An APD sergeant who dislikes firefighters becomes nemeses with Owen and the 126, resulting in the two teams playing ball in order to settle the score.
Tropes:
- Baseball Episode: The middle third of the episode sees Owen deciding to sign up the 126 for an interagency baseball game against O’Brien’s team, with Carlos acting as a “neutral” audience spectator.
- Big Eater: Much to Grace’s irritation, Dave tends to eat more than his own lunch and steals her own homemade meals more than a few times.
- The Bus Came Back: Knowing that they alone would probably lose hard to O’Brien’s team, Tommy and Owen reluctantly call in Pearce as a temporary baseball player. Despite getting held up by O’Brien’s team hazing on the day of the game, Pearce sure enough raises the score back in the 126’s favor once he gets into the action.
- Fisticuff-Provoking Comment:
- Let's You and Him Fight: Once O’Brien doubles down on deciding his team won the baseball game, Owen cracks and punches him in the face. This causes the whole event to devolve into a full-on brawl between both teams, which is all captured on live news.
- Malicious Misnaming: When Owen and Tommy give Pearce his baseball jersey, he indignantly points out the typo in his name: Pierce, not Pearce. It doesn’t faze them.
- Man Hug: A weed-high O’Brien gives Owen one for saving his life once they’re safely out of the burning cannabis factory.
- Mood Whiplash:
- Oh, Crap!:
- Carlos gets two when he finds himself caught in the middle of the newly-developed rivalry.
- In the middle of discussing the highway call to Owen, he isn’t thrilled to recognize one of the cops riding up to the 126 on a motorcycle: Ty O’Brien.
- As the APD and AFD baseball teams start participating in the brawl all at once, he gets a moment of panic before jumping up and running in to try and break up the fight.
- Dave looks a little freaked out when Brett points out that Judd, who made Grace’s potato salad that he’d eaten, is “not so little.”
- Carlos gets two when he finds himself caught in the middle of the newly-developed rivalry.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Carlos watches the interagency baseball game from the crowd as a “neutral” spectator, but his cheering for the 126’s scores is a pretty easy giveaway for any APD supporters or O’Brien’s players if they were to pay attention to the audience.
- Remember the New Guy?: The two “new” men at Austin Dispatch and APD leave some interesting first impressions.
- Carlos mentions only knowing Sergeant Ty O’Brien by name and reputation at the APD (at least, until he and his unit roll in to take over the 126’s call and give them a misdemeanor ticket)— that being, his distaste for firefighters. The deeper reason is never stated.
- Dave was a nighttime dispatcher of 9 years who took time off, and is purportedly trying to adjust to daytime shifts now that he’s back on the job. He decides to make the switch official after his heart attack.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Pearce could not walk off the field fast enough once Owen and O’Brien unexpectedly cut the game short with a brawl.
- Shout-Out:
- The episode title is one to Red vs. Blue, one of the flagship shows from Austin-based Rooster Teeth. To complete the reference, Rooster Teeth co-founder Joel Heyman makes a cameo appearance as one of Grace's co-workers.
- When Carlos attends the baseball game in disguise, he still clearly looks like himself at the event.
- Sudden Downer Ending: During their game night/ celebration, TK steps away to take a call. When Carlos goes to check on him with drinks on hand, a shell-shocked TK can barely eke out the news he learned over the phone: his mother is dead.
- Unsportsmanlike Gloating: O’Brien could not be smugger about his team being more experienced in baseball than the 126, and striking out Nancy during the game when one of his team members purposely backs up and trips her on third base.
