Web Video / Achievement Hunter Grand Theft Auto Series

Meet the Fake AH Crew.
Same as the real AH crew.^note Clockwise from upper-left: Team Gents' Jack Pattillo, Ryan Haywood, and Geoff Ramsey on the upper three panels; Team Lads' Michael Jones, Gavin Free, and former Achievement Hunter member Ray Narvaez Jr on the lower three panels.
(Poster created by Mallius.)

The other flagship Let's Play series of Achievement Hunter, Let's Play Grand Theft Auto was what started a new week of AH Let's Play goodness. Their first Grand Theft Auto Let's Play, known today as "Let's Play GTA IV - Part 1" had the main six Hunters play Grand Theft Auto IV in anticipation for the then-unreleased Grand Theft Auto V.

It was published on May 13, 2013, which was coincidentally a year and two days after the first episode of Let's Play Minecraft was published. They had such a blast playing the then five-year-old game that there was no way they were going to stop their GTA fun there, at least not with just screwing around at Francis International Airport and jumping out of helicopters onto the Liberty City version of the Empire State Building. So they published part two the next Monday. Then the next week they raced, then the week after that they did a demolition derby, then the week after that they played a game of "Cops 'n Crooks" (which they ended up playing again many times), then... Well, you get the idea.

Originally when they started the Let's Play YouTube channel, they simply played a random game on Mondays, but after that first GTA Let's Play the game easily took over Mondays on the channel. Today, the playlist that is still called Let's Play Monday is completely reserved for Let's Play GTA. They did publish a few Let's Plays of Red Dead Redemption, another Rockstar game, during July and August 2013, but that was back when it was still not fully certain that Let's Play Grand Theft Auto was a thing as it was. When GTA V was finally released and Grand Theft Auto Online later opened up, the Hunters completely switched over to the new GTA game (though they did a "Retro Play" of GTA IV at least once so far).

Let's Play Grand Theft Auto V covers the misadventures of the Fake AH Crew (and at times Kerry and Lindsay) as they race, fight, do elaborate small-paying heists, and just simply screw around all over San Andreas for the Hell of it all. On November 25, 2014, it was revealed that this series would earn a spin-off entitled Sunday Driving, based off of the episode of the same name, with that one being considered "Episode #1".

Once again, we here at TV Tropes are avoiding the use of "Let's Play [Video Game]" in the page's title to just refer to AH's antics in a game. Here, "Achievement Hunter Grand Theft Auto Series" will refer to Achievement Hunter's Let's Play Grand Theft Auto IV, Let's Play Grand Theft Auto V, Things to Do in Grand Theft Auto, and Sunday Driving.

Note to tropers: When linking to this page on a trope page, do not simply type the name of this page to refer to any of the AH Grand Theft Auto shows mentioned here. Please make a Pot Hole^note i.e. ''[[LetsPlay/AchievementHunterGrandTheftAutoSeries Let's Play Grand Theft Auto]]'', which gives Let's Play Grand Theft Auto that displays the proper show when linking. In other words, we want to see "Let's Play Grand Theft Auto" in blue, not "Achievement Hunter Grand Theft Auto Series".

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Fake AH Tropes include:

• Ace Pilot: Jack is easily the best pilot on the Fake AH Crew — while far from perfect, he is significantly better than the others' aircraft handling. Subverted for the Grand Heist, since the plan involved Jack landing a Titan jet on top of a mountain, but since Jack failed to land a Titan on a sloped surface while practicing and Gavin succeeded...
• The Alleged Car: It's actually rare that cars reach this state, considering how often they're simply blown up or abandoned by the Fake AH Crew. Special mention goes to Ryan's limo during the bonus round of "Crazy Taxi", which suffered through several Team Lads attacks and ended up as a barely-functioning vestige of a car. The limo used in "The Prison Job" gets a similarly thorough trashing by the end.
  Gavin: "[The limo] looks like the car that Cruella De Ville was driving at the end of 101 Dalmatians.
• All for Nothing: Their attempt at the Criminal Masterminds achievement for the Doomsday Heist ends up failing due to a Game-Breaking Bug which resets their progress less than halfway through.
• Artifact Title: Things to Do in GTA V: "Launch Mower" was going to have lawnmowers, but unfortunately lawn mowers were too slow for ramp jumping, so the title ended up having had nothing do with lawn mowers. The guys lampshade this throughout the video.
• A Simple Plan: The plans for robbing a convenience store in the "Heist" Let's Plays. Most of the videos are dedicated to getting everything ready for it. Within minutes they go completely to pieces. Pretty much the only thing that goes right is them getting the money in the first place, and even that was a failure in the end. "Ray's Heist" (which went after an armored truck instead) was made to be much simpler than the others and not once did any of them grab the cash. However, both Michael's and Lindsay's Heists actually worked.
• Ass Shove: In "The Prison Job", Geoff manages to communicate via cell phone with the rest of the Fake AH Crew... which is handwaved with being hidden up his ass.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Geoff's mentality in "The Lazer Job", as he was asked to cause a ruckus. This involves going shirtless and wielding a baseball bat... against the military.
• Ax-Crazy: Despite the regular wanton violence, Ryan stands out as being the most murder-happy member of the Fake AH Crew. It's gotten to the point that everyone assumes that Ryan shot someone whenever they unexpectedly gain a Wanted level.
• Badass Bystander: Other players in public lobbies tend to fulfil this trope, whether they just give the guys a lift, protect them from muggers, or try to blow them out of the sky.
• Bad "Bad Acting": Geoff in "The Trojan Bar Heist" is initially sent to the titular Bad Guy Bar undercover to blend in and gather information from the patrons. His attempt at sounding like an average Joe is humorously inept.
• The Bad Guy Wins:
  • "Michael's Heist" ends with Michael accomplishing his goal of killing everyone except Gavin and to split the money three way between himself, Gavin, and Lindsay, making it the first truly successful Heist.
  • To a lesser extent, "Ryan's Heist", which ended with Ray being the only survivor with money.
  • "Lindsay''s Heist" ends with everyone but Gavin and Ryan succeed in stealing the gold.
  • "The Santa Heist" ends with Santa successfully kidnapped on the yacht, and everybody alive except Gavin and Jack. (And then Jeremy takes the backstab opportunity and kills everyone else except for Alfredo).
  • Anytime a Heist succeeds, it's this, as the "Heroes" are in fact robbing and murdering people and getting away with it.
• Beyond the Impossible: Take one indestructible riot van. Add Gavin Free. The result: A riot van wedged on top of a tiny concrete divider that eventually just catches fire and gives up.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • Sort of. "The Prison Job" ends with Ray being the only one alive and everyone else dead including Geoff, whom the guys desperately tried to save from prison. However, they were able to bust Geoff out of prison before he died, so Geoff ended up dying a free man.
  • "Ryan's Heist" quickly goes downhill when Jack, Gavin, and Michael perish in the helicopter explosion, followed immediately by Ryan accidentally murdering Geoff, and culminating in Ryan ultimately curtailing any attempts to continue the heist by attempting to betray Ray. However, on the bright side, Ray ends up killing Ryan first and escapes the heist alive and with some money.
  • "Lindsay's Heist" ends with Lindsay, Ray, Michael, and Geoff succeeding in completing the heist, but at the cost of Gavin and Ryan.
• Black Comedy Rape/Prison Rape: Played fully for laughs during "The Prison Job", where the objective is to rescue Geoff from prison (and this).
• Breather Episode: Sunday Driving. No convoluted plans, no crazy stunts, no wanton slaughter of innocents, just a bunch of Achievement Hunters driving around Los Santos talking about stuff.
• Broken Win/Loss Streak: For several "Heist" videos in a row, Ray tended to sacrifice himself in a You Shall Not Pass! moment so the others could get away. This was broken during "The Prison Job" where not only did Ray live for once, he ended up as the Sole Survivor too.
  • Throughout the first three Heists, Gavin would be the first crew member killed off (even in his own). This ends up broken in "Michael's Heist", where Michael makes sure that he survives to split the money between him and Lindsay.
  • In the first four heists, every time that Geoff died, it would be because of another teammate betraying him. In the first heist, he's betrayed by Ryan at the very end. In Gavin's heist, he manages to survive, but pops a cyanide pill since he is alone and with no money. Ryan kills him again (though accidentally) during Ryan's heist, and Geoff is backstabbed by Michael in the latter's own heist. It finally took Jack's Heist for him to get killed by an outside force, which came in the form of a convenience store clerk that he neglected to subdue.
  • This was the entire point of "Lindsay Wins", a video entirely dedicated to making sure Lindsay broke her racing losing streak.
• Butt-Monkey: Gavin is frequently the target of muggers, or otherwise intentionally hit by other crew members' vehicles. When Kerry participates, he is usually picked on too.
• Call-Back: In "The Trojan Bar Heist," when Michael started to board the plane with Jack, he wanted to walk around the plane so that the plane didn't kill him, referencing his death in "Jack's Heist."
• Captain Crash: According to the RT Wiki, Gavin has crashed more vehicles and aircraft than anyone else (both stolen and personal). For some reason, he is frequently annoyed at how few personal vehicles he has left.
  • In land vehicles Lindsay's just slow, but put her in a plane or a helicopter and the crash is a matter of when, not if.
• Chase Scene: What ensues when the Fake AH Crew makes their getaway from the cops, whether by car or motorbike. This very often ends badly since they still have to fight the cops off (who usually bring helicopters by that point) and crashing once basically means they're dead.
  • Averted when the escape vehicle they're in is a tank, because it's a tank, and the cops are often completely unable to touch them.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Most notably in the first "Heist" episode, where Ryan and Geoff are in the clear, but Ryan stops the getaway boat and murders Geoff... without getting the money.
  • Happens again in "Ryan's Heist", as Ryan stops while running down the subway tracks to murder the only remaining survivor, Ray, using the same Pre-Mortem One-Liner as in the first heist. Ray shoots first.
  • Averted in "Michael's Heist". Ryan figured out that the car left for him and Ray was booby-trapped, and planned to blow it up, pretend like he died, then follow everyone and murder them for the money. However, he's killed during the initial shootout with the police.
• Code Name: Sometimes the Fake AH Crew adopts these for their missions in line with them pretending to actually be criminal masterminds, though usually these are forgotten quickly or used inconsistently. For instance, "Gavin's Heist" just put the word "Secret" in front of everyone's names (e.g. "Secret Jack" for Jack), "Ray's Heist" used everyone's middle names, and "Lil J's Heist" went with "stuff that they have said in the past which made Jeremy laugh" ("Scary Butt" for Geoff, "Water Choo-Choo" for Jack, etc.). Michael defies this during his Heist, saying that they spend too much time dicking around with fake names and such.
• Complexity Addiction: The Fake AH Crew seems to have this, since all the "Heist" episodes have (increasingly) complex and pointlessly destructive plans considering the amount of money they plan to steal. Of course, it wouldn't be nearly as entertaining if they attempted Boring, but Practical plans.
• Confusion Fu:
  • Gavin's heist heavily relies on this, as he wanted to create a large explosion at a gas station and have half the crew posing as firemen as a huge distraction for a simple convenience store robbery. It seems to be his general modus operandi.
  Gavin: "You might be wondering, 'What skills do I have? Why would I lead a heist?'. Well let me tell you: I have confusion... and disorientation."
  Jack: "There's medicine for that..."
  • Michael's planned heist is just as convoluted, involving tanks, bicycles, boats, and killing four members of the Fake AH Crew. Ironically, Gavin has no knowledge of or role in the betrayals.
  • Perhaps the best illustration of Gavin's unpredictability would be GTA V: Top Fun Times, where his refusal to stick to the most direct path to the goal and his inability to navigate traffic, drive in a straight line, or even stay on his bike most of the time, made him a nightmare for the Hunters (namely Jack) to track and target.
  Jack: Where the fuck did he go? You were supposed to be right in front of me! You have a straight road, yet somehow you were gone!
  Ryan: Good job. Gavin, your ineptitude has thrown him off the scent, well done!

  • Each time, he managed to succeed not by getting to the goal, but because the pilots had to slow down to find him and would invariably crash while trying to dive-bomb him.
• Cool Car:
  • The Crewmobile, a black 1920's limousine with the AH logo sprayed on the bonnet and a horn that plays "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy".
  • As well as 00MOGAR, Michael's car early on, a blue Bravado Gauntlet with a red stripe down the middle. Eventually taken over by the Grifta (Michael's Orange/Red Bifta) and his chrome Adder.
  • Jack's faithful matte blue Entity XF also counts.
  • And now, there's Jeremy's various cars for Rimmy Tim, such as the Rimmy Turtle (a BF Raptor), the Rimmy Tron Bike (Nagasaki Shotaro), the Rimmy Hog (a motorcycle club bike), the Swimmy Tim (a Blazer Aqua), the Rimmy Tim-mobile (an X-80 Proto), the Armored Tim (an Armored Kuruma), and the Rimmy Track (a Bravado Duneloader half-track), all with the same color scheme: purple, orange and yellow. Jeremy has so many Rimmy Tim cars, all of them modded out to peak performance, that he often has an innate advantage when doing GTA races, regardless of the race type. Be it jet skiing, biking, racing, or even flying and even stunt races. Here's the entire "Rimmy Tim" fleet, as of May 2020.
• Crazy Enough to Work: The plan in the RTX 2014 Heist and "The Grand Heist" had Michael in a tank being carried by a Cargobob filled with the rest of the Fake AH Crew, using it as an airborne turret. While the live Heist went to shambles before he got a real chance to pull it off (and that's with one less person in the helicopter), the Crew actually managed to do so in "The Grand Heist", with Michael taking down five police helicopters in the air using the Rhino tank.
• Cross Player: Jack represents himself with a female avatar. Made it especially fitting in "Ray's Heist" when the mastermind assigns everyone's middle names as their code names. (i.e. Jack's middle name is Shannon.)
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Gavin sucks at driving... until you put him behind the wheel of a firetruck and then he becomes a juggernaut of destruction.
• Cruel Twist Ending: "The Grand Heist" ends with the Fake AH Crew flying their way to victory... until a police helicopter hits the Titan's wing, causing it to explode, killing everyone (except Ray, who sacrificed himself earlier) in the process.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: A GTA V fan-made homage of Cops 'n Crooks has the team of Michael, Gavin, and Ryan win every single match of the game, only experiencing any real difficulty in the final match.
• Dear Negative Reader: One could view Lindsay's successful heist as this.
• Death from Above: "Crazy Taxi" involves one team in helicopters trying to physically crush a taxi cab as the other team tries to pick up its members. Whenever the helicopter pilots go silent, it's a dead giveaway they're going for the kill. This is Gavin's default method of trying to kill people in an aircraft whenever he's too impatient or has given up on trying to shoot them.
• Deconstructive Parody: The "Heist" videos show how hard it is to commit a crime with recurring problems such as betrayal, death by cop, perma-death, and the ability to trust no one, not to mention having to quickly switch plans when something inevitably goes wrong. Although since it's Achievement Hunter, it's usually Played for Laughs.
• Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: It's common in races for one of the gang to stop in front of the finish line and try to take out the others. True to the trope, this usually results in them losing their place (Or simply getting run over by the someone else who is heading to the finish line).
  • Up to eleven in the Faggio Race of "Almost Street Legal". Michael stops at the top of a hill and reveals that he has a minigun, spraying the street before Ryan takes him down. Ryan stops at the Vinewood sign and shoots Michael and Geoff every time they approach, littering the path with discarded bikes. Ray picks up a sports car and reaches the end first, stopping to take out Michael and Geoff. Ray still takes first, though Geoff was an inch away from winning. Michael pulls out the minigun again but Ryan and Jack pass him before Kerry takes him out, resulting in a DNF.
• Did Not Think This Through:
  • The Casino Heist DLC is meant to have a significant amount of replay value, through picking different avenues of approach, different vehicles, etc. Unfortunately when the Hunters come to play it they approach it with the same cavalier attitude they've completed every other heist with, completely unaware of how the heist is structured and ignoring most of the important dialogue. As such, it becomes the first heist they're unable to complete on the first try, and when they do succeed, they end up with so little money that they question why they did it in the first place.
  • Michael letting Gavin drive the boat in "Michael's Heist". It doesn't kill them, but by the end of it, Michael is clearly regretting his decision.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Inverted in the first part of the Doomsday Heist, where Geoff's response to Jeremy calling in an orbital strike on Jack and Gavin is to call a mugger on him.
• Dissonant Serenity: In the "Crazy Taxi" video, Jack humorously keeps up the act of being an enthusiastic, friendly game show host even as the Lads do their best to murder the Gents.
• Downer Ending: "Gavin's Heist": Geoff was the Sole Survivor, but he escaped all alone without getting any money as Michael (the one who took the cash) got killed in his escape along with everyone else.
  • "Ray's Heist": Not only does everybody die, but none of them even touch the money.
  • "The Grand Heist": After nearly making it to the end with only Ray dying, what can only be described as "an Act of God" leads to the team's Titan exploding, killing everyone. Gavin surmises that he hit the game's ceiling and caused the explosion, though Jack and Ryan point out that they were being shot at. They actually died because the Titan stalled and its left wing slammed onto a chopper as it fell.
  • "Things to do in GTAV-BMX Badass:" No one was able to complete the course due to it difficulty. The only one who won was Ryan, and he cheated.
  • "Criminal Masterminds Doomsday Heist Part 3 - Heist Hell": Thanks to a rather persistent Game-Breaking Bug causing their Criminal Mastermind progress to be reset several times with no discernible reason or workaround, the group gives up on doing the Criminal Mastermind challenge for the Doomsday Heist.
• Do Wrong, Right: At the end of the first "Heist" episode, the gang berate Ryan, not for killing Geoff, but for killing him before getting the money.
• Dressing as the Enemy: Part of "The Trojan Bar Heist's" plan was for Michael to dress up as a cop.
• Driven to Suicide:
  • Ryan at the end of the first "Heist" performs a "viking funeral" after he tried to take the money from Geoff by killing him, and then realizing that he didn't get his cut of the money first.
  • Geoff, feeling lonely and defeated, downs a cyanide pill at the end of "Gavin's Heist".
• Drives Like Crazy: Everyone has had their share of embarrassing crashes and screw-ups while driving, but Gavin really takes the cake. His repeated incidents in Let's Play Grand Theft Auto IV: "Cops n' Crooks Part 3" cost Team Lads so badly that they lament that he might as well be on the other team.
• Dynamic Entry: Frequently when arriving at missions. Even achieved by Gavin on his Faggio.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Big Dong, Geoff's cellmate in "The Prison Job", calls Geoff, 'Sex Butt'.
• Epic Fail: Let's Play Grand Theft Auto V: "Most Dangerous Game" features an astonishingly hilarious one, wherein Gavin gets a turn as the prey with immediate access to a car while the rest of the gang is stuck in the marshes. He crashes into a swamp almost instantly, then burns the rest of his head start swimming the length of it while the guys easily overtake him on foot. The crew couldn't believe it.
  • Even by the other Heists' standards, "Ray's Heist" is a dismal, sad, hilarious failure. Special mention to the end when Ray is the only one left and is going to try to blast open the armored truck and get away with the money. He fires an RPG but he's too close to the blast and dies instantly.
  • Halfway through "Red Rover", Serial Escalation kicks in when their simple game is turned into a fight to survive when Gavin earns himself three stars... then leads the police to where everyone else is, forcing everybody to scatter.
  • Lindsay seems to struggle with the Transform races. Over two videos (Transform Race #3 and #4) and nine races, Lindsay has earned no points.
• Exact Words: The rules of the Heist missions state that dead Fake AH Crew members must mute their mics, but there is no rule stating that someone who is Faking the Dead must respond when the alive members check to see who's dead and who's not. This was the premise of Ryan's plan to pretend he blew up in Michael's rigged vehicle then kill the others at the meet-up point, though he died before he could act on it.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: After the second race in "Lindsay Wins", Jack finishes recapping what just happened... and then notices something. Namely, that thanks to Lindsay being a Troll, not only have Michael and Ryan been disqualified, everybody apart from Lindsay has lost money on the betting.
  Jack: That's amazing— oh, and I lost eleven hundred bucks, too!
  Gavin: *incoherent rage*
  Geoff: Agh, I did too! We all lost a thousand—
  Jack: Lindsay's the only one who didn't bet! Lindsay didn't bet!
  Lindsay: *uncontrollable laughter*
  Geoff: LINDSAY!
• Failure Is the Only Option: Every single Heist so far except for "Michael's Heist," "Lindsay's Heist," "The Santa Heist," and (on a technicality) "Ryan's Heist".
  • Ryan's attempts at betrayal always end like this with him either dying or failing to get the money.
• Foreshadowing/Freeze-Frame Bonus: In "Michael's Heist", the owl-eyed can spot Lindsay's name in the lobby Geoff briefly pulls up and on Kerry's phone contacts. Later, when Michael sets up the deaths of Ray and Ryan when talking to Geoff, he slips up and says that they'll split the money three ways when they're done; this is indicative of how he intends to betray Geoff and Kerry later with Lindsay's help, though it was likely overlooked as it could have been Michael admitting that Gavin would be dead anyway, despite their efforts. With them and Gavin, they'd split the money four ways; without them and with Lindsay and Gavin, or without Lindsay and with Gavin dying, the money is split three ways.
  • From the same heist, there is a very interesting detail when Ryan and Ray are buying their shirts.
  Ryan: "The Signs V Neck is, uh, I think kinda' appropriate."
  Ray: "The Signs V Neck?" Both start laughing when Ray sees the shirt, which has a design of crossed fingers. "I will absolutely wear that."
• Funny Background Event: In Things to Do in Grand Theft Auto IV: "AAA", during one of the scenes involving one of the broke down motorists, you can see Michael losing control of his helicopter and diving backwards to the ground.
• Fun with Acronyms: At the beginning of "Ray's Heist", Ray gives us Operation WAFFLE-O, which stands for "We're All Friends, Friends Love Each Other". It was "WAFFLE" but Ray was dismayed when "Eachother" was actually two words.
• Game-Breaking Bug: They accidentally discover one in "Tow Truckin'" when they latch six tow trucks in a circle and gun the engines on all of them. The physics engine spazzes out, sends everyone flying and crashes Jack and Ray's Xboxes. We find out in "EXTREME" that Ryan's Xbox isn't working right because of it.
• The Ghost: Geoff's cellmate in "The Prison Job", Big Dong.
• Golden Snitch: After two videos' worth of unsuccessful hunting for a Faggio, spotting one in a Freeplay episode has become this; if a Hunter manages to find one and then deliver it to the garage in which they played car scavenger hunt, they win.
• Gonk: Kerry's new player character, which is compared to Carrot Top.
• Helicopter Blender: In the "Splat X" video, Gavin accidentally did this to Kerry by taking off with a Cargobob while Kerry was standing on it. The incident lead the others to wonder if Gavin is the world's first accidental serial killer.
• Hellish Copter: To put it charitably, the Fake AH Crew's performance with piloting helicopters is... inconsistent. Whenever police helicopters start coming after them in large numbers, things have usually gone to hell. If Lindsay's piloting a helicopter, just run.
• Hero Antagonist: If the Fake AH Crew are Villain Protagonists, then the police that try to stop the murderous, destructive thieves are this.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Frequently, somebody will make stay behind and have a You Shall Not Pass! moment so the others can escape. These often end up being Senseless Sacrifices.
  • In "Jack's Heist", Ray stays behind to fight off cops, allowing the escape vehicle, a Luxor jet, to take off.
  • In "The Grand Heist", Ray again does this to the cops away from the escape Titan, allowing Michael to board and the plane to take off.
• Hollywood Police Driving Academy: Let's Play Grand Theft Auto IV: "Cops 'n Crooks Part 1" show that the guys love to drive this way, with Gavin being the worst offender. Of course, with the game being a Wide-Open Sandbox, there are plenty of cars to use and wreck. This trend persists throughout the rest of the Cops 'n Crooks videos, to the point where Gavin's horrendous driving costs the Lads several rounds and gets him kicked from the team... temporarily.
• Hope Spot: In "The Trojan Bar Heist," during Ryan and Michael's Last Stand with the police, Michael manages to get a police car and drives away. Unfortunately, Michael manages to drive the car into the ocean, causing his death and the end of the heist.
  • In "Gavin's Heist", despite all of the chaos going on outside the gas station, Michael is able to escape and make his way to Jack on the motorcycle. Then Michael realizes that Ryan's death diminished their chances at getting a helicopter, and he and Jack are immediately run over by the police.
• I Die Free: What happens to Geoff in The Prison Job.
• I Just Shot Bravo One In The Face: Michael, to Jack, in the first "Heist" episode.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Jeremy accidentally displays this in "Bike Bat Returns". When firing a rocket to blow up a helicopter, he nails the much smaller target of Gavin Free instead.
  • This seems to just describe Jeremy in general, from that moment, accidentally hitting Jack's bike with molotovs in the same Let's Play and sniping Malik immediately in Snipers vs Stunters 2 to throwing a pipe bomb and having it bounce off Ryan's head before blowing himself up in Import/Export 4.
  • In the episode where they test out the Vigilante, and they're waiting for Jack to catch up, Ryan starts randomly firing rockets. Gavin accidentally hits his boost, and Ryan just nails him out of the air.
• Improbably Cool Car: Given the scope of their heists and their success rate, the crew have some impressive cars. Nearly every member of the AH crew owns a pimped out supercar (and even Gavin's bright purple hatchback isn't inconspicuous) and the crew's main vehicle is priceless antique saloon car. Gavin even lampshades how constantly leaving suped-up megacars at the sites of their heists isn't exactly the most subtle plan.
• It Has Been an Honor: Ryan says this in "The Trojan Bar Heist" immediately after Jack died and before his and Michael's Last Stand.
• Jail Bake: Played for laughs in "The Prison Job" when the guys suggested sending both a nail file in a cake and a rocket launcher in a cake for Geoff to escape.
• Kaizo Trap: "Jack's Heist": Jack and Michael make it to the meeting point in fighter jets, but Ryan is busy trying to firefight his way there. Jack decides to use the jets to help Ryan out and instructs Michael to walk over to his plane, then starts his jet while Michael is right behind it, accidentally roasting him.
  • Almost happens earlier in "Ryan's Heist", when Sole Survivor Ray is almost run over by a subway train while discussing the failure with the crew.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: Happens often, usually with a death gurgle as punctuation.
• Killed Off for Real: Invoked in the Heists. Once a heist has officially started, if any member of the crew gets killed, he does not get to continue on with the Heist and gets no payment. This is further set up by having the crew member's audio muted, him not interacting or interfering with the surviving members in-game, and the footage mainly focused on the remaining crew members,^*or, starting with "Ray's Heist", that of a "Ghost" as emphasized via the name overlay all for the remainder of the Heist. From "The Lazer Heist" onwards, the trope is partially subverted, as anybody who dies during the heist itself will appear again heavily bandaged in a live-action segment when the heist is over. So far, the last surviving members of each Heist have been as followed:
  • "(Geoff's) Heist": Ryan; who kills Geoff when they're out in the clear at sea to claim all the money, but forgets to get his cut of the money first. He performs a "viking funeral" as self-punishment for his mistake. This was the first Heist in which every member of Fake AH Crew died.
  • "Gavin's Heist": Geoff ended up escaping all alone on a Seashark (jet ski) without payment, as Michael (who got the money from the store) was killed in the process of escaping. He then killed himself via cyanide pill after the Heist officially ended.
  • "Ryan's Heist": Ray was almost betrayed by Ryan in the same manner as back in the first Heist as they were escaping through the subway tunnels, only for Ray to kill Ryan before he the latter had the chance. Ray almost left without Ryan's dropped money and almost got killed by a passing train, but he survived with $455.
  • "Michael's Heist": Michael planned all along to kill The R & R Connection (Ryan/Ray) and Team O.G. 2 (Geoff/Kerry) with booby-trapped vehicles. Ryan and Ray are killed by police before they reach the truck, and Kerry and Geoff accidentally take a clean boat instead of the rigged one, but Michael shoots them dead anyway. He, Gavin, and Lindsay split the money 40-30-30, making the mission a complete success.
  • "Jack's Heist": Jack and Michael both make it to the meeting point, but Jack accidentally roasts Michael with the flame of his jet when going to help out Ryan in a firefight. Ryan loses the fight before Jack arrives, leaving the heist's mastermind as its lone survivor, but with no money.
  • "Ray's Heist": Ryan and Geoff are unceremoniously shot, Jack died in a parachuting accident, Gavin crashes the helicopter and dies trying to rescue Michael, Michael got trapped at the military base, and Ray accidentally kills himself trying to blow up the back of the armored truck. Simply put, this by far the least successful Heist in the series; it is the third Heist in which all crew members died and the first where everyone was outright killed by NPCs or unintended suicide (no killing other crew members or intentionally committing suicide).
  • RTX 2014: Michael drives his tank off the roof he was supposed to wait on, killing Gavin. Jack tries to pick up the tank with the Cargobob to escape, resulting in an explosion that kills all five remaining players at once.
  • "The Grand Heist" (a revisit of the RTX heist): Ray pulls another Heroic Sacrifice, allowing everyone else to take off in a Titan; while en route to their split-up point, the Titan stalls and crashes into a police helicopter, again eliminating the five remaining players simultaneously.
  • "The Prison Job": The gang is able to get Geoff out of jail, however, they all die save Ray - Gavin and Jack end up missing jumps and dying after a long fall and Ray ends up giving the survivors his 5-Star Wanted level, leading to a Last Stand, killing everyone except Ray, who drives off into the night, still being chased.
  • "Lindsay's Heist": Thanks to a glitched train and bad timing, Gavin and Ryan are killed, but everyone else survives and the mission was a success.
  • "The Trojan Bar Heist": Gavin kills himself by jumping off the bridge and not opening his parachute, Geoff accidentally falls out of Jack's plane and is shot in the water, Ray dies to the cops while trying to steal a boat, Jack is blown up by Michael's wrecked plane, Ryan dies via Last Stand, and Michael attempts to flee in a police SUV only to drive into the ocean. This was the sixth heist in which all crew members died.
  • "Lil J's Heist": Gavin, Michael, Kerry and Ryan are killed when the Cargobob is destroyed by pursuing helicopters, Geoff hops out of the Luxor and is killed by the cops, Jeremy is ran over by the Luxor and shot by the cops and the Luxor dies on Jack, causing it to crash.
  • "The Lazer Job": First attempt: Geoff gets shot by the military since he refused to wear armor or use anything aside from a baseball bat; Gavin runs his jet straight through Michael on his way to blowing up himself; Ryan's jet dies on him and crashes, and Jeremy accidentally flattens Jack with his jetpack. Second attempt: Jack dies when the chopper is shot down after it got tethered to the ground by the rappel line, and despite surviving the crash Geoff is shot soon after; Gavin crashes his jet at the tunnel thanks to AI drivers spawning behind the roadblock; Michael gets shot as he tries to get a new jet, and Jeremy gets spooked by cops and crashes his jet into the tunnel entrance, leaving Ryan to escape to Mexico.
  • "The Santa Heist": Jack and Gavin die when their helicopter kicks them out and explodes on top of them. Aside from that, nobody dies during the heist itself (although Jeremy catches the Chronic Backstabbing Disorder and murders everybody but Alfredo at the very end).
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • Gavin loves to run over bikers while he's driving, even coaxing Ryan into doing so as well. When he's forced to ride one of his bikes to the objective in Series A Funding Part 3, Ryan calls out "Biker!" as he passes, then deliberately runs him over.
  • During "Car Bingo Challenge", Jack decides to be a troll and camps the entrance to the garage where the vehicles are being collected with proximity mines. A bit later, he's the first person to find a bike. Ryan and Gavin promptly run him over, with Ryan managing to harass Jack for long enough that Gavin can steal the bike and get away with it.
• Last Stand: In "The Trojan Bar Heist," Michael and Ryan engage in one towards the barrage of police.
  Ryan: "Blaze of glory man! Blaze of glory!"
  • Ray ends up making one in "Michael's Heist" after Ryan is killed off, as the two were separated from the rest of the group.
• Leave No Witnesses: It's official Fake AH Crew policy to kill any witnesses and destroy anything that might connect them to their crime sprees.
  • Taken to an extreme in "Jack's Heist", where the crew debates whether or not to do this with the clerks of convenience stores they rob, and Geoff's failure to do so ends up getting him killed.
• Letting the Air out of the Band:
  • "Slippery Corner" was supposed to be a Tales-from-the-Internet type Let's Play, investigating the recorded phenomenon of AI drivers seemingly losing control out of nowhere on one particular road corner. Fifty minutes later, after numerous deliberate accidents, not one driver has driven off the road without being provoked. (Okay, so it happened maybe one time - but only Michael saw it from a distance, as Ryan and Matt, who were standing right next to the road, were looking the other way.)
  • The original concept for "The Greatest Mugger Who Ever Lived" was for Jeremy to sit in an ultra-fast car, then have a mugger called on him, who would steal the car in the process and for everyone else to hunt the mugger down in Cargobobs. This gets derailed immediately when it turns out that since a recent update, muggers no longer steal personal vehicles, so the moment a target gets into one the mugger gets lost and runs away, and they have to make do with slower stolen vehicles instead.
• The Load: Anyone who totals or flips their car during the Cops n' Crooks matches inevitably screws their team over. Gavin did this several times during Let's Play Grand Theft Auto IV: "Cops n' Crooks Part 3".
• Made of Explodium: Invoked. "Gavin's Heist" involves using an oil tanker with twenty live sticky bombs on it to blow up a gas station and cause pandemonium so the police will be distracted from the robbery.
• Made of Iron: In Let's Play Grand Theft Auto IV: "Demolition Derby", the AH gang realize that SUVs are tough little mothers and decide not to use them again. In the last round, Geoff and Ryan get trucks and they're the first ones to fall, but not without a fight.
• Musical Episode: Jack Bag 8, which was later retitled Achievement Hunter: The Musical.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg:
  • In "Jack's Heist", Jack uses the codename Overlord for himself and Eagle One, Eagle Two, Eagle Three, Eagle Four (for the others)... and Gavin, since he'd just forget his codename anyway. Collectively he refers to them as the eagles plus Gavin.
  • "The Santa Heist" features Alfredo as The Rookie (as this is his first heist... nevermind the fact that it's Matt's first heist too). As such, he wasn't invited to the live-action planning meeting, and most of his time during the heist itself is spent standing around in silence waiting for the others to reach him.
• Never My Fault: In the prep meeting for "Michael's Heist", Ryan notes that his previous team-killing could be blamed on Geoff for running towards him while Ryan was trying to shoot the armored truck.
  • To be fair, he was right in this one case. Ryan had already began firing when Geoff stood in the path of an automatic weapon. Because of a quirk in GTA's combat system this made Ryan kill Geoff with one deadly swing.
  • In "Lil J's Heist", Jeremy determines that their previous heists all failed because Kerry was ratting them out to the cops, with no mention of the mulitude of ways the gang had screwed up on their own.
  • This is Gavin's reaction to all of the money he loses when he gets mugged. Rather than use the banking service to store his money (admitting to Matt at one point that he doesn't think he's ever banked any of his money), he just keeps it all on his character, so any time he's mugged he has the maximum amount of $10,000 stolen from him. Rather than seeing it as his fault for keeping the money on him, he blames the people who order the mugging - for wasting Rooster Teeth's real world money in having to replace it.
• Nintendo Hard: A lot of the Things to do in GTAV: episodes that focus on obstacle courses lean more heavily on this trope. The worst example? Things to do in GTAV-BMX Badass, which was so hard that not only were Geoff and Gavin not able to complete it during playtesting, but no one was able to legitimately complete the course.
  • Later on Michael, Ryan, Gavin and Jeremy attempted the hardest challenge in GTA, the Criminal Masterminds Challenge, which is to complete all the heists in order on hard difficulty with no deaths. Even though they had to "bumcheese" it a couple times, they made it.
• No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction: To quote the briefing from "Ryan's Heist"...
  Ryan: "My first concept for this heist was to kill you all... then I realized that keeping you alive was a much greater challenge."
  • This was also Michael's stated reason for having "Gavin survives to the end of the heist" as a secondary goal during his heist. His real reason was so that he could split the take with his best friend at the end, after betraying all the others.
  • One could argue that "Lindsay Wins" is an example of this. Given that Lindsay had major issues even finishing a race in GTA prior to it, the fact that everyone else had to co-ordinate in order to ensure that she won a race could be seen as a challenge.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Villain Protagonist example. During "Jack's Heist", the Fake AH Crew debates whether to shoot the clerks after robbing them and Geoff decides to spare his clerk. Said crew member is rewarded with being gunned down by the object of his mercy.
• No One Gets Left Behind: During Lindsay's Heist, the AH Crew takes pains to ensure that everybody makes it out alive, even resorting to jumping off the train they worked so hard to board to help a straggling teammate get on it. They nearly succeed, though bad timing and a bugged train end up killing Gavin and Ryan as they try to jump back on.
  • This actually works against them in The Trojan Bar Heist. To elaborate, Ray and Geoff were stuck on a beach with cops surrounding them because Michael realized his plane only fit him, and thus was forced to depart. Jack, who had already picked up Ryan, doubled back to pick them up. He manages to pick up Geoff, but Ray is too far away and is eventually killed by police. And then Geoff falls out of the plane and is massacred anyway. Because of all the damage they took in trying to pick up Ray and Geoff, Ryan and Jack realize that their plane is unable to take off anymore, and they soon crash, meaning that Michael (who doesn't even have a Wanted level anymore) has to come back with a plane to rescue them. After a while, Michael gets to the two of them, but his plane is hit so fiercely by police fire that it ends up falling to the ground as well, and the remaining crew members are killed.
  • This is actually the reason the Prison Job falls apart: if they hadn't waited to pick up Ray, with his five-star wanted level, the rest of the crew would have gotten away easily.
• Not the Fall That Kills You…: Gavin and Jack both die this way in "The Prison Job" when they jump into the river expecting Soft Water but end up hitting a very shallow part of it (or just missing the water altogether).
  • The exact same thing happened to Gavin in "The Trojan Bar Heist."
• Obviously Evil: Ryan. His skull mask doesn't help at all to cover up his craziness.
• Oh, Crap!: In "Path To Insanity", Ryan lets out a very loud "OH, SHIT!" upon seeing Ray driving down the road in a tank.
• Once More, with Clarity: Twice in "Michael's Heist", showing Michael's plan with Geoff to kill Ryan and Ray, then his plan with Lindsay to kill Geoff and Kerry.
• One Hit Poly Kill: At the start of "Crime Lord", Ray has the others line up to see if he can headshot all 5 with one sniper round at close range. He succeeds.
• Out-Gambitted: Averted in "Michael's Heist". Ray and Ryan somehow figured out that their job of fighting off the cops was a Uriah Gambit, but they were both slain before they had a chance to turn the tables on Michael and co.
  • Played straight in "Lindsay Wins". Everyone but her is conspiring to ensure that she wins the races. In the second race, Lindsay intentionally swerves away from the final checkpoint before hitting it, causing Michael and Ryan to overtake her and get themselves disqualified from the secondary competition (who does the best aside from Lindsay).
• Outrun the Fireball: The gang tried to set this up in Big Bang by trying to set up a chain reaction of cars blowing up, but on the first try, with the cars bumper to bumper, the 'chain' was so slow that Jack was able to leisurely outstroll the fireball. Then they tried it with the cars parked side by side, and this time the chain reaction was so fast they didn't even have time to react.
• Overly Long Gag: "Are you ever hanging out with your friends-"
• Person as Verb:
  • To "Austin Powers" a vehicle, aircraft, or seacraft is to flip it over or get it impressively stuck and unusuable, a la this scene from Austin Powers.
  • To "Geoff" in a race is to be doing really well and suddenly have everything go wrong that could possibly go wrong.
  • In more a case of 'Bland-Name Product as Verb', to "Sprunk" somebody in a race is to knock them into an obstacle or off the course entirely.
• Pet the Dog: Michael specifically plans his heist so that Gavin could live so as he could split the money between them and Lindsay. Similarly, he plans "The Santa Heist" around not dropping new guy Alfredo in at the deep end.
  • Any race in which Lindsay manages to reach the finish line. "Lindsay Wins" was designed for this purpose, but in other races, actually finishing inspires disbelief followed by sincere congratulations from her coworkers.
  • Speaking of Lindsay, the outcome of her heist. Arguably it was the most successful out of all of them, getting away on a train with the loot and the only two deaths being down to glitches.
• The Plan: Each Heist begins with the heist-planner giving the others a mission briefing with diagrams and images. To be concise, things hardly if ever go according to plan, even with the backup plans and contingencies accounted for.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: The same one is used twice by Ryan, first during "Heist" then during "Ryan's Heist". The second one actually backfires, since the intended victim learned from last time and shot first.
  "(paraphrased from first iteration) There doesn't have to be two of us..."
• Press X to Die: Gavin dies almost immediately after the "RTX 2014 Live Heist" begins for real by being crushed by the tank that Michael accidentally drove off the roof. He is appropriately nonplussed at having set the record for fastest death in a Heist.
• Properly Paranoid: In "Jack's Heist", they debate whether killing the clerks at the places they rob is the right thing to do. When Geoff spares his clerk, he is shot dead by the object of his mercy as he leaves.
  • Ryan himself is smart when it comes to Michael's Heist, pointing out several inconsistencies with the plan that suggested that he was intended to die. While the things he brings up are irrelevant, he is completely correct and pieces this together before the Heist starts.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Every single Heist video except for "Michael's, Lindsay's and The Santa Heist" has either ended with everyone dead or with the Fake AH Crew completely decimated to one man and with no money (or pathetic amounts of it) just to add insult to injury. Since the Fake AH Crew are murderers and bank robbers, they count as Villain Protagonists. Note that "The Trojan Bar Heist" technically succeeded in stealing and securing its primary objective, but the entire crew died to a man trying to escape.
• Ramming Always Works: The entire point of Things to Do in Grand Theft Auto V "Splat" and "Splat X" is jet fighter(s) trying to kill parachuters by physically running into them before they can hit the ground. At one point, Jack and Geoff managed to ram each other, promptly killing both fighter pilots in a fireball.
• Red Shirt Army: The "Heist" videos see piles and piles of dead police, both regular cops and Elite Mooks alike. Averted for the actual army, since by the time they accumulate 5 star wanted levels, they've usually gotten away or failed already.
• Rewatch Bonus: Go back and watch Michael's Heist's live action scenes and you will see that Ryan's facial expression changes after Michael made a comment on whether or not him and Ray will survive, that's because it's shown that he actually KNEW that Michael had rigged the car bomb and planned to fake his death and track down and kill Michael and Gavin. Considering that the car bomb was Michael's backup plan and he had no plans for what to if it failed
• The Rival: A rivalry seems to be forming between Jack and Jeremy. Particularly on Offense Defense and Snipers vs Stunters, where they are frequently each other's biggest competition.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
  • Ray loses it when Ryan dies in "Michael's Heist", abandoning cover and screaming his fallen teammate's name as he sprays at the cops. Shame it doesn't last for more than a few seconds.
  • This is the subject of "Lil J's Heist": They come to realize that Kerry is the main reason most of their heists have gone balls up, so they've decided to take him out.
• Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies: The end of "The Grand Heist": After a tense (5-star Wanted level) but quiet escape in a Titan for five of the Hunters, their plane stalls and crashes down onto a police chopper, killing everyone just short of Mount Chilliad.
  • Prison Job ends abruptly when the wreckage of a police helicopter lands right on top of the getaway boat.
• Run for the Border: After the second failure of "The Lazer Job", Ryan flees to Mexico.
• Running Gag:
  • Gavin gets an entire section dedicated to him:
    • Him getting mugged. Usually happens at least once per episode in free play. Prior to this Kerry was another frequent target.
    • Him getting killed off first in nearly all the "Heist" videos. It got to the point where "Michael's Heist" was designed specifically to keep Gavin alive and actually succeeds, miraculously.
    • His character's glitched mouth, leading to the others to tell him to close his mouth. This was later fixed when he discovered that his character's mood was set to 'stressed'.
    • His hatred of bikers. Whenever driving anywhere, he will go out of his way to run over anyone he sees riding a bike, and will encourage anyone he is riding with to do so as well. This is despite the fact that his most used personal vehicle is a dirtbike.
    • This applies even more to races in which bikes are selected, as more often than not Gavin forgets to pick one leading to everyone else being on the super-fast Tron bikes while he's riding a Sanchez.
    • His Faggio is an entire gag in itself. It's practically nothing more than a glorified scooter he prefers using when everyone else is on motorcycles, and one that he's claimed to have put hundreds of thousands of dollars into upgrading (mostly with an abundant number of mirrors and antennas). But the real fun is that it seems to blow up at the drop of a hat, meaning he very rarely gets to actually drive it considering how much his coworkers love destroying it (that, and for all the money he's invested into it, the bike itself is still worth next to nothing).
  • Every "Heist" video starts with a complete live-action segment (a rarity in Let's Play videos; no, facecams don't count) of the leader of a heist explaining the rather convoluted plans of a robbery to the rest of the Fake AH Crew.
  • Geoff getting killed/betrayed by a teammate in the "Heist" videos. The only one where this doesn't happen is "Gavin's Heist", and that's likely because he was so far away from the rest of the guys while the majority of the plan was being executed. Twisted in "Jack's Heist", when he gets killed by the clerk at the store he just robbed.
  • X-Ray and Vav respectively hits the bong and takes a drink at the start of the in-game portion of the Heist videos.
  • Mispronouncing Job Points (JP) as "Japan Points".
  • Honking the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" horn in the "Heist" videos.
  • At the ending of each heist the Sole Survivor declares themselves the winner. Defied in Gavin's Heist where Geoff cries over the fact that all his teammates are dead and that the money was lost.
  • Immediately blaming Ryan every time someone gets an unexpected wanted level (even when it wasn't him), due to his tendency to murder bystanders For the Evulz.
  • In the Sunday Driving videos, when the gang picks up Ryan he'll inevitably be causing some form of carnage, be it terrorizing women, calling down airstrikes to "teach a lesson", or hiding out from a four-star wanted level in a field of burnt out cars and corpses.
  • During Ray's tenure, he would often get into fights with other civilians while waiting around, usually with some deadpan Trash Talk.
  Ray: (to a male thug) Nice scarf. [Do] they make it for men?
  • During the prep work for the Doomsday Heists, Ryan shells out a lot of money to get the missions going, then instantly gets hit with some form of Humiliation Conga that prevents him from helping for the most part.
  • A lot of Let's Play ideas involve the Los Santos airport, so many that even the Hunters themselves have started referring to them as 'airport screw-around' videos.
  Geoff: What are we doing, Jack?
  Jack: Hey Geoff, we're doing uh... we're gonna fuck around, we'll probably end up at the airport.^note Ironically, they never actually go to the airport in this one.
  • After Ryan said it derisively during a collectible hunting video, the phrase "out in the grapes" has become a running gag statement referring either to the vineyard where it was coined, or any location away from built up areas. It quickly gained a shirt on the Rooster Teeth Store, too.
• Safe Word: During their attempts at the Criminal Masterminds challenge, they decide on the word "bumcheese" as the signal to unplug their consoles if anyone is on the verge of death.
• Sanity Slippage: Invoked in Let's Play Grand Theft Auto V: "Path to Insanity", which is a competition to see who can reach the lowest level of sanity first. Appropriately hosted and won by Mad King Ryan himself.
• Seinfeldian Conversation: Like in their other major series Let's Play: Minecraft, uneventful footage is sometimes kept when the crew is having an amusing discussion. This is largely the point of the Sunday Driving series, as well.
• Serial Escalation:
  • "Last Action Hero" goes from Gavin trying to land in a boat from a motorcycle to Ray, Ryan and Michael attempting this with cars, coaches and helicopters.
  • "Downhill Jam" also begins as a race to get down a mountain first on bikes and escalates the vehicles until they're in tanks.
  • "Crazy Taxi" involved one team in various vehicles trying to pursue and kill a taxi picking up members of the other team. Thing escalate very quickly in the bonus round to cop cars, fire trucks, Humvees, helicopters, a kamikaze jet plane, and a damn ''tank'' all at once.
  • The "Heist" episodes got more elaborate after the first episode.
    • "Gavin's Heist" was a lot more complicated in its plans and caused even quicker deaths. He also targeted a gas/petrol station's convenience store instead of a relatively quaint convenience store along a street.
    • "Ryan's Heist" added an armored truck (which pays more than a convenience store) as an additional target and involved aircraft for the first time. It's also the first "Heist" episode which ends in someone getting paid, albeit through killing another team member.
    • "Michael's Heist" involved Kerry and Michael's then-future wife Lindsay for the first time in the sub-series, involved a robbing a bank (which was not possible to do yet and thus switched back to another convenience store), the use of tanks as escape vehicles, successful evasions of five-star wanted levels, making sure that Gavin survives the entire thing, and planned killings of four other team members. It's also the first truly successful heist in the series, and some money was given to someone who was not supposed to be in the actual heist (at least to everyone but the mastermind).
    • "Jack's Heist" involved stealing from five convenience stores at once, and landing an escape plane on a busy street and taking off from it, only to steal fighter jets later on. Also, the mastermind becomes the Sole Survivor, truly making it his heist.
    • "Ray's Heist" subverted this; it was planned in a small bathroom, he simply used their middle names as their code names,^note Except for himself and Ryan; the latter's middle name is Ryan, so Ray had him go by his little-used first name, James. Ray lacks a middle name, so he went as "The Artist Formerly Known as Ray". there was only one target (an armored truck), and the plans were more simple. What could not be subverted was how quickly and badly everyone got themselves killed this time, though at least he accomplished his goal of not having the Crew kill each other.
    • The RTX 2014 live heist and "The Grand Heist" continued the trend, having four targets, a tank carried by a Cargobob, and a final escape in a Titan. "The Grand Heist", being the Fake AH Crew's second run, goes much more successfully. The deaths also escalate, both heists ending with the five remaining crew members being killed in an explosion simultaneously.
    • "Lindsay's Heist" involved stealing gold and an escape via train. It was also the first heist to have the least deaths (2).
    • "The Trojan Bar Heist" involved stealing from a bar, and it involved flying around with new planes. It also had one of the best endings to a heist, ending in a climactic and spectacular Last Stand.
    • At the end of "The Lazer Job" Gavin suggests that the crew have fallen victim to this, as they haven't done a heist in a while, and that they should work their way back up from smaller jobs.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: The Heists almost always wind up as this.
  Ray (after "Jack's Heist" ended): [Michael] got burned to death, Gavin bonked his head, Geoff got assassinated, I died killing the cops on the ground so that you guys could take off, [...] and Ryan... I don't know what the fuck Ryan was doing.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: "The Grand Heist" ends with the sudden crash of the escape Titan into a police chopper and the deaths of the remaining five crew members.
  • "The Prison Job" ends with everyone (except Ray) dying after they freed Geoff from prison, making the whole thing pointless.
  • As mentioned above, the Doomsday Heist Criminal Mastermind challenge ends in failure after multiple attempts due to circumstances beyond the crew's control.
• Skewed Priorities: In-Universe, Jeremy prioritizes wearing a mask (and thus keeping Rimmy Tim's identity secret) over being inconspicuous while scouting out the bank for the Fleeca job in Criminal Masterminds.
• Spanner in the Works: The first "Heist" (a.k.a. "Geoff's Heist") had the gang pulling off a heist of a convenience store doing pretty well, until their explosions caused their Wanted level to hit three stars and getting a helicopter into play. It then became every man for himself. This is actually quite common with the other Heists as well.
  • "Gavin's Heist" goes belly up because the bombs on the tanker despawned due to everyone being too far away.
  • "Ryan's Heist" gets ruined due to the fact that everyone had a hard time trying to get the Cargobob to where the armored truck was.
  • "Michael's Heist" hit a snag when he found out that banks can't be robbed until the actual Online Heists that Rockstar are still working on are released. Despite this, "Michael's Heist" is successful in taking out everyone else deliberately except for himself, Gavin and Lindsay.
  • "Jack's Heist" was slowed by the difficulty of taking off in the escape jet from a busy street. Later on, his stolen fighter jet kills the only person who successfully escaped law enforcement with money (Michael).
  • "Ray's Heist" disintegrated when they couldn't just simply open the locked front doors of the armored truck.
  • The heist live at RTX was first derailed when Michael crushed Gavin with his tank, but Jack was also unable to control the Cargobob when trying to carry Michael.
  • "The Grand Heist" went wonderfully until the sudden Dropped a Bridge on Him/Shoot the Shaggy Dog.
  • "Lindsay's Heist" had a weird glitch that only Ryan could see where the port-a-potty was dangling from the train. The glitch ended up killing Ryan by having the port-a-potty run over him. Similarly, Gavin encountered a different glitch in which the train they were riding on phased through a stationary one, knocking him out of the train, and in his panic to get back on he timed it badly and died.
  • "The Trojan Bar Heist" had Michael given the wrong plane - the Dodo was a one-seater. Literally - he couldn't rescue anyone.
  • "Lil J's Heist": During the escape, Michael drives into a tunnel, which puts Gavin in a panic since flying over it would cause him to fly over the military base. Gavin's also unable to hook the car at first because of the stress of the chase. Ultimately, Gavin's inability to figure out where to land costs them the mission.
  • "The Lazer Job" was attempted twice. The first attempt fell apart when Gavin crashed his jet through Michael. The second attempt got hit by a bug and a game quirk - Jack and Geoff attempted to leave in their helicopter, but the rappel line glitched out and essentially tethered the chopper to the floor, resulting in a crash, their deaths, and the subsequent despawning of their wedge vehicles, and though Michael and Jeremy created a successful roadblock at one end of the tunnel, AI drivers were spawning behind them and blocked Gavin's approach.
  • "The Santa Heist" had a major spanner in the form of their target, Santa, who proved to be more unpredictable and retaliatory than the Hunters planned for. There was also the matter of Jack's helicopter, from which he and Gavin were kicked when they reached a five-star wanted level, and which then exploded on top of them for good measure.
• Spiritual Successor: "The Prison Job" is one towards the "Heist" mini-series.
• Stupid Evil: Ryan's plans for betrayal might have worked if he had patience and thought ahead.
• Stuff Blowing Up:
  • "Achievement Knievel" ended with not only the detonation of Jack's jet as he collided with Ryan, but a Disaster Dominoes chain of explosions as all of the buses blew up.
  • "Gavin's Heist" involves a planned detonation of an oil tanker at a gas station using around twenty sticky bombs, all to distract the police from the robbery going on.
  • "The Grand Heist", especially when the tank is put to use against the cops. The whole episode would make Michael Bay proud.
  • "The Trojan Bar Heist" had a lot in the Last Stand.
• Suicide Attack: Gavin uses a jet as a kamikaze weapon in "Crazy Taxi". At least, it was a good attempt...
  Ryan: Uh... I hope you're not going anywhere that needs too many left turns...
  Gavin: (headed straight for the ground) I've got a left turn for you! BITTTCHHHHHH!!!
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: A common theme in the "Heist" videos, since committing armed robbery is indeed difficult to get away with.
  • Trying to escape the cops via motorcycle? The cops will always catch up to you.
  • Plan to steal an armored van and drive away with it? Not if the door is locked. Try to punch a hole through the armor anyways with an RPG? Get blown up because you were standing 10 feet away.
  • Try to land a jet onto a street so your crew can use it as a getaway vehicle? Good luck finding a clear stretch to use as a runway when colliding with a car will blow you up.
  • Caught in a firefight with many, many cops? Conservation of Ninjutsu goes out the window the moment one of them gets lucky and headshots you.
  • Something doesn't go according to plan? Better have a back up. The list goes on.
  • As of "The Prison Job", everyone seems to have lost a lot of in-game money because of the Heist. Apparently, spending thousands of dollars on weapons and vehicles to rob convenience stores and failing most of the time is a really bad investment scheme.
    • This has now included the main Let's Play videos too, since a free play game idea that involves destroying the Oppressor rocket bikes (which have a $20,000 insurance fee) ends up costing Ryan over $2 million dollars.
  • During "The Lazer Job" Ryan decides to fly the laser close to the ground because it has a faulty engine. Which later inevitably shows why all those "fly low to avoid detection" plots in media are super dangerous. The plane stalls out and Ryan has seconds to react before it hits a pole and explodes. He didn't make it.
• Take Our Word for It: During Lindsay's Heist, we see the carnage occurring outside the bank robbery, but not the actual theft of the gold ingots that is supposedly occurring. Word of God is that they just stole a bunch of cash, but pretending to steal gold and stash in a port-o-potty before running off with the potty was much funnier.
• Take That!: A possible subtle one in "Michael's Heist" to Rockstar Games over the continuing lack of actual heists in Grand Theft Auto Online, with Michael attempting to steal from a bank before he "realizes" that the bank "is closed on Wednesdays".
• Tank Goodness:
  • "Michael's Heist" involves using two of these as getaway vehicles, as they are Nigh-Invulnerable to anything besides another tank or RPG, not to mention being capable of running over anything that would snag a bike or a car.
  • The RTX 2014 Heist as well as "The Grand Heist" both planned to steal a tank, then get away with the money by lifting the tank by aircraft, using the tank's cannon to cover their escape.
  • "Cargo Tank" is pretty much this trope with some Cargobobs thrown in.
• Tempting Fate: In the "bonus round" to Crazy Taxi, Ryan speculates that he'll have an easy time driving since his limo is faster that the original taxi, and since the Lads are restricted to hitting him with their choppers, he'll be fine if he stays out of the open. Michael takes it a step further, saying that with Gavin flying, he'll also be safe in the open. Cue Gavin and his Cargobob swooping in from out of nowhere, nailing Ryan dead on. End result: Ryan and his limo battered, crippled, in pieces, upside-down and wrapped around a bus stop a block away from where Gavin hit him.
  • In "Jack's Heist," as the crew starts their heist, Gavin asks whether they should shoot the clerks they're robbing. Geoff says there's no point in doing so, as they're all wearing masks anyway. Five seconds later, the clerk shoots Geoff in the back on his way out the door.
  • After the first round of "Lindsay Wins", everyone figures out that if they all bet on Lindsay, since the whole point of the Lets Play is for her to win, they'll all get the money. Lindsay intentionally throws the second round to catch people out. Cue rage as everybody else loses $1000.
• The Trope Formerly Known as X: In "Ray's Heist", everyone used their middle names (or first name in Ryan's case) as their code names except for Ray himself, who doesn't have one. He instead went by "The Artist Formerly Known As Ray" or "TAFKAR" for short.
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: In "Lil J's Heist", after capturing Kerry, Ryan exclaims "Welcome to hell, bitch!"
• Toilet Humor: Lindsay's Heist seemingly plans to steal gold from a bank and store it a portable toilet as they get away. The AH Crew takes the comedic value of having to pick out the loot from all the human waste to extremes.
• Took a Level in Badass: The guys go from bumbling and failing to rob convenience stores to succesfully raiding Humane Labs on their first try.
• Undignified Death: In "Lindsay's Heist", Ryan ends up crushed to death by a port-a-potty.
• Uriah Gambit: In "Michael's Heist", Ray and Ryan were ostensibly sent to hold off the cops but were planned to die from the start by Michael. Either they would die in combat distracting the cops or to the Ignition Bomb pre-planted in their escape vehicle. Surprisingly, the duo actually realized this from the start, but died before they could have Out-Gambitted him.
• Villain Protagonists: The Fake AH Crew in the "Heist" episodes. They lie to each other, steal money, kill cops, and murder not only innocent civilians, but their own teammates as well. Played for Laughs in a Black Comedy sort of way, naturally.
• Villain Decay: In-Universe. In "Crime Lord," Ryan's reason for creating the game was because he felt that the gang hasn't committed as much heinous crimes as they used to.
• What the Hell, Hero?: The first "Heist" episode ends with everyone berating Ryan for killing Geoff before he got his cut from the heist.
  • Michael takes this to the extreme in "Ryan's Heist", berating Ryan for accidentally killing Geoff again and making an attempt on Ray's life For the Evulz.
  • Ray also called him out on killing Geoff earlier on. In about the same intensity of Michael.
  Ray: WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? YOU SAID YOU WEREN'T GONNA KILL ANYBODY!
• With Friends Like These...: The "Heist" episodes show that certain people are ready to turn against each other (mostly Ryan) at the drop of a hat. This played a role in Ray's planning for his Heist as well as Michael's.
• Yank the Dog's Chain:
  • How the "The Grand Heist" ends.
  • "The Prison Job" also ends this way.
  • When somebody sticks up for Gavin when he's mugged for the umpteenth time in a video, it's a fairly sure bet that that person just wants the others to back off so they can have a chance to mug him.