The 18th season of Red vs. Blue follows a new cast of characters and focuses on a special ops group called Shatter Squad, who are hunting down a crime syndicate leader named Zero, who is after the Ultimate Power. The showrunner is Torrian Crawford, who previously animated season 14's "Meta vs. Carolina: Dawn of Awesome".
It was followed by Red vs. Blue: Family Shatters, a non-canonical comedy miniseries about Shatter Squad.
Warning: This page will contain unmarked spoilers for the previous seasons.
Tropes:
- 24-Hour Armor: Carolina's arm was broken in episode 1. Come episode 2 she's in the infirmary, still in full armor and is even wearing a cast over her armor.
- Aborted Arc: An official statement
revealed that there are no plans for continuing the plotline established in Zero due to negative reception, leaving Zero's quest for the Ultimate Power and possession by the Black Lotus discontinued. - Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: The episode "Shattered", which is the only one without action.
- Actionized Sequel: Compared to previous seasons, which typically had a strong focus on comedy and left action as a secondary element, this season has a very heavy focus on fast-paced action.
- Anachronic Order: "Encounter" goes back and forth between the chase started in the previous episode, its preparations, and its aftermath.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: After 17 seasons focusing on the Blood Gulch Crew, this season moves to a new cast of characters called Shatter Squad; only Carolina, Washington, and Tucker carry over.
- Animation Bump: It's the first full season done only with animation, namely in the Unreal Engine. Albeit a system to control with game controllers and use the Machinima animators for Head Bob and such was developed.
- Antagonist Title: This season is named after its Big Bad, Zero.
- Artifact Title: While the franchise had already undergone this beforehand, since the titular Reds and Blues had long stopped fighting each other, it's taken up to eleven here. Aside from some cameos of Wash and Tucker, the Reds and Blues are entirely absent.note
- Bait-and-Switch Character Intro: Tiny the mechanic is introduced tinkering under a vehicle. She stands up, towering over the other characters with her hulking figure. Then, after a Beat, reveals her bubbly, girly mannerisms and voice.
- Big Bad: Zero, the leader of Viper.
- Breaking Old Trends: In a series first, Zero is done outside any of the Halo games and is instead entirely animated, including the "machinima" bits.
- Brick Joke: One of the first jokes is Raymond trying to charge his phone. The final scene reveals he alone didn't realize everyone was using codenames because he missed the appropriate e-mail because of said phone.
- Catching the Speedster: East has her burst step countered by opponents a few times.
- In "Duo", East charges and leaps at Carolina, who catches and flips her, using East's own momentum to toss her across the room. Shortly after, East uses her burst step to run circles around Carolina, who intercepts her by driving an elbow into her gut.
- In "Encounter", East runs around Zero and does a flying kick at him from behind. He ducks her attack and charges her while she's recovering. She tries to charge him again, only to run straight into his kick and get knocked back. Shortly after, she tries to charge him again, zipping around and attacking from behind, only for Zero to catch her by the face without looking.
- *Click* Hello: Done twice in a row, first without the click, only a teleporter coming in... and then there's one directly borrowed from The Matrix, only with a shotgun ("Dodge this!").
- Dangerous Forbidden Technique: During the final battle, Raymond overclocks the heroes' suits, increasing their power output in exchange for risking putting them into a coma.
- Demoted to Extra: Washington and Tucker spend most of their screentime hospitalized after being beaten to a pulp during their encounters with Viper.
- Evil Counterpart: The Viper Syndicate has Zero/One (the latter says during their fight that both went through the same training, only he was also enhanced), Diesel/West (both are the big, imposing brawlers), and Phase/East (one is pink, the other is purple, both have speedy powers and melee skills) - with the last one downright being a person and a holographic copy.
- Evil Overlooker: The Blu-ray cover has Shatter Squad at the bottom and Zero looming over them in the background.
- Freud Was Right: Tucker is enraged about losing his sword, making him "half a man", which bringing the symbolism one step further leads him to say it's very important, "even more than the guy downstairs".
- Gilligan Cut: In "Duo", Raymond refuses to go check out a sound with West, then it cuts to them proceeding towards the sound.West: Let's check it out.
Raymond: "Let's check it out" is what you say when you want to die in a scary movie! Nope, I'm good. Don't feel like dying today.
[Cut to the two of them on an elevator]
Raymond: [slumping] We dying today. - Given Name Reveal: The final episodes have the heroes reveal their given names: One is Jamie, Axel is Lance, East is Danyell, West is Bruce, and Raymond is... Raymond.
- Hard Light: "East" turns out to be a Holo-Echo, a solid hologram with a person's personality record, of the real East, Phase.
- High-Five Left Hanging: In Tiny's introduction, she makes a quip about Axel being "ancient" and reaches out to East for a high five. East scoffs and turns away, and Tiny takes her hand back, looking at it in confusion.
- I'm Standing Right Here: In episode two, Carolina goes over the dossiers of Shatter Squad to find out who she's working with and makes a bunch of snappy quips about each of them, seemingly just talking out loud to herself while footage plays of the team's various skills. After Carolina quips that Raymond desperately wants to be accepted, it cuts back and shows the entirety of Shatter Squad, who apparently just stood there while Carolina critiqued them.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: The Syndicate's attempt to extract information out of Wash, who is very flippant.
- MacGuffin: The "Ultimate Power" that the Viper Syndicate wants, that can only be found/summoned with Artifacts. Which seem to be "Keys" like Tucker's sword.
- Milking the Giant Cow: When a Head Bob is not used for tradition's sake, the characters gesticulate wildly while talking.
- Meaningful Name: Shatter Squad was part of the Special Ops program GLASS.
- Neck Lift:
- When Viper is interrogating Wash to see if he reveals where the temple is, Diesel is lifting him and pinning him against a wall with one hand.
- When Zero catches East by the face in "Encounter", he lifts her off the ground one-handed.
- Non-Indicative Name: Tiny, who's a huge, squeaky-voiced mechanic.
- Noodle Implements: Washington's brain damage was healed with cutting-edge robotics... and old kitchen appliances. Which apparently give him the power to discover if nearby microwaves will come off.
- One-Word Title: All the episodes follow this pattern, aside from two-part finale "For Power".
- Physical Fitness Punishment: In the first episode, One is made to do fifty pushups as punishment for reckless, destructive racing.
- Punch Catch: In "Encounter", One throws a powered-up punch at Zero, who catches it, stopping it dead.
- Red Shirt Army: The guards in the base where Wash took an Artifact.
- Rule of Funny: Carolina breaks her arm... and the cast is over the armor, because of course.
- Series Continuity Error: Since its introduction, the "Great Key" has been established to only work for whoever claimed ownership of it, and that the only way for someone else to use it is to kill the current owner and become the new owner. When East stabs Tucker and rejoins Phase however, she takes his Great Key, and proceeds to use it while going after the Ultimate Power, despite Tucker surviving his stab.
- Skewed Priorities: To West's disgust, Shatter Squad was just supposed to bring in rookie Raymond, and along the way they decided to go AWOL and race with their Warthogs.
- There Was a Door: Diesel decides to just destroy the walls on the way to the artifact.
- Troperiffic: Torrian Crawford has stated that his goal was a "a tropey season for the specific goal of just being fun", that was "very aware of how cheesy it is."
- Unflinching Walk: In episode 1, Zero sticks an explosive to a guard, kicks him across the room, then turns and walks away while the explosive goes off in the background.
- Walk-In Chime-In: Played with in "Shattered"; Axel walks in on Raymond and One conversing and chimes in with a non sequitur because he misheard.Raymond: I've been meaning to go over the tapes from our encounters with Viper. There's gotta be something in there that'll help us figure out countermeasures for their abilities.
[Axel opens the door and walks in]
Axel: You better believe it!
Raymond: What?
Axel: Oh. Huh? I thought you said... I thought you said something else. These walls are thick, it's... hard to hear through them, I— just come with me. - Welcome Back, Traitor: Shatter Squad forgives and welcomes back Phase/East with barely any resentment.
- Wham Line: "We need to save Lavernius Tucker!"
- Wham Episode: "Sideways" by virtue of having East seemingly kill off series mainstay Tucker before revealing herself to be the Literal Split Personality of Phase.
- The Worf Effect: As if knocking out common soldiers wasn't enough, the Syndicate's powers are made clear when they manage to subdue Washington and Carolina (in the latter's case, even breaking her arm).
- You Can't Thwart Stage One: Depsite the heroes' best efforts, they are unable to stop Zero from claiming the Ultimate Power. Luckily, they still manage to defeat him thanks in part to Phase's Heel–Face Turn and the entity behind the Ultimate Power doubting Zero's worthiness enough to not give him full control.
