Sarge's Relationships

Sarge has developed many relationships with both the Red Team and also the Blue Team.

Grif
Sarge's relationships with his team members are often strained by his disregard for their safety, particularly Grif. From the beginning of the series, Sarge has held a deep dislike of Grif for reasons of extreme laziness, disrespect, and insubordination. If an opportunity for Grif's removal presents itself, Sarge tries to take it. He has ordered others to kill Grif, devised strategies involving Grif's death, and attempted to kill Grif in his sleep. Sarge has expressed his hatred for Grif on an uncountable number of occasions, including (but certainly not limited to):


 * In Red Gets a Delivery, Sarge repeatedly tells Simmons to kill Grif, including slitting his throat in his sleep and poisoning his meal.
 * At the ending of Check out the Treads on That Tank, the narrator anounces someone will die in the next episode, with Sarge hoping it to be Grif.
 * In Hang Time, it is stated that in the event that Sarge dies before Grif, he has recorded fifty hours of random insults toward Grif. If Sarge does die first, Grif is to recover the tape and play it whenever he starts feeling good about himself.
 * When coming up with a plan to besiege O'Malley's base in Season 3, Sarge told the Reds and Blues to line up in a single file and charge, with the least important person (Tucker) at the front and the most important person (Sarge) at the back. When Grif points out that he is glad that for once Sarge hadn't placed him first to die, Sarge replied that he was saving him for blocking the giant windmill blades obstructing their path with his dead body later.
 * It is mentioned that Sarge has thirty-seven different plans for a zombie attack. Thirty-six of those plans involve using Grif's fresh corpse to distract the zombies. The thirty-seventh involves Sarge deliberately getting infected so that he can devour Grif.
 * In Episode 78, after Sister crash lands a ship onto Donut, Sarge asks Simmons, "No one accidentally got shot in the face when someone else's shotgun just accidentally went off during the incredible distraction of a spaceship crash landing? Purely by coincidence? No one orange?" When Grif says that he is okay, Sarge replies, "Dammit, I really need to adjust the sights on this thing."
 * In Episode 100, when Sarge was told that one of them may be infected by O'Malley/Omega, his first reaction was to execute his "emergency plan" and shoot Grif.
 * In an alternate ending to Episode 100, Sarge is said to have died very shortly after killing Grif; it is noted that "Sarge died exactly the way he wanted to: after Grif."

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 (Sarge probally wanted to keep Grif alive until he got a chance to kill Grif himself). Also, in Episode 40, after becoming extremely annoyed at Caboose, Sarge says that he had never thought that he would reach the moment in his life when he would actually miss Grif, but there it was.

Although Sarge's solution is usually to have Grif killed, he has been heard on one occasion to tell Grif, when the latter asked to quit, that if he could, he would make it happen. Also, in a PSA, his Xbox 360 gamertag is shown to be "GrifKilla51." A common line of dialogue in the series starts with Grif asking to do something, ("Permission to &lt;action&gt;?") only to hear Sarge reply, "Permission denied." In Recreation Chapter 7, Grif asks to join Caboose's mission to find Tucker; Sarge responds, "Permission granted," leaving a dumbfounded Grif to remark, "Um, you've never actually said that to me before -- that means 'yes,' right?"

In Revelation, Sarge's Relationship with Grif seems to have improved slightly. Sarge claims he doesn't want to insult Grif's intelligence, agrees with Grif's ideas at several points, refusing to fire at the Meta while Grif was wrestling with him, treated Grif's apparent death at Sidewinder with indifference instead of happiness and relied on Grif to defeat Wash at Valhalla, then the Meta at Sidewinder.

Simmons
Sarge's relationship with Simmons is more peaceful, although it is also strained, akin to a somewhat dysfunctional father-son relationship. In one case, after Church had taken over Lopez's body, Sarge decided to make a cyborg out of one of the characters on Red Team -- he chose Simmons, because he is the most faithful soldier and could never be turned against the reds. It is revealed that Sarge made several mistakes; among other things, Simmons occasionally shoots himself in the foot by accident.

Despite Simmons' sycophantic attitude toward Sarge, Sarge is quick to turn against him when a disagreement occurs. Sarge demoted and exiled Simmons when the latter suggested that they look for Sheila. In Chapter 2 of Reconstruction, Sarge calls Grif and Simmons traitors for following their reassignment orders when the battle in Blood Gulch "wasn't over." However, the flashback in Episode 9 reveals that he saved both Grif and Simmons from execution, which may indicate that he has forgiven them for their "betrayal."

Sarge has criticized Grif and praised Simmons for the same action. When Grif saves Sarge's life by performing 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.[4]

Sarge seems to hold high respect for Simmon's leadership qualities, saying that Command would have given Simmons his own squad 'a dozen times over', in Rally Cap.

Lopez
Sarge seems to regard Lopez as his best friend and machine, despite Lopez constantly insulting him and the Reds, saying he would delete memory of them when they were gone. Sarge, not knowing Spanish, thinks all the insults are compliments to his crazy plans and Sarge overall.

Donut
Sarge seems to like Donut, never directly insulting him and respecting him as a teammate. However, he is sometimes disturbed by his strange sayings and actions like other characters. Sarge also considers Donut to be the Grenadier of the Red Team and it shows how useful he can sometimes be. In Chapter 4 of Red vs Blue Revelation, Sarge states that he misses Donut.

Blue Team
Sarge also generally despises the Blues, assuming that everything that goes wrong in the canyon is their fault. Despite this, he is willing to submit to the various truces that the Reds and Blues hold over the course of the series. This can be seen as taking on a common foe, such as O'Malley or the Meta, although the Reds skipped out on the battle with O'Malley in order to investigate a distress call, and took the opportunity of breaking into the Freelancer base to delete all the Blue details from the system, much to the annoyance of Church. Despite their differences, in the final episode of the Blood Gulch Chronicles after Tex and Tucker's Alien son were killed by a Red planted bomb, Sarge allowed them to leave, noting lightly that "they've had their asses kicked enough for one day" - an amazingly marked change from normal behavior, especially given that in the Insert Quarter alternate ending he immediately tries to get reinforcements or an air strike from Vic to wipe out the blues, while in the Fight, Fight! ending he taunts the Blues over the deaths of Tex and Junior - and is shot by Church and Tucker for it.

Caboose
Sarge seems to have a liking for Caboose, referring to him as "A little rascal" in Episode 41. This has angered Simmons, who has told Caboose to stay away from Sarge, and threatened to kill him in Reconstruction. Sarge's hatred for him seems to reignite, however, as he makes no objection when Simmons and Grif try to lure him out of hiding to kill him in episode 100, and even tries to help find him. Though in Reconstruction, Caboose's willingness to sacrifice himself for Church impressed Sarge, who badgered Grif and Simmons about it. More often Sarge, like everyone else, just gets exasperated, commenting during battling the Grunts that Caboose actually made him miss Grif. In Rally Cap, Sarge speaks out for those present during his speech, but can't think of anything meaningful to say for Caboose, merely greeting him.



Church
Sarge also seems to respect Church to a degree, not making any complaints when he is asked to rescue him, and helping Church 'disable' the ship that crashes in Blood Gulch, even as far as letting him walk away from them when Church is grieving over the loss of Tex. However, he mercilessly mocks Church for his loss in two of the alternate endings of Why Were We Here?

Tucker
Sarge regards Tucker as crazy, believing that he is making things up when he says Red and Blue are the same, as Vic told him to. He's also shown in a PSA, telling Tucker he should be ashamed of himself for hiding something "special" in the basement. Although in Revelation, Sarge has told Tucker that he is actually quite good at being a soldier, despite his immaturity, showing that Sarge has some respect for him.

Tex
Sarge's relationship with Tex got off to a rough start when they first met, as Sarge knocked her out with his shotgun, leading Tex to insult him when she woke up and openly inquired if the Reds had ever seen a girl before and the extent of their deployment at Blood Gulch. She also failed to show any signs of concern for the fact that Sarge was nearly killed by Caboose. Much later in season 8, she fought the Reds and beat them all up. Despite this, Sarge seems to respect Tex as a fighter, even as far as asking her to join the Reds, saying Black is "just a really dark shade of Red," even though she nearly killed one of his men and beat down one of them.

Washington
Sarge has a more complex relationship with Agent Washington. At first believing him a Blue, he calms down after finding out this isn't the case, and helps Washington by giving him Caboose's location. After the Meta sends him a false transmission, Sarge immediately flies into a rage, believing Wash to be an enemy. He later shows a degree of respect for Wash in the final episode of Reconstruction, though he still refuses to help him against the Meta. In Revelation, Sarge considers Wash an enemy just like his fellow soldiers, but accepts him as an ally without question in the finale. He reacts indifferently when Wash becomes a member of Blue team, but starts to warm up to him, saying that despite that he's part of the Blue Team, "that Wash fella isn't too bad."

Doc
Sarge seems to hate Doc, believing he is annoying, the rest of Red Team taking on this opinion as well. It is unknown if he holds a grudge against him for crashing into him twice in the warthog, or even that he considers him a traitor as Doc is a former Red.

Andy
Sarge also seems to forget Andy is a bomb, seeing as he needed to ask Lopez where to get one while both him and Andy were in the same cave. Sarge, after picking up Andy for the second time, notes that he is much lighter, which pleases Andy.

Meta
Sarge has had little interaction with the Meta, though in his brief encounters, he does seem to show a great dislike for him. He assisted in fighting the Meta with Grif, Simmons, and Tucker during the final chapter of Revelation. Sarge even went as far as to fight him one on one.