Line #21 Series/LazyCompany


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lazycompany.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:[[RagtagBandOfMisfits The four main chuckleheads]]. From left to right, Corporal Niels, Sergeant Chester, Private Slice, and Private Henry.]]
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4	->'''[[NoIndoorVoice General Paxton]]:''' I don't know if you're aware of that, but there's a war on! [[ComicallyMissingThePoint We're not here to fool around with guns!]] You're a disgrace to the army. No, you're not even a disgrace, you're morons! That's it! Big ol' MORONS! ''You're'' a moron, ''you're'' a moron, and ''you're'' a moron!\
5	'''[[TheDitz Sergeant Chester]]:''' Which moron is he talking about? I lost track.\
6	'''[[TheRival Major Spring]]:''' He means you.\
7	'''General Paxton:''' [[BigShutUp SHUT UP!!]]
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9	''Lazy Company'' is a French series, created by Alexandre Philip and Samuel Bodin, broadcast on premium movie/series channel OCS Max. There are three seasons of 10 episodes (26 minutes) each.
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11	It's set in summer 1944 France, during the Battle of Normandy (except the first episode, which is before D-Day). While Easy Company is fighting their way through Nazi-infested Norman countryside, four losers are [[RagTagBunchOfMisfits banded together]] after a spectacular bungle and given the derisive nickname of "Lazy Company" (because "stupid clowns" company was tried and rejected).
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13	Sergeant Chester, Corporal Niels, and Privates Henry and [[OnlyOneName Slice]] subsequently proceed to alternate {{Epic Fail}}s and accidental victories, meet very strange people (including a Nazi SuperSoldier, a GlamorousWarTimeSinger, a... belligerent female member of LaResistance, a former German soldier turned CampCook...), and generally try to stay alive.
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15	----
16	!!''Lazy Company'' provides examples of:
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18	* AccidentalMisnaming: Unrelated characters sometimes call Sergeant Chester "Fletcher". He objects every time.
19	* AdolfHitlarious: The Lazy Company capture Hitler in mid-season 1 as he's picking up mushrooms in the woods, cut off the hair from his forehead (which reveals a genitals-shaped birth mark), and he's mocked at every turn. He fittingly becomes much darker in seasons 2 and 3.
20	* AllWomenAreLustful: General Margaret Sanders pinches and grabs Major Spring's butt every time she can. In Season 3 she's shown to enjoy sex a lot.
21	* AllMenArePerverts: Zig-zagged. Niels gleefully tries to seduce French girls, but his advances are constantly rebuffed, while Henry is a married virgin and has a lot of trouble ''not'' giving in to enthusiastic French girls.
22	* AmusingInjuries: Generally, when someone gets hurt, they're down for a little while... Except [[ButtMonkey Chester]], who is kneecapped (in both knees) and shot in the shoulder in the opening of Season 2, and is fine ten minutes later in the same episode. Nobody even mentions his wounds. PlayedForLaughs.
23	* AnachronismStew: Generally PlayedForLaughs, too. General Paxton calls Chester "ComicBook/LuckyLuke", and Series/{{MacGyver\|1985}} is mentioned at some point.
24	* AnyoneCanDie: [[spoiler:Isla, Das Nemesis, Henry, the Patriot, France]]... [[spoiler:Jessica, General Sanders, Dr Sheffield, Chuck, Hitler and Niels]] die in the last two episodes alone]].
25	* ApologeticAttacker: [[spoiler:Chuck]], holding Helmut at gun point: "Now I'm sorry, but I have to kill you. Well -- when I say "I'm sorry", [[SubvertedTrope I don't mean it, it's just a phrase]]."
26	* TheBerserker: France after Henry is wounded in "Alamo". With a machine gun. "NOBODY OCCUPIES ME!"
27	* BittersweetEnding: The finale of the series. [[spoiler:Niels kills Hitler and stops Operation Blauer Wind from happening, but dies in a HeroicSacrifice, breaking Jeanne's heart; Slice and her son are alive, but Jeff is going to have to live with his actions; Chester is badly wounded and Jessica is dead; Spring is possibly immortal but missing a foot now on top of the eye and hand he already lost. And presumably they're still on the run from the OSS]].
28	* BoldlyComing: Niels' idea of liberation is to sleep with all the pretty French women he can find. Not that he's very successful.
29	* BoomHeadshot: How [[spoiler:Henry]] and later [[spoiler:Chuck]] die.
30	* {{Catchphrase}}: Chester's "[[OhCrap MERDE!]]", whenever he steps on a land mine.
31	* TheCavalry: The Résistance girls swoop in with munitions when the guys run out. Then ''they'' run out of munitions as well.
32	* CerebusRollercoaster: The series' tone is comedic in the first season with some emotional sucker punches; the second season alternates hilarity and drama. The third and final season is DarkerAndEdgier as a whole, but there's still some pretty hilarious moments.
33	* ChekhovsSkill:
34	** Charlie's Hitler impersonation, a minor gag in episode 2, is a major plot point in episode 10.
35	** In the beginning of season 1, Henry mentions he can do a 11.7 seconds 100-metre run. It comes up again (as an episode TitleDrop, no less) during [[spoiler:Niels' and Jeanne's wedding]] when he volunteers to run back to camp to get the rings.
36	* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Niels, with his SkewedPriorities, and Chester, to some extent.
37	* TheComicallySerious: General Paxton, and his long-suffering aide, Chuck. You can count the times when they crack a smile on one hand.
38	* DarkestHour:
39	** The end of episode 7, "Counter-attack". [[spoiler:Isla tortures and captures Niels, while Chester finds Captain/Patriot and Slice seriously wounded and [[{{Determinator}} brings both back to camp]].]]
40	** In the last minutes of "L'aigle noir" (episode 9) things look pretty darn hopeless, too. [[spoiler:Chuck reveals himself as the mole, shoot General Paxton and Major Spring, tortures Helmut, and Camp Neptune is his and his men's. Meanwhile, Isla activates the bomb that was planted in her body. Cut to black]]. And that's just for the first season.
41	* DeadpanSnarker: Chester and Major Spring, who engage in SnarkToSnarkCombat when they're not at each other's throats (literally).
42	* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Chester's misogyny. His song in the MusicalEpisode is about women being useless and dumb. [[spoiler:Slice is not amused.]]
43	* DidYouJustHaveSex: Louise can tell almost instantly that Henry is not a virgin anymore, because he is "a little taller, and less honest".
44	* DiggingYourselfDeeper: Chester, being interrogated by Lieutenant Erica, ends up bringing up the army's equivalent to CastingCouch and implying that she slept her way into her rank.
45	* FirstEpisodeTwist: Well, Fourth Episode Twist: [[spoiler:Slice]] is a woman.
46	* FormulaBreakingEpisode: "La Normandie du bonheur", in the first season, is a MusicalEpisode; in season two, "Petits Secrets" is in black and white and a {{Homage}} to old horror movies.
47	* GenderReveal: [[spoiler:Slice, played by male actor Benoît Moret]], is a woman, despite looking exactly like a man (except for the groin area, judging by the ReactionShot). Played for laughs with a dose of YouNeverAsked. Everybody takes it in stride except [[HeManWomanHater Sergeant]] [[StrawMisogynist Chester]], for whom it's more an UnsettlingGenderReveal.
48	* GilliganCut: When everyone stops to relieve themselves in "L'aigle noir", Chester orders Henry to help a handcuffed [[spoiler:Hitler]] to pee. Henry vehemently refuses. The next frame shows him holding [[spoiler:Hitler]]'s penis, stone-faced.
49	* GlobalIgnorance: No, Chester, UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill is not a chocolate maker.
50	* TheGuardsMustBeCrazy: Subverted. The medic tries to sneak up to the German guarding the radio to pour a sedative into his cup of coffee. The guard notices, and the medic keeps pouring, while denying he's doing it. Then Helmut knocks the guard out with a ladle.
51	* HandicappedBadass: Downplayed with Niels, who like his actor has congenital agenesis (underdevelopment) of his arms, but it doesn't factor into his being badass or not.
52	* HighHeelFaceTurn: Attempted by Niels with Isla. It doesn't end well.
53	* HistoricalDomainCharacter: UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill, UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler and [[UsefulNotes/CharlesDeGaulle General De Gaulle]] make cameos.
54	* HistoricalInJoke: Helmut "invents" the hamburger, remarking that it's a Hamburg recipe.
55	* HowWeGotHere: Season 2 opens with the guys getting ready for Niels' wedding, with no indication as to who the bride is, then segues into what happened immediately after the season 1 finale. The wedding itself happens in the last episode of season 2, the bride being [[spoiler:la Jeanne]].
56	* JustAStupidAccent: Everybody speaks French. The Germans have German accents (some characters often step in WhatTheHellIsThatAccent territory, especially Helmut and Isla), and Winston Churchill sounds like a parody of Winston Churchill speaking French. RuleOfFunny applies with Charlie and [[spoiler:Hitashi the Japanese pilot]], who sometimes use PoirotSpeak but have no foreign accent at all.
57	* JustFollowingOrders: Repeatedly defied with a Nazi character whose shtick is "I'm just doing my job." The Allied characters systematically beat him up.
58	* LargeHam: General Paxton, DaChief with NoIndoorVoice.
59	* LethalChef: Downplayed with Chuck: his cooking isn't deadly, just bad. Thankfully Helmut took over the kitchens.
60	* LetsWaitAWhile: Spoofed with Henry and his wife, who decided to "wait" before having sex... even after their wedding.
61	* LovableCoward: Niels, who is determined to sit out the war, because it's dangerous business and he's there for the chicks. He fights anyway. This bite him in the arse in season 3, as he has a habit of not handling torture well and spilling the beans quickly enough.
62	* MadeOfIron: Chester, who keeps going whether his wounds are AmusingInjuries or not. Played for drama in the finale.
63	* {{Malaproper}}:
64	** Winston Churchill, speaking French with a very thick English accent (or [[JustAStupidAccent close enough]]) due to TranslationConvention, says "cou" (neck) instead of "cul" (arse).
65	** Dr Sheffield doesn't know how to work a radio, because he's "not a radiologist".
66	* ManipulativeBastard:
67	** [[spoiler:Chuck]], which is why nobody suspected he was the mole until it was too late.
68	** Hitler is a bit of a ButtMonkey in season 1, but is shown to be this in later seasons.
69	* NiceGuy: Jeff, the Patriot (and ComicBook/CaptainAmerica ersatz), is a genuinely kind-hearted guy, always polite and genial. (He's also [[GreenEyedMonster crazy jealous]]).
70	* TheNicknamer: Chester, who calls Isla "Snow White", Major Spring "Major Calvitie[[note]]Baldness[[/note]], Niels "Theatre/CyranoDeBergerac" (after a few jokes on his nose), [[spoiler:Das Nemesis "le Noiryen[[note]]noir (Black) + aryen (aryan)[[/note]]" because he's an African-American forced into fighting for the Nazis)]]...
71	* MusicalEpisode: Episode 6, "La Normandie du bonheur", a pun on "La mélodie du bonheur", the French title for ''Film/TheSoundOfMusic''.
72	* NakedFirstImpression: Ants crawling into Niels' uniform make him tear his shirt off. Cue "la Jeanne", who holds him at gunpoint and calls him a pervert. Her opinion doesn't change for most of the season, and she keeps calling him "[[FunetikAksent parvart]]" even during [[spoiler:their wedding]].
73	* NothingIsTheSameAnymore: After [[spoiler:Henry's murder]] in the season 2 finale, the Lazy is disbanded and Slice, Helmut and Niels leave the army altogether.
74	* NotSoAboveItAll: Combined with EvilFeelsGood when [[spoiler:Chuck]] giddily announces, "Holy crap, this feels good! I mean, I was trained not to feel a single emotion, but this feels totally awesome!" when he shoots [[spoiler:General Paxton]]. Twice. And another couple of times.
75	* NowWhat: Niels in "L'aigle noir" points out, "Okay, [[spoiler:we captured Hitler]]. Now what do we do?"
76	* PerpSweating: Lieutenant Erika of the Military Police, looking for the mole. It works too well on Henry, who is so terrified that what little he says is completely useless.
77	* RagTagBunchOfMisfits: Lazy Company is comprised of a spectacularly unlucky sergeant, a LovableSexManiac corporal, a BlindWithoutEm [[TheIngenue ingénue]] and an escapee from an asylum who is probably the OnlySaneMan of the bunch.
78	* ReallyDeadMontage:
79	** [[spoiler:Jeff, the Patriot, in "Tic tac"]]. Each character has a flashback while they carry or walk behind the coffin.
80	** Subverted in season 3 with [[spoiler:Major Spring]], whose death turns out to be a DisneyDeath.
81	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: General Paxton is ''very'' fond of giving those to anyone under his command.
82	* RedHerring:
83	** When [[spoiler:Chuck]] reveals that he's the mole and has sleeper agents inside the camp, the camera cuts to Helmut the German cook. [[spoiler:Then one of the three guys he's giving food to thanks him in German, and they open their uniforms to reveal Werhmacht ones underneath and hold everyone at gun point.]]
84	** In a few episodes of season 3, viewers and characters both are led to believe Chester is going to have to make a HeroicSacrifice to end things. [[spoiler:He steps on a landmine at the last moment, and it's Niels who ends up doing the aforementioned HeroicSacrifice]].
85	* RuleOfFunny: Most of the series runs on this. Things like [[spoiler:a Japanese kamikaze crash-landing in Normandy]] or [[spoiler:Hitler strolling through the nearby woods, picking mushrooms and getting captured]] should be absolutely impossible.
86	* RunningGag: Poor Chester steps on a mine every two episodes in season 1. At some point both his feet are on land mines. He always comes out all right. It becomes a ''lot'' less funny in the series' finale when this keeps him from [[spoiler:making a HeroicSacrifice which Niels ends up making]].
87	* SexlessMarriage: Henry and his wife back home.
88	* ShipperOnDeck: Niels does everything he can to get Henry and France to finally sleep together.
89	* ShoutOut:
90	** Quite a lot, the series being a parody of works set in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, like ''Series/BandOfBrothers'', ''[[Film/The7thCompany La 7ème Compagnie]]'' (already a comedy), or ''Film/InglouriousBasterds''.
91	** Episode 5 is called "[[Film/TheAlamo1960 Alamo]]".
92	** In Episode 8 ("Trou normand"), Hitashi tells the Nazis (in Japanese), "[[Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar You don't know it yet, but you are already dead.]]"
93	* SmugSnake:
94	** Major Spring, who lords his victories over Chester.
95	** And [[spoiler:Chuck, once he's revealed as the mole]].
96	* SpringtimeForHitler: During Major Spring's stint as general, he sends Lazy Company on a suicide mission; meanwhile, US planes are set to flatten the enemy air base. Unfortunately, a mysterious mole has sabotaged the planes, meaning that even if Lazy did survive, they would have no air support. They survive anyway, and even bring back the plans of the aforementioned secret base.
97	* TakeOurWordForIt: We never see exactly how Chester doesn't get blown up every time he steps on a land mine, but it sounds awesome.
98	* TakingTheBullet : [[spoiler:Isla]] ends up doing this for [[spoiler:Slice]], showing that she isn't totally devoid of feeling, as she claimed.
99	* ThoseWackyNazis: Wackier than most while still being very serious threats.
100	* TykeBomb:
101	** Project Adlerlager was taking 22 infants and brainwash them into becoming assassins who could murder someone with just a pen. [[spoiler:Chuck and Isla are part of the 22, and Das Nemesis became the 23rd because he was in love with Hitler's sister Sandrine.]]
102	** Jeffrey, [[spoiler:Slice's and Helmut's]] son, has telekinetic powers and looks like a 17 or 18-year-old two months after his birth. [[spoiler:Hitler takes advantage of his resentment and tries to groom him to kill people]].
103	* WhamLine:
104	** "You're gonna be a mum!"
105	** The reveal of TheMole:
106	--->'''Paxton:''' Why is [the radioman] dead? He was perfectly fine ten seconds ago!\
107	'''[[spoiler:Chuck]]:''' Because I killed him with his own knife, General.
108	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Henry's wife is last mentioned when France lets him down gently in the end of season 1 and never brought up again, even after [[spoiler:Henry's death]].
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110	->''click''\
111	"'''[[OhCrap MERDE!]]''' '''''[[RageAgainstTheHeavens MAIS POURQUOI!!]]'''''"

Context Series / LazyCompany