Tex (Red vs. Blue)

Template:Infobox RvB character Freelancer Tex, real name Allison, is a main fictional character in the machinima comic science fiction video series Red vs. Blue. She is voiced by Burnie Burns in her initial appearance, and Kathleen Zuelch thereafter. Of the eight main characters, Tex was the last to appear, not debuting until Episode 10.

Though she is associated with the Blue Team, she is not an official member, but rather a mercenary paid to help them. Her backstory and previous affiliation with fellow Blue Team member Church are key elements in the plot. Her common nickname is Tex; according to Church, this is because she is from Texas. With her Special Operations training, she is the most competently lethal member of the Blood Gulch cast, with the possible exception of Sheila.

Character history

Some time before the events of Red vs. Blue, Tex was part of an experimental program that implanted artificial intelligence (AI) constructs into the suits of soldiers to enhance military performance. Other known members of this unit are Wyoming, York, Washington, and Carolina. According to Tex, everyone in the unit was codenamed after one of the 49 then-remaining US states. In the miniseries focused on Tex, Red vs. Blue: Out of Mind, it is revealed that the AIs were to be removed after the program was shut down. However, Tex's AI, O'Malley, resisted removal and Tex, with O'Malley still in her system, escaped the facility. Somewhere in the time gap between her escape and Red vs. Blue, Tex became a freelance mercenary. She is hired to assist the Blood Gulch Blue Team after Church is killed, but is captured while staging a one-man offensive. Church's ghost and the other two Blues, Tucker and Caboose, are then forced to break her out, at which point Church reveals that Tex is his former girlfriend. In exchange for breaking her out, she agrees to aid them for the duration of their time in Blood Gulch. It isn't long, however, before she is killed by the Red Team rookie Donut, in revenge for previously injuring him. As she dies, she tells Church her AI is gone.

Unlike Church, she does not reappear immediately after her death. Season Two begins three months after her death, and she does not appear until halfway through. When she does, she reveals that O'Malley has jumped into Caboose, and she is now driven by an urge to destroy him. To do this, she reasons that forcing him out of Caboose's head while everyone in the canyon has their radios off will eliminate him. She enlists Church's aid in driving O'Malley from Caboose's head and sends Tucker to turn off the radios of the Reds, but their plan fails after everyone forgets about the medic Doc, who was previously abandoned by both teams and knew nothing of the events taking place. Doc then becomes the unwilling host of O'Malley. After forcing the AI out of Caboose's head, Tex disappears until the end of the season, when she possesses the body of a robot built by Sarge as the condition of a surrender. Throughout Season Three, she again devotes herself to eliminating O'Malley, while at the same time protecting Tucker from Wyoming, whom O'Malley has hired. Even when propelled into the future, she is driven to destroy the AI.

In season 4, when the Blue Team is blackmailed to aid a lone Alien on its own quest, she joins his group in the hopes of gaining a reward. However, when the team finds an aircraft which Tex declares as her own, it is shot down by Wyoming, and Tex pursues him in a fury. This is followed up in Red vs. Blue: Out of Mind, where she still pursues him, again to find O'Malley and destroy him. She follows him to O'Malley's fortress and, aided by York, a former infiltration specialist, breaks in, only to find O'Malley absent and Wyoming, with two others, lying in wait. The two foot soldiers are quickly dispatched, but York is killed by Wyoming. Tex then corners Wyoming (with help from York's then-fading AI Delta) to find out details of where O'Malley has gone and who he has jumped into.

In Episode 86, Tex can be seen sneaking up on the Blues. In the following episode, she attacks them, knowing that O'Malley has jumped into someone else and is not sure who to trust. Church convinces her that no one is infected, only to get enraged again when she notices a new female recruit.

Sometime thereafter, Tex - along with Church and Tucker - stage an offensive on the Red Team's base after being ordered by Vic to do so. After taking a non-lethal shot by Tucker using Church's sniper rifle (and mistakedly beating up Church in the process), the three capture the empty base. Tex is then radioed by Caboose with information regarding O'Malley's current whereabouts. According to Caboose, the AI had jumped into "the Blue leader," whom Tex mistakes for Church, and holds him at gunpoint. He explains that he was never officially promoted to the position after Captain Butch Flowers' death. When Wyoming appears to trap the Blues, Tex goes invisible and is then knocked out by Wyoming using information obtained through his time looping ability. Not long after, she wakes up to find herself, Church and Tucker under attack by an army of Wyoming clones. Later, after the Reds attack them, only one is left, and when Wyoming reveals his plans, he ominously hints that now that Tex is aware of the plan, she will help them. Although Church was skeptical, she then announces her presence to O'Malley on an open channel, shoots Wyoming and declares that she has to help them win the war.

In most endings of episode 100, Tex gets on the ship and tries to take off with O'Malley, but Sarge puts Andy onboard and orders him to explode, destroying her body along with killing Junior, the other alien, Sheila, Gary, and O'Malley. In an alternative ending on the Season 5 DVD, however, Andy does not detonate and Tex instead fires a missile at the Reds and Blues on the ground. However, the latter ending is not canon, and Tex is regarded as dead in the canon ending.

Relationships with other characters

Even though Church states that she has always been moody and violent even without O'Malley's influence, and she does often insult Church, Tex is somewhat tolerant of the rest of the Blood Gulch cast and their various eccentricities, although episode 56 suggests that she has a habit of punching them in the head while they sleep. When she first appeared, her presence terrified Tucker and Caboose, but they have since come to regard her as one of the group, and she has referred to Tucker at least as her friend. Tucker has even gone as far as to hit on her like he supposedly does with other girls, though this usually does nothing more than invoke her to hit him. When irritated, however, she will put the offender at risk- when the Blues were searching for the Alien early in Season 4, unsure if it would be hostile, she put Tucker at the forefront for making a sex joke followed up by his catchphrase, which Tex finds annoying.

Her most prominent relationship is that with Church. The pair share a love-hate relationship by insulting each other on occasion, yet are constantly aiding each other and dealing with their teammates together. Church apparently still harbors romantic feelings for her as he refers to her as his girlfriend in episode 33 and 77 and shows somewhat depressed feelings after she is killed by Andy in episode 100, even though he has previously claimed she is not a faithful girlfriend; he claims she used to steal money from his wallet and sleep with other men. According to character profiles on the DVDs, it was Tex's influence that led Church to join the armed forces.

Themes

Attitude

The fact that Tex is generally regarded as mean is played on at various times throughout the series. To cement the issue early on, Tucker asks if, without O'Malley (whose name was unknown at the time), she is just a "sweet, down-home girl", and Church insists that she was always a "rotten bitch". She does not hesitate to do any task, regardless of how brutal it may be, as long as it benefits her. She is the only one who does not regard herself as mean, explaining to Tucker in Season 1, "I wouldn't say I'm mean, just that I'm paid to do mean things". When Tucker presses the issue by saying she enjoys it, she brushes it off, claiming it's important to enjoy what one does. The Blues, having gotten used to her, touch on her mean disposition less and less recently, though it is still evident to them on occasion. The Reds, however, refer to her as "that mean chick from the Blue Team" when she's not around. Even the AI program touches on her aggressiveness; when she narrates her flashback to the event in Out of Mind, she claims that the AIs were designed to make the subjects faster or stronger, or "in [Tex's] case, just plain meaner".

Payment

As a freelancer, she will jump at any task if the price is right, no matter how simplistic the task may be or how small the cost (she was eager to rip off Grif's arms when Tucker offered her 10 dollars to do so). Not all of her payments have to be monetary; Tucker explains to the Reds, during their truce, that she will exchange favors instead of money, as she did for the Blues in Season One. However, money is her primary motivation to get tasks done. When the Alien's team depart the fortress, Church and Tex remain behind, until Church explains that quests usually result in a reward of some kind, at which point he turns around and finds her gone.

When she catches up to the team, she strikes a bargain with the Alien, agreeing to aid him in exchange for the quest's reward; he promises her Tucker's sword, which she had previously coveted. She agrees to this and joins the team. Soon after, however, it is revealed that the Alien has not been entirely honest, as it becomes apparent that the sword is primarily a key, to Tex's chagrin. Moreover, the Alien takes possession of an aircraft which no one else was informed of, and Tex decides that, because of their deal, the ship is, by right, hers. When this, too, is deprived of her, thanks to a rocket from Wyoming, she flies into a rage and pursues him.

Reception

In 2005, Tex was selected as the Best Female Performance in the 3rd Annual "Rockets on Prisoner" Awards, which are intended to recognize exemplary work in Halo machinima.