| 1 | %% |
| 2 | %%Zero context entries are not allowed. Please add context before removing comments. |
| 3 | %% |
| 4 | %%Image kept on page per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1651066610079274300 |
| 5 | %%Please don't change or remove without starting a new thread. |
| 6 | %% |
| 7 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/walker01.jpg]] |
| 8 | |
| 9 | ->''In the Eyes of a Ranger,\ |
| 10 | The unsuspectin' stranger\ |
| 11 | Had better know the truth of wrong from right.\ |
| 12 | 'Cause the Eyes of the Ranger are upon you...\ |
| 13 | Any wrong you do, he's gonna see!\ |
| 14 | When you're in Texas, look behind you,\ |
| 15 | 'Cause that's where the Ranger's gonna be!'' |
| 16 | --> -- '''ThemeTune''', composed by Creator/CraigHuxley and Creator/TirkWilder; [[DoItYourselfThemeTune performed by Chuck Norris]] |
| 17 | |
| 18 | ''Walker, Texas Ranger'' was a combination of martial arts, modern Western and [[PoliceProcedural Police]] and LawProcedural, starring Creator/ChuckNorris as the titular Texas Ranger, Cordell Walker. Based in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, the series covers numerous crimes Walker investigates all over the metro area, and from time to time, even all around the State of Texas and even outside of Texas, whether it be different states or outside the country, from {{Dirty Cop}}s to {{Corrupt Politician}}s to [[GangBangers gangs]] to terrorists and the like. Other main characters include Cordell's best friend and partner, the tech-savvy James "Jimmy" Trivette (Creator/ClarenceGilyard), Tarrant County Assistant District Attorney Alex Cahill (Creator/ShereeJWilson), who also serves as his love interest, and one of Walker's former partners, veteran Ranger-turned-restauranteur C.D. Parker (the late Creator/NobleWillingham). During the final two seasons, two rookie Texas Rangers Francis Gage (Creator/JudsonMills) and Sydney Cooke (Creator/NiaPeeples) were assigned under Walker and Trivette's command. |
| 19 | |
| 20 | Subject to much MemeticMutation in the 2000s. This is thanks, at least partially, to Creator/ConanOBrien, who used to play [[{{Narm}} unintentionally humorous]] clips from the series on [[Series/LateNight his show]] by way of the "Walker Texas Ranger Lever". As well as the general {{Memetic Badass}}ery of Creator/ChuckNorris. |
| 21 | |
| 22 | 2021 a reboot produced by and starring fellow Texan Creator/JaredPadalecki, called ''Series/{{Walker}}'' began on Creator/TheCW. |
| 23 | |
| 24 | ---- |
| 25 | !!"'Cause the Eyes of the Ranger are upon you, any Trope you do he's gonna see!\ |
| 26 | When you're in Texas, look behind you, 'cause that's where the Tropes are gonna be!": |
| 27 | !!! Tropes with their own pages: |
| 28 | [[index]] |
| 29 | * [[StuffBlowingUp/WalkerTexasRanger Stuff Blowing Up]]: Expect to see a LOT of [[StuffBlowingUp explosions]] happen on this show. |
| 30 | [[/index]] |
| 31 | !!! Other tropes: |
| 32 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 33 | |
| 34 | [[folder:#-H]] |
| 35 | * ThirteenIsUnlucky: The Viper, a high-profile assassin and the villain of "The Deadliest Man Alive", has already killed twelve high-status marks and was going for his thirteenth. Walker stops him before he could carry it out. |
| 36 | * ActionGirl: Ranger Sydney Cooke from the last two seasons. She hits exactly as hard as her heavier-built male counterparts. |
| 37 | * ActionSeries: To the point there is a fight scene at least OncePerEpisode. |
| 38 | * ActorIsTheTitleCharacter: Chuck Norris' credit reads "Chuck Norris is Walker: Texas Ranger." |
| 39 | * TheAggressiveDrugDealer: Commonplace in cartel-centered episodes, usually a Mexican drug dealer. |
| 40 | %%* TheAlcoholic: Alex's father. |
| 41 | * AllJustADream: The episode ''Blood Diamonds'', most likely to actually [[LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt make the audience wonder]] since it was one of the final episodes, has [[spoiler:Trivette]] turn up murdered by the villains. Then, in the climax, [[spoiler:''Walker'']] is gunned down after spoiling their victory. The final moments of the episode reveal it was all just Alex's dream, although Walker reveals to her that he's [[OrWasItADream actually on the case from her dream]]. |
| 42 | * AlwaysMurder: Most episodes revolve around a murder mystery, usually because some poor schmuck was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got capped for being nosy. Also, on some occasions, when Walker is in the middle of a case, the villain will kill their accomplices to keep them from talking. |
| 43 | * AmnesiaEpisode: "Blackout". |
| 44 | * AmoralAttorney: Basically, anyone who isn't Alex. Even those working for the DA's office with her are often shown to be corrupt or at the very least, incompetent. |
| 45 | * AndStarring: Nia Peeples gets "And" billing when joins the cast. |
| 46 | * AndThisIsFor: |
| 47 | ** Walker does this to a known cop killer on death row as he beats him down in a mall. |
| 48 | --> '''Walker:''' "This is for that ranger's family." ''(hits killer with a triple kick combo)'' "And this one's for me." ''(kicks him through a store window)'' |
| 49 | ** Happened again after taking down a thug who had earlier pounded on him as Walker was keeping up the facade of a lowly slave as his cover. Needless to say, Walker pays him back immensely now that he doesn't have to act helpless anymore. |
| 50 | --> '''Walker:''' ''(punches thug down)'' "That was for hitting me in the head." ''(picks him up)'' "And this is for kicking me in the ribs." ''(punches him in the face, then picks him up again)'' "And this, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking is because I don't like you]]." ''(full strength punch to the face, knocking him out)'' |
| 51 | ** Another instance is when he takes down Lucas' abusive father. |
| 52 | --> '''Walker:''' ''(roundhouse kicks the abuser five times)'' "That was for Lucas. And this is for me." ''(delivers the final kick in slow motion) |
| 53 | * {{Anticlimax}}: Given the amount of law-breaking, cop-fighting kickboxers Texas seems to have, when a villain is arrested with relative ease, it can feel like this. |
| 54 | * AnyoneCanDie: Don't get attached to ''anyone'' in this show that isn't one of the main characters. |
| 55 | * AsTheGoodBookSays: A few episodes cite actual Bible verses. |
| 56 | * AssholeVictim: Too many to list individually, but special mention goes to Victor [=LaRue=]. Let's just say his actions have made him the only criminal ''in the entire series'' that Walker intentionally kills. |
| 57 | * AttemptedRape: [=LaRue=] attempts this with Alex several times. And one of the Ramon brothers tries to do this to Sydney. Luckily, Walker and company show up JustInTime. |
| 58 | * AvengingTheVillain: A frequent occurrence with most of the show's villains, typically when their friends and/or loved ones are either killed or imprisoned. |
| 59 | * BabiesEverAfter: At the end of Season 9's "Child of Hope", Alex reveals she is eight weeks pregnant. The series finale "The Final Show/Down" sees the birth of Walker and Alex's baby girl. |
| 60 | * BackstabBackfire: The fate of those who try to do this on Walker. |
| 61 | %%* BadassArmy: Texas Rangers. |
| 62 | * BadGuyBar: Nearly every bar in the Dallas area fits this trope. It's always filled with thugs and lowlifes who immediately have their asses handed to them by Walker and his allies. |
| 63 | * BallisticDiscount: A milder version occurs in one episode where three survivalist brothers come into town to get supplies: merely threatening the gun shop clerk rather than killing him outright. |
| 64 | * BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: |
| 65 | ** A cop killer on death row about to be transported by Walker comments that he would like to have a chance to beat up Walker like the previous one he killed. Walker warns him this exact trope. At the end, the killer does get his wish when Walker corners him at a mall. He finds out the hard way that he SERIOUSLY underestimated Walker and [[CurbstompBattle systematically gets his ass handed to him]]. |
| 66 | ** Larue holds a courtroom hostage and demands for Walker, taunting that he's too scared to face him. He gets him, when Walker forcefully breaks down the doors [[spoiler:and coldly shoots him dead, finally having been pushed too far]]. |
| 67 | * BearsAreBadNews: Walker gets mauled by one in "Swan Song". Worse, there is a '''rabid''' bear in "The Bachelor Party" who easily shreds apart several innocent and not so innocent people. Gage is one of the people attacked by this bear from Hell. |
| 68 | * BelligerentSexualTension: Gage and Sydney. For all their bickering, they are clearly attracted to each other, though it never got to go anywhere before the finale. |
| 69 | * BetterToDieThanBeKilled: Played straight for some villains in order to cheat the executioner, but for others, it's better to die than be ''arrested''. Some [[MonsterOfTheWeek Villains of the Week]] tend to do this when they know their schemes are about to be exposed. |
| 70 | %%* BigDamnHeroes |
| 71 | * BigBrotherIsWatching: "When the eyes of the Ranger are upon you, any wrong you do he's gonna see; when you're in Texas, look behind you, 'cause that's where the Ranger's gonna be." |
| 72 | * BilledAboveTheTitle: Creator/ChuckNorris |
| 73 | * BloodlessCarnage: When a man in cowboy boots kicks multiple criminals in the head, ''without'' drawing blood, this trope is active. |
| 74 | * BoisterousWeakling: A criminal leader tries to force Walker to leave by attacking him, but gets easily shoved off, making him shout at the surrounding mooks to attack Walker en masse. Walker easily takes down the mooks as the leader shouts and shoves more mooks to get Walker, but no matter how many he pushed towards him, Walker would beat the crap out of them. When the leader tries forcing more mooks to attack Walker, the last mook then shoves HIM forward, telling the leader to get Walker himself. Walker dares him to try and make a move after being put on the spot, then gives a disgusted glare when the leader does nothing. He summed up what he thought of him in one word. |
| 75 | --> '''Walker:''' "Wimp." |
| 76 | * BreakingTheFourthWall: The cast wishes the audience a Merry Christmas at the end of "A Matter of Faith", C.D.'s last episode before leaving the show at the end of 2000. |
| 77 | * BrokenAesop: |
| 78 | ** How many characters stood up to bullies and thugs, only to get cut down by said thugs a scene or two later? Sometimes, it's because they themselves have been guilty of being in the wrong and are having a change of heart, or they aren't wise enough to deal with their oppressor in an manipulative or calm, controlled manner. The intention is probably: Stand up to evil, even if it means making the ultimate sacrifice. |
| 79 | ** The worst part is what happens to characters ''around'' the person attempting to redeem themselves. In one episode, a kid is inspired to stand up against the corruption he's witnessed and tells an authority figure about it. All this ends up accomplishing is getting ''that'' person killed and solidifying the villain's control. The kid himself is only spared by the last second intervention by Walker. Ultimately, it makes the message feel more like "Only do the right thing if Chuck Norris is around, because otherwise you're just going to get people killed and make the bad guy stronger." |
| 80 | ** Many episodes end with Walker sparing a dangerous mastermind because it's up to the law to handle them, but many villains break out of prison, or are otherwise ex-cons that manage to kill a few of the people who helped put them away before they're stopped. One recurring villain even managed to take the court hostage and killed the judge ([[spoiler:though at least Walker finally put him down after that]]). It's an aesop that generally works in real life, but in a series with villains who aren't generally stopped by anyone other than Walker, it tends to fall flat. |
| 81 | * BrooklynRage: Mancini in "The Prodigal Son." A few of his {{Mooks}}, as well. |
| 82 | * BulletproofHumanShield: Played straight a few times in the series: |
| 83 | ** In Season 5's "The Brotherhood", a DirtyCop did this by mistake to one of his fellow dirty cops while he attempted to snipe Walker during the final fight. The episode has Walker dealing with a pack of dirty cops killing off arrested people who got off on technicalities, having warned those cops their extremist and malicious actions would result in an innocent person being killed. This eventually happens to a friend's son after he was acquitted of a rape he didn't commit, and Walker is now prepared to have arrest warrants issued for those cops, but they're not willing to go down without a fight. As Walker dukes it out with one of the Sergeants of the department, another Sergeant who tried to snipe him accidentally shoots and kills his fellow officer, [[spoiler:at which point, he goes on to kill himself]]. |
| 84 | ** Played ridiculously straight in the final act of Season 9's "6 Hours" with 16½-year-old Heather Preston, who has been taken hostage by her [[BodyguardBetrayal traitorous bodyguard, McNeely,]] and placed in front of a shotgun set to go off [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin within that time]], not to mention [[MurderDotCom he planned to kill her on live TV]]. Walker finds [=McNeely's=] hideout, beats him up, [[HoistByHisOwnPetard and drags him in front of the gun just in time to protect Heather and make the former take the blast.]] Of a ''shotgun.'' True to form, only [=McNeely=] is killed, when in real life, the shot probably would not only have gone through him, but also Walker and Heather. |
| 85 | * BulletproofVest: Any main character who wears a bulletproof vest will take the shot, recoil, then continue, while any secondary character or redshirt will either have the round penetrate the vest anyway via "cop killer" armor piercing bullets or just get shot in the head instead. Other times, it's a case of FakingTheDead. |
| 86 | ** Played more realistically in the last episode of the Chairman arc, "Retribution", when Trivette actually goes down from a shot to the chest. After about a minute of appearing to be dead, he manages to recover and get up. |
| 87 | ** This occurs again in "Unsafe Speed" when a Texas DPS Trooper agrees to assist the Rangers in their covert operation against [[AllBikersAreHellsAngels an outlaw biker gang known as the Raptors]], whereupon Gage and Sydney supposedly kill him in order to pass their initiation and gain access to their meth lab in order to bust it up. [[spoiler:The plan works, and when he gets back up, this is {{lampshade|hanging}}d by him and Trivette:]] |
| 88 | --->'''Trooper Freels:''' This bulletproof vest worked, but it sure does hurt. (gets back up after being shot)\ |
| 89 | '''Trivette:''' It hurts a lot more without one.\ |
| 90 | '''Trooper Freels:''' I hear that. |
| 91 | * BullyBrutality: One episode had a kid who was bullied at school mercilessly, and the bullying was turned up to eleven at one point. The kid eventually walks to the roof of the school and tries to jump, and Walker makes a desperate attempt to talk him down. In the end, after taking care of the tormentors, Walker spearheads an anti-bullying campaign. |
| 92 | * BullyHunter: Walker to a T. He will not stand for anyone trying to intimidate or violently imposing their will on others who can't even defend themselves. Walker will then proceed to systematically beat the ever living crap out of any tormentors, proving they're nothing but stupid wimps when up against someone who can actually fight back. |
| 93 | * BusCrash: Noble Willingham left the show mid season 7, and in the series finale the {{Big Bad}} says that he killed his character. |
| 94 | ** Technically he was said to have died earlier (the tail end of the episode, "The Avenging Angel") seemingly from heart failure, and in the finale the villain claims the murder, prompting a second autopsy that confirms cause of death was due to poison. |
| 95 | %%* ButtMonkey: Trivette. |
| 96 | * CastingGag[=/=]CelebrityParadox: In "The Moscow Connection", at the very beginning, Trivette reads out a piece of literature describing in an almost poetic way of a stand off between two men. Walker questions what book this is, and Trivette says it is ''The Secret Power Within''. Walker follows this question by asking who wrote it, and is told that Chuck Norris had. He simply shrugs and claims to have never heard of him, earning a track record telling by Trivette of Chuck's achievements in martial arts. Again, Walker says he never heard of him--yet corrects Trivette when the latter makes a mistake in listing Norris' accomplishments. |
| 97 | ** In Season 7's "Code of the West", the four main characters talk about who would play them in a movie. Trivette gets Creator/DenzelWashington, Alex gets Creator/HelenHunt, C.D. gets Creator/PaulNewman and Walker gets...Chuck Norris. When Walker complains they got Oscar winners, Trivette points out that Chuck was a six time World Karate Champion, which pleases Walker. Good thing since, of course... |
| 98 | * CatchAndReturn: |
| 99 | ** In the crossover with ''Martial Law,'' while Sammo Law was fighting a mook, another mook throws a metal thermos at him. Sammo turns and catches the thermos one-handed, then proceeds to beat the mook he was fighting with it before throwing him into the throwing mook. Then, Sammo flings the thermos back at the thrower, nailing him in the head. |
| 100 | ** A drug cartel leader, after getting his ass thoroughly stomped by Walker, tries to cheat by pulling out a knife and throwing it at him. Walker anticipated the dirty move and in one fluid motion catches the knife and throws it back right into the cartel leader's chest, killing him. |
| 101 | * CheatersNeverProsper: |
| 102 | ** "Rainbow's End" had Walker dealing with crooked racehorse owner James Lee Crown, who sought to bolster the value of his racehorses by having them win all their races, even if it meant killing off his competition. After Crown murdered a rival racehorse and its owner and trainer, he would then go after another formidable racehorse by spiking its food with poison. [[spoiler:Luckily, the horse survives and Crown is arrested.]] |
| 103 | * ChristmasEpisode: Three in fact, "The Covenant" in season three, "A Ranger Christmas" in season five, and "A Matter of Faith" in season seven. |
| 104 | * ClearMyName: Alex gets framed for a crime she didn't commit and was thrown in a womens' prison where many of the inmates hold a grudge against her. Walker and Trivette work together with Alex's father to find the real culprit. |
| 105 | * ClintSquint: Could've easily been called "The Norris Squint." |
| 106 | * CowboyCop: Taken literally, and a key element of the show's premise, though he isn't usually rebellious or rule-breaking. |
| 107 | * CrapsackWorld: With how many criminals with the mindset that it's perfectly ok to assault law enforcement at a moments notice it's clearly not a good place. The fact that the Rangers (and sometimes even just Walker himself) tend to be the only ones who can stand up to the villains and not end up either dead or otherwise taken out of the game, make it look like a world that survives only by the presence of Walker. This also helps to make many of the messages in the series feel like [[BrokenAesop Broken Aesops]]. |
| 108 | * CrashCourseLanding: |
| 109 | ** PlayedForDrama in the season 8 finale, when an assassin hijacks the plane that newlyweds Alex and Walker boarded to Paris and ends up not only killing both pilots, but destroys part of the controls with his high-caliber bullets smashing into the systems. Walker is forced to radio in a mayday to flight control, which prompts them to give him specific instructions to land the plane, with Alex's help, of course. Said landing is actually not clean; Walker creams a billboard, high-rise parking complex, and the cars inside on the way down to the airport runway because he flew too low. Fortunately, he lands that bird on the money in the end. |
| 110 | ** Later becomes a CallBack and ChekhovsSkill for Walker during the Chairman 4-parter in season 9. Gage and Sydney badger an accountant for a rich scumbag into testifying against him and board a private flight back to Fort Worth. However, the Chairman's lackey, the "Wizard," has hacked into the plane's controls and proceeds to depressurize the cabins, knocking everyone out, while cutting off the radio contact and opening up the fuel tanks to help incite a horrific crash. Gabe is lucky enough to get an oxygen mask on, but has no clue on how to fly the plane. Luckily, he has a mobile phone on him that allows Walker to contact him at the first sign of trouble, and Walker has a splendid memory, telling Gabe exactly how to land the plane since his own brush with fate- which ends successfully. |
| 111 | * CrazyPrepared: |
| 112 | ** In one episode, Walker, in his pickup truck, is being chased by a bad guy in an attack helicopter. How does Walker deal with this? By pulling out an ''M72 LAW rocket launcher from the back of his truck.'' There's no explanation offered; he's just that kind of crazy. |
| 113 | ** It's pretty much implied the military supplied him with it, as they knew how to counter their own weapon. |
| 114 | * {{Crossover}}: Cordell Walker had teamed up with Sammo Hung of Martial Law at least twice. |
| 115 | * CrossoverCosmology: Despite the heavy Christian undertones of the show, there's also episodes that involve other types of spiritual and cultural magic and mythology. |
| 116 | * CrusadingWidow: Walker channeled his anger and grief over his fiancee's murder into being the best cop possible. |
| 117 | * CurbStompBattle: |
| 118 | ** Often at the beginning of the show, or when C.D. Parker was a target, the bad guys would brutally beat up hapless individuals to try to impose their will, or to attempt to intimidate – always unsuccessfully – Walker and his Rangers. C.D.'s disadvantage is his old age and out of shape body. Powerfully subverted in the episode, "Hall of Fame," where C.D. proves he can still take down a wanted criminal. |
| 119 | ** In one episode where a delusional man kidnaps CD's niece and forces her into a Bonnie and Clyde fantasy of his, he goes around terrorizing people. When he finally gets cornered and disarmed by Walker, he tries a last ditch effort to stab him with a hidden knife. [[BackstabBackfire It doesn't work]], and Walker takes him out with a single backfist to his face. Wimp. |
| 120 | %%* CutAndPasteNote |
| 121 | * TheDandy: Trivette, always concerned about his appearance and interested in the best clothing and technology available. Doesn't mean he can't kick ass, though. |
| 122 | * ADayInTheLimelight: Usually Walker is the undisputed hero. In "A Deadly Vision", he is almost absent and we see Trivette and CD run around solving the case together, along with a one-shot psychic. Played straight in "Till Death Do Us Part", which had Walker end up in a coma while saving a toddler from a car teetering off a bridge following a hit-and-run accident, upon which Trivette and CD were tasked with finding the driver responsible. Also played painfully straight in the episode "Behind the Badge," where Walker is in the spotlight for a documentary show and Trivette wants to impress them. Too bad it happens to be the one day crime is in a dry spell. |
| 123 | * DeathByMaterialism: Some jerkasses would willingly sell out their own to the villain of the week for cash. Usually they would get killed so the villain wouldn't have to bother paying up. |
| 124 | * DefeatEqualsExplosion: |
| 125 | ** A mad bomber meets his end in this way. |
| 126 | ** [[spoiler:The Chairman]] meets his end in this manner as well. |
| 127 | ** In the last episode, after Walker scuffles with the final villain of the week where both wind up on opposite sides of a car, the villain laughs arrogantly at Walker, [[spoiler: [[OhCrap but gets all the color drained from his face when Walker casually shows him a grenade pin he pulled off of him]] before getting up and running from the impending explosion]]. |
| 128 | * DesignatedGirlFight: This usually occurs if the lead villain is a female and a final fight is demanded. Walker and Trivette usually WouldntHitAGirl unless it was warranted (contrast the male villains [[WouldHitAGirl who have no problem doing so freely]]), so oftentimes, a female guest star, whether she's a civilian or a law enforcement officer (especially a Texas Ranger, including Sydney after she joins the main cast), would do this job. |
| 129 | * DesignatedVictim: Alex Cahill, nearly an example of OnceAnEpisode. Most other women too--even the far-tougher Sydney was eventually kidnapped right along with Alex. |
| 130 | * DirtyCop: Walker and company would sometimes deal with these. |
| 131 | * DirtyCoward: |
| 132 | ** The Firebloods gang from "Jacob's Ladder" in Season 7. |
| 133 | ** The serial rapist from "Justice For All" enjoys beating on women before attempting to rape them. Against grown men, he's a complete wimp who [[CurbStompBattle gets his ass handed to him]]. Even more, it wasn't done by Walker. The first time he was beaten to within an inch of his life by the pursuing police officer, the second and final time was [[LaserGuidedKarma by the father of one of his victims]]. |
| 134 | * DisappearedDad: The show loves this trope and it can and will gender-invert or overlap from time to time with MissingMom. Many of the victims Walker assists in cases are oftentimes dealt with this, but Walker himself serves as the strongest example, as does Gage, as both Rangers lost both their parents so young. Walker was 12 years old when his parents were murdered by a trio of white supremacists and would go on to hunt down one of the men who did it in Season 4's "Final Justice", [[spoiler:though not before [[IfYouKillHimYouWillBeJustLikeHim nearly letting him fall to his death]]]]. For Gage, meanwhile, he was 8 years old and his older sister, Julie, was 10 when their parents were killed in a car accident due to icy roads one Christmas as they were returning from a church social. |
| 135 | * {{Disneyfication}}: The series starting around "Brainchild" in Season 5. The episode with the kid and his supercomputer best friend, with a script that would have been more at home in a Disney flick. The show usually had grittier plots beforehand, but as it went on, the episodes began focusing on young kids or teens staying on the right path. CBS and the writers caught wind of the growing kid audience and wanted to reassure the parents the kids weren't watching flat, abhorrent violence. |
| 136 | * DisneyVillainDeath, averted: Fighting the bad guy Murdock in the episode "Final Justice", Walker almost kicks the bad guy to his death by falling off some factory building catwalk. Walker grabs Murdock by the wrist. Murdock tells Walker to let him go. Walker seriously considers doing just that, but ultimately decides to pull the villain up to safety. "You're not worth it, Murdock; we'll let a court decide your fate," Walker says. |
| 137 | * DoItYourselfThemeTune: "The Eye of the Ranger" is written ''and'' performed by Chuck Norris himself. Also written and composed by Creator/CraigHuxley and Creator/TirkWilder. The theme music is introduced in Season 3's "The Big Bingo Bamboozle" and used onwards afterwards. |
| 138 | * DoesntLikeGuns: |
| 139 | ** ''Villains'' shoot people. Walker may flash his gun to make an arrest, but he very rarely pulls the trigger. [[YouAreAlreadyDead But if you shoot at him...]] |
| 140 | ** The only true subversion is Victor [=LaRue=], who, after three consecutive murder/mayhem sprees, gets shot down by Walker himself when he attempts to train his gun on the Ranger. Trying to rape Alex three times and remorseless killings of innocent people left him beyond redemption. |
| 141 | ** Walker shot a couple of bad guys in season one. In "The Prodigal Son," he kills one of Mancini's {{Mooks}} during his epic motorcycle scene, and in the second part of "Something in the Shadows," he blows away a drug dealer. Both men were armed, though, and shooting at him. |
| 142 | ** Trent Malloy, after an incident where he and another kid were fighting over a gun, resulting in that boy's death. As such, he wouldn't even use a gun during his time in the Army, preferring hand-to-hand combat any day. He wanted a profession that involved helping people, but [[RealMenLoveJesus while religious]], he didn't want to be the new pastor of his father's church after he died, nor did he want to join a law enforcement agency, where learning how to handle firearms is mandated, that he opened a karate school named after his father and became a PrivateDetective. His disdain for guns proves to be his undoing in Season 7's "Special Witness" when a federally-wanted assassin hired by a mob boss he was supposed to testify against stabs him to either kill him or keep him in the hospital long enough so he doesn't show up on the witness stand, and a Special Olympian he was escorting to running practice was the only witness to the attack. [[spoiler:Fortunately, he survives and pulls through in time for the trial, with Walker having arrested said assassin.]] |
| 143 | * DrivenToSuicide: Some cases involve an innocent person unable to deal with the stresses of life, at which point Walker [[InterruptedSuicide interrupts the suicide attempt]] and tries to [[TalkingDownTheSuicidal talk down the victim before they make that decision]], and others involve a villain deciding it's [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled better for them to die than be either killed or arrested]]. |
| 144 | * DrowningPit: "No Way Out" centers around this, as Trivette, and whoda guessed, ''Alex'', get kidnapped and imprisoned by Caleb Hooks in a water tank at a sewage treatment facility, which gradually fills up and threatens to drown them, while they reminisce on happier times in hopes Walker will save them a la ClipShow style. |
| 145 | * DynamicEntry: Chuck Norris flying-kicks himself into so many scenes one would be forgiven for thinking this to be his primary mode of travel. |
| 146 | * EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: In the first season, Walker's main vehicle was a blue GMC Sierra pickup. From the second season onward, it becomes a gray [[ProductPlacement Dodge Ram 1500]]. |
| 147 | * EvenEvilHasStandards: |
| 148 | ** After Trent and Carlos arrest a pedophile kidnapper, the inmates beat him to within an inch of his life once they found out why he was put in prison. In another episode, when a gang of criminals takes a group of nuns hostage, at least one of them is extremely uncomfortable with this. The leader tells him to shut up--and then two seconds later, himself displays this trope by smacking one of the other members who has started make sleazy advances to one of the postulates. |
| 149 | ** It's typical for one member of the villain's group to have second thoughts, only to be killed for them. One especially notable case is when a crook named Jackson learns his boss plans to sell a weapon they stole to some people who plan to use it for terrorism, he tries to stop it only to be killed. |
| 150 | * EveryCarIsAPinto: Amusingly, once, after the villain flies through the back of a pickup truck carrying water cooler tanks, the WATER explodes. |
| 151 | %%* EvilIsHammy: Oh yeah. |
| 152 | * {{Expy}}: All the characters in the initial Hayes Cooper story; later stories use the actors in different roles. |
| 153 | * FairCop: Sydney and most of the other female cops who showed up from time to time. Gage too. |
| 154 | * FatBastard: Some of the villains of the week consist of these, and are usually the ones who get taken down rather easily. |
| 155 | * ForTheEvulz: Usually PlayedForDrama. Many of the show's villains seem to enjoy this without giving it a second thought, upon which it earns them the beatdown of their lives from the titular policeman and his team. |
| 156 | * FromCamouflageToCriminal: [=A number of the show's villains have some sort of military background before turning to a life of crime. Mitch Bolton ("War Zone"), Bart Hawkins ("Patriot"), Stan Gorman ("The Soul of Winter"), Theodore McNeely ("6 Hours")... just to name a few. Out of all these villains, however, there's nobody more notorious and loathsome to deserve such a dishonorable mention than Victor LaRue.=] |
| 157 | * FunWithAcronyms: The H.O.P.E. Center, which is opened in Season 7's "Trackdown", stands for '''H'''elp '''O'''ur '''P'''eople '''E'''xcel. |
| 158 | * {{Gangbangers}}: Walker and his team will sometimes deal with them, whether in the main plot or subplot of an episode. |
| 159 | * GlassCannon: Most mooks are like this as they get taken out quite easily against those who can actually fight back. One situation in particular is a [[KidsAreCruel kid bully]] who repeatedly gets into fights with the son of a recently deceased police officer on the way home from school. However, once the son gets some lessons from his grandfather, when the bully attempts to beat on him again, the son easily took him down with [[CurbStompBattle only two hits]] , proving he's just a stupid little wimp. |
| 160 | * AGlassInTheHand: In "Days Past", Walker crushes his drinking glass in his hand when he hears on the news that the man who killed his first fiancée, Ellen Garrett, had been let out of jail. |
| 161 | * GoodCopBadCop: Walker and Trivette. Who plays which depends on the situation, or who's more pissed off at the time. When Gage and Sydney were introduced, they both played Bad Cop by hard-balling arrested baddies. |
| 162 | %%* GoodGunsBadGuns: Strangely applied even to cars. |
| 163 | %%* GrandFinale: "The Final Showdown." |
| 164 | * GroinAttack: It's even worse when it comes from Chuck's cowboy boots. |
| 165 | * GutFeeling: In one ep, Walker is dealing with another member of law enforcement accused of being corrupt. Knowing nothing about Walker's personal history, the man tells of his inspiration - a 19th Century lawman named Hayes Cooper. Walker must still investigate this man, and does due diligence, but you can tell that, from then on, in Walker's mind, the matter is settled. No man descended from and inspired by Hayes Cooper can be truly evil. Walker never tells the man they are distant kin. |
| 166 | * HalloweenEpisode: The series had two that came to mind: Season 4's "Evil in the Night" and Season 7's "The Children of Halloween". |
| 167 | %%* HandyCuffs |
| 168 | * HateSink: Pick any VillainOfTheWeek. They’re so irredeemably evil that it’s oh so satisfying seeing Walker and crew beat the ever living shit out of them. |
| 169 | * HatsOffToTheDead: Whenever visiting the grave of a friend, visiting a friend in the hospital or paying their last respects to the family of a fallen officer or any of their close friends, Walker, Trivette and CD always take off their cowboy hats as a gesture of respect. |
| 170 | %%* HelloAttorney: Alex Cahill |
| 171 | * HeroOfAnotherStory: |
| 172 | ** There was an additional pair of Texas Rangers that showed up when the plot required more police be involved. |
| 173 | ** [[ActionGirl Action Girl]] Sydney Cooke and Francis Gage, who, amazingly, after being added to the cast got just as many or more story lines as the Originals - Trivette, Alex and Walker. |
| 174 | * HeroInsurance: Walker and company never seen to care about the damage they cause with all the fights they get into, though Gage did compensate a restaurant owner at least once. |
| 175 | * HeroicSecondWind: Walker gets these when in a fight he actually has to try in. |
| 176 | * HitStop: It is ''guaranteed'' that Walker and Trivette will each dish out one of these per episode to the bad guys, and probably many more. Sometimes this effect goes all the way into {{Overcrank}}. Their fellow Rangers give out a few as well. You can tell who the bad guys are; they never hit hard enough to deliver a HitStop. |
| 177 | * HoistByHisOwnPetard: |
| 178 | ** In Season 5's "A Father's Image," a mafia don who abuses his young son in order to "raise him into the family business" forces his son to climb to the top of a bookshelf ladder and orders him to jump, saying he'll catch him if he trusts him. When he jumped, the father immediately pulls away and lets his son painfully hit the floor. He then kicks his son to get him to get up before stating the "life lesson" is never to trust anybody. At the end of the episode once the Texas Rangers bust in and beat down the mooks, the mafia don loses his gun, which is picked up by his son. He immediately tries to get his son to give the gun to him, saying he can trust him. To his shock and anger, the son gives the gun to Walker, angrily shouting that he trusted his son and he betrayed it. The son simply called out that he trusted him, too, and look where that got him. The undercover ranger reminds the don that [[IronicEcho that was his own "life lesson" used against him]]. |
| 179 | ** In Season 9's "6 Hours", when Walker has to rescue 16½-year-old Heather Preston from being murdered on live TV by her traitorous [=bodyguard, McNeely, he finally finds his hideout and, at the literal last second before the timed shotgun could go off, uses him as a=] BulletproofHumanShield, protecting Heather and killing him with his own murder weapon. |
| 180 | * HowWeGotHere: The entirety of Season 9's "Blood Diamonds" details the events that followed before [[spoiler:Trivette, and eventually, Walker, were killed by Victor Drake and his gang of arms dealers after they caught on to their cover.]] |
| 181 | * HypotheticalCasting: InUniverse. In "Code of the West", the four main characters talk about who would play them in a movie. Trivette gets Creator/DenzelWashington, Alex gets Creator/HelenHunt, C.D. gets Creator/PaulNewman and Walker gets...Creator/ChuckNorris. |
| 182 | [[/folder]] |
| 183 | |
| 184 | [[folder:I-Q]] |
| 185 | * IdiotBall: To go along with their over-the-top capital-E Evil, most of the criminals in the series seem to lack common sense to a ridiculous degree. It gets to the point where it becomes hard to believe that these so-called evil masterminds were ever capable of accomplishing anything. |
| 186 | ** Walker gets one in Episode 7x14 when walking up to a man when he knows it's very likely they'll get into a fistfight. Instead of taking off his tie, he just shrugs his coat off and walks forward. He's ''very'' lucky that guy didn't garrotte him with the handy chokehold hanging right around his neck. |
| 187 | * IfYouKillHimYouWillBeJustLikeHim: |
| 188 | ** Walker's dilemma in Season 4's "Final Justice", when he encounters a racist criminal gone free [[spoiler:who helped murder his parents. Walker spares the man's life, [[GoodIsNotNice but still beats him like a bass drum and brings him in for arrest]]]]. |
| 189 | --->'''Walker:''' You're not worth it, Murdock. We'll let a court decide your fate. |
| 190 | ** In Season 6's "In God's Hands", when Trivette [[TurnInYourBadge is suspended without pay]] following the accidental shooting of [=six-year-old Danny McGee=] and goes through a HeroicBSOD, Danny's older brother, Ted buys a gun from an unlicensed seller to kill him, since he can't buy one from a real gun shop; [[ArtisticLicenseLaw obviously, the clerk knew he lied about his age]], [[ArtisticLicenseGunSafety as State and Federal Law states one has to be at least 21 years old to buy a gun in Texas]]. When Walker finally [[YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre snaps Trivette out of his BSOD]] and the two revisit the scene of the crime to determine if Trivette did it or the bullet belonged to the VillainOfTheWeek, Kroeger, Ted plans to kill Trivette, to which the latter responds he will make one of the biggest mistakes of his life. This causes Ted to relent, especially when Trivette tells him that doctors operated on Danny and removed the bullet, and he is expected to recover. [[spoiler:In addition, Walker proves to Trivette and Ted that the bullet that hit Danny really did belong to Kroeger, having found Trivette's bullet lodged in a tree. Trivette is placed back on duty, and the two Rangers then finish the job by arresting Kroeger.]] |
| 191 | ** In "Everyday Heroes", also in Season 6, after Trent beats up an abusive husband who broke into his wife's home to kill her, the wife attempts to kill him herself to finally be free of him. Trent managed to talk her out of killing the husband no matter how much he deserves it. While it was going on, said abusive husband recovered and pulled a gun on them. [[TemptingFate He mockingly taunts them for their mercy and spitefully asks Trent what he's going to do now]]. [[RageBreakingPoint Cue an angry Trent easily disarming the fatass and beating him unconscious]]. |
| 192 | ** In another Season 6 episode, "Test of Faith", where a middle school teacher, who was a former karate student of Walker's, is killed by gang members, Walker and Trivette get the break they need to catch them [[spoiler:after a student tearfully comes forward and tells Walker he witnessed the gang kill him, not to mention he accidentally shot a fellow classmate with a gun he purchased out of fear of retaliation from the gang while trying to stop another classmate named Carlos, who was a prospective new member of that gang, from shooting her. The gang leader, Loco Morales, escapes the hideout after it is raided, but Walker chases him down and dukes it out with him, just before Carlos shows up. While Loco encourages Carlos to shoot Walker, Walker tries to talk him down, saying he didn't shoot Faith and has his whole life ahead of him. Carlos relents, allowing Walker to arrest Loco.]] |
| 193 | ** In Season 9's "Division Street", when Boomer Knight (played by Creator/HulkHogan), an ex-con-turned community center director, is kidnapped by a drug dealer named Carson, the two gangs that Carson dealt the drugs to, only to join Boomer's center to try to live decent lives, realize that he played them for fools to get rid of Boomer and likely intends to blame them for his murder. Thus, the two gangs cooperate to rescue Boomer while [[GondorCallsForAid the younger relatives of the rival gangs' leaders get Walker and his crew to help]]. When the gangs come bursting into Carson's hideout and beat up the henchmen, they release Boomer from his noose and threaten to hang Carson instead. Boomer tells them not to do it, as they will end up in prison like he did. The gangs release Carson from the noose, seconds before the Rangers arrive to arrest him and have him indicted for drug dealing and Boomer's attempted murder. |
| 194 | * ImAHumanitarian: The villain of "Swan Song" survived a plane crash after it was shot down and got lost in the mountains, going insane and strapping plane parts to his face, then ending up so feral that he began to eat humans and use their bones and skulls as furniture. |
| 195 | * ImpairmentShot: In "Without A Sound", Gage is left deafened by an explosion. Throughout the episode, scenes from his point of view have a ringing noise and severely muted, if not completely absent sound. |
| 196 | * IndianBurialGround: Focus of the episodes "On Sacred Ground" and "Evil in the Night", both involving burial ground desecration. |
| 197 | * InvasionOfTheBabySnatchers: The whole plot of "Stolen Lullaby," which involves a crooked adoption agency that kidnaps babies and puts them up for adoption for huge sums of money, forging the adoption papers and sending {{Mooks}} to bully (and even kill) the real parents if they find out and try to interfere. |
| 198 | * InsigniaRipOffRitual: |
| 199 | ** Walker fights and beats up a corrupt racist sheriff who ruled a small town with an iron fist and FantasticRacism. After Walker kicks the shit out of him, he rips the sheriff badge off his chest, signifying the bastard doesn't deserve to wear it. |
| 200 | ** Walker takes down a corrupt self-proclaimed "Texas Ranger" before tearing off the Texas ranger badge off of him. |
| 201 | * InstrumentalThemeTune: The three pilot movies and the second season featured an instrumental theme tune. The first half of the third season featured a different instrumental theme, before being replaced by the more familiar tune with lyrics halfway through the season. |
| 202 | * InvincibleHero: Most "fights" in the series are short, one-sided beatdowns, though this is partly due to most of the criminal population of Texas having "punch cop" as their default response to feeling threatened. |
| 203 | * ImprobableAimingSkills: In "The Prodigal Son," crime boss Mancini manages to rather impressively hit Walker firing a handgun from a helicopter mid-flight. |
| 204 | * IronicEcho: A crime lord's lawyer informs him that since Alex is prosecuting and the witness is in protective custody, the best course of action is to settle a deal with Alex. The crime lord, after getting a call from his hitman that he's prepared to kill the witness and his family, he tells his lawyer that he and Alex can "stick their deal". Walker and the Rangers foil the plot, saving the witness. At the trial, the crime lord is shocked to see the witness still alive and tries to settle a deal with Alex. She tells him he can "stick his deal". |
| 205 | %%* ItNeverGetsAnyEasier |
| 206 | * TheJinx: The subplot in "Medieval Crimes" concerns Trivette having to transport a prisoner back to headquarters, who is a living jinx that causes Trivette all sorts of bad luck (including food poisoning, tons of bee stings, and the car breaking down). |
| 207 | * JuryAndWitnessTampering: This has happened all too often throughout the series: |
| 208 | ** Season 5's "Texas vs. Cahill" had a mob boss [[spoiler:killing his own ''defense attorney'' and framing Alex for it, but it was all CaughtOnTape, thereby exonerating her.]] |
| 209 | ** Season 7's "Special Witness" had Trent being stabbed by a federally-wanted assassin (played by Creator/GaryBusey) so he couldn't testify against the mob boss who hired said assassin in court (his [[DoesntLikeGuns dislike for guns]] proved to be his undoing this way), with the only witness to that attack being a Special Olympian he was escorting to running practice. [[spoiler:Trent luckily pulls through in time to testify, because Walker arrested the assassin beforehand.]] |
| 210 | ** "Jacob's Ladder", also in Season 7, had a street gang known as the Firebloods threatening to burn down the houses of people in a neighborhood under their control after they witnessed one of their own kill a man who didn't want to join the gang so they don't testify against him after Walker and Trivette arrested him, and it soon escalates to wanting to kill a ''firefighter captain'' (played by Creator/JohnSchneider) that responded to the emergency, whose young son was [[YouAreGrounded grounded]] and ordered to do community service at the H.O.P.E. Center for spray-painting cars, after the captain denounced them and their actions as cowardly on the news. [[spoiler:Luckily, after Walker and Trivette capture all of the gang members, it's not long before all the residents of the entire neighborhood decide to testify and put all of them away for good. Likewise, the firefighter the gang tried to murder survived his injuries.]] |
| 211 | * JustGotOutOfJail: Various villains throughout the show, as well as a few who have gone straight and assisted the Rangers in catching some villains. |
| 212 | * KickChick: Sydney Cooke from the last two seasons is this. |
| 213 | * KickTheDog: The villains tend to do half a dozen of these before the episodes are over. |
| 214 | * KilledOffForReal: [[spoiler:CD in Season 9's "The Avenging Angel". Noble Willingham left the show after Season 8's "A Matter of Faith" to run for a seat on the United States House of Representatives.]] |
| 215 | * KungFoley: ''Every'' blow delivered merits these. Earlier episodes had less copious usage of foley and the foley itself was not so over-the-top, but when the show hit its {{Camp}} years, the foley got exaggerated, full stop. |
| 216 | * LargeHam: The episode's villains will raise your cholesterol. And the main cast. And the guest stars. Basically the whole series is a LargeHam and Cheese Sandwich. |
| 217 | * LaserGuidedKarma: To basically all the villains who use force to terrorize their victims, Walker treats them to an equally if not more brutal ass-kicking on them. |
| 218 | * LastNameBasis: |
| 219 | ** 9 seasons and even Walker's own girlfriend and eventual wife called him by his last name more often than she did his first. |
| 220 | ** This also applied to Trivette and Gage. You could count on one hand the number times either of ''them'' were referred to by their first name (Jimmy and Francis, respectively). |
| 221 | * LaterInstallmentWeirdness: By its final seasons, it was still an action-adventure series based on Texas, but many odd episodes occured, including several [[VerySpecialEpisode Very Special Episodes]] with faith-based special guests, rampaging evil spirits, an AllJustADream episode occurring on the Old West, people stealing super-weapons [[CutLexLuthorACheck to use to take on Walker]], an episode where Walker and friends must find a missing kid that is being helped by a stereotypical RobotBuddy, and the final episode featuring as a foe a [[GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke genetically-engineered]] ImplacableMan SuperSoldier who's creation was funded by a RightWingMilitiaFanatic group. |
| 222 | * LeaningOnTheFourthWall: The last episode (not counting the ''Trial By Fire'') is called "The Final Show/Down". |
| 223 | * LeaveNoWitnesses: A staple of the show when dealing with the villains; expect to see them kill their mooks and victims to keep them from talking when Walker is hot on their trail. |
| 224 | * LighterAndSofter: |
| 225 | ** Starting around Season 6. The "Brainchild" episode in particular seemed like it had been written for some '80s Disney flick. There were also more [[VerySpecialEpisode Very Special Episode]]s, such as a plot involving a mentally disabled child, school bullying, teens using drugs, and young kids getting swept up into the wily ways of bad street gangs. And "Thunderhawk", a late season episode, was a really fluff sci-fi story. |
| 226 | ** If one looked at the earlier seasons of Walker it resembles close to a gritty cop show than the later seasons which are more toned down and cartoony in comparison. |
| 227 | *** The later seasons also have their share of dark moments. For example, HalloweenEpisode "The Children of Halloween" dealt with satanic cult kidnapping young children and planning to kill them. "Lucas", a two-parter, is also rather dark, dealing with young boy with AIDS and it ends with [[spoiler:him and his mother dying.]] |
| 228 | * LocalHangout: CD's Bar and Grill, which is owned and operated by CD in his post-ranger years. It has been the regular hangout for the rangers [[spoiler:up until Season 9's "The Avenging Angel", when they learn CD has died]]. |
| 229 | * TheLostLenore: Walker's backstory includes a fiancee who was murdered. |
| 230 | * MadAtADream: In the episode "Silk Dreams", assistant district attorney Alex Cahill keeps having nightmares of Walker getting shot, eventually working up to his partner, Trivette, shooting him. At the end, when everything has been worked out, Walker makes a comment which Alex interprets to mean she looks terrible. She begins saying it was all his fault for getting shot in her dreams and worrying her, and when he points out it was Trivette who shot him in her dreams, she turns her irritation on him. Then Walker puts an end to it by pulling her onto the dance floor. |
| 231 | %%* MagicalNativeAmerican: White Eagle, and later on, the Skinwalker. |
| 232 | * MissingMom: The show loves this trope and it can and will gender-invert or overlap from time to time with DisappearedDad. Many of the victims Walker assists in cases are oftentimes dealt with this, but Walker himself serves as the strongest example, as does Gage, as both Rangers lost both their parents so young. Walker was 12 years old when his parents were murdered by a trio of white supremacists and would go on to hunt down one of the men who did it in Season 4's "Final Justice", [[spoiler:though not before [[IfYouKillHimYouWillBeJustLikeHim nearly letting him fall to his death]]]]. For Gage, meanwhile, he was 8 years old and his older sister, Julie, was 10 when their parents were killed in a car accident due to icy roads one Christmas as they were returning from a church social. |
| 233 | * [[CarFu Motorcycle Fu]]: Walker tripped up a criminal in this fashion. |
| 234 | * MultipleChoicePast: The mythical accounts of Hayes Cooper's life don't add up, with the very first saying he died and his spirit emerging to help Walker out (or possibly a snake venom-induced hallucination, as Walker had been poisoned at the time he saw Cooper), while another account says he turned in his badge to raise a family, {{Retcon}}ning his so-called death. |
| 235 | * MyGodWhatHaveIDone: |
| 236 | ** In Season 6's "Test of Faith", a middle school student named Malcolm is too scared to report that a gang member killed his teacher, who was a former karate student of Walker's, at which point he buys a gun to protect himself if he runs into them again, also at which point Walker substitutes for the slain teacher during his investigation into the murder. [[spoiler:When Malcolm sees one prospective new member of the gang try to kill a fellow classmate who'd been helping out a lot to curb gang violence, he tries to stop that would-be gang member from shooting her, only for ''him'' to accidentally shoot her, having accidentally dropped his backpack with the gun in it! While the student joining the gang earns praise from the members when they think he did shoot her, Malcolm soon feels guilty of this mistake and tells Walker what really happened, tipping him off to the killers in the process. Needless to say, Malcolm was [[TearsOfRemorse in tears]] when he told the truth, to which Walker tells him that [[AnAesop carrying a gun is the problem and not the answer]]. Luckily, his classmate survives and has to undergo rehab in order to walk again, since the bullet hit her spinal column, and Malcolm gets off with community service and doesn't face any serious punishment.]] |
| 237 | ** In Season 7's "Lost Boys", Bobby Landrum, the best friend of Carlos' nephew Jesse Estrella, in a bout of panic, hides a gun his employer used to kill a cop in Jesse's dresser drawer, therefore framing him for the crime after his mother and Carlos found it. Bobby soon realized the ramifications of his actions when not only was Jesse arrested for a crime he didn't do, but Jesse's mother also gets kidnapped and held for ransom to blackmail Jesse to take the rap for it, even Jesse's own ''defense attorney'' was in on it. [[spoiler:Bobby comes forward and confesses after the fact.]] |
| 238 | * NeverBringAKnifeToAFistFight: Walker's martial arts is a bigger threat than any weapon an enemy brings to a fight. |
| 239 | %%* NewOldWest |
| 240 | * NiceJobFixingItVillain: A group of masked rich guys take pleasure in beating up homeless people nearly to death for their own amusement. They even had the bright idea of recording their exploits to enjoy watching. Once Walker takes them down, [[HoistByHisOwnPetard the police also confiscate said recordings to be used as evidence against them]]. C.D. summed it up as who would be stupid enough to record their own crimes. |
| 241 | * ObviouslyEvil: Some minor episode characters may make a HeelFaceTurn, but the episode's BigBad or evil group is usually so over-the-top that there is no doubt from the first appearance who Walker's foe will be. |
| 242 | * {{Oireland}}: Any episode featuring Irish people was usually also chock full of Irish stereotypes and [[FakeIrish terrible]] UsefulNotes/IrishAccents. |
| 243 | * OnlyBadGuysCallTheirLawyers: |
| 244 | ** Played very often, even with frequent criminals who usually know to keep their mouths shut and ask for an attorney. It's so badly done that even Alex--a DA who is ''not allowed'' to lie to a suspect--is often seen telling suspects that if they ask for a lawyer, any chance of a deal is off. On the show, this always makes the criminal quickly agree to cooperate. In RealLife, this is flat-out unethical conduct that would result in her being reprimanded. |
| 245 | ** Another especially bad example involves a bratty kid demanding a lawyer before he talks to the cops. His father refuses and basically threatens to beat the crap out of him if he doesn't tell the cops what he knows. The Rangers stand there looking downright smug and amused at the whole thing. Never mind that they just violated the rights of someone who explicitly asked for an attorney. |
| 246 | ** In another episode, Sydney and Gage arrive at someone's home to ask if his brother (their murder suspect) is there. The man says no and tries to close the door on them, only for Gage to push it open and force his way into the apartment--without a warrant, and against the man's clearly expressed refusal to let them in. |
| 247 | ** Speaking of Alex, she apparently believes this so strongly that when she herself is a murder suspect, she talks to the cops and assistant DA without an attorney. Her own father practically gives her a DopeSlap over her stupidity. |
| 248 | %%* OrWasItADream |
| 249 | * PayEvilUntoEvil: Walker and the Rangers usually try to avert this, being proper authorities and all. Most of the kills they make were out of necessity/self-defense. Played straight by Walker in "Trial Of Larue" when Walker [[spoiler:wordlessly guns the bastard down, killing him, putting him out of ''everyone else's'' miseries]]. CD and Trivette's comments in the aftermath says it all. |
| 250 | --> '''CD''': "You know, Jimmy, in all my years, I never enjoyed [[spoiler:seeing a dead body. This time, I ''do''.]]"\ |
| 251 | '''Trivette''': "I hear that, Big Dog." |
| 252 | * PlaygroundSong: In "White Buffalo", a hoodlum who holds up a convenience store, and who's a little off his rocker, forces a woman to sing "99 Bottles of Beer" with him at gunpoint. |
| 253 | * PoliceAreUseless: Often, anyone who isn't part of the main cast. An especially bad example is the federal agent who botches the rescue of Sydney and Alex when they're abducted by a drug cartel. First, the idiot sends the drug dealer's brother to him ''before'' the dealer returns the two women. When the dealer of course double-crosses them and keeps the women, the agent can only sputter about how they have to "negotiate". A thoroughly fed-up Walker nearly throttles him before storming off to rescue the women himself. Trivette and Gage spitefully apply this to themselves when said agent demanded disciplinary action on Walker for "assaulting a federal agent", they simply said they saw nothing. |
| 254 | * PoliceBrutality: Everyone in the cast is shown beating up suspects on a regular basis. While this is usually justified by the fact that the suspects attacked them first, occasionally, criminals don't do anything more than make snide, nasty comments. While certainly rude and out of line, it's not illegal and does not warrant physical violence on the cops' part. |
| 255 | * PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: The hate groups Walker and company would go up against and soundly kick their asses. It was also revealed that Walker's parents were victims of this. |
| 256 | * PoliticianGuestStar: The Season 5 episode "The Winds of Change" sees Walker, who had started a boot camp for juvenile offenders, locking horns with a powerful Senator; with then-Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson making an appearance. |
| 257 | * PoorlyDisguisedPilot: Sons of Thunder. |
| 258 | ** Averted and played straight. To elaborate, the two-parter Sons of Thunder spends an exorbitant amount of time focusing on new characters Trent Malloy, a Mini-Walker {{expy}} that DoesntLikeGuns, his best friend Carlos, and Trent's troubled family. Despite the set up, Trent and Carlos continue to appear on the show afterwards to help the main characters. It wasn't until two years later that a [[Series/SonsOfThunder spinoff]] did happen. It didn't last long, and the characters were [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome never seen or mentioned again]] in spite of Walker lasting for several years after the fact. |
| 259 | * PreAsskickingOneLiner: Several by Walker. |
| 260 | -->"You have the right..." (kicks thug in the face) "... to remain silent." |
| 261 | -->"If I wanted your opinion, I'd beat it out of you." (kick thug through a door) |
| 262 | * ProductPlacement: Chrysler had prominent product placement with their then-newly redesigned Dodge Ram 1500 as Walker's main vehicle. |
| 263 | * ProWrestlingIsReal: "The Avenging Angel" and "Crusader" both treat Pro Wrestling as if it were a genuine, high-stakes sport. |
| 264 | * PsychopathicManChild: In "Deadly Vision" where a pedophile kidnaps a little girl and basically forces her to play with him. He's also coupled with SpoiledBrat tendencies and planned to kill her mother so he'd have the girl to himself, but ultimately gets curbstomped by Walker before he could carry it out. |
| 265 | [[/folder]] |
| 266 | |
| 267 | [[folder:R-Z]] |
| 268 | %%* {{Ranger}} |
| 269 | %%* RapidFireTyping: Trivette, on noticeably dated computers. |
| 270 | * RealAfterAll: In the episode about UFO sightings, turned out to be a secret government project. At the end of the episode, the cast view an old recording of the military base, which featured what looked like a stasis pod, with a non-human hand touching the glass from the inside... |
| 271 | * RealMenLoveJesus: Besides Walker himself, there's Trent Malloy. |
| 272 | --> '''Carlos''': A lot of people out there need the martial arts.\ |
| 273 | '''Trent''': That's not the ''only'' thing they need. ''(holds up a Bible)'' |
| 274 | * RealityIsUnrealistic: Walker is clearly White, so why are they trying to get the audience to believe that he's half Native Am--wait, what do you mean Chuck Norris is half-Cherokee? |
| 275 | * RedemptionRejection: Jerry "Mad Dog" Sullivan in the "Mr. Justice" episode where a group of teens aged 18 to 21 with known felonies were brought to Walker's Camp Justice in order to direct them on the just path as opposed to just being thrown directly in jail. While most of the delinquents start to come around after enduring hardships (including sabotage attempts by a commissioner who disbelieves in the program and wants it to fail, and seeing one of them killed by guards in an escape attempt) and trust issues with the Rangers, Mad Dog only tries to use it as an opportunity to run by stealing a gun and knocking Walker out. Fortunately, the other delinquents chose to help Walker and capture Mad Dog. They even call him out on his choice of actions after he attempts to escape again and breaks his leg as a result. In the end, all the other surviving delinquents come out better people, have their records expunged, and even become officers of Camp Justice, tasked with rehabilitating other groups teen felons. Mad Dog, however, after being hospitalized for his leg, is sent to real prison with no way out. As he looks over the prison fences and recalls the others' words, he finally realizes that they were right all along and that had he just accepted the rehabilitation, he would've been free as well. Of course, by then it's too little, too late, and he now must live with the consequences of his choices. |
| 276 | --> Delinquent: [[IronicEcho "Choices and consequences, man! Weren't you paying any attention!?" ]] |
| 277 | * RememberTheNewGuy: The series finale revolves around a gang of criminals, that we had never seen before, breaking out of prison and taking revenge on Walker who supposedly arrested them around the time the first season would have taken place. |
| 278 | * RepeatCut: Walker's signature roundhouse kick, often in slow motion, no less. |
| 279 | * RoundhouseKick: His "roundhouse kick" is a vital part of the Chuck Norris jokes. Even though what he actually does is called a spinning wheel kick. |
| 280 | * ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections: |
| 281 | ** In "Family Matters", where a guy acts out of control, believing himself to be over the law due to his sister being in the witness protection program by the FBI. When one of his stints goes too far [[WouldHurtAChild holding a child hostage]], he winds up accidentally shooting and killing his sister when she tried to stop him, and thus the FBI no longer have any reason to keep him out of prison. Walker could only give the asshole a hateful DeathGlare as he gets carted away before coldly asking who’s going to protect him now. |
| 282 | ** Basically any of the corrupt politicians seen in the series falls under this. |
| 283 | * ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: The antagonists who are the arrogant offspring of rich families thinking they are entitled to do anything because of their money and social statuses. Special mention in "Eyes of a Ranger", where the son of a rich man looks to gain control of Dallas's heroin industry and stalks and terrorizes a teenage girl, claiming her as his "soulmate", even going so far as to leave threatening messages on her answering machine. Thanks to his father, he was kept out of jail. However, a deal with the father by Walker took away his safety net and he is put away for a long time. Another one is "Mean Streets", where a group of rich boys decide to "clean up the streets" by beating homeless people to a pulp and filming it for their own entertainment. When one of their victims ends up dead from their attack, Walker goes undercover to catch them, and this combined with one of the boys turning against the others out of remorse, ends up being their undoing and they are stopped and locked away. |
| 284 | * ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight: Season 3's "Standoff" had the Rangers being dismissed as security detail at a banquet where a Mexican Presidential candidate was among its guests, and when an assassin trying to kill him holds him, Alex, C.D. and the rest of the attendees hostage, Walker disregards orders and sneaks into the banquet hall to free the hostages. |
| 285 | * SecondLove: Alex to Walker. His backstory includes a fiancee who was killed. |
| 286 | * SelfDestructMechanism: Encountered a lot in the series, and usually set off by the villains: |
| 287 | ** In Season 3's "War Zone", an armored car dispatcher is killed in his home by the villains, who were committing robberies by dressing up like clowns. When Walker and Trivette find his corpse hanging from a noose and cut him down, they find out too late it was rigged with a fishing line that is connected to explosives that'll blow the house to smithereens the moment his corpse hits the floor. |
| 288 | ** A mainstay for Max Kale, a mad bomber Walker put away a long time ago and the villain of Season 4's "Blown Apart", [[spoiler:to the point he is eventually [[HoistByHisOwnPetard killed by his own handiwork]]]]. |
| 289 | ** Plenty to go around in Season 6's "Iceman". During the prologue of the episode, the titular villain is cornered in his hideout by the FBI, and as Walker, Trivette and Agent Doug Foster enter the house, Walker quickly discovers a bomb in the microwave, upon which he, Trivette and Foster flee the house before it explodes, and an explosive high-speed chase ensues. |
| 290 | ** Season 7's "livegirls.now" had one of Trivette's girlfriends and several other budding models being kidnapped by sex slave traders, and when Trivette posed as a bidder to trace their location, the kidnappers catch on to the ruse and have a bomb waiting for him and Walker when they raid their warehouse. Walker quickly discovers the bomb and the two Rangers flee the building before they are caught in the explosion. |
| 291 | ** "Full Recovery" in Season 8 had the CEO of a genetics lab plotting to blow up a military base with sarin, a deadly nerve gas, which one of his employees (played by Creator/ScottWeinger) and his younger brother stole so they can show it to the Rangers. After the genetics lab employee is killed, his brother develops amnesia while the company's mercenaries pursue him and try to assassinate him before he could tell any authorities of their plans. Walker, Gage and Sydney are able to jog his memory and then stop the scheme in time by removing the sarin from the rig before it blew. |
| 292 | ** In "The Day of Cleansing", also in Season 8, which serves as a crossover with ''Series/MartialLaw'' (serving as Part 2 of "[[Recap/MartialLawS2E16HonorAmongStrangers Honor Among Strangers]]") and rips the UsefulNotes/OklahomaCityBombing from the headlines, Cliff Eagleton and his militia group rig up semi trucks with explosive chemicals to go off within four minutes after the driver pulls the loop, with their intended targets being police stations, banks, churches, courthouses and other government and diverse locations at exactly 9:00 AM. After Eagleton's men are captured, the semi operated by Eagleton had Sydney, whose cover was blown while she and Gage were undercover, tied up, but Walker and Sammo free her and manage to drive the truck as far away from Dallas as possible before it exploded. Afterwards, the explosion was strong enough to trigger a seismic reaction. |
| 293 | ** This was done to a meth lab in Season 9's "Unsafe Speed" after Sydney and Gage, who were posing as outlaw bikers to infiltrate it, have their cover blown by a mule who witnessed them arrest a drug dealer earlier in the episode. The leader of the bikers gets his meth lab ready to blow sky-high and leaves Sydney to die in there while he and his gang escape, but Walker and Gage arrive in time to save her. Gage had to free Sydney after she was cuffed to the leg of a table by the lead biker using her own handcuffs while Walker dukes it out with the leader himself. At the same time Gage frees Sydney, Walker had just given the lead biker the finishing blow, but they weren't about to let him die in the explosion. |
| 294 | * SerialKillingsSpecificTarget: One episode dealt with a man and woman hitman pair who covered up their targets by killing 7 other random people alongside their target. Their current target being ADA Alex Cahill. |
| 295 | * SexSlave: |
| 296 | ** Implied in Season 7's "livegirls.now" when Trivette's new girlfriend is kidnapped by a gang of sex slave traders. |
| 297 | ** Implied with the drug baron's handmaid. |
| 298 | ---> "Senor Ortega came to my village. He saw me... and he wanted me." |
| 299 | ** Also implied when Alex is kidnapped by three survivalist brothers. When they bring her to their cabin, she's greeted by two other women who have also been held prisoner. It's not hard to imagine what they've gone through. |
| 300 | * ShamingTheMob: A town accusing a mentally challenged man for killing an upstanding citizen of their community mob and burn down a shelter Walker and the local authorities were keeping the accused for protective custody. They survive it, then the true killer was revealed to be the accused's uncle. Walker calls out the mob on their actions and that they almost killed an innocent man before commanding them to leave. |
| 301 | * {{Sidekick}}: Trivette, though he insists he's not. This was the joke of one commercial, where Trivette showed a clip of Walker kicking something and commented. "''That'''s his side kick." |
| 302 | * SniffSniffNom ([[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments "A plane crashed here."]]) |
| 303 | * SoBeautifulItsACurse: It seems that a huge part of the reason Alex is kidnapped and assaulted so often is because she's attractive--in "Survival", one of the trio of crazed brothers who abduct her outright says to another, "Ain't she beautiful, Dwight? I want her." |
| 304 | * SomethingWeForgot: In "Survival", Walker and company subdue a group of drug dealers and tied them to trees. At the end of the episode after rescuing Alex and the other two female hostages, they get the feeling they forgot something. Scene switches back to the drug dealer group still tied to the trees, and it was downpouring. |
| 305 | * SpyCatsuit: Several, most notably Music/JoanJett's character in "Wedding Bells". |
| 306 | * {{Sting}}: A few of them play in "Black Dragons" when Walker and Trivette react to a woman being thrown off a tall building to her death. |
| 307 | * StockFootage: The episode "The Deadliest Man Alive" mixes footage of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (the main plot involves Walker and an Interpol agent attempt to stop a would-be assassin from killing an Israeli ambassador at a Dallas Cowboys game) with stock footage of [[UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball the short-lived United States Football League]]; which had folded over a decade prior. |
| 308 | * TakesTenToHold: More than once, not even a small army of men would be able to stop Walker, as he always found a way to win ... even if multiple men were hanging on his arms and legs and completely subduing him (or trying to), leaving him prone to a brutal beating. |
| 309 | * TalkToTheFist: Or to the foot, depending on Walker's mood. Usually accompanied by a PreAsskickingOneLiner. |
| 310 | --> '''Thug:''' "Ranger! You screwed up! You forgot to read us our rights!" |
| 311 | --> '''Walker:''' "You're right. You have the right..." (kicks thug in the face) "... to remain silent." |
| 312 | * TechnicalPacifist: Walker's primary goal is always to take the bad guys in alive, and he prides himself on rarely using his gun, but he's not afraid of using his fists to smack down the thug of the week. |
| 313 | * TemptingFate: |
| 314 | ** In "The Principal", a corrupt drug-dealing high school teacher was about to throw a student off a rooftop for refusing to deal his drugs and threatening to expose him to the authorities. Walker comes in and stops him, the teacher then declares that he'll throw Walker and the kid off the building, too. Guess who winds up falling over the building instead? To be fair, Walker kicked him hard and he lost his balance near the edge. |
| 315 | ** In "Mr. Justice", a group of men confront Walker and Trivette, demanding they and their group leave the woods as if they owned the place. Trivette tried to peacefully tell them to just leave if they had a problem with it, causing the leader to shove him away. Walker warns the guy not to do that again. The leader ignores the warning and does it, but this time, Trivette throws him and a fight ensues, with Walker and Trivette curbstomping the lot of them. |
| 316 | ** Basically anybody who starts a fight with any of the rangers. Aside from being highly stupid in the first place, as assaulting a police officer is a serious felony, it's even more so considering the martial arts skills that they all possess. |
| 317 | * ThoseWackyNazis: Neo-Nazis appear in one episode, trying to drive minister Paul Winfield out of town. |
| 318 | * TooDumbToLive: |
| 319 | ** A lot of the villains of the week, especially the ones who have really angered Walker . Special mentions to Larue, who was too StupidEvil to live as he did it THREE TIMES. First two times, Walker brutally kicked his ass in. [[spoiler:The third time, Walker skips the ass-kicking entirely and simply shoots the [[AssholeVictim asshole dead]].]] |
| 320 | ** An accountant and his family were placed in a witness protection program with Gage and Sydney when they are targeted by a crime lord. Gage and Sydney placed them in a house and laid out some important ground rules, most important above all else is NEVER use the phones as they can run the risk of getting traced. Instead, the accountant's wife ignores that important rule so she could phone her mother and let her know they're all right, thinking a few seconds on the phone won't matter so much. The line gets traced by hitmen, and they attack the house. She nearly got her whole family killed for a stupid phone call. |
| 321 | %%* TooPowerfulToLive: The Chairman. |
| 322 | * TortureAlwaysWorks: |
| 323 | ** Walker and others would utilize this method to interrogate mooks. |
| 324 | ** He and Trivette hung a guy upside down and threatened to put his head in a bag with a rattlesnake in it, scaring him into talking (he had a snake phobia). After getting the information they needed, Trivette gleefully reveals that it was just a toy snake with a tape recorder. |
| 325 | ** When a mook refused to tell Walker about the big bad's next plan, the undercover cop decides to take over. Ironically, the cop was being interrogated the same way by the same mook not long ago, but managed to resist. Once the tables have turned and the cop threatens to shock the mook with a cattle prod, the mook quickly caves in and spilled his guts. Pathetically, he didn't even get shocked yet. |
| 326 | ** Walker does this with an arsonist who had already gotten whacked around by the local sheriff and still wouldn't talk after that. He showed the arsonist exactly what would happen to him if he didn't talk by first casually breaking a table and punching a hole near his head. The arsonist was scared into submission. |
| 327 | * TranquilFury: Walker whenever he beats the crap out of mooks and the villain of the week. Played straight when he straight up [[spoiler:shoots and kills Larue in the third encounter with cold efficiency after finally having enough of his bullshit]]. |
| 328 | * UsefulNotes/TheTroubles: ''Flashpoint'' has Walker and Trivette track down a radical IRA faction after a violent attack on a peace conference. |
| 329 | * TurnInYourBadge: |
| 330 | ** Trivette is temporarily suspended due to accidentally shooting a child [[spoiler:but it turns out the shot came from the criminal.]] |
| 331 | ** Walker made a deal with a known stalker's father that he would do this if his son wasn't caught dealing with drugs in his building and if he is, the father will not try to bail him out this time. |
| 332 | * UnderestimatingBadassery: Villains of the week and mooks do this with Walker ''all the damn time''. They get rude awakenings once Walker deals with them. Also applies to Trivette, Trent, Carlos, Gage, and Sydney. |
| 333 | * VerySpecialEpisode: Later seasons began preaching the classic moral ethics children should follow in response to the increasing number of kids tuning in to watch the show, which kept parents from citing the show was too violent. |
| 334 | * VigilanteInjustice: Three cops who did this to criminals they feel didn't get the punishment they deserved. Their downfall begins when they kill a kid who was actually innocent; DNA evidence exonerated him, but the cops never checked. |
| 335 | * VillainHasAPoint: Occasionally. In particular, the loathsome [=LaRue=], who finds Walker and Trivette ransacking his motel room and informs them that without a warrant, his permission, or the motel owner's permission, anything they find is useless, and in fact, he can charge THEM with breaking and entering. When Walker grabs him, he threatens to include assault charges as well. |
| 336 | * VillainWithGoodPublicity: The {{Dirty Cop}}s in the final season's "Deadly Situation" appear to the general public as dedicated officers working hard to crack down on drugs. In actuality, they attempt to frame a rookie officer, an aspiring Texas Ranger[[note]]who happens to be a descendant of legendary Texas Ranger Hayes Cooper, and therefore, a distant cousin of Walker's[[/note]], who was investigating corruption in the department on phony charges of stealing drug evidence and murdering his partner, [[spoiler:thanks to the fourth party involved in the operation, their lieutenant, tipping them off after [[NiceJobBreakingItHero the officer gave him the original copies of the evidence]]]]. |
| 337 | * VillainousBreakdown: |
| 338 | ** Many of the villains of the week suffer this once the Texas Rangers get their hands on them. One in particular was a known stalker who terrorized a teenage girl and is never brought to justice due to [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections being the son of a rich man who kept him out of jail]] as he [[HorribleJudgeOfCharacter adamantly doesn't believe his son would do that despite overwhelming evidence]]. However, after a deal with Walker to let the Rangers do their job if his son is personally caught in the act, that safety net was removed. The son began trying to play the "I'm your son!" card in order to make his father bail him out like usual, then gets angry when his father ignores him and lets him get arrested. |
| 339 | ** Another in particular was the final encounter with Larue. He takes a courtroom hostage and cruelly taunts everyone there, especially Alex.The bastard also taunts how Walker is "too scared to face him" when he isn't around, despite Trivette calling out how it was Walker who brutally kicked his ass both times (and like a pathetic brat, he denies it). Just as he was about to force Alex to strip at gunpoint, Walker [[BigDamnHeroes forcefully kicks open the locked doors]] and [[TranquilFury wordlessly marches up to a shocked Larue]]. He was taken so off guard, he became frantic on what to do, then in a fit of insanity tries to shoot Walker, [[spoiler:but Walker shoots first and kills the asshole without a word. Walker had finally had enough since beating the shit out of that fucker didn't stick, so decided to just outright kill him and end his reign of terror once and for all]]. |
| 340 | * VisionsOfAnotherSelf: The SeriesFinale has parallel stories of the modern day characters and a set of Old West counterparts. |
| 341 | * WhatHappenedToTheMouse: |
| 342 | ** One episode where Cordell Walker was supposed to rescue a girl who was trapped in a Christian cult camp ended up having the last several minutes of it focused on Walker rescuing Alex Cahill from the cult camp, leaving the intended rescue target's status in question. |
| 343 | ** Another episode, a season finale, had a group of assassins stalking the members of a wedding party (a never-before-seen female Ranger and a never-before-seen assistant DA, along Walker and Alex, of course) who had previously put them in jail. Alex is shot in the ensuing chaos. The next episode opens with Alex being rushed to the hospital and there is never again any mention of the engaged couple, even though the dialogue in the previous episode implies that they were all good friends. |
| 344 | * WhatMeasureIsAMook: Walker generally doesn't have a problem dispatching everyone on the way to the main villain, only to spare the main villain themselves with a speech about how [[BrokenAesop their fate is up to the law, not Walker]]. One episode has him grin as he intentionally causes a mook to trigger their own bomb, only to go out of his way to spare the mastermind, who was actually shown to be a monster. This is made all the worse by the fact that if a villain is ever shown doubting the mastermind or attempting to redeem themselves, [[RedemptionEqualsDeath they're usually killed]], giving the impression that the average mook is only working for the episode's BigBad because they have no other choice. |
| 345 | * WhyDontYaJustShootHim: In "The Final Show/Down", the villain, having previously lost to him as a criminal and with an ancestral grudge, plans to take some revenge that promises to be needlessly elaborate. One of his {{mooks}} asks why he doesn't just take grab a rifle and shoot him next chance he gets. Lavocat declares that contrary to being so simple, he will start killing Texas Rangers to build suspense and make Walker afraid of him. There are no objections to this, only anticipatory grins, and it goes as well as you'd think. |
| 346 | * WifeBasherBasher: Walker and Trent in particular. Alex and her group of abused wives also became one when they were being stalked by an abusive husband of one of the group while taking self-defense lessons from Trivette and C.D. Though he was stronger, they outnumbered him and eventually [[LaserGuidedKarma ganged up and beat him down]]. |
| 347 | %%* WorldOfBadass |
| 348 | * WouldHarmASenior: This is often done to C.D. He is often targeted by the villains in a way to try to intimidate Walker. This tactic, of course, only makes Walker madder. |
| 349 | ** Played seriously straight in "Forgotten People", where a corrupt nursing home administrator and her staff of rogue doctors and ex-con orderlies were using the home as a front for an illegal testing facility where its elderly patients are the guinea pigs to create variants of an Alzheimer's drug originally banned by the FDA that they plan to sell to pharmaceutical companies to make a large profit since running a nursing home would throw off suspicion. Because of those experiments, nine patients had already died. However, when one patient, who was an old friend of Trivette's, is murdered by the doctors to prevent him from exposing their plot, an investigation into the nursing home is prompted with C.D. going undercover as a patient, where he makes a new friend who was also undercover for the same reason. With the corrupt doctors having killed two other patients-- one who tried to escape the facility and another used in their experiments-- C.D. and his new friend would have been next had Walker and Trivette not been alerted, thanks to a transmitter hidden in a bible connected to Walker's pager. |
| 350 | * WouldHitAGirl: Walker may be chivalrous, but there are times when he is smart enough to make exceptions when the situation demands it, like when he double palm strikes an armed woman trying to shoot him, then the time he backfists another when she was trying to kill Alex and her friend with a time bomb. |
| 351 | ** The various villains, of course, as if to drive home just how evil they are. |
| 352 | ** Alex's own ''father'' slaps her in a drunken stupor. It spurs a HeelRealization for him. |
| 353 | * WouldHurtAChild: Many of the villains of the week have no qualms about attempting to kill children. Some do it for their sick amusement, others to eliminate witnesses no matter who they are. Let’s not get started on the cult from Season 7's "The Children of Halloween", who kidnapped children, as well as Alex, to use as human sacrifices for their sick ritual. Anyone who hurts a child can expect Walker to beat them to a quivering pulp. |
| 354 | * WouldntHitAGirl: There are rarely female villains presumably because of this, and if it comes to a fight, [[DesignatedGirlFight another woman has to do it]]. That said, the moments where Chuck does indulge in this showed up quite frequently on ''Conan'', such as the third one in [[http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoID=558303429 this segment]]. |
| 355 | ** However, this trope has not applied to villains, as there are many episodes where the bad guys freely and remorselessly strike women at will, only to get it from Walker and Trivette in the end. |
| 356 | * YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: Several moments like this have occurred. |
| 357 | ** Season 6's "In God's Hands" had Trivette being placed on administrative leave after he is accused of shooting a six-year-old boy who was caught in the crossfire, while Walker tries to prove that the bullet came from the VillainOfTheWeek's gun. Trivette gets it not once, but twice. Walker is able to snap Trivette out of his HeroicBSOD and he agrees to revisit the scene of the crime, then while goes out for a run to clear his head beforehand, the victim's vengeful older brother is about to shoot and kill him after buying a gun from an unlicensed seller, but quickly relents at the last minute when Trivette runs into a mounted police officer on horseback, who also believes he is innocent, stating this sort of thing has likely happened before and is considered the worst nightmare of every law enforcement officer. Hence, the mounted officer and everyone in his department are in his corner. |
| 358 | ** In Season 8's "Rise to the Occasion", Walker did this to 12-year-old Henry Monroe who decided to kill himself due to his poverty-stricken life and relentless bullying. Walker sadly fails, but then decides to turn his sadness into action to help improve the reputations of the students and the school itself so they don't suffer the same outcome Henry did. Another thing that helps is the background song played throughout the episode: |
| 359 | --->''You're stronger than you think you are\ |
| 360 | You'll shine If you just follow your star\ |
| 361 | You can do even more than you know\ |
| 362 | But you got to believe that's so\ |
| 363 | A life worth saving.'' |
| 364 | * YouFightLikeACow: Walker would make deadpan comments to those who arrogantly judge him before systematically getting their asses kicked. |
| 365 | --> '''Thug:''' I'm gonna smash your face! I'm gonna break your head! I'm gonna hit you so hard your children will be born with it! |
| 366 | --> '''Walker:''' Too bad you can't fight as well as you talk. ''(Casually beats thug down)'' |
| 367 | * YouHaveFailedMe: Many crooks of the week will off their mooks if they screwed up the job. It also applied to those who became defiant or got cold feet during a crime spree and tried to bail out. |
| 368 | * YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Many of the show's villains do this to their accomplices all the time, usually when they don't want to share any of the loot or to prevent them from talking before or after they are arrested. When it comes to killing off the accomplices, either the villains do it themselves or the Rangers do it for them; in the latter case, it's usually before the accomplices are arrested. |
| 369 | * YouWouldntLikeMeWhenImAngry: Walker did this to interrogate a tight-lipped arsonist, effectively getting his message across. |
| 370 | --> '''Arsonist:''' "Forget it! I know the drill. Good cop, bad cop, he [the sheriff] threatens to bust my butt, then you come walking in here." |
| 371 | --> '''Walker:''' "That's right. ''({{Beat}})'' But he was the good cop." ''*suddenly breaks the table in half with his fist, scaring the arsonist shitless, then pins him to the wall and punches a hole beside his head*'' "That would've taken out ALL your teeth." |
| 372 | --> '''Arsonist:''' "OKAY OKAY! I'LL TALK!" |
| 373 | ** When a trio of men try to bully a kids group Walker and Alex were chaperoning by trying to kick them out of a diner for no reason, Walker warns that he will ask nicely once to let them be. If they refuse, then he will "ask them not so nicely". The men ignore the warning and attack Walker, who promptly kicks their asses. |
| 374 | [[/folder]] |
| 375 | ---- |
| 376 | -->''Cause the Eyes of a Ranger are upon you...''\ |
| 377 | ''Any wrong you do, he's gonna see.''\ |
| 378 | ''When you're in Texas, look behind you,''\ |
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/context.php
FollowingContext Series / WalkerTexasRanger
Go To
- Show Spoilers
- Night Vision
- Sticky Header
- Wide Load
