Awful Squad
was a weekly live stream on Polygon, where a rotating cast of Polygon employees and associates played PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. After about a year, the cast tired of PUBG and announced a break, while leaving open the option of streaming other games under the Awful Squad banner. Regular contributors include Russ Frushtick, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, Travis McElroy, Simone de Rochefort, Patrick Gill, Jenna Stoeber, Brian David Gilbert, Clayton Ashley, and Jeff Ramos. The series also frequently features guest players, often other video game journalists or game designers.
The series is notable for its highly creative custom game modes. Several squad mainstays have access to PUBG's custom game feature, and the back half of every episode is dedicated to private matches played against fans of the show, usually featuring altered game settings and a silly gimmick. Common custom modes include:
- Duel, a.k.a. High Noon at Pochinki: The squad drops into a town, grabs revolvers, and commences a series of pistol duels until one person wins.
- New Rules: Whoever is "in charge" of the game comes up with new rules for the players as the game progresses.
- PUBG PG: No swearing. Anyone who swears has to drop the gun they're currently using.
- Tower of Error: The squad spreads out through a multi-story building. One person tries to clear the entire building, killing the person on each floor as they climb.
- Trivia: Exactly What It Says on the Tin. The squad plays PUBG, usually in zombie mode, while answering trivia questions posed by someone spectating the game and risk in-game punishment if they get a question wrong.
- Turncoat: One person in the squad (two if it's a particularly large group) is secretly assigned the role of turncoat. This person has to kill their squadmates with melee weapons while keeping the rest of the squad from suspecting them.
- VIP: One person in the squad is not allowed to use weapons and must be protected by the rest of the squad for the entire match.
Almostnote the entire show is available Polygon's YouTube channel, with each episode typically running 1-2 hours in length.
The series has a Spiritual Successor in Victory McElroyale, a livestream series where Griffin, Justin, and Travis play Fortnite with about as much success as they had at PUBG.
The Squad reunited for a one-off "bonusode" on October 20th, 2022, featuring Pat, Justin, Griffin, Simone, Clayton, Russ, and newcomer Tina.
Awful Squad provides examples of the following tropes:
- Alternate Self: Discussed by Griffin after he singlehandedly takes out an entire enemy squad in close quarters. He says that the only explanation for why the other team played so poorly is that they're actually another version of the Awful Squad from an Alternate Timeline.
- Ascended Fangirl: Jenna used to watch the show before she started working at Polygon.
- Butt-Monkey: Russ gets a lot of shit from both the chat and the other players for his poor gameplay decisions, though this lessens over the course of the series as he starts focusing more on making the stream fun to watch instead of purely trying to survive as long as possible.
- Car Fu: In games where zombies are present, cars are often used to run over massive numbers of zombies at once.
- Hands Across Miramar.
- Emergent Gameplay: Much of the show's fun comes from inventing new things to do with the basic items and mechanics of PUBG.
- Establishing Series Moment: In the very first episode, Russ, Pat, and Nick are all riding on a motorcycle together when Charlie appears in the chat and predicts that the entire group will be killed in three seconds. Sure enough, another player takes them all out within seconds, highlighting just how hilariously bad at the game the squad is.
- If you prefer to start the series from the point after Nick was fired, the birth of the wiggle squad counts as this, occurring only two episodes after his departure and perfectly demonstrating the funny, collaborative, good-natured vibe of the stream.note
- The Good Guys Always Win: Inverted. The squad is pretty bad at the game, so victories are rare (though they have happened).
- In-Series Nickname: Like other PUBG players, the squad calls the blue wall Josh. The red zone is Drake, the p'zone, or, thanks to Russ' colorblind settings, the yellow pepperoni.
- Justin nicknames each iteration of his player character as he gets new outfits. First was New Money (red parka), then Uncle Doug (tracksuit), then Disney Dad (polo shirt).
- The game itself is often called Public G, Public Grounds, or Brendan's Battlegrounds by the players.
- Iconic Outfit: Griffin's character's bright yellow "banana suit".
- Limited Wardrobe: Russ changes his character's look much less frequently than the other cast members, and when he does switch outfits, that becomes his new default. He further limits the wardrobe by never letting his character wear pants.
- Not Using the "Z" Word: In one game, Griffin demands that zombies are referred to using any term except zombie. "Zeds" and "Ghouls" are used.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In the episode after Nick was fired for sexual harassment, the normally light-hearted introductory banter is replaced by Griffin very seriously addressing what happened.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Most zombies are dangerous, but a few are friendly. The good zombies perform a wiggling dance, hence their name "wigglers".
- Pretend We're Dead: Cast members will occasionally try this. It doesn't work.
- Running Gag: Parm. explanation
- Justin's Quest Bar.
- For a long time, Justunes, Justin's acoustic guitar covers of songs that he'd play if his character died before the rest of the squad. This particular running gag was formally banned by Russ after fans complained that it made it impossible to understand what anyone was saying.
- Self-Deprecation: It's right there in the name of the stream.
- Signature Laugh: Simone has a very distinctive cackle.
- Shout-Out: In one episode, the cast must say "Bazinga" every time they shoot a gun.
- Showdown at High Noon: High noon at Pochinki.
- Stuff Blowing Up: This is the sole purpose of the "Carmageddon" custom game (not to be confused with the other Carmageddon).
