Red VS Blue is a web series that began airing on the Rooster Teeth YouTube channel on April 1, 2003, and has since run for nineteen seasons and seven miniseries (over 350 episodes total), concluding in a feature-length film finale. It was filmed primarily using the machinima technique in Halo's multiplayer mode, although later seasons did include more complex animation sequences beginning in season 8.

The series follows a cast of characters from -- as you might have guessed it -- the Red and Blue teams of an ostensible civil war. Blue team initially consists of Leonard Church, Lavernius Tucker, and Michael J Caboose, while Red team consists of Sarge, Richard Simmons, Dexter Grif, Franklin Donut, and Lopez. The series begins introducing additional characters relatively early on, beginning with the Freelancer Agent Texas in season 1; Kaikaina "Sister" Grif introduced in season 5; Agent Washington is introduced in the miniseries Recovery One and later joins Blue team at the end of season 8.

I started watching this show when I was in high school and it has remained very close to my heart since then -- I get routinely re-obsessed with it at least once a year. Some of the fandom that still remains tends to fall into that "yeah I'm a fan of this show but it sucks" ironic cynicism, but I won't. Genuinely I love this show. Sure in some ways it is painfully Early 00s Gamer Culture, but I don't think that changes the fact that it is extremely engaging and well-written. The fact that it was released in like 3-5 minute episodes means the timing and pacing is generally top tier, and the limitations of the machinima format (very limited character movements, no faces or facial expressions, limited ability to interact with the environment, etc) means that the dialogue is consistently Extremely engaging and funny while also doing So much for individual characterization. That basically every single character is an asshole shithead is part of the appeal. I'm shoving these guys into the microwave in my mind just to watch them spin around and get irradiated.

There are, obviously, some warranted critiques to level at the show. It doesn't do great at writing female characters (Tex was pretty well-rounded and basically on par for being an asshole who liked to fuck around like the rest of the cast in the early Blood Gulch Chronicles seasons, but as a whole the show started to lean more into "every female character has to be A Bitch and A hypercompetent, hypercompetitive hardass" in a way that does alienate them from the more rounded out male characters); does use the r-word not infrequently in the early seasons, and doesn't really do Great with handling disability in general; tends to have issues with homophobia both in the dialogue/comedy and also in their 21 year long queerbait (lmao). Like, sure, I Could go on, it's not Perfect by any stretch, but I do think that tumblr user @donut-entendre kind of had a point with his post:

Say what you want about rvb but when you're a teenager who's in the worst fucking situationbin the world and you're nasty and mean and awful to the world around you in response and here's this fucking show about a bunch of assholes who are just as fucked up as you and allowed to fuck up and be awful and nasty and terrible to each other and still at the end of the day be wanted and loved and forgive it because they know they're all just as fucked as each other. It means something man! (X)

But as a whole, the show also engages in some WILDLY interesting themes and concepts. There's a pretty salient anti-war message that threads through the entire show -- not just in later seasons 11-13 that deal with an actual war pretty explicitly, but as early as the first few seasons (enough so that someone wrote a full thesis paper about it). Its Take on concepts like Redemption are really interesting (the idea that Redemption doesn't have to be Deserved but can come around After being offered unwarranted compassion -- that no one is Unworthy of compassion or redemption, and that it is in fact Reaching Out to someone instead of waiting for them to come grovel to you that can lead to them being able to redeem themselves), and even though it doesn't always handle disability well, it also does some fascinating things with both physical disability and mental illness. The Alpha-unit Church's PTSD and DID and trauma-related amnesia, and the insidiousness of PFL's ableism in handling Maine's loss of speech that leads directly into Sigma being able to manipulate him into becoming the Meta, as a couple examples.

The things the show does and doesn't do with Memory and Identity are TRULY so compelling to me ("doesn't do" more in the sense of, like, the nature of the show's development going from short-form comedy to introducing more extended and complex Drama aspects means that some Later reveals didn't have the opportunity to be developed in the Previous seasons when they hadn't quite been planned yet). The effects that PTSD and trauma-related amnesia has on Church's personality -- an AI tortured to the point of splitting Specifically because someone wanted to profit off of its development of DID, who has no idea any of that happened and Dies completely unwilling to engage with the premise of his own history, whether out of stubbornness or an inability to process what happened in any capacity. Agent Washington's trauma history is underutilized in the show because it doesn't serve to push the narrative further to dwell on the long-term effects of someone else's System Memory Holder being implanted into your brain while insane and suicidal, and having to sort out the mess of physical brain damage, the trauma of the implantation, the trauma of the memories that don't belong to you, and the trauma of having to sort out multiple people's memories and identities out from your own in order to re-establish your own individual sense of self, AND all the trauma that you already had before that and that you gained afterwards, but it is interesting to think about. Epsilon's sense of Self coming almost exclusively from Caboose's stories of Alpha-Church, and being considered a functional replacement of him despite the fact that he doesn't actually share the memories that Church's friends have of him. Allison-Beta-Tex being brought back again and again, and coming back slightly more Wrong every time it happens to her because she's the ghost of a memory's memory, which happens over and Over and Over again.

It's fascinating!!! It's genuinely compelling content. I'm focusing on some of the heavier themes and concepts from later seasons, but by no mean do I value the show just for those aspects. The comedy is not a vestigial genre I shunt to the side, the comedic writing of this show routinely Kills. It's genuinely SO good; I will Lose My Shit over so many of this show's punchlines no matter how many times I rewatch it. "Permission to speak freely, sir? That's really fucking gross.", Doc's "Alright, but I don't think it'll stick" line timed IMMEDIATELY before the intercut of his introduction "DOC" splash frame, Church trying to scam Sarge out of $10 after he's already dead, Epsilon getting installed in the jeep and shouting "HONK" when Caboose presses on the horn, like I could go on. The humor in this show is genuinely So fucking good, it'd be worth watching just for that alone.

And the character dynamics and relationships are SO interesting!! The characters spend basically all 350+ episodes vocally shouting about how much they can't fucking stand each other, but also they throw each other birthday parties and bake cakes for the occasion. They WILL drop everything and square up to help each other out, AND they'll bitch incessantly about it the entire time. I think it's fascinating to have a "Found Family" dynamic filled with people who Would Not have been friends under any other circumstances, but the fact that they were all stationed out in a box canyon in the middle of nowhere by a shitty, godawful project head meant that they wound up nigh fucking inseparable and it's GOOD! It's Good Content. A bunch of characters who are Not nice by any stretch of the word but are, at their ultimate cores, incredibly Kind anyway.

And like, yeah, like I said, Sure, the show isn't perfect. There's a pretty consistent issue with misogyny, and transphobia (transmisogyny in particular), there's odd moments of bizarre character assassination, jokes that didn't "age well", the finale is SO dubious in terms of quality and characterization that it's borderline tragic, but that's just how it is with shows sometimes. Go watch Red VS Blue, all 19 seasons, like come on, it's Good.


donut-entendre

Church is just a little bossy pursedog that the blues carry around in their purse. This is especially true when he lives


blood-gulch

one of my favorite parts of rvb is when psas or one off scenes happen between two randoms members of each team. the sarge singing backup to tucker dancing at the beginning of s13 is up there as probably my favorite but i really do love the kind of strange relationship every inter-team one is. church & sheila 100% just fucking with simmons when he goes to blue team in s4? that s8 scene where church walks by grif and sarge and is just like sup grif and grif is like sup man? that psa where caboose and sarge go camping together in minecraft in a strange father son bonding activity... way? whatever the fuck it is church and sarge do whenever they interact? all of it really makes it hit like ohhh right these guys all have different relationships with like nuance. and thought behind them. like oh yeah theyre definitely friends or guys whove known each other for a decade & counting. its so fun to me :)


kermit-coded

red vs blue is a show about how grief will destroy you if you don't learn to move on and grieve healthily. it is also a show that has a sentient bomb that calls people slurs.


high-voltage-rat

something I do appreciate about red vs blue is its particular brand of “came back wrong”. you were brought back, but you’re just a memory of the person you’re supposed to be. you’re just the expectations of them. you’re just the pieces everyone else saw and remembered. you’re tough like the original, but you’ll always fail no matter how tough you are, because the original failed, too. you’ve got a personality like the original, but it’s not quite right because you didn’t actually live the life they did. there’s this person you love- who you would kill or suffer or die for- but you don’t know why, you just know you’re supposed to be together because that’s what you were made for.


wavezies

My fave thing abt this scene is how grif, Simmons and tucker are shown running away from the dinosaur in a previous scene and then when it cuts back Carolinas with them. They found fucking Dinosaurs and were, with full confidence, just like "yea Carolina can take care of it" and in all fairness she probably can I mean she looks fine with being there. Idk I just love the dynamic between Lina and the boys


bungholediversextremefitnessclub

i wish more rvb fancontent acknowledged the fact that the reds and blues straight up just helped wash commit identity theft in s8. wheres my 50k modern au fic where church wakes up from a coma and realizes wash has been using his credit card for crossfit because caboose gave him the pin


vaulter

church makes me laugh because he's literally all time poor little meow meow you would not believe the shit he's gone through but he's so abrasive and dickheaded you can't even reconcile his enormous fandom ptsd moefication potential with who he is as a person and how he behaves every second of his life. not even like "ohhh trauma survivors can become mean" he's just like that. he's just a cunt

vaulter

wash on the other hand is just normal enough and has active angst moments on screen to propel out of character tuckington to the top of every term search ever. which is crazy because wash is actually a pretty normal coping etc guy meanwhile church is on his 700th cycle of death and rebirth and has not even begin to address his karmic lessons


bungholediversextremefitnessclub

wash is objectively the most fun rvb character to endlessly torment not in like an angst hemhorrage fandom 8tracks with animal i have become on there twice kind of way but like. if there’s one character i want to see on a 12 hour call-hold-transfer cycle with his internet service provider it’s wash because he’s the optimal combination of normal and deranged and generally pathetic as a result to determinedly sit there for 12 whole hours with his payment information at the ready while getting increasingly vocally indignant about the inconveniece but without ever hanging up or trying to help expedite the process in any way. he’s smart enough to engage with the premise like a rational person would but just enough of an asshole idiot to go about it in the same stupid and terrible manner the reds n blues do and the veneer of Sad Little Man his demeanor smears over it makes it pack like eight times the comedic punch when terrible things befall him because of that. i want to make wash fend off wild dogs in the wilderness. i want to see him get stuck in a gorilla costume. and he has jury duty that day


genderdotcom

there is no franchise more dense in blorbos than red vs blue. that shit is PARASITIC it can be like 10000 years later but those little halo bitches will still be there in your brain its like microplastics