Red vs. Blue

Red vs Blue is an extremely popular machinima series, the plot of which is the Red army and the Blue army are competing in a never ending game of Capture the Flag. It is a situation comedy parodying Halo 1 multiplayer, normally taking place in Blood Gulch. Season 3's time travel plot used Marathon to represent the past, and Halo 2 for the future. The series currently takes place in Coagulation, the future Blood Gulch.

Made by Rooster Teeth Productions. It is released for download from their website as a series of short episodes, and individual seasons are sold as DVDs.

Sarge
Sarge is the typical gruff sargeant with a southern accent, but over the course of the series, he slowly evolves into a mad scientist, building robots and giving people new bodies. He is also only one serious about the war and the craziest. His battle plans tend to be delusively grandiose and seriously flawed, and he favors overly complicated plans that involve heavy casualties in his own forces, particularly Grif, sometimes even when there is no actual problem to solve. He is also rather paranoid, and often concocts implausible theories to explain simple events. He sometimes also makes incompetent blunders in his plans, which will sometimes earn criticism even from Simmons or Donut. He displays frequent periods of nostalgia and compares his plans to notable figures from film, such as John Wayne and Indiana Jones. From late in season 2 until the end of season 4, Sarge attempts to retrieve the orders from Red Command that are stored in Lopez's head. When he finally succeeds in obtaining those orders in episode 77 and discovers that they are useless, he becomes temporarily despondent until Grif offers to have Sarge insult him.

Despite his flaws as a leader, Sarge has managed to capture Tex as well as fight off, with the assistance of Caboose, the attacking hordes of soldiers in Battle Creek. He is able to assemble robots from scratch. He has also performed surgery on Simmons and Grif, although he used a diagram of a cow as a reference for Grif, for lack of a human diagram. However, he cannot repair Chupathingy, the Red Team's Warthog, and Simmons 2.0 suffers from a few glitches. He also makes some false anatomical claims to Caboose and Donut, such as how the body can produce its own oxygen under stress, and how the body can create more blood after losing quite a lot.

Sarge has criticized Grif and praised Simmons for the same action. When Grif saves Sarge's life by performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) after being shot in the head by Caboose in season 1, Sarge initially thanks Simmons. However, upon learning who had actually resuscitated him, Sarge proceeds to berate Grif at length for the illogicality of using CPR "for a bullet wound in the head". Rooster Teeth had initially considered making this event a turning point in Sarge's relationship with Grif, but decided in the end that friendship would be too far-fetched. Nevertheless, when Tucker severely injures Grif by accidentally running him over with Sheila in episode 33, Sarge does save Grif's life by transplanting Simmons' organs into him. Since then, Sarge has continued to make battle plans involving Grif's death, and at one point admits that he has tried to kill Grif while the latter is asleep on more than one occasion. In the second episode, he also dismissed Grif's claims that the animals known as the puma and the walrus exist. Voiced by Matt Hullum.

Pvt. Dick Simmons
Reasonably smart and rational, Simmons is the level-headed straight man of the Red Team. His main quirk is that he is a compulsive sycophant toward Sarge, despite the latter's psychopathic and frequently delusional leadership; in episode 40, Simmons states that he relies on Sarge "for love and support". As a result, Grif frequently calls Simmons a "kiss-ass". Simmons and Grif have a love-hate relationship, and spend much of their time bickering and chatting with each other, with Simmons reacting to the various outrageous statements that Grif makes. In episode 38, Tucker hears them bickering on his radio (as he was still tuned in after Lopez's love song was broadcast), and concludes that Simmons and Grif are in love, and he wonders why they cannot see it. In season 4, Simmons is shown to be very self-conscious; in episode 70, he runs in tears back to the Blue Base when Church claims that Grif is intelligent and that Simmons is self-important. In episode 54, he claims that he can mentally multiply any two large numbers, and gives an incorrect answer when tested, but maintains an air of confidence in doing so. He has also not used the bathroom for three years, claiming that he only uses the bathroom at home, because he is shy. According to him, 'It's going to be an eventful homecoming'.

Aside from supporting Sarge's flawed schemes, Simmons usually avoids foolish statements. Often exhibiting common sense, he has managed to devise battle plans that actually work. He is a brave enough warrior when necessary, but, unlike Sarge, is not a fanatic, and he has expressed an unwillingness to die for foolish reasons. Since Grif is generally the one whose death is part of Sarge's plans, Simmons has less to worry about than he thinks.

After the Reds lose Lopez, Sarge surgically changes Simmons into a cyborg so that they will have someone with better capability to repair things. Sarge dismissed Grif's idea of getting a new robot from Command, claiming that it could be reprogrammed 'as easily as Lopez'. For a while, Sarge calls him "Simmons 2.0", but, in season 4, Sarge reverts to calling him just "Simmons" again. Simmons' leftover body parts — except for his spleen, which Sarge decides to inflate and use for "general recreation and esprit de corps" (which Donut slips on) — are used to save Grif's life when he is run over by Sheila, driven by Tucker.

At one point in the series, Grif comes to believe that Simmons is "of a Latino persuasion", presumably because he thinks that Simmons is a Hispanic name. Simmons is, in fact, Dutch-Irish; the whole issue is an in-joke based on the Mexican ethnicity of Simmons' voice actor, Gustavo Sorola. This running gag still appears as recently as episode 63, in which Donut, pretending to be an automatic telephone response system, says to Simmons, "For unconfirmed Dutch-Irish, press one too, as in also."

In season 4, Simmons runs afoul of Sarge's fickle nature: When he insists that Sheila is still roaming the gulch, Sarge declares him insane and demotes him. Having lost his purpose in life, Simmons suffers a breakdown, exiles himself from the Red Team, paints his armor mostly blue, and, assisted by Sheila, begins to wage a one-man war against his former teammates. Simmons actually succeeds in "capturing" Grif, forcing Sarge and Donut to launch a rescue operation. But the two are foiled by Church, who suddenly returns to Blood Gulch. Although Simmons attempts to hide his true identity from Church, the latter privately reveals to Sheila that he has recognized Simmons all along. After apparently hearing Church's conversation with Vic Jr., Simmons returns to the Red Base to relay information. With the rest of the Reds reluctant to accept him back, Simmons changes into maroon armor. Nevertheless, after a quick trial, Sarge imposes a hefty fine for treason and insubordination, to be split between himself and Grif. Going forward, Sarge frequently calls Simmons a traitor. Voiced by Gustavo Sorola.

Pvt. Dexter Grif
The wisecracking loudmouth of the Reds, Grif is self-centered, acerbic, lazy, and somewhat cowardly. Despised by his teammates Sarge and Simmons, he has the lowest social and military rank on the Red Team. Simmons and he often bicker or chat with each other about the various situations that the Reds encounter. Although Grif's laziness does create problems for the Reds, Sarge always blames him when things go wrong, regardless of Grif's (or anyone else's) actual guilt in the matter.

With respect to personality, Grif is fairly brash and has a flair for melodrama. He is quick to make silly theories or insults, even toward people who could clearly kill him without hesitation. He is also a coward, panicking and fleeing at the first sign of danger. Additionally, he mispronounces words like both, which he pronounces as bolth in episode 14; and margin, which he pronounces as margarine in episode 55, and he believes a baker's dozen to be 48. He also claimed not to know what jogging is. Not completely clueless, however, he is often the first one to point out the flaws in Sarge's plans; largely because Simmons never criticizes Sarge, and many of these plans involve Grif's demise.

Although Sarge and Simmons regard Grif as unintelligent, the likelihood is that Grif simply has a bad habit of speaking or acting before thinking. In fact Grif is capable of being more responsible than he lets on; when Simmons defected and began to wage a one-man war against his former teammates, Grif was the only member of Red Team who tried to actually solve the problem. Despite his constant flippant disregard for Sarge's authority, Grif seems to care at least a little about Sarge, as he was quite upset when Caboose almost killed Sarge. When the useless instructions from Red Command cause Sarge to become depressed in episode 77, Grif attempts to lift Sarge's spirits by suggesting that Sarge insult him.

Physically, a lifetime of smoking and eating processed snacks has left Grif badly out of shape for a soldier in the military, and he is barely able to run 300 feet without running out of breath. After being accidentally run over by Sheila, driven by Tucker, Grif had to have most of his body parts replaced with donor organs left over from Simmons' cyborg operation. Even this event, however, has not compelled him to quit his bad habits.

Grif has a running gag in that he and Simmons both call shotgun on vehicles several times, but Simmons almost always manages to say it first, much to Grif's displeasure. The only exception to this is in episode 77, after the ship from Red Command lands on Donut, to the indifference of the other Reds. Simmons merely comments that the ship has arrived, and Grif calls shotgun.

Grif's presence on the Red Team is actually not by choice. When it was determined that the Blues had one more recruit than the Reds, the first universal draft was held, and the unlucky draftee was none other than Grif.[1] As evidenced by his hesitantly optimistic guess as to why Sarge gathered Simmons and him outside the base in episode 2, Grif would love to call the whole thing good and go home (once trying to intentionally get himself court-martialed). As also evidenced by his response to Sarge's less-than-friendly answer, he is familiar with being the object of sarcasm. Voiced by Geoff Fink, he wears orange armor. Popular opinion says it's yellow, but it has been confirmed to be orange.

Pvt. Franklin Delano Donut
Donut is the red team's resident rookie, and no one likes him except Caboose, who can't get "Private Donut" memorized and uses different pastry names. Upon arriving in Blood Gulch, he immediately fell for a fool's errand, set by Simmons and Grif, who told him to get 'elbow grease' and 'headlight fluid' (he didn't believe them about the elbow grease, but he did about the headlight fluid). He mistook the Blue Base for the 'store', and lost his way several times. His general naïveté, garrulousness, and cheerfulness tend to annoy his teammates.

Injured when Tex attacks the Red Base, Donut is consequently airlifted out of the gulch for medical treatment. Pleased that he captured the Blues' flag, Red Command gives him his own armor color, which becomes a sensitive issue for him: He insists that his new armor is "lightish red", even though it is clearly pink to everyone else. In season 2, however, he does eventually accept it as pink. In fact, he even starts taking a liking to it, as "[his] old armor used to chafe [his] thighs something awful, but the crotch of [the pink] armor is surprisingly roomy." As the series progresses, the armor color and the trauma he received from Tex seem to take their toll on Donut's mind; his speech and personality become increasingly effeminate. He also becomes more childish, pretending to be a secret agent during a reconnaissance operation, and later sticking his hand in machinery despite repeated warnings.

Donut is also prone to long conversations or convoluted narratives. In season 2, he twice attempts to engage another Red in idle chatter, to little success (even asking Sarge for his armor when the latter dies). When blasted forward into the future, he attempts to organize a play to explain events, which falls apart due to Caboose's stupidity, and Grif's indifference. He also concocts an implausible tale to distract the Blues in episode 53, and, in episode 70, falsely portrays himself as a hero, supposedly rescuing the other Reds from the Blue Base.

Despite these flaws, Donut sometimes demonstrates alertness or knowledge beyond that of his teammates. For example, in season 2, he is the only one to suggest correctly that Church is a ghost (and hence why Sarge went mad, and Lopez ran away). Initially unable, as with the other Reds, to understand Lopez, he later demonstrates the ability both to understand and speak some Spanish. However, in episode 75, it becomes clear that this ability is limited, as his Spanish is poor, and he cannot understand the instructions in Spanish from Red Command. Left to his own devices when the other Reds leave him behind in search of a distress signal (due to the fact that the Warthog has only three seats), Donut manages to steal O'Malley's hovercraft and catch up to his team. In addition, he is the only one who supports Simmons' assertion that Sheila is still roaming Blood Gulch in the future (Grif also saw her, but denied it to make Simmons look bad). In episode 75, Donut reveals his awareness of Vic's vasectomy, but it is unknown how he learns of this information; his stealth encounter with Doc and O'Malley in season 2 did not include the conversation in which Vic revealed his sterility. Nevertheless, his insights are ignored by his team. He does, however, earn notes of praise from Sarge from time to time, most notably in episode 57 after stealing O'Malley's hovercraft and running over the pursuing robots.

After Simmons' exile from the Red Team, Donut replaces him as Sarge's right-hand man, a move that Sarge quickly comes to regret. Much to Sarge's displeasure, Donut suggests various changes, including the incorporation of more positive reinforcement and the redecoration of the Red Base. When a large ship from Red Command lands on Donut at the end of episode 77, his teammates seem indifferent, and Donut's fate remains unknown. Although he is secretly gay, it isn't that secret. Voiced by Dan Godwin.

Private Lavernius Tucker
The most average of the group, although somewhat of a teenager in a way. It is implied he is the only black person in the series, and he is the wielder of the "great weapon" (Energy Sword). He never gets to use the sniper rifle. Voiced by Jason Saldaña.

Private Leonard L. Church
After the death of the late Captain Butch Flowers, Church took over command of the Blue Team. This is interesting, as he seems to hate most social contact, and pretty much just everyone. Early in the series Caboose accidentally kills him and he comes back as a ghost, eventually taking over a robot body built by Sarge. He is a horrible sniper, yet often wields the sniper rifle.

Private Michael J. Caboose
The idiot rookie. After O'Malley tried to possess him, he becomes insane and childlike. He also has the tendency to make friends with the wierdest individuals (Andy, Sheila, and the unnamed Elite). Has a strange crush on Sheila.

Tex (Alison)
A mercenary that joins the blue team. Church's ex-girlfriend. Somewhat of a tomboy who loves killing stuff. O'Malley's first host. Gets killed by a plasma grenade thrown by Donut. In order to interact with physical objects, she possesses one of the robots built by Sarge.

Sheila
Sheila is the AI behind a Scorpion tank. She eventually falls in love with Lopez and is touchy about people looking at her treads. She eventually comes back in season 4 with little memory of who she is. Like all the machines in RVB, she tends to get blown up a lot.

Lopez the Heavy
Lopez is a spanish-speaking robot built by Sarge. After the Blue team captured him, he turned to their side due to a very strange series of events. Eventually falls in love with Sheila. When the cataclysmic explosion occurs, his body is destroyed, leaving him a head in alliance with O'Malley. How he gets around/makes other robots for O'Malley is unknown.

Red/Blue Commander Vic
The commander of both the Red and Blue armies, though the respective armies don't know this. Unlike the other characters, he is a cinematic from the campaign - a crewman on the Pillar of Autumn. Voiced by Burnie Burns.

Medical Officer "Doc" Dufresne
Medic sent to treat injuries on both sides (although ironically his healing skills are rendered useless) and is remnicient of donut in that he is a bit of a neatfreak/pacifist. He was soon possessed by O'Malley and often engages in Gollum-like conversations with it. Wears purple armor (red + blue = purple). Voiced by Matt Hullum.

O'Malley
An evil body-possessing AI. The first body he possessed was Tex, but has moved to Caboose, "Doc", and most recently Sarge. His goal is to destroy the universe and is somewhat a more stereotypical/comical type of evil. His original name was Omega and after being placed in Tex (Alison)'s armor, his name was changed to Om-Ali (or O'Malley).

Gary
A knock-knock-joke-loving computer. The keeper of the Great Weapon (Energy Sword).

Andy
A bomb built by Tex. Loves blowing stuff up, has a temper problem, and is the only one who can understand the Elite. He is quite rude and often makes fun of everyone around him.

' Grunts '
These strange characters were introduced when Sarge and Caboose went through the teleporter after O'Malley. It seems they are locked into a constant game of CTF, worship the flag, and seem to make fun of Halo gamers in general. They are last seen running onto Sidewinder and teabagging O'Malley into oblivion. All of them survived the explosion due to their ability to infinitely respawn and went on to appear in Season 4.

Unnamed Elite
An Elite that first appears at the end of Season 3 and goes into Season 4. Speaks in blargs and honks, which are only understood by Andy. Caboose refers to him as "Crunchbite" after he bit him, and others suspect his name is "Honk-Honk" after an attempt to communicate with him. He is killed by the bounty hunter Wyoming after flying off in a Banshee.

Wyoming
A British bounty hunter who was in the same augmentation program as Tex. He is originally hired by Vic to kill Tucker, but fails. He survived the explosion and was also thrown forward in time. After killing the Elite, he took off running with Tex close behind.

Season 1
The delicate balance of indifference in Blood Gulch is disrupted by the introduction of new players to the "conflict". On the Red side, a recruit named Donut enters the fray and manages to capture the Blue flag on his first day. For the Blues, a rookie named Caboose arrives alongside a battle tank named Sheila, and they manage to accidentally kill Church on their first day. In response, Blue Command hires a mercenary named Tex to recapture the Blue flag. Church briefly returns as a ghost to warn his teammates about Tex, who soon arrives and goes on the attack against the Reds. After severly injuring Donut, Tex succeeds in returning the Blue flag, but is captured as a result. Church again appears to explain that Tex is actually his former girlfriend, whose mind is partially under the control of a psychotic AI. Church organizes a successful rescue mission, but not without its problems, and spends the rest of the season attempting to remove the AI from Tex's head. His attempt to warn the Reds of Tex's pending attack fails and, much to his horror, she is killed by Donut with a Plasma Grenade. Tex's AI manages to escape her body, and begins to take possession of Caboose.

Season 2
Three months later, Frank Dufresne (soon nicknamed "Doc"), a medic sent by both Red and Blue Commands to tend to the medical needs of both teams, arrives in the gulch and proves completely unhelpful. The Reds attack the Blues and manage to take Doc as a hostage, but soon tire of his personality and ditch him in the middle of the canyon. Church is still trying to get used to his new, stolen robot body, which he eventually loses when Lopez regains control and resists further attempts to possess him. Donut is captured by the Blues, who force the Reds to build two new robot bodies in exchange for his return. Meanwhile, both teams are menaced by Tex's evil AI, O'Malley, despite the best efforts of Tex's ghost and the Blue team to stop him. This culminates in a Mexican standoff between the Reds and Blues, following the revelation that both teams are in fact secretly controlled by the same army. O'Malley resurfaces in Doc's body and sets out to conquer the universe, kidnapping Lopez and escaping through a teleporter. The Red and Blue teams call a truce and form several two-man teams to pursue O'Malley, but something goes wrong with the teleporter, and the teams are separated and sent to different worlds outside Blood Gulch.

Season 3
After regrouping on Sidewinder (after a brief encounter in Battle Creek, with two groups of immortal, respawning, flag-obsessed Reds and Blues called "grunts" by Rooster Teeth), the Reds and Blues join forces again to confront and defeat O'Malley, only to have a reality-shattering bomb destroy the present and propel everyone except for Church into the future (Halo 2). Church is thrown into the past (Marathon). While the Reds and Blues continue to battle O'Malley in the future at his fortress, Church goes on a time-traveling odyssey, where he learns of a prophecy that a blue being known as the Great Destroyer will use a Great Weapon to bring the Great Doom to billions of people at the point in the future where everyone else has ended up. Church decides to time-travel to Blood Gulch during the events of the past two seasons and alter the past in order to prevent the great doom along with most of the other negative events that have occurred in the storyline. However, in a classic causality loop, Church realizes that his interference is what caused most or all of the problems in Blood Gulch in the first place. Giving up on trying to change the past, he travels back to Sidewinder and rejoins the main group just as the bomb goes off, so that he can be blown into the future along with them. Shortly after the teams are reunited, O'Malley lays siege to the captured fortress with an army of deadly robots, only to have them obliterated by an unknown being, before he himself is seemingly killed. The Red team leaves mid-battle in search of a mysterious distress call, without informing the Blues. They arrive back at Blood Gulch, much to Griff's dismay. The season ends on a cliffhanger as an Elite is seen creeping up on an unsuspecting Church.

Season 4
As the Red Team re-explores Blood Gulch, Simmons' insistence that Sheila still roams the canyon leads to his exile from the group. Painting himself mostly blue and taking command of the empty Blue Base and Sheila, he takes Griff hostage, later confessing to him that he believes that Sheila might be hiding something. Back at the fortress, the Blue Team attempts to confront the new Alien, only to experience a series of humiliating defeats until Caboose manages to befriend him. The Alien reveals that he has been on a sacred quest to save his people, and has come to the fortress to retrieve The Great Weapon (an Energy Sword), which only Tucker can now activate, since he accidentally discovered it first. Threatening to kill everyone otherwise, the Alien forces Tucker, Andy, and Caboose to partake of his quest, with Tex trailing and then joining them. Arriving at their final destination, the team finds a temple occupied by the Grunts from Battle Creek. As Tex defeats them, Tucker uses the sword to open a gate to a flying ship, of which the Alien quickly takes command. Wyoming suddenly re-appears, however, and shoots the ship down before fleeing with Tex in pursuit.

Meanwhile, Church returns to the Blue Base in Blood Gulch and encounters the blue Simmons, whom he pretends not to recognize, and comes into contact with a distant descendant of Vic, who scoffs at Church's mention of Blue Command. Tucker, Caboose, and Andy return to the gulch, and inform Church of the events at the temple. Simmons returns to the Red Base, and attempts to relay information learned from Vic Jr about the war. At the Blue Base, Tucker becomes ill for an unknown reason, and Church is forced to call Doc for help. On his arrival, O'Malley negotiates a deal to exchange Doc's aid for something to be named later. The Reds find Lopez, who had returned to the canyon with O'Malley, and discover that the instructions that Red Command had planted inside his head can only be played in Spanish. While Church is confirming Doc's diagnosis that Tucker is pregnant, Sarge distracts Caboose and steals Andy to translate the plans. Tucker regains alertness and complains of stomach pains. Church, upon hearing of Andy’s disappearance, becomes enraged at the whole situation. As he confronts the Reds with Sheila, Sarge radios Command for reinforcements, despite having heard the translation of the uninformative instructions. Andy reveals that the Alien had the ability to impregnate others with parasitic embryos, and Caboose radios Church to tell him that Tucker has given birth (a higher-pitched alien language is heard off-screen); and that O'Malley had left Doc after Sarge had contacted Command. As Church runs back to the Blue Base, a ship crashes into the gulch (right on top of Donut). This marks the end of the season at episode 77.

Related Links
Internal
 * Rooster Teeth

External
 * Red vs Blue - Official site
 * The Unofficial Red vs Blue Resource Site
 * The Cult of Red vs Blue - News article
 * Wikipedia Article
 * Fan Art
 * Red Vs. Who? - Bungie interviews Burnie Burns about the series.