person, Tex is immensely ruthless, to the point where it is a legitimate fear that she would casually murder those who piss her off.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Wears black armor, and while ruthless, is (mostly) on the side of good.
• Deadpan Snarker: Her humour's rather dry, needless to say.
• Death Is Cheap: Tex dies multiple times throughout the series in some form. She is destroyed by Donut's grenade at the end of Season 1, but returns as a ghost the next season. She dies in the crash of the Pelican at the end of Season 5, but still remains as the A.I. Beta. Beta is picked up by the Meta and destroyed by the "emp" at the end of Recreation. A different version of Tex based on Epsilon's memories returned in Revelation, and was encased in the Epsilon memory unit, but Epsilon eventually let himself "forget" the new Tex, removing her from existence and letting the character die for good.
• Death Seeker: By the time of her Epsilon iteration, Tex is so tired and annoyed of being constantly brought back to life against her will and just "wants to rest."
• Defector from Decadence: Following learning the information in Connie's data files, she promptly left Project Freelancer completely, only returning subversively with York and North Dakota (albeit inadvertently).
• Deuteragonist: She serves as this to Church for the series as a whole up until the end of Season 10, not counting Seasons 6 and 7. Her story and importance to the plot is second only to Church, particularly in The Blood Gulch Chronicles and Recreation, and she serves as the tritagonist throughout the Project Freelancer Saga.
• Disproportionate Retribution: When C.T calls her a shadow in Season 10, Episode 10, she doesn't take it very well:
  Tex: What did you just call me?!
  [...]
  Tex: Actually, we don't need you, we just need your armor. [proceeds to mortally wound C.T.]
• Do Androids Dream?: After her now-famous ass-kicking of the Blood Gulch Crew in "This One Goes To Eleven" (which was essentially her venting some repressed rage), this was her primary motivation: To find out who she is, what she is, and what purpose she has in the real world.
• The Dragon: For the Director in Seasons 9 and 10, until her Tomato in the Mirror.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Lampshaded in the end of Season 5, as her seeming death is met with little flair. Played Straight when it's revealed she's still alive, though has no role to speak of before her death by the emp.
• Easily Forgiven: In Season 10, Tex apparently manages to become reasonably close friends with both York and North Dakota in the space of just two episodes, despite having spent the past two seasons pretty much just being aloof and menacing towards everybody. Granted, York and North both seem to be pretty forgiving guys, and they were likely brought onto her side after she revealed to them what the Director had done to the Alpha.
• Exact Words: Both she and Church often refer to their romance by saying things like “We used to be together” or “We were inseparable” or “We used to be close." While it may all sound like typical romance talk, they're actually being completely literal: The Alpha and Beta A.I.s previously existed as non-metaphorical parts of one greater A.I. that the latter naturally broke themselves off from (with them previously having been akin to a binary personality matrix).
• Failure Is the Only Option: According to Epsilon, this is her defining character trait.
• Fake Memories: Later events heavily imply that she was implanted with these prior to her becoming a Freelancer Agent, what with her being utterly shocked upon realizing that she's an A.I. in Season 10.
• Fatal Flaw: A rare case of one being unintentionally built into the character - Namely, she will always fail at the last second whenever she puts her mind to something. Additionally, as alluded to below, she's very greedy.
• Foreshadowing: While she was already all but stated to be an A.I. in Reconstruction, it's not until Revelation that it's confirmed. However, there's some examples within The Project Freelancer Saga that serve as this for Tex herself In-Universe - Why does she seem to have a Charles Atlas Superpower in basically everything she puts her mind to? Because, as an A.I., her reaction times and thought processes would be greater than those of a human being. We get some more in Seasons 9 and 10 - First, when Wyoming hits her in the arm in Episode 10, disabling it. Then when Connecticut and the Insurrectionist Leader both stab her in Episode 7, but she doesn't bleed (she instead sparks like a malfunctioning piece of electronics), because she was inhabiting a robot body. Theta, an A.I., mentions that he has a sister, alluding to both the fact that Tex is an A.I. herself and that Carolina is the Director's daughter.
• Flanderization: Epsilon-Tex hitting Grif in the balls seven times was implied to be influenced by Episilon holding a grudge for Grif punting a few episodes prior, later seasons make this one of her go-to areas to hit, as it's noted Alison did it in the past. This however, is not minded, as it both adds comedy and makes her fighting style even that more unique when in action.
• Freudian Excuse: Her more Jerkass tendencies are all but stated to be due to Omega serving as The Corrupter for her.
• Friendly Enemies: Downplayed, but still present with Wyoming. Despite the two being on opposite sides, the two seem to have a healthy amount of respect, with Tex opting to talk to Wyoming rather than shooting him when given the chance. She even later refers to him (along with Maine) as "dummies" with no malicious intent despite them nearly having killed her the first day they met.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: For both the Freelancers and the Blood Gulch Crew. C.T., York, and North Dakota were the closest people she had to actual friends among the Freelancers, and both she and Church are really obsessed with each other, albeit in a rather unhealthy manner.
• The Gadfly: She loves screwing with people, particularly the Blood Gulch Crew. When she isn't angry at them, which often results in a beating, she'll still find some way to toy with them and mess with their heads.
• Gender-Concealing Voice: Tex wears a full body armor and full-face helmet. Her voice filter makes it easy for others to mistake her for a guy.
• Gender Flip: The Epsilon version of her, along with the entirety of Red Team, are all misremembered as being the opposite gender in one of Epsilon-Church's iterations as seen in "Get Bent".
• Glass Cannon: She's very nearly Strong and Skilled compared to the Freelancers' Weak, but Skilled and the Red's and Blue's Unskilled, but Strong, but while she is durable, it still pales to the latter group's general level of durability. Case in point, all most all of her defeats comes from her sustaining one injury or oversight that leads to her downfall, examples being Sarge and Wyoming both needing only a good hit she doesn't see coming to knock her out. Or Washington clipping her on the shoulder to injure her long enough for the Meta to finish her off.
• Greed: Let's face it, Tex is probably the most selfish and greedy character in The Blood Gulch Chronicles. If you want to motivate her into doing something, all you need to do is suggest she'll get something out of it (or that she'll have a great opportunity to outright steal something by doing it) and she'll be there before you can even finish your sentence. This, however, is dropped in later seasons.
• Groin Attack: The legacy of Tex just hates people's crotches for some reason.
  • Epsilon-Tex and the Tex Drones always aim squarely at Grif's crotch, the former unleashing seven on the poor guy.
  • Allison did this to Church's bully at boot camp.
  • The original Tex mangles Carolina's and Biff's crotches in a Season 15 flashback.
  • During the training session with York, Maine and Wyoming, Alpha Tex does end up kneeing York in the crotch before hitting him in the head. And later after she's been disarmed by York, she unloads an entire clip of armor hardening paint into his groin.
• Heartbroken Badass: After she sees the Alpha be reduced to a broken Empty Shell who doesn't even recognize her. The entire reason that she puts up with Church's Jerkass behavior during The Blood Gulch Chronicles is because she feels like it's the least she can do out of penance for failing to save the man she loved.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Tex has a tendency to switch sides, particularly in the early seasons when her status as a Wild Card was more prominent.
• Hidden Depths:
  • As the series goes on, it becomes increasingly clear that she has intense self-loathing issues and is literally suicidal since she's tired of always failing at whatever she puts her mind to and just "wants to rest."
  • On a more amusing note, The Blood Gulch Chronicles heavily implies that she's a Yaoi Fangirl.
  • Despite her casual attitude most of the time, she actually follows My Country, Right or Wrong mentality, though she draws the line at that mentality hurting those she cares about.
• Hometown Nickname: The initial explanation for Tex's name is, "because she's from Texas." Later it's retconned into being a shortening of her codename "Texas".
• Hypocritical Humor: Tex claims that she doesn't see herself as an actual member of Blue Team during The Blood Gulch Chronicles and doesn't care about how they see her, but angrily demands why she's being "replaced" after learning that Sister has recently joined Blue Team in Season 5.
• Immortality Through Memory: The trailer for Recreation features her and Church watching the Reds and Blues from what's likely supposed to be the afterlife. After Church complains about being dead, leaving him unable to do anything to assist the Blue Team, Tex tells him "They say you're never completely dead if someone still remembers you."
• Improbable Use of a Weapon: When fighting Project Freelancer personnel during the break-in, she uses Spike Grenades as mace-esque melee weapons.
• Invisibility Cloak: Her initial armor ability.
• Irrational Hatred: Implied. Though they don't interact much, she seems to have this for Grif in later seasons, considering the sheer amount of utterly brutal Groin Attacks she inflicts on him. Though this is justified, as it is implied that Epsilon-Tex targeting Grif is due to Epsilon-Church being salty over being punted by Grif a few episodes earlier and possibly revenge for sexist comments Grif made in the past.
• Jerkass: invoked During her days with the other Freelancers, Tex is selfish, greedy, ruthless, very violent and doesn't care about her teammates (or ex-teammates): she only focuses on her objective. This attitude led to some very harsh moves, such as mortally wounding C.T., then blaming the failure to take her armor back on Carolina. However, Episode 16 of Season 10 implies that her Jerkass attitude is more due to Omega than to her herself. She's actually pretty nice once she shuts him down for a while after he nearly makes her kill the incapacitated Carolina in a sparring match. And just like both the Alpha and Epsilon, The Recollection and The Project Freelancer Saga would show her to have been a Jerkass Woobie all along.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Tex is distant and standoff-ish to the rest of the Blue Team, but in time she grows fond of them. She even referred them as "her idiots" to Sister during their talk in Blood Gulch. Her Hidden Heart of Gold shows in Season 10, Episodes 15 and 16 for the flashbacks. She actually shows concern for Carolina during the latter's breakdown, even resisting Omega's urges and "sedating" Carolina by knocking her out. Later, when she and North have a conversation concerning York and Carolina, Tex seems friendlier than usual.
• Kick the Dog: Shooting Church in the leg near the end of Season 8 so that she could lure Washington and the Meta into a trap. She pays for it.
• Killed Off for Real: After being revived through various incarnations, Tex finally dies for good at the end of Season 10 when Church gives the final copy of her AI a Mercy Kill.
• Know When to Fold Them: Tex rarely shows any fear or hesitation in the face of battle - and rightfully so given how much of a badass she is - but after witnessing the Meta seemingly murder Carolina and absorb two additional A.I.s, she simply runs away as fast as she can.
• Knuckle Cracking: In non-machinima sequences, Tex often starts a fight with cracking her knuckles and popping her neck.
• Laser-Guided Karma: As Doc pointed out, she paid for it dearly after shooting Church in the leg during Revelation.
• Leitmotif: Two - "A Girl Named Tex" and "Agent Tex."
• Lightning Bruiser: She's really fast and doesn't sacrifice durability or strength in being really fast. Try running, and you'll be beaten to a bloody pulp before you get halfway across the room.
• Loving a Shadow: An literal In-Universe case. The love both she and Church share for each other (along with most of the memories they have of being together) is either directly drawn from or a reflection of the relationship between Director Leonard Church and his wife Allison. As Tex points out, this applies with Church as well, since he continuously pursues and obsesses her while refusing to take her wants into account.
• Made of Iron: Even before "dying" and becoming a "ghost" possessing a robotic body, she's really tough. Makes sense considering she was really already an A.I. inhabiting a robotic body to begin with.
• The Masochism Tango: Her relationship with Church in a nutshell. Slap-Slap-Kiss doesn't even begin to describe the complex interplay of emotions between the two. The saddest thing is that they actually have probably the closest thing to a genuinely healthy romantic relationship out of any two characters on this show.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The sheer level to which she is forced to always fail at the last possible moment whenever she's trying to do something important increasingly comes across as more the result of a supernatural curse than anything possibly due to her profoundly bad luck or screwy programming.
• Meaningful Name: She's the biggest badass out of all the Freelancers, and her codename is Texas.
• Mercy Kill: Epsilon "forgetting" her at the end of Season 9, since it finally allows her rest, saving her from any further pain.
• Me's a Crowd: As of Season 10, Episode 20 and 21. All thanks to the Director and his continued attempts to "get her right," a bunch of spare robot soldier bodies, and a lot of time on his hands.
• Mind Rape: As of Episode 21 of Season 10, it seems that an unknown version of Texas underwent a process similar to that of the Alpha, forgetting even her own name, as she was used to power the robot army of Tex copies.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: Surprisingly, she shares this notion with both Wyoming and Maine. Once she learns about the Project's plan to end the Human-Covenant War, she goes along with it after ensuring Omega doesn't target her friends.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Omega nearly driving her to kill Carolina while the latter is incapacitated on the training room floor is all but stated to be what made Tex want to get the A.I. out of her head.
• My Greatest Failure: She's the personification of the Director's loss of Allison. In Season 10, we learn that she has her own regrets that fall into this trope - Namely, failing to save the Alpha, and failing to stop the Meta from (supposedly) killing Carolina.
• Near-Villain Victory: Inverted or played straight in the case of her time as The Dragon to the Director constantly.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Her attempted rescue of the Alpha only gave the Meta the opportunity to claim Carolina as his first victim.
• Not So Above It All: Practically a Running Gag with her during The Blood Gulch Chronicles. For instance, she brags about being the sanest out of the Blood Gulch Crew at one point in Season 3 and having control over her anger... before Tucker points out that she compulsively punches the members of Blue Team in their sleep.
• Oh, Crap!: She can only look on in horror when the Meta forcibly steals Carolina's A.I.s and then tosses her off a cliff to her supposed doom.
• One-Woman Army: Generally, if she's with anybody else she'll do more fighting than they will. The only people able to stop her in one on one fights are the Meta and Carolina, and even the latter can't do so for very long.
• Only Sane Woman: ...Somewhat. Tex would be this on the Blue Team if she weren't obsessively greedy and uncontrollably violent. She punches the guys in their sleep, and once knocked out Tucker to steal his sword.
• Pet the Dog: Several times, particularly towards the Blood Gulch Crew. They may be idiots, but they're her idiots. Also occasionally to Carolina in the flashbacks, almost heavily focusing around her two A.I. partners (Episodes 13, 15, and 16 of Season 10).
• Power Creep, Power Seep: In Season 1, Sarge knocked out Tex in a single hit, while in Season 8, Sarge can't even manage to land a hit. Epsilon explains this later as Tex always fails, but only just barely.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner:
  • "Okay, so who's first?" in Season 8, Episode 9. Cue a total Curb-Stomp Battle for the next episode.
  • The Tex Drones use Omega's again in Episode 20 of Season 10, as a sign of them being corrupted by the Director's torture.
    Tex Drones: You have no idea what kind of trouble you are in. (sinister chuckle)
• The Quiet One: Doesn't say a single word during the DEATH BATTLE! between the Red and Blue Teams, probably due to the departure of her voice actress.
• Ridiculously Human Robot: The android body she had during The Project Freelancer Saga was so advanced and lifelike that even she didn't know she was an Artificial Intelligence until late into Season 10.
• The Rival: To Carolina. However, it's shown to be more for a one-sided rivalry over the course of The Project Freelancer Saga; Tex is pretty ambivalent to her and is behaves like a Jerkass towards her, but that's how she treats most other Freelancers until she pulls Omega from her head. Meanwhile, Carolina's issues result in her taking Tex's superiority to her very personally and results in her trying to outdo her at the cost of her own mental health.
• Samus Is a Girl: At first, she's mistaken for a guy because of her voice filter. And by Washington in Season 9.
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: With Church. Deconstructed in Season 9, which is all about pointing out how unhealthy their relationship is, and shows that Tex deeply resents this.
• The Smurfette Principle: Throughout Seasons 1-4, she's the only female member of the Blood Gulch crew. She loses this status once Sister arrives in "Sibling Arrivalries".
• Stealth Hi/Bye: One of her specialties. The Invisibility Cloak helps.
• Strong and Skilled: The first example in the series, though she'd be somewhat succeeded by Washington, Carolina and then Locus and Felix. She's insanely strong and pretty damn skilled, beating her would be damn near impossible if it wasn't for Worf Had the Flu being inflicted at all times.
• Super-Strength: Epsilon-Tex's armor ability. She also shows abnormally high strength in the flashback scenes during The Project Freelancer Saga.
• Team Mom: To the Blues whenever she finds themselves stuck with them for a significant amount of time during the first five seasons. However, she's not very good at it, and tends to ditch them whenever she feels like it. This gets Played for Laughs until the Season 5 finale.
• Tomato in the Mirror: She's an AI, like Church, who the Alpha inadvertently made based off of the memories of a dead loved one of the Director's. However, since his last memories of said loved one were her death, Tex is cursed to ultimately fail at everything she does. She initially realizes this in the flashback in Episode 17 of Season 10 by way of Connecticut's data file, where she also sees that her designation is as "Beta".
• Took a Level in Badass: Due to the inclusion of Monty Oum in the Rooster Teeth staff, her fights become considerably really awesome and her behavior that much more badass from Revelation onwards. However...
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In Revelation, where she beats the crap out of the Reds and Tucker for no real reason and blames it on them afterwards, and shoots Church in the leg to use him as bait for Wash and the Meta. Justified, since she was both going through an identity crisis and was pissed about being revived by Church without her consent.
• Underestimating Badassery: She willingly picks up a fight with both Agent Washington and the Meta at the same time. Tex realizes that taking on two Freelancers at the same time is no easy task, so she prepares herself as best as she can. What she doesn't know is that both of her opponents have become significantly stronger since the last time Tex saw them and they're able to defeat her regardless.
• Vitriolic Best Friends: Both York and Tex throw snark at each other quite often when they're together, but it's shown that the two trust each other and get along pretty well, even years after the fall of the Project.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Why she assists the Green Alien, O'Malley and Wyoming in the Blood Gulch Chronicles finale. She believes that if she helps them infect Tucker's son Junior with O'Malley and he returns to Sangheilos with "the Great Weapon", then the long and bloody war between the UNSC and Covenant will finally end.
• Wild Card: For The Blood Gulch Chronicles. It gets Played for Laughs until "Why Were We Here?".
• Worf Had the Flu: Imposed accidentally and repeatedly. When nothing is on the line, she'll kick the crap out of anyone with ease, but when doing some sort of mission or in some danger, she'll mess up at the last moment.
• The Worf Effect: She's on the giving end in Season 9. Her first appearance in the flashbacks has her beat the crap out of Maine, Wyoming, and York in a training match even after the former two start using live ammo.
• Wrestler in All of Us: Tex loves this trope. She's used a German Suplex on Tucker in "This One Goes to Eleven," a Backbreaker on Maine in "Reunion," and a Piledriver on the Insurrectionist Leader in Episode 10 of Season 10.
• Yaoi Fangirl: Implied. When the Reds bargain her help in exchange for a favor. Involving the all-male Red Team. To do "whatever she needs". Grif asks, "So, this could be anything? ...Including gay stuff?" Tex's only response? "I have no idea."
• Younger than She Looks: Aside from the original Agent Texas being only a few years old at the most for the majority of the series, Epsilon-Texas is only a few months old, with a maximum of about one year or so at the time when she is forgotten.

Wash

Agent/Major Washington (David)

"That was the worst throw. Ever. Of all time."

"I've already been responsible for enough of their problems in the past, and I'll be damned before I let you cause any more."

Voiced By: Shannon McCormick

A Freelancer and Recovery Agent, the main character of Recovery One and arguably the main character of the Recollection Saga (barring Recreation). Washington's job is to find dead or dying Freelancers and recover their AIs and special equipment. He is trusted with this position due to his view of AIs—he had an AI partner, Epsilon, until the fragment suffered a major psychotic break and attempted suicide while in his head, leaving him therefore the person least likely to try and steal another one. (The experience had absolutely no effect on his sanity, by the way). Wash works with Agent South and Delta during Recovery One to hunt down the Meta, and though he is seemingly killed during that series, he survives (due to York's regeneration unit) to continue his mission during Reconstruction, and enlists Church and Caboose to help. He has another, self-appointed goal: Epsilon held the Alpha's memory, meaning that Wash knows everything the Director of Project Freelancer did to it and is trying to bring the Director down. Washington serves as a Straight Man or the Only Sane Man when exposed to the two teams' weirdness, but has a latent snarkiness that comes into play whenever he lampshades the implausible things they've done. His armor is gray with yellow markings on the shoulders. After joining the Blue Team, he changes to Church's cobalt armor, modified to also have yellow shoulders.

After being held prisoner by the UNSC for inadvertently destroying the evidence of Project Freelancer's misdeeds, Washington is released, and has to work with the Meta to track down Epsilon. When he finally does, he manages to hold his own fighting Tex, and even tries to help Epsilon save her. At the end of the Recollection, he joins the Blue Team so that he won't get thrown back in jail. By Season 10 he's become a real part of the Blood Gulch Crew and decides to prevent any more problems by siding with them over Carolina and winds up shipwrecked with them in Season 11.

He temporarily joins the Feds in Season 12 until discovering the setup laid by Felix and Locus. He later reunites with the rest of the Blood Gulch Crew, along with Carolina and Epsilon. They join forces with the New Republic and the Feds to take down Malcolm Hargrove.

---

Associated Tropes

• '90s Anti-Hero: Deconstructed in The Recollection. Washington is pretty much the archetypical '90s Anti-Hero; he's a brooding, cold, and absolutely ruthless Jerkass motivated entirely by revenge. As a result, his allies despise and fear him because his behavior makes him look like a dangerous sociopath who could and would kill them if they don't do what he wants, and he's eventually arrested because his take no prisoners approach makes it look a lot like he was killing everyone who knew too much about Project Freelancer. It's also shown that his attitude is the direct result of a lot of trauma and deeply unhealthy, and it eventually drives him to a Face–Heel Turn when he thinks that killing the Reds and Blues could accomplish his goals because he's written off pretty much everyone as expendable.
• Ace Custom: In all animated moments prior to the switch to Halo 4, Washington’s Battle Rifle fired in a 4-round burst. The sound effects line up with this for the most part, and it is particularly noticeable in the very first animated battle, in Season 8.
• Allegiance Affirmation: After all his efforts to bring the Director and Project Freelancer to justice, is arrested in Season 7 for detaining an EMP in Freelancer Command and spends most of the season in jail, seething over it and getting increasingly bitter. Then, at the end of the season, he arrives just as the Meta corners Simmons, Donut, and Lopez and announces he'll take it from here, and then shoots Donut and Lopez dead.
• Animal Motifs: A pretty subtle one, but Wash is often compared to cats. During the time of The Project Freelancer Saga, his nature has him likened to a naive kitten, and he's even revealed to have pictures of adorable kittens on the inside of his training room locker. After the Epsilon Incident, Wash's general character arc is loosely similar to an abused cat lashing out at all that angers them before being taken in by a foster family (i.e., the Blood Gulch Crew). It's also likely not a coincidence that he's one of the most sarcastic characters out of the present-day cast. Heck, his habit of using combat knives is even like cat claws in a sense. Wash's ability to survive against near-impossible odds is reminiscent of the myth of a cat having nine lives. The Shisno Paradox even reveals that Wash used to have a pet cat named "Loki" when he was a kid that was just as indestructible as he is.
• The Atoner: How he seems to see himself after his Heel–Face Turn. As he tells Locus in the penultimate episode of Season 12, "I used to be a real piece of shit, but at least I'm doing something about it!"
• Badass Adorable: He's shown as this in the prologue segments, having his locker filled with kitten pictures and even rubber ducks.
• Badass Decay:
  • In-Universe, Epsilon-Church claims in Season 10 that Wash has gone from being a Freelancer who could fight toe-to-toe with Tex to Carolina's whipping boy. It still counts as a Downplayed Trope as he is still a badass and has in fact turned the Blues into a much more effective fighting force. The Badass Decay is relative when compared to Carolina. It is completely revoked when he puts a gun to Carolina's head when she threatens Tucker and shoots her an Ironic Echo before walking out on her.
  • Discussed later on in Season 12. Locus believes that bonding with Reds and Blues has weakened Washington and that he is not a soldier he used to be as a Freelancer. Seeing how easily Wash was intimidated by Freckles (despite former having fought foes worse than the latter), there may be something to those accusations.
• Badass in Distress: As of the end of Season 11, and for the start of Season 12, he has been kidnapped along with Sarge, Donut, and Lopez by the Federal Army of Chorus. Subverted later, as although they were taken in by force at first, they remained there by choice with the promise of "rescuing" their friends to convince them, much like the others were with the New Republic. Then Felix and Locus show up and reveal they've been playing the Feds and Rebels against each other for years.
• Badass Normal: Practically a staple of his character is how effective he is without the use of an A.I. or any special armor enhancements.
• Beneath the Mask:
  • When patching up the bitterness between him and Tucker during Season 11, Washington admits that he considered himself the worst fighter in his old squad and was never entrusted with leadership before ending up on Blue Team. It is the first time in the present that Wash has revealed any insecurity, and goes a long way to mending his relationship with Tucker. During his surgery after the fight with the Federal Army of Chorus he has some combination of flashback and hallucination of previous events in his life. When he sees himself shooting Donut, there is very real panic and guilt in his voice, suggesting he's still haunted by his previous actions.
  • Supplementary material (in Red vs. Blue: The Ultimate Fan Guide) reveals that his personality always concealed darker character traits. As it turns out, a tendency to repress his anger and nurse grudges undetected until the opportune moment for revenge has been an attribute of his since childhood. This casts the Epsilon Incident in a completely different light - receiving the Alpha's memories may have simply brought these traits all to the surface, finally giving him a target for these vengeful tendencies in the form of the Director.
• Best Served Cold: Washington was driven insane by Epsilon's attempt at suicide two years before the events of the The Blood Gulch Chronicles, gradually recovering his sanity and being cleared for duty after Season 1 but before Season 2 of The Blood Gulch Chronicles. He rebelled against Project Freelancer in Reconstruction, which takes place two years after the end of Season 5. For four years Washington had knowledge of the Director's misdeeds and continued to work for him, biding his time until he had the means to bring him down, which turned out to be his unintentional discovery of the Alpha AI and Epsilon's continued existence. As it turns out, this is a character trait that has been with Washington since childhood, as revealed when in fifth grade, he slammed a former bully from his third grade's face into a mirror, nearly costing the latter his eye.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: With the Meta in Recreation and Revelation as they hunt down Epsilon. The pair hold Simmons and Doc hostage at the beginning of the latter season, the ensuing battle between them and the Red Team plus Epsilon sets Epsilon out to find and revive Tex, and then Tex lures them to Sidewinder for a final battle. However, Wash is betrayed by the Meta towards the end and then makes a Heel–Face Turn.
• Big Brother Instinct: Develops this in later seasons, particularly for Caboose.
• Big Brother Mentor: Becomes this for Tucker by Season 15.
• Boring, but Practical: Wash's fighting style involves, for the most part, very basic hand to hand combat and mid range fighting with his battle rifle. A far cry from the crazy moves shown by every other named freelancer. Despite this, he's extremely dangerous with such basic techniques, capable of injuring Tex with a gunshot to the back, leading to her defeat by the Meta, taking down several Hornets at different times, and being roughly the second most effective fighter in Episode 21 of Season 10. Also Boring, but Practical in the case of his overall performance in the prequels. He's one of the few seen on the board at all times, and the only time his position moves in Season 9 is when it goes up a space. Considering he's not a super talented hardcore badass (yet) like other Freelancers makes this seem strange. Except the reason he's always on the board is because he does his job. He's got no authority issues (yet), no impulses to turn on other team mates, and mostly doesn't even care about the board to begin with. He's there to complete the mission, and doesn't care what rank he gets.
• Broken Pedestal: Season 9 shows that Wash actually had a very high opinion of the Director before the Epsilon Incident. Red vs. Blue: The Ultimate Fan Guide reveals that much of his admiration comes from the fact that Project Freelancer offered him the only chance to use his combat skills after a UNSC court martial for disobeying orders that would have gotten his platoon killed and injuring his sergeant in the process of his insubordination.
  Washington: The Director? He's given us everything. He's helping us.
• Butt-Monkey: Even during his badass present day phase, he gets injured and blown up on an impressively regular basis. This only gets worse for him in the flashback seasons, where it's almost worse there since he's also a No-Respect Guy.
• Byronic Hero: Particularly in Recovery One. But thanks to the Reds and Blues, he eventually gets better.
• Car Fu: A constant victim of this.
  Wash: Why do cars hate me?
• Character Development: All those betrayals do take quite a toll on one's psyche. Having someone you betrayed forgive you and welcome you back with open arms does too, especially in a really kind-hearted way.
• Character Focus:
  • He's the main protagonist of Recovery One, Reconstruction, and Season 11 of The Chorus Trilogy.
  • He's also one of the more prominent characters of The Chorus Trilogy in general, with the relationship he has with Locus constituting a significant subplot (in spite of Wash's absence for nearly half of Season 12).
• The Chew Toy: A lot of very tragic things have happened and keep happening to Wash.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Inverted. Almost everyone Wash deals with betrays him at some point... Well, all except for the Blood Gulch Crew.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Being stuck in armor lock for days on end with no food or water made him more than a little loopy in Season 15. It has some pretty tragic results though.
• Contrasting Replacement Character: The previous Freelancer associated with the Blue Team was Agent Texas, a One-Woman Army strong enough to fight mostly with her bare hands and apathetic to the Blood Gulch conflict beyond what she was paid to. Washington is a Badass Normal who eschews the typical Freelancer armor enhancements for being really good with a Battle Rifle and considers his own problems with the Meta and Project Freelancer to be more important than the Blood Gulch conflict. Additionally, Wash refuses to have an AI in his helmet while Tex is an AI. Finally, Tex ultimately betrayed the Blues as well as the Reds at the end of The Blood Gulch Chronicles, while Wash, though briefly went through a Face–Heel Turn in Revelation, ultimately join Blue Team permanently and acknowledges them and the Reds as his friends.
• Cowardice Callout: He calls Locus a coward while deconstructing the latter's Terminator act as something he hides behind because he's too afraid to take responsibility for his atrocities.
• Cyborg: By the time of Zero, he has received implants created from state-of-the-art robotics to repair his brain damage and which even enables him to see events coming seconds before they happen.
• Combat Pragmatist: Has to in order to stand a chance without armor enhancements. For example, rather than try to overpower Epsilon-Tex (like an idiot) in Revelation, he keeps her busy with a few quick punches, then steals the battle rifle right off her back as she knocks him back. He also gives himself a surface level cut in Great Destroyers to help him circumvent Locus' invisibility, and instead of attacking another spot on his armor opts to kick the knife he stuck the mercenary with to dig it deeper.
• The Comically Serious: Even among the Freelancers, he's more or less the Straight Man.
• Cryptic Conversation: In the present, he's often having cryptic conversations with himself, largely because he tends to know more than everyone around him, and also because, well, look at the company he keeps. Lampshaded twice-over by Felix:
  Felix: Man, you are cryptic. Like all the time. Do you realize that?
  Felix: The fuck is that supposed to mean?! Christ man, always with the cryptic one-liners!
• Deadpan Snarker: Mostly in the present. In the prequels, he's much less deadpan.
• Decoy Protagonist: With Carolina and Chruch's departure from the Blood Gulch Crew at the end of Season 10, the start of Season 11 initially paints Washington as the new main protagonist and focus character, with the season even opening on his narration as he recaps his journey similar to how Epsilon did at the start of Season 9. However, by the end of the season Washington is one of the ones captured by Locus and Tucker takes over as the central character for the remainder of the Chorus Trilogy.
• Dented Iron: After his gunshot wound in Season 15, Wash was left with cerebral hypoxia that makes it harder for him to remember recent events and also causes random fits of anger (along with possible motor skill issues, but it's never made clear if that's just bad luck or an actual result of his damage). As he himself points out, though, it's still manageable and with the help of his friends, he can learn to live with it.
• Determinator: It takes stunning amounts of danger or damage to get Wash out of a fight.
• Deuteragonist:
  • The Recollection ultimately revolves around Church (both the Alpha, and later Epsilon, variants), but Washington's story is of almost-equal importance, particularly in Reconstruction (with him being the season's protagonist) and Revelation (with him being that season's Villain Tritagonist).
  • He and Carolina are both the deuteragonists of Season 13 of The Chorus Trilogy and the collective tritagonists of Season 12.
  • He's also really important during the events of Singularity (with one of the season's subplots being Wash coming to terms with his brain damage and him learning to forgive Carolina for her initially keeping it secret from him) and serves as its deuteragonist, though Donut is still ultimately that season's protagonist.
• Devious Daggers: It's most apparent when fighting the Meta in Revelation and Felix in Season 13.
  Wash (to Felix) What, you think you're the only one who's good with knives?
• Disc-One Final Boss: After serving as one of the main antagonists during Revelation, Wash pulls a Heel–Face Turn and joins the Reds and Blues after the Meta betrays him.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": At least in the case of the Director. He seems perfectly comfortable with Carolina calling him by his real name after Season 13.
  Director: Yes, I realize it has been a while since we've spoke, David. May I call you David?
  Washington: No, you cannot. You gave me my new name, the least you can do is use it.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty:
  • Shows shades of this in Season 11, making Tucker do squats and laps around the canyon. He even increases the number of laps when Tucker tries to snark back at him.
  • He's trying this again in Season 13, only this time on Grif, by punishing Grif's squad for his laziness (his hope being that the guilt will force Grif to comply). Obviously, he doesn't know Grif as well as he thought and he meets with rather mixed success. He also tries to chew Palomo out for less than stellar performance during target practice, again with mixed success.
• Easily Forgiven: For siding with the Meta, being a total dick to the Reds and Blues, taking Simmons and Doc hostage, insulting, humiliating, and depriving Sarge of his shotgun and shooting Lopez and Donut. Aside from Donut referring to him as "a jerk" for shooting him he's pretty much been taken in by the Reds and Blues no questions asked. However, if Washington's dream from "The Federal Army of Chorus" is anything to go by, he still hasn't forgiven himself for his past actions (especially shooting Donut, even though Donut himself has and whenever it comes up it's typically Played for Laughs).
• Exhaustion-Induced Idiocy: After being armor-locked by Temple, his fatigue has clearly affected his mindset worse than it has for Carolina. He's highly loopy, hallucinating, and says random things that he normally wouldn't in a clearer head. This also leads to him casually walking out into the middle of gunfire where he gets shot in the neck.
• Face–Heel Turn: At the end of Recreation, after one betrayal too many. Thankfully, it only lasted for a season.
  Wash: For as long as I can remember, I've been lied to, taken advantage of, shot in the back and left for dead. And now, I have a way out of all of this. What in the hell makes you think I'm going to ask for it?
• Faking the Dead: The Reds and Blues help him do this in order to escape from the Chairman by disguising himself as Church at the end of Revelation, who had left his body.
• Fatal Flaw: Revenge. It takes Wash a long time for him to find out that his habit of holding grudges for a really, really long time is anything but a good idea.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: He temporarily went insane when he had Epsilon plugged into his brain and it tried to kill itself while still in his head.
• Good Costume Switch: After his Heel–Face Turn, he starts wearing Church's cobalt armor, with his yellow highlights painted on, until switching back to his grey and yellow armor towards the end of Season 11.
• Guile Hero: Not above trying to talk his way out of things, or manipulate people. Fighting smarter allows him to fight on par with Felix and Locus, using tricks and psychological tactics to keep up with their superior weaponry. A great example of this is him using his own blood to give away Locus's camouflage.
• Gun Kata: Not a very stylized version, but has an intense close quarters battle with Felix using a pistol and various blocks and knee strikes to counter Felix's knives in "Fed vs. New".
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: From his younger days, where he comes off as almost innocent and idealistic. Season 10's present-day segments seem to indicate that this part of him is making a resurgence due to his Character Development.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Makes a Face–Heel Turn at the end of Recreation, but has a Heel–Face Turn at the end of Revelation.
• Heel Realization: At the end of Revelation, he starts feeling guilty about his actions after the Reds and Blues rescue him from the Meta and he talks with Epsilon-Church. It results in a Heel–Face Turn when the Reds and Blues let him take on Church's identity which prevents him from going to prison, despite having no real reason to, especially after he killed Donut and Lopez (who are later revealed to have survived), and got Tex and Church trapped inside the memory unit.
• The Hero: By Season 11, Wash follows the standard heroic archetype more than any other character in the main cast, by virtue of being the only one competent enough to get things done. Season 13 continues this when Wash tries to maintain peace between the Rebels and the Feds.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • When Locus and his team attacks Crash Site Bravo at the end of Season 11, Wash, Sarge, Donut, and Lopez get seriously injured and are unable to move. While the rest of the team and Felix make their way into a cave passage, they realize that they'll have to close the passage behind them. Unfortunately, this involves leaving the injured at Locus' mercy. Washington hears this and orders Freckles to "shake." Freckles then stomps the ground, creating enough force to close the gap. As mentioned, this leaves Wash totally at the mercy of Locus.
  • Come Singularity, he decides to willingly subject himself to cerebral hypoxia so as to repair the Temporal Paradox and save the universe.
• Hidden Depths:
  • The Project Freelancer Saga reveals that he's a Kindhearted Cat Lover.
  • Red vs. Blue: The Ultimate Fan Guide shows that Wash has always had issues with holding grudges and hidden personality traits than what was first apparent even when he seemed to just be a lovable Butt-Monkey during the heyday of Project Freelancer, with the Epsilon Incident having brought those darker aspects of himself closer to the surface.
• Hypocrite:
  • When Church refuses to help him with taking down the Meta, he responds with a Dare to Be Badass speech, arguing that it would be a selfish decision that would haunt Church afterwards. In the following season, Wash teams up with the Meta in order to retrieve Epsilon and get a clean slate on life. Which is, well... a selfish decision that would haunt him later on.
  • More generally, Washington often complains about being constantly betrayed and taken advantage of, all while scheming against his employers and former teammates. This is, however, quite justified, since even when he is siding against the heroes, as he had enough bad experiences not to care too much about honesty or loyalty himself.
• Impromptu Tracheotomy: In "Quicksave", as a result of being held prisoner without food or water for several days, he deliriously wanders onto a battlefield and is shot in the throat. His brain is left without oxygen for several minutes, and the brain damage sustained as a result of the injury drives his character arc for The Shisno Paradox and Singularity.
• In-Series Nickname: "Wash".
• Iron Butt Monkey: Despite his frequent injuries, he almost always manages to keep going with no apparent detriment. It takes an extended beatdown from the Meta to finally put him out of commission in Revelation.
• Ironic Name: His given name is "David," which means "beloved" in Hebrew. He was the Butt-Monkey among the other upper leaderboard Freelancers and treated like a naive idiot most of the time.
• Irony:
  • Despite often being considered the worst member of the Freelancer squad and getting respected by just about no-one, Washington is currently one of only two members of the entirety of Project Freelancer confirmed to still be alive.
  • Another case of Irony is that, he was shot in the throat just like Maine was. The two seemed to be friends back during the early days of Project Freelancer but became enemies after the latter became the Meta. Even more unlike the latter whom was no longer able to speak due to the shot, Wash ended up receiving brain damage. Interestingly enough, when Wash loses it and gets angry at Carolina for keeping the brain damage a secret, the Meta's theme plays furthering the irony of Wash's situation.
• Jack of All Trades: In the prequels, there are many non-combat actions Wash takes care of while the rest of the freelancers are showing off their super skills. He's competent in a number of fields, including being a good enough lock pick for Carolina to choose him as York's replacement, searching through files and security systems (as well as doing some unintended sabotage), and is usually the agent meeting with Internal Affairs, meaning he's very good dealing with other branches of the operation.
• Jade-Colored Glasses: The contrast between his flashback persona and Revelation persona really shows this. He starts out idealistic and friendly and ends up cynical and bitter. This is characterized by an exchange with Doc during Revelation.
  Wash: (Talking to the Meta) I agree, we should just kill most of them, the last one left alive will talk.
  Doc: Wash, you can't just kill everyone you meet!
  Wash: Why not?
  Doc: Umm... well, now that you put me on the spot, I don't really have an answer, just seems like a bad idea.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: After his Character Development. He still has his problems, and isn't the nicest guy around, but he has come to view the Red Team and Blue Team as True Companions and values their safety. He also shows great concern for the people of Chorus during first the Chorus Civil War and then the war with Charon Industries, and is perfectly fine with inflicting permanent brain damage upon himself if it's necessary to save the whole of space-time.
• Karma Houdini: Played for Laughs in regards to his shooting of Donut. Although he does try his best to make up for it and is genuinely sorry for it.
  Donut: ...and I got shot!
  Washington: (whistles nonchalantly)
• Kick the Dog: Shooting Lopez and Donut at the very end of Recreation.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: He's a Nice Guy who even had cat pictures in his locker. And his return in The Shisno Paradox has him telling about a childhood cat who was just as indestructible as Wash would turn out to be.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Firmly on the side of good, but he is far more cynical and world-weary than his friends. It's only after the end of The Project Freelancer Saga that he starts to become more idealistic again.
• Knight of Cerebus: While he's not a bad guy exactly, he still manages to fall into this. He only appears in a few scenes in Recreation, including the final scene of the season, where he seemingly kills both Donut and Lopez. What follows in Revelation is much more action-based and plot oriented than the previous season. He can also be considered one for the main series as a whole, as the Recollection trilogy and Recovery One are noticeably much Darker and Edgier than the previous series'.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Wash spent years nursing a secret grudge against the Director and Freelancer, bidding his time for the right moment to bring them both down. By the end of Season 10, he's finally given a genuine opportunity to get revenge against the Director, instead of what he did in Reconstruction which was petty revenge in comparison, and decides to just let it go instead of putting his new friends in danger. Unlike Carolina and even Church, it seems he's learned to let go of the past.
• The Lancer: To Carolina in Season 10.
• The Leader: By Revelation onward, he becomes the leader of the Blues and in Season 11, he unofficially becomes leaders of both the Reds and the Blues, if only because the others see him as a more competent leader than either Sarge or the absent Church.
• Leitmotif: "Good Fight" in his introduction, which he shares with Church. Later seasons associate him with a slower, more somber version of "Big Prize."
• Made of Iron: Only Grif has endured worse than him - the things he's survived include two separate spaceship crashes from orbit, an AI attempting to commit suicide in his head, several gunshot wounds, being hit by a speeding Warthog, multiple point-blank explosions, a shot in the head with a concussion rifle, being beaten unconscious by Locus... A few were close to fatal, such as being shot in the back by South Dakota (saved by York's healing unit), fighting the Meta after already surviving Tex's traps, and a shot in the neck when he was already wrecked by malnourishment. It really says something when only the last injury mentioned has left him with any permanent and irreversible damage.
• Mad Libs Catchphrase: "That was the worst ___. Ever. Of all time."
• Majorly Awesome: "Viper" reveals that his military rank is Major.
• Master of None: By Freelancer standards. He doesn't seem to have a specialty, and most of the other Freelancers are more combat-capable. He turns into a very competent Guile Hero over time, however. His icon on the board is a battle rifle and he's shown to be unparalleled in terms of skill with the weapon, even destroying a Hornet with it while in free-fall.
• Meaningful Name: A variant - His nickname being "Wash" is quite appropriate after he was re-designated as "Recovery One" and basically became the most prominent member of Project Freelancer's Cleanup Crew.
• Mood-Swinger: Due to his brain damage from Season 15, he starts to exhibit random fits of anger or switches from a rather cheery disposition to his usual seriousness.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: An Inverted example happens with him and Lopez. When Lopez is repaired in Season 12, a brief P.O.V. Cam from his perspective and Freeze-Frame Bonus shows that he identifies Donut, Sarge, and Wash as "Idiot", "Loud Idiot", and "Agent Washington" respectively, showing that Washington is one of the few people Lopez shows genuine respect for. Added irony to this is how Wash shot and almost killed Lopez back in Season 7.
• Nice Guy: Used to be this. Even with his hidden dark side, Wash was kind and considerate to all his other Freelancers. He devolved into a Jerk with a Heart of Gold after the project went up in flames. It's only after the Reds and Blues permanently end the Director's schemes that Wash begins to regain semblance of his old kindness.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: His actions in Revelation lead to the Meta regaining all his abilities by capturing Tex in the Capture Unit instead of Epsilon. This nearly turned out very badly for all involved. If the Reds and Tucker hadn't been able to put a stop to it before he could get away, the Meta would have been completely free and had all of his power back.
• Nice Mean And In Between: The Nice for the trio he formed with York and North, easily being the friendliest and dorkiest out of the three.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Having this too often is one of the sources to a lot of Wash's bitterness and anger.
• Noble Demon: During his Face–Heel Turn, he becomes this. He's relatively nice towards Doc, or at least as nice as someone with Wash's temperament can be, and he's motivated more by desperation than any actual malice.
• Nom de Guerre: Aside from "Agent Washington", he's also known as "Recovery One" during his time as a Recovery agent.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: When he's first introduced, he seems like an expert badass compared to the zany Blood Gulch Crew. Later seasons show that he's very much Weak, but Skilled, at least relative to most of the other Freelancers, despite his complete regularity as number 6 on the leader board. He even admits to Tucker that he considered himself one of the worst agents in his squad, though his developments post-Epsilon would prove him far more capable than he gave himself credit. His "normality" is emphasized by this exchange from "Fall From Heaven":
  York (talking to North): [...] and now I'm paired with the squad's second-worst fighter. But sure we can handle it.
  [...]
  Washington: ...You really think I'm the second worst fighter?
  York: No, I was being nice. You're easily the worst.
• No-Respect Guy: Back in his days with the other Freelancers, Wash was this. Though he was pretty competent and always stayed up on the leaderboard, his Boring, but Practical approach to his job and his Endearingly Dorky behavior led to pretty much everyone viewing him as the resident loser. After the Freelancers split up, they still don't respect him at all nor regard him as a threat, which comes back to bite South, Tex, and the Meta when Wash turns out to have Taken A Level In Badass.
• Not Afraid to Die: Has this attitude in Reconstruction with hints of it throughout the whole series.
  Washington: I'm sorry, did something about my actions indicate that I expect to survive?
• Not So Above It All:
  • In Reconstruction, Wash tells Church that his successful sniper shot doesn't count because "it only counts if you call it". It's the first sign of Wash's personality prior to the Epsilon incident. He also comes up with Grif's new rank of "Minor Junior Private Negative First Class" surprisingly quickly.
  • In "Change of Plans", when the Reds and Blues are bickering over which team has the highest kill count, Washington decides to play along.
    Washington: (smugly) Technically, Project Freelancer makes the rules. And I say Blue Team gets to add my kill count to theirs!
  • In Season 11, when the Reds and Blues all drag Donut and Doc off to beat them up for flubbing their rescue, Washington is right there with them tearing the "rescue team" apart. Additionally, he also helped cause the Hand of Merope to crash (he knocked a cable out of the wall on accident) just like the other Reds and Blues did. And on a similar note, he doesn't remember poor Doc getting sucked into the Future Cubes either until Season 13 (as Epsilon and Carolina's ignorance can at least be excused by them not having known Doc was at Crash Site Bravo in the first place).
  • During "Previously On" in Season 15, he jumps with joy with the other Reds and Blues when they build "the galaxy's greatest water park."
  • During Singularity, he uses Mental Time Travel to go back to the height of Project Freelancer, and tries to learn where Carolina was hiding after she faked her death. As Agent Iowa would point out to him, he can just travel into the future when he and Carolina were friends so he could ask her then. After both hearing that and a lengthy Stunned Silence, he travels into the future and immediately gets an answer from Future!Carolina. Upon finding out that he "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot, Wash lets out a furious Skyward Scream.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • Locus seems to consider Washington to be a similar sort of man to himself ("I'm a soldier, like you"), due to his rather ruthless actions in earlier seasons. The big difference is that Washington managed to reclaim his humanity whereas Locus still sees himself as "a suit of armor and a gun".
  • On a lighter note, he's also been compared to Caboose on occasion... much to his dismay. It's not an completely invalid comparison, though.
    Caboose: We have a lot in common, Agent Washington!
    Washington: No, we don't! ...And don't ever say that again.
  • As lampshaded during Singularity, he was a lot more like Donut than what was first apparent during the heyday of Project Freelancer. It's perhaps best shown when he's nearing the Despair Event Horizon over not being able to get Past!Carolina to listen to him.
    Wash: Is this how Donut feels all the time?
• Not-So-Innocent Whistle: Does this in "Reckless" after Donut complains about having gotten shot.
• Odd Friendship:
  • Wash is an uptight, regulations guy who freaked out when North mentioned he used equipment without telling Command. Maine is a brutish dirty fighting soldier who tried to kill Tex during a sparring match because she was beating him. Nevertheless, they seemed to have been good friends during The Project Freelancer Saga. Wash was even briefly depressed upon realizing in Revelation that Maine's psyche was completely corrupted by Sigma's manipulations, now viewing the prospect of fighting his former friend as a Mercy Kill, and is the only person shown to be capable of completely understanding Maine's grunts and growls without any assistance.
  • The vitriolic and sarcastic South with the much more passive and naive (at the time) Washington. While not shown frequently, the two had a teasing friendship, with their moments of snark, and years after the two had last seen each other, the embittered Wash is willing to do what he can to help South. Even more odd considering she was The Bully to the triplets which Washington had noticably also been friends with. Unfortunately, much like with Maine, this friendship horribly decays once South betrays him and leaves him for dead, when they meet again, he makes sure to kill her.
  • In the present, Wash is a grumpy and bitter Guile Hero. Caboose is friendly, optimistic, and dumb as a box of rocks. They get along famously.
  • During the events of Singularity, he forms one with Donut of all people.
• Only Sane Man: Particularly in Reconstruction, where he plays the Straight Man to the antics of the Reds and Blues. He softens up in later seasons, first becoming more sarcastic, then becoming more friendly, though even after this he's still more level-headed than they are.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Played for Laughs when he acts creepily cheerful towards Sarge, Grif, and Simmons before the initial assault on Crash Site Alpha in Season 13, with them taking notice of his personality shift and then calling him out on it (with Grif thinking that Wash believes that they're going to die).
• Papa Wolf: Becomes this to the Reds and Blues, going so far as to hold a gun to Carolina's head when she threatens Tucker in "Change of Plans."
  Washington: I've already been responsible for enough of their problems in the past, and I'll be damned before I let you cause any more.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Despite being under orders to kill South Dakota, he instead allows her to mourn her brother, helps fake her death and tries to escape the Meta with her. Too bad she didn't repay the favor.
  • During Season 11, he manages to swallow his pride and open up to Tucker about being the Butt-Monkey of Project Freelancer, and also apologizes to Caboose for not being a better friend to him while he was upset about Church's absence.
• Plucky Comic Relief: In the flashback segments.
• The Power of Friendship: If there's manpower available to Wash to help him get the job done, he'll take it without a second thought. "I can't do this alone" is practically one of his catchphrases. Establishing friendships with the Blood Gulch Crew also goes a long way towards helping him redeem himself and improve his own mental health. And in Singularity, he all but says to Carolina that he's fine with having permanent brain damage since he knows that his friends will be able to help him with it.
• Precision F-Strike:
  • At the end of Reconstruction.
    Washington: Emp? You have got to be fucking joki-
  • He's completely furious with Carolina when it's revealed that she withheld the knowledge of him having brain damage, practically shouting to the Blood Gulch Crew "And did any of you know?! Or am I the only one who didn't know that I had fucking brain damage?!?!"
• Properly Paranoid: In Season 11, Wash is the only one of the Blood Gulch Crew to feel uneasy about being shipwrecked with no sign of immediate rescue. Even after they manage to make radio contact with Donut, he still warns the others that rescue may not immediately come. Also, he is the only one that shows distrust towards Felix. After The Reveal that Felix is actually working with Locus to kill everyone on Chorus for a third party, he was right all along.
• Replacement Goldfish: Season 10 reveals that not only did he start wearing Church's armor and take over as leader of the Blue Team, but the characters started referring to him as Church.
  Caboose: I wouldn't really use the word "replace"... but there's no word for "take over for you and make everything better immediately". So we just say replace!
• Revenge:
  • His primary motivation is to make the Director pay for his crimes. Eventually subverted as a motivation for him as of the final few episodes of Season 10. He knows that the Director is evil, and that it would be right if he paid for his crimes, but there's no benefit to following that path, and it will only lead to a longer line of his friends' corpses, if anything changed at all.
    Counselor: So you would say that you have overwhelming feelings of anger and a need for revenge?
    Washington: More than you know.
  • There's also the incident with South shooting him in the back. He gets some payback for that, although he ends up freaking out his new allies.
• Rogue Protagonist: In Revelation. However, he switches sides towards the end, so it may count as a subversion.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: Played for Laughs when Sarge brags about Red Team has a bigger kill count. Washington then proclaims that since Project Freelancer makes the rules, and he's a former Project Freelancer member, Blue Team gets to add his kill count to their own.
• Secret-Keeper: For a huge portion of Reconstruction, he's the only character that knew exactly what the Director did to the Alpha. It's still not clear just how much of the Director and Alpha's memories he has.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: A minor case, but his nightmare in "The Federal Army of Chorus" implies that he suffers from PTSD over his past actions.
• Sociopathic Hero: Even before the Epsilon Incident, he was a violent revenge planner. In fact, he has been one since childhood. He was just better at hiding it behind the mask of dorkiness than after the Epsilon Incident. He's been seeking revenge against the Director for years and killed South without hesitation when she betrayed him. However, he is still a good guy throughout the series, especially once the Reds and Blues take him in.
• Super Gullible: Pre-Epsilon Incident, Connecticut and South mention that he's this while playing "Five Things". They then prove it immediately afterwards by saying that he has something stuck in his teeth, which makes Wash wonder if he does. While he's wearing a helmet. According to the guide book, York and North once told him there was a sauna aboard the Mother Of Invention and he never suspected anything, even though they repeatedly kept giving him conflicting directions.
• Supporting Leader: During Reconstruction and the end of Revelation.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: "I'm not crazy, okay? I'm totally, completely sane. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go blow up this dead body." Despite the fact that it was standard procedure to destroy dead Freelancers' bodies and armor, he still was rather thorough.
• Team Dad: Subverted in the Season 9 prequel segments. He tries it with Connecticut, but she doesn't buy it at all. Played straight in Season 10's present-day segments, with Wash balancing out the inanities of the Blood Gulch Crew with Carolina's Ax-Crazy tendencies. He continues this role in Season 11, where he works to keep the Blood Gulch Crew alive by carefully managing their limited supplies, as well as trying to train Tucker and Caboose to be proper soldiers. It continues in Singularity where, after Donut gives the Blood Gulch Crew a vicious "The Reason You Suck" Speech for their terrible treatment of him, he promptly makes them all go and apologize to him.
• Temporarily a Villain: What seems to him to just be the latest of many betrayals in Recreation leads him to try to hunt down the Reds and Blues, going so far as to team up with the Meta. At the end of Revelation he rejoins them, and stays on their side the rest of the series.
• Took a Level in Badass: In the years that follow the Epsilon Incident, he becomes exceptionally more dangerous, mainly from his increased capacity for ruthlessness and Chessmaster tendencies.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Starting in Recreation, to the point of a Face–Heel Turn. He also had one of these in the past after the Epsilon Incident. Furthermore, he becomes a bitter Drill Sergeant Nasty during Season 11 due to the stress of trying to keep himself and the rest of the Blood Gulch Crew alive while they're stuck in Crash Site Bravo.
• Took a Level in Kindness: He gets substantially better come Season 10; becoming something closer to the Wash he used to be. While he can be a bit strict towards his fellow Blues, he cares for them, to the point that he aimed a pistol at Carolina when she threatened Tucker.
• Trauma Conga Line: Before Season 9, few would guess that Agent Washington was anything but a stone-cold, die-hard badass. The more we see of him pre-Epsilon unit, though, the more it seems like he was a Wide-Eyed Idealist he was broken beyond repair between seasons. Then one realizes the breaking kept going even after the Epsilon breakdown and he hid every bit of it. For the rest of his Freelancer career he was hated by most every other Agent in the Project, was forced to harvest equipment/AI Fragments from their corpses after they died along with destroying both their body and armor so that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands, and kept working for a Project he hated more than anything. Then, he had to brutally fight his former best friend on multiple occasions (eventually leading to that friend's death), randomly found a dead friend—who he thought died many years before in a completely different place, and is constantly betrayed by nearly everyone he knows. If there's one thing that goes with Wash, it's tragedy.
• Trauma-Induced Amnesia: His neck injury caused cerebral hypoxia, which made him forget most of the events of Season 15. Played with in that it causes other problems too, like forgetting more recent events and causing sudden bouts of anger.
• Unluckily Lucky: Wash may be one of the biggest Butt Monkeys of the entire series (being likely surpassed only by Doc, Grif, and Donut in that regard), but he's survived against countless odds to a miraculous degree.
• The Unreveal: Wash's face alone of the Freelancers hasn't been seen, with strategic placement of other people blocking his face. This is lampshaded eventually in Season 10 where he carries out a conversation with North and York, while eating, still in his helmet. It is known, however, that he has bright blond hair that he keeps relatively short and grew a beard during the 10-month break following Chorus.
• Weak, but Skilled: Compared to his fellow Freelancers, Washington doesn't have much going for him in the way of combat, especially one-on-one combat. However, put a battle rifle in his hands and there's basically nothing anyone can do to stop him, and he's tied with Maine in the sheer amount of damage he can take before he finally stops fighting. Notably, while he's relatively low on the leaderboard, he's the only Freelancer in the series who only ever moves up the ranks, and he's one of only three members of the entire Project confirmed to still be alive.
• We Used to Be Friends: With Maine. When Maine was shot in the throat in Season 9, he showed a large amount of concern for him. But by Reconstruction, while he is surprised that Maine is still the one in the armor, he is fully willing to kill him, and vice versa. He and Maine work together again in Season 8, but they eventually turn on each other. This also applies to South Dakota after she turns on him, unlike with Maine, he does put an end to her.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: His younger self tends to come off as this during the flashbacks of Season 9 and 10 pre-Epsilon.
• The Worf Effect: At the beginning of Zero he is defeated in hand-to-hand combat by the Viper Syndicate and is subsequently tortured and hospitalized.
• Would Hit a Girl: And Boom, Headshot! her too.
  Agent South Dakota: Oh, come on, Wash. What are you gonna do, shoo--
  (Boom, Headshot!)
  Agent Washington: Yes.

Sheila

M808V Main Battle Tank / "Sheila"

"Firing main cannon."

Voiced By: Yomary Cruz

Blue Team's support vehicle, a Scorpion battle tank with an artificial intelligence that answers to "Sheila". The Blues express bewilderment that Command decided to supply them with a tank no one knows how to operate, but Caboose nonetheless attempts to rescue Church using Sheila, killing him in the process and apparently falling in love with the "nice tank lady." If Sheila paid much attention to Caboose, this would form a Love Triangle, given her attraction to Lopez. After Caboose's attempt, the Blues seem to decide that Sheila works best driving herself. Throughout the series, Sheila is a major asset for Blue Team...when she isn't feeling moody, threatening, or running off with Lopez to form an all-robot faction.

What, if any, connection she has with the Freelancer program F.I.L.S.S. is unknown, though the two do share a voice and many mannerisms.

---

Associated Tropes:

• Accidental Murder: Accidentally kills Church. Later subverted.
• Action Girl: Or close enough, really.
• Almost Dead Guy: In Reconstruction. In Season 10, Church goes to the Pelican crashsite, and mentions how its computer is an "old friend", suggesting she's still active.
• Artificial Intelligence: She is one.
• The Big Guy: As a literal sentient tank, Sheila serves as this for the Blue Team, and here mere presence alone can cause the Reds (or occasionally the Blues) to stop what they're doing in worry of angering her.
• Catchphrase: "Firing main cannon."
• Cool Plane: Partway through Season 5 her program gets transferred to a ship.
• Cute Machines: She has the voice of a girl that even Caboose falls in love with.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: While not dead, the Reds and Blues had known Sheila was uploaded to the ship Tex took and crashed at Valhalla. Other than one brief scene in Season 6 though, where Church and Caboose accessed her memories with Washington as she crashed, they never refer to her afterwards or make any attempt to recover her.
• Love at First Sight: With Lopez.
• Nice Girl: Usually. For example, she offers Simmons a place to stay after he'd been evicted from Red Base.
• Official Couple: With Lopez for a while.
• Sophisticated as Hell: In response to Simmons' badly-crafted BS story:
  "My logical data analysis center indicates that would be highly unlikely. And my bullshit meter agrees."
• Tank Goodness: Until she's uploaded to the Pelican.
• Team Mom: To Tucker, Donut, and Tex as they're leaving for Sidewinder. She packed them lunches (somehow) and reminds them to "wash [their] exhaust pipes every day." The lunches include things like air filters and brake fluid, but it's the thought that counts.
• Trigger-Happy: "Firing Main Cannon"... expect this to be repeated for quite some time.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Supposedly still occupies the crashed Pelican in Valhalla, as alluded in Almost Dead Guy above, but nothing is heard of her after that. And according to Kaikaina in The Shisno Paradox, Valhalla was later bought out by a building company and had condos built in it, leaving her fate completely up in the air.

Freckles

MANTIS-Class Assault Droid / "Freckles"

"Disregarding a direct order from a commanding officer is punishable by death."

Voiced By: Shane Newville (Seasons 11-13), Miles Luna (Season 15)

Caboose's "pet" in Season 11, an automated MANTIS walker that he discovered in a crashed ship. Its AI is transferred to his assault rifle in Season 12 after being heavily damaged at the end of Season 11.

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Associated Tropes:

• All Animals Are Dogs: Or perhaps All Killer Robots Are Dogs. At least, that's how Caboose sees and treats him.
• Back from the Dead: In as much as a mech can be. After having his body destroyed by Locus, and his memory unit passed onto the Blood Gulch Crew. By the finale of Season 12, he's been put into Caboose's assault rifle.
• Chekhov's Gun: During each season of the Chrous trilogy something related to Freckles ends up being important and very useful towards the end of the season.
  • Season 11: Caboose teaches Freckles tricks like doing squats, fetching, and shaking, which Freckles usually takes as literal commands. During the battle at Crash Site Bravo Wash tells Freckles to "shake" and he causes a small quake that seals an entrance and lets Tucker, Caboose, Simmons, and Grif escape with the New Republic.
  • Season 12: Freckles' body has been destroyed and all that's left of him is his primary storage unit. Locus gives it to agent Washington who gives it to Caboose. After Epsilon removes the tracking device from his storage unit, Doctor Grey installs him in Caboose's rifle effectively reactivating him and he kills one of the space pirates at the jamming tower.
  • Season 13: Freckles is given full control of Caboose's rifle, including the safety in order to prevent Caboose from accidentally hurting or killing his teammates. If anyone pulls the trigger, it just makes a fun party sound and shoots confetti. Felix steals Freckles from Caboose at the Communications Temple and tries to use him to kill Caboose not knowing about this feature, and instead Felix just ends up shooting confetti in Caboose's face before getting whacked in the face by the recoil when Freckles fires into the air.
• The Comically Serious: Numerous moments of hilarity are to be had when the very goofy Caboose interacts with the absurdly serious Freckles.
• Creepy Monotone: Never emotes.
• Demoted to Extra: In Season 15. All he gets is a brief mention from Caboose and a few seconds of screentime. When the crew leaves to find the source of Church’s message, he’s left behind with no explanation.
• Disney Death: His Mantis body is destroyed at the end of Season 11, but Locus saved his primary storage unit and Freckles was installed in (and given control of) Caboose's gun.
• Distaff Counterpart: To Sheila, what with him being a decidedly male trigger-happy, AI-driven vehicle that takes a shine to Caboose.
• Dragon-in-Chief: Of a sort; Caboose is technically in charge, but it's Freckles that everyone's scared of.
• The Dreaded: To everyone except Caboose. Even Sarge.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Well, more scary than evil, but while he's a MANTIS his voice is very deep and intimidating, adding to his threatening level. After he's moved to Caboose's rifle, his voice becomes more squeaky and less deep, giving him more of a comedic role and less of a threatening one. It gets even squeakier when he’s moved into a tiny MANTIS body, to the point of being incoherent.
• Fluffy the Terrible: Well, Caboose named him.
• Heel–Face Turn: Of a sort. When Caboose steps down, and Wash is leader again, it follows the commands of Wash. Very effectively, too, with Locus officially revealed to the crew.
• Humongous Mecha: An animated MANTIS.
• It Can Think: It has limited capacity, but it seems to have some degree of sentience. Specifically, it has some problems with interpreting some commands properly.
• Kid with the Leash: Caboose seems to be the only thing keeping him from shooting people so far. Meep. It's later inverted when Freckles is placed into Caboose's rifle and given a confetti-shooting function in the event that Caboose is about to teamkill someone.
• The Leader: Although Washington and temporarily Caboose are officially the leaders of Blue Team, just about everybody follows Freckles' lead on account of him being terrifying. He even disobeys commands by the team leader.
• Leitmotif: "Manticore Blues."
• Let's You and Him Fight: Attacks Sarge after the latter threatens him during a standoff between the Reds and Blues. The two are stopped from going for a second round by the timely arrival of Donut.
• Loyal Phlebotinum: He only listens to Caboose or anyone Caboose tells him to listen to, like Washington or Dr. Grey. In Season 13 when he is in control of Caboose's rifle he only shoots at enemy targets, even if someone pulls the trigger to the rifle. He did not take kindly to Felix stealing him and trying to use him to kill Caboose.
  Felix: (after shooting confetti in Caboose's face) What is wrong with you people!?
  Freckles: Hands off. (shoots a round, the recoil smacking Felix in the head)
• More Dakka: Constantly threatening both teams with this.
• Oh, Crap!: Provokes this response from everyone on both teams.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Being that it's a heavily armed Mini-Mecha, this is pretty much inevitable.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Hands. Off.
• Put on a Bus: He's left behind early in Season 15, and hasn't been seen since. Probably has something to do with his primary voice actor being fired from Rooster Teeth.
• Robot Buddy: Albeit a really terrifying one.
• Sarcasm-Blind: When Washington sarcastically says that Caboose should be the leader of Blue Team, Freckles responds by immediately demoting him and giving command to Caboose.
• Undying Loyalty: Towards Caboose. He's the only trooper that Freckles doesn't threaten at any point. He's almost always seen next to Caboose during his screentime but this doesn't stop him from disobeying commands every now and then.