Higgins: Clandestine Administration and Oversight Services, or as we like to affectionately refer to it around here, CHAOS.
Not to be confused with Order vs. Chaos.
CHAOS was a Dramedy which premiered on Friday, April 1st, 2011 on CBS, replacing The Defenders mid-season. It follows the adventures of Rick Martinez (Freddy Rodriguez), a news agent who aspires to join the CIA as a spy. However, Martinez discovers that the position he has applied for is no longer available, because the department offering it has been closed due to budget cuts. He is instead made an in-house mole for the ODS (Office of Disruptive Services).
The show makes use of an elite four-man team; featuring:
- Michael Dorset (Eric Close) as The Properly Paranoid Leader
- Casey Malick (Tim Blake Nelson) as The Cynic and The One-Man Army
- Billy Collins (James Murray) as The Scottish Mr. Exposition
- Rick Martinez as the Naive, Newcoming Straight Man
The show ended on July 16th, 2011, having aired only three episodes on CBS, the rest being aired by Netflix.
This show provides examples of:
- Badass in a Nice Suit: Malick, showing off crazy martial arts skills, often resulting in him becoming a One-Man Army.
- Blatant Lies: Very often; an integral part of spywork.
- Break Them by Talking: Martinez does when he discovers the position he has applied for is no longer available, because the department offering it has been closed due to budget cuts. He also frequently does this with assets.
- The Charmer: Collins, through and through.
- Classified Information: Well, it is a spy show.
- The Comically Serious: Malick.
- The Cynic: Dorset, who is jaded, frequently skeptical, and sometimes downright paranoid. Malick often shares his cynicism.
- Dirty Communists: Can't have a spy show without Russia, sometimes in conjunction with Iran
- Drives Like Crazy: During Chase Scenes
- Fun with Acronyms: Somehow "Clandestine Administration and Oversight Services" becomes CHAOS, despite the fact that the only "H" comes after the "A" and the "O"
- Hypocrite: Higgins, especially when berating Martinez for making a promise he can't keep, resulting in Higgins being unable to make a promise he couldn't have kept anyway.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: At one point, the enemy Mooks fail to even get a single round into the windscreen of an oncoming bus. A rich Russian unloads a full AK-47 magazine while shooting at a rabbit, hitting literally everything but his intended target.
- Let Me Get This Straight...: Any time someone comes up with a dubious plan.
- Mr. Exposition: Collins, for most of the series.
- Motor Mouth: Collins.
- Nice Guy: Martinez, which is why he is so often a pawn in the plans of others.
- One-Man Army: Malick, described by the entire team as a human weapon.
- Overt Operative: Most of the team; their cover is frequently blown.
- Properly Paranoid: Dorset.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Frequently.
- Seamless Spontaneous Lies: An integral part of many gambits.
- Separated by a Common Language: In "Mole", Collins calls one of their assets a "blighter", which speakers of the King's English see as fairly harmless, but the asset interprets it as a threat.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Carson for Martinez.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Higgins's response to most of the team's plans.
- TV Telephone Etiquette: Frequently done by many characters.
- Understatement: Collins is fond of these. In "Core Fortitude", Martinez is staring into the barrel of a tank when Collins remarks (from a safe distance): "I don't like his odds". Then the tank surrenders.
- Working with the Ex: Carson and Dorset.
Episodes of this series provide examples of:
- Batman Gambit: Happens often, frequently in resulting in a Gambit Pileup in the Pilot.
- Brick Joke: "Excuse me, sir, do you have a bridge?" Followed later by "Excuse me sir, do you have a longer bridge?" He eventually found one.
- Butt-Monkey: In the Pilot, Martinez is constantly the pawn in other people's plots, and often ends up looking the fool.
- Checkpoint Charlie: In "Song of the North", at the North Korean/Chinese Border.
- Chekhov's Gag: In "Two Percent", the words "adult toys".
- Chekhov's Skill: Pilot: Martinez mentions in his speech to Higgins that he can speak Arabic; and later in the episode, he's required to put it to use. In the "Love and Rockets", one character mentions that she's good with numbers, that she knows how do disable the security system.
- Department of Redundancy Department: "We made [Tear Down The Wall], and they tore down the wall..."
- Foreign Queasine: In a moment of badassery, Martinez eats an Emperor Scorpion in the Pilot.
- Gambit Pileup: Occurs frequently in the Pilot, with various operatives and departments working towards their own goals.
- The Guards Must Be Crazy: One character even flat out admits this; though it doesn't seem to compromise their performance when shit goes down.
- I Minored in Tropology: When proposing a plan relying on a cover as a lawyer, a character mentions that he graduated from Yale Law School.
- Moment Killer: In the very first episode, of all things.
- Naïve Newcomer: Martinez, in the Pilot.
- Narrating the Obvious: Higgins does this to Malick, who coolly replies: "Why are you telling me this? I know what happened; I was there."
- No Longer with Us: In the Pilot, it turns out that a character who "swallowed a bullet" literally swallowed a bullet, which got lodged in his lower intestine causing him to become septic.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: The opening sequence of the Pilot.
- The Spook: A terrorist financier in Hong Kong is described as such in "Two Percent"
- Shrouded in Myth: In "Two Percent", the terrorist financier is so elusive that many doubt his existence. No one even knows what he looks like.
- Suddenly Always Knew That: Malick, who states that he can remain in tightly enclosed spaces for 14+ hours.
- Turn Coat: Martinez in the Pilot.
- Unusual Euphemism: In "Two Percent", apparently "adult toys" mean "surveillance equipment". Becomes a Chekhov's Gag at the end of the episode.
- Wham Line: "So where is she now?".
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Collins does this in "Song of the North".
