Batman Gambit / Live-Action TV

Batman Gambits in Live-Action TV series.

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• Played for Laughs on 30 Rock: Jack cracks a joke about Liz, who then hands him an envelope with the exact words of his joke written inside. Jack responds by handing her an envelope that says "You will hand me an envelope with my joke written on it."
• The Agency: In "Soft Kills", the CIA learns that a terrorist cell targetting the wives of American servicemen destined in Spain got vital info from a leak provided by the wife of a Spanish minister, who happens to be a hardcore anti-American journalist publishing all sorts of conspiracy theories against The War on Terror, has no interest whatsoever in telling them who was her intermediary, and they legally can do nothing to force her. So they sneak in her house and plain tell her that every single thing she wrote about them being torture-happy, power-hunger crazies who give no shits about international laws is true. She gives them everything they want right away.
• These fly left, right and center on Alias, but the characters most prone to them are villains Irina, Sloane, and Sark. In contrast, Jack prefers other plans mixed with his chessmaster skills.
• Used by "Boston" Rob Mariano on Season 7 of The Amazing Race, during the four pounds of meat Roadblock. After deciding that eating four pounds of meat was impossible, he quit the task and took the four-hour penalty. Since the penalty did not start until the next team showed up, he used that to his advantage, waiting for his own penalty to start before convincing two other teams to also quit the task, counting on their initial squeamishness at starting the task to cause them to follow his lead. Cue Evil Gloating about how he could not get eliminated that leg.
  • In Season 5, Chip & Kim built up Colin & Christie's egos and made them over-confident, trusting that any sort of struggle later would cause them to self-destruct. Earlier in the Season their plan was to encourage the rivalry between Colin and Mirna in order to get them to focus more on each other than the race, however Charla & Mirna got eliminated too quickly for this to come to fruition.
• Andor:
  • Luthen Rael, who is The Spymaster to the precursor of the Star Wars original trilogy's Rebel Alliance, pulls one on the entire Empire. Luthen realized almost from when Palpatine first seized power that Palpatine is a cruel and evil despot, and worse yet, is patient and clever enough to increase his authoritarian power and strip civil rights from society one step at the time, slowly enough that most people don't realize what is happening. Luthen counteracts this by staging attacks against the Empire, both with the rebel cell that he controls directly and by aiding other rebel/resistance movements in their own causes. Eventually, his cell stages a major and showy attack/heist directly on Imperial garrison because he knows that such an embarrassment and appearance of weakness is intolerable to an authoritarian ruler. Sure enough, in the wake of the attack the Empire abandons the prior approach of slowly consolidating absolute power and instead goes on a galaxy wide crackdown that begins shocking the population out of complacency and begins swinging public opinion away from the Empire and feeding into the growing rebellion.
  • Throughout season 1, there are multiple plans in motion to either capture or murder Cassian; all of these plans converge at the funeral of his adoptive mother, Maarva, as his enemies wait for him to show up so they can go after him. Cassian, however, torpedoes all of their plans by simply not showing up. Not only that, but Maarva then posthumously throws everything further to hell with a holographically-recorded speech encouraging the citizens of Ferrix to rise up against The Empire. As the funeral descends into a chaotic riot, Cassian executes his own plan to rescue Bix Caleen from captivity; with everyone caught in the riot, he walks into the prison and walks out with Bix virtually unopposed.
• The Andy Griffith Show was built around this trope. Usually involving Andy using the BMG to get people to solve their own problems/benefit themselves.
• Angel: Near the end of After the Fall, Angel, realizing that the Senior Partners need him alive for their plans, provokes Gunn into killing him, forcing the Partners to hit the Reset Button so that the Fall of Los Angeles never happened and bringing back everyone who died since then in the process, which is exactly what Angel expected them to do.
  • During "Not Fade Away", Angel entrusted a portion of his plan to Harmony because he knew she would betray him to the Senior Partners. He actually lied about his part in the plan, resulting in Hamilton being unable to prevent any of the planned assassinations.
    Angel: I knew you'd turn on me. I just didn't know when.
    Harmony: What do you mean you knew?
    Angel: Loyalty... really isn't high on your list.
• Used in the Ashes to Ashes (2008) episode "Traitor". Gene Hunt gives all the suspects a safety deposit box number, along with some bogus evidence. He instructs each person to safe guard their information. Gene then waits outside the post office with his DI - Alex Drake - and arrests the traitor's correspondent as he leaves. Gene then proceeds inside to find that the locker missing evidence was entrusted to DC Chris Skelton.
• Babylon 5:
  • Michael Garibaldi never starts a conversation before first figuring out where it'll lead. As an inversion, he also prepares a bonus for those who manage to positively surprise him (or, if he wants to help the other person, simply for not disappointing him). The implications of having such a mind is lampshaded by Byron when he mocks Garibaldi by pointing out what a sad, lonely life he must lead.
  • Sheridan also performs one in "Rumors, Bargains and Lies". The League of Non-Aligned Worlds are rebuffing his attempts to set up a border patrol system, seeing ulterior motives where there aren't any. He provides them with plenty of Paranoia Fuel via Ivanova's completely truthful Suspiciously Specific Denial. By the end of the episode, they're demanding to be protected by the White Star Fleet.
  • Going back to season 3, Nightwatch seems on the verge of taking over the station. Zack informs the leader of a bunch of Narns coming in supposedly to replace them: the smoking gun they've needed to arrest Sheridan for sedition. So every able hand is summoned to the docking bay to capture the evidence. Only there is no evidence. Sheridan had known they couldn't pass up such a prospect, and it helps to have a Fake Defector to lead most of Nightwatch into your well-laid PPG-proof trap.
    • Even better, the General telling Sheridan these orders has this type of gambit in mind by telling Sheridan to look upon this as an opportunity not a burden because the orders for Nightwatch taking over security came from a civilian agency not the President and through the chain of command. Civilians cannot give orders to the military. Only downside is he had to say this covertly as the line wasn't secure.
    • Oh, and that supposed smoking gun? That ended up happening specifically BECAUSE the Nightwatch personnel fell for the gambit.
• Bar Rescue: After John Taffer analyzes the ownership of each failing bar, his plan for the initial recon relies on the management and staff doing what he expects them to do because they are failing. An example of this is calling a server at Pat's Cocktails and telling her to pour free drinks because the owner won't stop her from doing so. The owner finds out only when Taffer revealed his plan and the owner screams at Taffer for setting him up.
• Better Call Saul: Zig-Zagged with Chuck's plot to get Jimmy disbarred. Chuck secretly records Jimmy admitting to forgery. Despite the fact that the tape is inadmissible in court, he purposefully leaks its existence to him, assuming that Jimmy will then break into his house and destroy the tape. The wrinkle is that Chuck assumes that Jimmy is acting out of self-preservation and will therefore stealthily sneak in in the dead of night. In reality, Chuck wildly underestimates Jimmy's emotional connection to him; Jimmy is so enraged by his brother's betrayal that he just kicks the door down in broad daylight and pries his desk open with a fire iron, all the while verbally tearing Chuck a new asshole. Of course, that works even better for Chuck's purposes.
• The Big Bang Theory:
  • The episode "The Creepy Candy Coating Corollary" has Wil Wheaton pull off one of these, to win a card game against Sheldon.
  • Later Wil returns as a member of a rival bowling team. He talks Penny into dumping Leonard during a vital tournament. Penny leaves in tears, Sheldon's team is disqualified and Wil Wheaton is cemented as the Magnificent Bastard of the series.
    Wil: You don't really think I'd break up a couple just to win a bowling match, do you?
    Sheldon: No, I guess not.
    Wil: [grins] Good. Keep thinking that.
• Blackadder regularly pulls these off, mostly thanks to being the Only Sane Man Surrounded by Idiots.
• In Black Sails, Flint has been deposed as captain, and Dufresne, the quartermaster, has taken command. Flint advises that Dufresne avoid taking a path through a shipping route, where they're likely to run into a merchant vessel, saying the crew will want to take the prize, but their numbers are too depleted (thanks to Flint!). Dufresne smells a trick, but fails to see what it is, as he decides to do exactly the opposite of what Flint said. They try to take a ship, but it goes very badly, Flint jumps in and gives instructions which salvage the situation somewhat and lets them get away with their ship and their lives, and the crew ends up voting him back in. Dufresne realizes afterward how Flint manipulated him into it, but at that point there's precious little he can do about it.
  • Happens to Dufresne again thanks to Billy Bones. After Billy rejoins Flint's crew, Defresne believing that Flint tried to kill Billy when he went overboard and got lost at sea, believes he found a strong ally and tries to win him to his side against Flint. Bones plays along, even telling Dufresne about a pardon letter he got from the British Captain who captured him if he and 9 other pirates capture Flint and turn him in for a public execution. Dufresne eagerly gets 8 others and meets Billy to plan the kidnapping of Flint. Billy Bones shows up with many members of the Walrus, revealing that he used Defresne to expose the remaining enemies among Flint's crew. He makes clear that he won't let anyone challenge Flint, because he's the only man able to unite all the pirates against the British Navy planning to wipe out all the pirates that he witnessed while captured. Defresne leaves the Walrus afterwards, but his hatred towards Flint grows.
• Blake's 7.
  • In "Weapon", it's revealed that the Terran Federation has a profession called a psychostrategist whose entire job is to work out these. Unfortunately a minor but essential piece of information isn't reported to him and the entire plan collapses. Thanks to his skill the psychostrategist realizes in advance this will happen and flees before the inevitable punishment.
  • Also happens in the appropriately named episode "Gambit". That plan also fails due to unforeseen circumstances.
• Walt does this throughout Breaking Bad and he continually gets better at stringing together assassination plans and manipulating those around him as the show progresses. Eventually, he pulls off a huge gambit in the season 4 finale where he manages to kill Gus Fring. The plan relies on three assumptions: that Hector Salamanca hates Gus more than he hates Walter, that he's willing to die to get revenge on Gus, and that Gus would want to kill Hector personally if he thinks Hector ratted on him to the DEA. Walter is right on all three counts, and Gus is killed by a suicide bomb Walter puts in Hector's wheelchair.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Spike uses this to good effect in the episode "The Yoko Factor". Knowing the personalities and temperament of each character, he casually plants information with each of them to turn them on each other. He does it in a way that's particularly ingenious: he relies on their own expectations of him to lead the characters into "discovering" the false rumors for themselves... so that each of them thinks it was their own idea.
  • Giles pulls one on Buffy in "Faith, Hope & Trick" to get her to reveal what happened when she killed Angel back in "Becoming, Part 2". By asking her under the pretext of needing information to create a binding spell to prevent Acathla from being re-awakened, Giles eventually gets her to admit the painful truth without questioning his motives in asking.
    Willow:...I really could help with that binding spell.
    Giles: There is no spell.
  • Giles in Season 6. The magic Willow stole from him tapped into what humanity was left in her. As a result Willow senses the pain of all human beings. And her reaction is to try to wipe out all life on Earth. However, this also gives Xander the opportunity to get through to her and talk her down.
• A standard of many spy stories. There was a top quote from an episode of Burn Notice that featured Michael Westen on the unfortunate receiving end of a gambit by a rival spy. This required him to formulate his own gambit to counter how effective the first gambit was. As for Michael himself, despite not having personally killed anyone since the first episode, he's indirectly responsible for 90% of the deaths on the show. Another quote from the show:
  Michael: [voice-over] In the spy game you spend a lot of time getting people to betray their own. Most do it for money, some do it for spite. But the greatest achievement is to get a guy to turn on his own people because he thinks he's being loyal.
• Casey Jones:
  • In "The Dutch Clock," a series of line side fires at a farmer's property sees the Midwest and Central Railroad sued for damages, as the fires coincidentally started when the Cannonball passed by each time at high speeds, with two instances showing them attempting to make up lost time after a delay. Casey is suspended until the matter is settled, but he's a bit too suspicious about the whole thing, especially seeing as the lawyer in charge of the suit happens to always be at the scene of the fires. So, when the lawyer's son is visiting the family home, Casey deliberately tells everyone in the room his plan to steal the Cannonball later that evening and take her out for a run to prove he didn't start those fires, knowing full well the boy would tell his father. After a subtle warning not to take things any further by the lawyer, Casey spends all day constructing himself a spark arrestor, then takes his train out for an evening run with the arrestor installed in the smokestack. Sure enough, a fire starts out at the farmer's barn, and the lawyer is waiting for him at the station with the Sheriff and the railroad president...just as Casey had hoped. With all parties present, he dips a batch of straw into the stack and reveals his arrestor's existence, thus proving the fires were deliberately set. The lawyer is quickly ratted out on, and he admits he was having the fires set as part of a get-rich-quick scheme.
  • In "Hard Luck Train," Casey returns from vacation to learn his old friend Earl Bonner, whom he had left in charge of the Cannonball, was being suspected of robbery of oil drilling equipment during his runs, as he had previously stolen and sold such equipment prior to his employment with the railroad. Bonner is placed on suspension, and with the equipment continuously stolen, even with Casey at the throttle, the supplier decides to pull out and the insurance company suspends the railroad's coverage. Despite being told by Mr. Carter to leave the matter be, Casey again suspects foul play, and lays out a trap. Using some of his pull as a railroad engineer to convince Mr. Carter to take one more shipment of drilling equipment on board, then using $50 to pay a local man whom Casey knows is in on the robberies to rob the train, Casey's train is robbed sure enough because of a double cross. Casey suspected such a ploy would happen, so with Bonner in tow, catches the thieves and manages to lead them to their boss, the drilling equipment supplier, who was stealing his own tools so he could sell them on the black market and getting double profit from the insurance company.
• El Caso:
  • The case of the fifth episode is one pulled on the journalists by López-Dóriga and Camacho. They let the El Caso reporters discover the truth about the victims, only to seize the entire print run and use it to coerce the Americans into accepting a deal with Spain.
  • On a smaller scale, Germán also pulls one off with his boxing match on Episode 6. "The Old Man" had paid him to throw the fight against Nuño, so he spreads the word of the fix and then, when everyone starts betting for Nuño as Germán expected, he uses the money he had been paid to bet for himself, and with the gains, return to "the Old Man" the money and give some to Nuño so that he can leave the city for a while, since he feels things are getting dangerous for him.
• Chuck: In "Chuck Vs The Suitcase", The Villain of the Week Sofia knows that spies are after the Smart Bullet Clip she's smuggling, so she puts a Time Bomb in her purse and allows them to steal it, almost killing the protagonists.
• Columbo is a master of this, often using it to get the villain of the week to incriminate themselves.
  • An example from an early episode sees Columbo trying to catch a doctor who had murdered his wife, and given himself a perfect alibi by persuading his mistress to disguise herself as the wife, making it look like she was elsewhere at the time of the murder. With no evidence, Columbo's only chance to catch him is to persuade the mistress to admit the truth of her part in the plan. He does this by turning the doctor's scheme against him: He hires a actress to dress up as the mistress, who then stages her own suicide. When the doctor sees the scene, believing all ties to the murder are gone, he callously admits to Columbo he was just using her for his scheme... and his mistress is right behind him, hearing the truth and ready to turn him in.
  • In "Death Lends A Hand", Columbo informs Brimmer (and her husband) about Lenore's body missing a contact lens, and that if the Police can find it, it'll be a link to the crime scene, leading the Killer to break into a garage and search the car that moved the body for it, which gets him busted by Columbo and other police, lying in wait for him to do just that. The kicker? She DID have both lenses on her at the time, and Columbo merely lied to them and them alone and PLANTED the contact lens in the trunk in order to prove Brimmer considered it another loose end to take care of, greatly incriminating him.
• Abed from Community, thanks to his Genre Savvy-ness and prophetic ability to predict the action of those around him will occasionally pull this off. A prime example he was able to manipulate both Jeff's Team Dad and Britta's Team Mom instincts in order to finish a student film.
  • Jeff has similarly done this on occasion. A notable example is when he recognizes that Britta's "strength potion" when they are playing a game is actually poison. As the rest of the group is losing their fight, he tells her to drink it, knowing that the Big Bad will kill her and drink it instead.
• Happens quite frequently on Corner Gas, occasionally resulting in a Gambit Pileup, although they are probably for the most mundane things on this list, like not owing someone a favor, and most of the humor comes from how well (or not) the characters are able to pull off the gambit, but that shouldn't be surprising given the sitcom's premise.
• At the very least played with in Desperate Housewives, when Angie is forced to make a bomb for her terrorist ex-lover. When he tells her he planted the bomb in the house to kill the son she took from him, she runs, seemingly to try and save his life. In reality, she was just getting a safe distance, because unbeknownst to the ex-lover, the bomb was in the remote he was holding.
• Dexter
  • Dexter Morgan
    • He tells Oliver Saxon he will kill him with the pen on his desk when he comes to perform a GSR test on him. Oliver grabs the pen and stabs him with it, but misses and lodges it in his shoulder; Dexter seizes the opportunity to overpower him, grab the pen, and lodge it in his neck, thereby allowing Dexter to argue for self defence.
    • Also finally nabs Little Chino by accurately predicting that Chino will try to kill the child informant who ratted out his gang.
• Doctor Who:
  • The First Doctor deliberately lets the villains capture and drain his life energy from him in "The Savages", knowing all of it would be transferred into the Noble Demon head elder Jano (who would take the risk himself rather than risking anyone else's life on an experimental procedure), and knowing that allowing Jano to steal his knowledge would also lead to him developing the Doctor's moral understanding that the planet's underclass deserve to be treated the same as anyone else. This causes Jano to work as an ally for him and to the savages, and is the only way their victory is possible.
  • The Seventh Doctor is a master Chessmaster setting up all the pieces and having his enemies and friends effortlessly go where he wants them to go in order to save the day... at first glance. However, many of the TV stories involving this aspect of his character end up revolving around the sudden realisation that something is happening that he didn't actually plan for (such as two factions of Daleks seeking out the Hand of Omega rather than one), or someone does something that he didn't expect, necessitating a frantic run-around as he desperately tries to improvise some stop-gap solution to get things back on track.
    The Doctor: Ace, do you have any of that nitro-9 I told you not to bring with you?
    Ace: Yes.
    The Doctor: Good girl.
  • "Dalek": The title character pulls a very simple one to get a hold of its situation. When Rose and Adam come down to the cage where the Dalek is being kept, she reveals she's the Doctor's companion, but also makes it clear she has no idea what a Dalek is. The Dalek, needing energy from a time traveller to restore itself, promptly tricks her into touching it, allowing it to escape the cage.
  • "Boom Town": Blon Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen's Evil Plan to get off Earth requires several unlikely outcomes to occur:
    • She is elected mayor of Cardiff, allowing her to start work on a nuclear power plant intended to be built atop the Negative Space Wedgie running through town, which is designed to fail and tear open the Rift, destroying the planet and powering her getaway vehicle.
    • Everyone who finds out the truth about her nuclear power project will come to her first, since as the decision maker she's the logical choice to tell, letting her ensure their "accidental" deaths.
    • Any potential captors with advanced technology will be "captivated" by the tribophysical waveform extrapolator she intends to use as her getaway vehicle. The extrapolator is programmed so, if she has to go to Plan B, it will latch onto said advanced tech and drain it to open the Rift and power itself.
    • That she has a hostage or is otherwise able to get the extrapolator between the Rift opening and the planet exploding. It's at this stage that her plan fails, as the TARDIS is both sentient and far beyond any kind of technology Blon is familiar with. The Rift is opened, but the Earth is not destroyed and Blon is reverted into an egg by looking into the Heart of the TARDIS.
  • The Tenth Doctor is pretty fond of this — feigning ignorance and getting himself captured so he can be brought face to face with the bad guy of the week. Nine plays around with it too — "I'm really glad that worked. Those would have been terrible last words."
  • "Last of the Time Lords": The Doctor's plan to defeat the Master. He has Martha Walk the Earth to tell people about him, as part of a plan to turn the Master's psychic brainwashing satellites against him. Meanwhile, on board the Valiant, he's implied to have staged several deliberately unsuccessful escapes in order to distract the Master so he won't realize the Doctor has a larger plan in mind, including the one at the beginning of the episode. The Doctor also knows that the Master can't resist a ticking clock, and will be ready to begin his plans to conquer the universe after one year. At the end of that year, Martha returns to Britain and tells one of the Master's spies that she's looking for the final part of an anti-regenerative weapon that can kill him once and for all. The weapon is actually fake, as the entire point of that was to get her back on the Valiant. The Master's countdown is the signal for the people of Earth to all think of the Doctor, temporarily giving him superpowers that allow him to own the Master within a minute. The Doctor is then able to talk down the Master from blowing up the Earth with the engines of the fleet he had built by coolly pointing out that the Master is incapable of killing himself.
  • "Planet of the Ood": The "hair tonic" Corrupt Corporate Executive Mr. Halpen is drinking turns out to be a plot by Ood Sigma, who was counting on the dual factors of Halpen's concern about his baldness and the status of the Ood as Beneath Notice to blind him to the possibility that the tonic was anything other than what it appeared to be. The tonic is actually Ood graft that turns him into one of the Ood.
  • In "Journey's End", the Tenth Doctor is taken to task by Davros for doing precisely this. Davros points out to the Doctor that he makes a big point of how pacifistic he is, while at the same time manipulatively turning those around him into the kind of people who will blow up their own planet to stop an invasion.
  • Twice in series 5, the freakin' Daleks pull one on the Doctor.
    • First, in "Victory of the Daleks", they let him declare himself as the Doctor and identify his enemies. This was exactly what the Daleks wanted, as their Progenitor wouldn't recognize their spoiled DNA. They needed their oldest and most powerful enemy to tell the Progenitor who they were, setting off the creation of a new bigger, badder, and technicolour Dalek race. Nice Job Breaking It, Hero...
    • Then, in "The Pandorica Opens": the alliance of the Doctor's enemies sets up the message that "the Pandorica is opening", so that the Doctor will arrive to find and stop the Sealed Evil in a Can inside. Of course there's actually nothing inside, they just wanted the Doctor to show up so they could seal him.
  • "Amy's Choice": Given the Dream Lord's true nature as the manifestation of the Doctor's darker nature, and that the Doctor wants Amy and Rory to stay together, it turns out that his true purpose is to get Amy and Rory to sort out their relationship.
  • "Day of the Moon": The Doctor defeats the Silence by scattering his allies, building a prison and cloaking the TARDIS, all to get a Silent to say one phrase.
  • "The Doctor's Wife": The Doctor tricks House (no, not that one), who has taken control of the TARDIS, into deleting the room the heroes are in, killing them before they can get to the main control room to regain control. The Doctor failed to mention the safety protocols that automatically teleport anyone in a deleted room to the safest place in the TARDIS... the main control room.
  • "Asylum of the Daleks": When the Doctor, Amy and Rory are transported to the Dalek asylum planet, they're fitted with bracelets that will ward off the nano-bots in the atmosphere that would otherwise convert them into Dalek slaves. Unfortunately, Amy loses her bracelet and she is infected by the nano-bots. At one point, while the Doctor attempts to rescue Oswin from the Daleks, he leaves Rory to look after Amy and get her to remember her love for Rory in order to fight the nano-bots. This was ultimately a ruse as the Doctor had slipped his bracelet onto Amy's wrist, believing that his Time Lord physiology could fight off the nano-bots; his real goal was to get Amy and Rory to talk about the reasons they were divorcing. By the end of the episode, the divorce papers (which they never actually filed) were forgotten.
  • The entire plot of "The Day of the Doctor" is one of these, orchestrated by the Moment as a way to get Ten, Eleven, and the War Doctor to solve the seemingly unsolvable problem of ending the Time War without destroying Gallifrey.
  • "Face the Raven": The immortal Ashildr orchestrates one, at the behest of her mysterious backers, to lure the Doctor to the hidden "trap street" she rules, and then separate him from his TARDIS key and confession dial, before slapping a teleport bracelet on him to whisk him off to parts unknown. The plan involves framing Rigsy, an acquaintance of the Doctor's, for murder, wiping his memory and giving him a mysterious tattoo consisting of numbers counting down, knowing he'll call the Doctor and Clara for help, and that the Doctor can't resist a mystery. It goes almost according to plan, but for one tragic hiccup: Ashildr doesn't count on Clara taking on the tattoo, called a chronolock, in an attempt to buy them more time. This leads directly to Clara's death.
  • "Heaven Sent"/"Hell Bent" offers up an uber-example. Following the death of Clara, the Doctor is transported into a world created within a device called a confession dial. There he spends 4.5 billion years repeating the same few days over and over as he gradually chips away (literally) at a wall made of a substance 40 times harder than diamond with his fists, as part of a master plan to return to his home planet, stage a coup against its leadership, and use Time Lord technology to prevent Clara's death.
  • "Spyfall": The companions are alone, without the Doctor and being hunted after having been framed for a crime. So Yaz makes a panicked phone call to her sister, knowing the Corrupt Corporate Executive villain's people will trace it. Meanwhile, Graham waits to ambush the thugs that show up with a pair of laser-gun shoes he got from MI6 earlier.
  • "Fugitive of the Judoon": The Ruth Doctor brings along a laser rifle to her confrontation with Commander Gat, betting that Gat will attempt to execute her with it. The gun has been recalibrated to vapourize the person who fires it.
  • "Can You Hear Me?": Zellin lures the Doctor to the space station where she can release Rakaya by attacking humans and transmitting a message where Rakaya seems to be asking for help because of him to Graham, since he cannot free her himself.
• Dollhouse: Specifically, the entire first season was one long Batman Gambit by Alpha to get inside the Dollhouse and recover Echo.
• Drake & Josh:
  • In "Peruvian Puff Pepper", after Megan enters Salsa Fest, she orders a secret ingredient from the secret service which Drake and Josh secretly take from her; the ingredient is revealed to be the Peruvian Puff Pepper, which they use for their salsa entry. The boys win first prize, but then Megan asks for their secret ingredient and they reveal the peppers, and they are eventually disqualified because the peppers were banned in North America for causing kidney failures and chapped lips, leaving Megan, who was the runner-up, to win in their place. Megan reveals she knew the peppers were illegal and tricked the boys into losing to her.
  • In "Megan's Revenge", Megan responds to her brothers seemingly killing her pet hamster by mistake by simply acting calm and unfazed, knowing that her brothers' paranoia over her usual elaborate pranks will result in them turning on and humiliating each other. She reveals the ploy at the end of the episode once Drake and Josh send each other through a floor and into the garage.
• In Elizabeth I (2005), Queen Elizabeth knew the Earl of Essex would betray her. Instead of locking him up, she relaxes the guard around him and does nothing. When he did try a coup under false pretenses, she was well prepared and it was clear to all England he was in the wrong.
• Firefly:
  • In "Objects in Space", River pulls one of these on Jubal Early, using both his insecurities and the rest of the crew to maneuver him into position to be ambushed by Mal. The only thing she didn't factor in was her brother's rather suicidal devotion to her.
  Mal: C'mon, you can yell at your brother for ruining your perfect plan.
  River: (sigh) He takes so much looking after.
  • They pull one on Saffron in "Trash". Figuring she'd find some way to con them out of something to keep the Lasseter for herself, they engineer a fight between Mal and Inara so that she leaves angrily for her "assignment" ... in reality parking herself close to the drop spot and ambushing Saffron when she comes to claim the gun.
• Forever (2014):
  • "Skinny Dipper" is the culmination of one by Adam. Knowing Henry will not willingly kill, Adam first gives Henry indisputable proof that Adam really is a fellow immortal, while not letting Henry see his face. He goes to elaborate lengths to convince Henry that a psychopathic mental patient is Adam, and convinces the other man that he's passed on his immortality to him, then sends him to confront Henry in his home. He times it so that Abe is out, leading Henry to near-panic at the thought of what "Adam" might have done to his elderly son, but Abe arrives home in the middle of the confrontation, putting Henry in immediate fear for his son's safety. Adam knows that if Henry thinks the man he is fighting is immortal, he'll be willing to kill him to get him out of the house and away from his son; Adam's ultimate goal is for Henry to kill a mortal, and Henry plays right into the plan.
  • Henry uses Adam's homicidal nature and inherent need to gloat to his advantage in "The Last Death of Henry Morgan." Henry arranges to meet Adam to hand over his dagger. He clearly knows Adam will likely kill him, possibly for good, since Abe is stationed by the river waiting for Henry to emerge, but is acutely anxious about whether he will. He also anticipates that Adam will make sure he doesn't die instantly, giving him a chance to lure him closer to gasp out what may be his last words. Sure enough, Adam leans closer to hear what Henry has to say, giving him a chance to use a syringe (presumably brought for the purpose) to inject an air embolism into the vessels feeding Adam's brainstem, causing in effect a stroke that results in Locked-In Syndrome, preventing Adam from killing himself and resurrecting in perfect health. Henry didn't know for certain he would survive the gambit, but clearly felt it would be worth it to neutralize Adam.
• In Frasier episode "The Apparent Trap", his and Lilith's son pulls one on them, by setting them up so that they would feel so bad about dashing his hopes they'd buy him his minibike. Lilith figures him out, though.
• In Friends when Phoebe is trying to choose between the names "Joey" or "Chandler" when naming the third triplet, and it looks like she'll go with "Joey", Chandler fakes a name-based existential crisis which tricks Phoebe into attempting to make him feel better about his name by naming the baby after him instead of Joey.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Tyrion Lannister is trying to find out which member of the Small Council is feeding the Queen Regent (his sister) info on him. He tells Pycelle, Varys and Littlefinger he needs their help to give away Princess Myrcella in an Arranged Marriage to secure allies, but tells each of them a different destination for her. He also tells them both to not say a word to Queen Cersei. When Cersei angrily confronts Tyrion about this later, he knows who spilled the beans.^note It was Pycelle. Even better, he tells his actual plan (to marry Myrcella to Trystane Martell) to Pycelle, whom he obviously suspects most of being Cersei's spy. And hilariously, Tyrion tells the most ridiculous version to Varys (that he plans to marry Myrcella to Theon Greyjoy), because Tyrion clearly suspects him the least. Varys, of course, sees through Tyrion's gambit immediately, but says nothing, due to their budding friendship (and also because he's almost certainly as interested as Tyrion in learning the identity of Cersei's spy).
  • Robb frees a Lannister scout and tells him his army is 1) larger than it is and 2) marching towards Lord Tywin instead of Jaime Lannister to fool the proud and proactive Lord Tywin into mistaking a diversion for Robb's main advance, allowing Robb to defeat and capture Jaime.
  • Daenerys' plan in Astapor is founded on the knowledge that Drogon will never allow himself to be given away but Kraznys and the other slave masters will mistakenly believe anything can be bought or sold.
  • Tywin is quite good at setting up these:
    • The Red Wedding is a result of his astute Flaw Exploitation of the fallout of the breakup of the Stark-Frey Marriage Alliance and the defection of the Karstarks after Lord Rickard's execution.
    • During Tyrion's trial, Tywin seems to have been counting on Jaime's Big Brother Instinct at seeing Tyrion humiliated before the court to draw him into offering to give up the Kingsguard for Casterly Rock in exchange for helping extract a False Confession from Tyrion and send him to the Wall. It almost works.
    • Tywin encourages disunity in Daenerys' court by having a pardon for Jorah fall into the hands of Barristan Selmy, who can be relied upon to take it to his queen.
  • Ramsay preys on the Ironborn's penchant for petty cowardice at both Winterfell and Moat Cailin, offering pardons and safe passage to those who surrender, driving them to betray any leader who refuses. Then they get flayed anyway.
• The Good Place: The reveal is that the good place is one big Reality TV Comedy FROM HELL based on this concept. Michael knew that the misfiles AKA the contestants would psychologically torture each other if they were put in a visually good 'paradise' with nothing to actually do but ruminate on how they don't deserve to be here, throw themselves into complete self-denial of their faults and let those faults become Berserk Button to the other misfiles, and/or are forced to live with 95% people that they believe are morally superior (and ludicrously boring / moronic) and 5% misfile assholes that they and said assholes don't actually know are assholes. And they did - but it turns out that assholes can actually give good morality lessons.
• Done in Hell's Kitchen by three of season 4's remaining chefs. Jen was the Reality TV bitch and after she tries to sabotage voting for elimination the remaining chefs plan to sabotage the elimination itself by pitting Jen against a scared Corey, who was considered their best chef. Either for once Ramsay did not see the ploy or he did consider Jen to be the worst, and pitted against the best the team ensured her elimination.
  • Done again in Season 19. After Marc has managed to dodge elimination despite being the worst chef in the Blue Team several times, Cody finally takes matters into his own hands, nominating Marc... and himself, despite being the only chef on the Blue Team Ramsay didn't call out on a service mistake. Ramsay is thus forced to finally eliminate Marc.
• Henry Danger: Ray's old friend "Invisible Brad" was suddenly hit by a bus at the end of his debut episode, and was thought to have died; come Season 2, it turns out Brad survived, and he only faked his death to trick the people of Swellview into thinking just that so he could sneak into Ray's life and take over his identity as Captain Man.
• Marya does this casually in Hogan's Heroes. She purposefully makes things hard for Hogan, including having him taken hostage in a rocket factory they both know has a bomb planted inside it and throwing doubts on her loyalty, because she's sure Hogan will figure something out that will also kill her Nazi contact as collateral damage.
• Gregory House pulls off a small scale Batman Gambit: when his game in the 4th season ended, he wanted to hire Kutner, Taub and Thirteen. But since Cuddy already hired Foreman, he could only hire two. Solution: hire the two male ones to let the slightly feminist director let him hire Thirteen.
  • Cuddy originally says it's about how he needs a woman on the team, but admits later it's because Thirteen gives a rat's ass about other human beings, whereas Foreman and Taub are just ambitious and House and Kutner are mostly in it for the puzzle. Not really feminism, more like House knows Cuddy sorta likes Thirteen.
  • There's actually a foiled Batman Gambit here. He asked Cuddy for advice, and she said to hire Kutner and Taub, counting on his contrary nature to lead him to hire Thirteen instead. When he did just as she said, she threw her hands up and let him have all three, only just after realizing he'd played her.
• Barney Stinson's Scuba Diver play in The Playbook episode of How I Met Your Mother. The Scuba Diver, Barney tells a meddlesome female friend, in this case Lily, about the Playbook, a book of schemes he's invented to pick up women. He then uses a scheme from the playbook to hit on her coworker, making Lily angry enough to steal the Playbook and tell her friend all about the scams he pulled. Barney then puts on a scuba suit and tells Lily that he's going to pull one more scam called the Scuba Suit on a hot girl standing at the bar. This causes Lily to go and tell the girl about the Playbook and incensed they both come back to Barney and demand to know what the scheme is. Barney then makes up a spiel about his deep insecurities, causing Lily to feel bad for Barney and eventually convince the girl to go out with him. After they leave, he reveals that was the scheme and his plan all along to get that girl to go home with him.
  • Barney plans another one in "The Broath" alongside Quinn to freak his friends out and teach them not to meddle in his affairs.
  • Over several episodes in Season 8, Barney runs a big Batman Gambit to get Robin to agree to marry him. Somehow he knew, among other things, that she would break into his apartment to steal his playbook and that Ted would tell her about the fake proposal to Patrice, although Barney seems to justify it by saying that Ted would only tell her if he cared about her feelings for Barney over his own, "giving [Barney] his blessing".
• Most of the cons used in Hustle rely upon this.
  • Mickey can sometimes get a bit Batman-y. The crowning example is probably when, in a competition with Danny, he bases a scam not just on assuming Danny will try and steal his mark, but also how he'll try to do it.
• In the Turkish miniseries Innocent, talented detective Yusuf is assigned a difficult and personal case. However, his boss Selahattin is less motivated by a sense of justice than by eliminating Taner, the husband of his lover, whom he suspects is still alive. Directing the intrepid Yusuf to follow the trail (and unleash chaos as a result) is all part of his plan to Murder the Hypotenuse for good... which Yusuf realizes only after all is said and done.
• Used masterfully by Sunil in Season 3 of In Treatment, where he convinces Paul that he's more troubled than he actually is, and that he presents an imminent danger to his daughter-in-law. Sunil does this knowing that Paul will react by warning Julia, and that Julia will respond by calling the police. When Sunil refuses to show the police his immigration papers, he is deported back to Calcutta, which was what he wanted all along.
• In It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the characters will occasionally form Batman Gambits with some degree of success. In the episode 'Mac Bangs Dennis' Mom', Charlie forms a Batman Gambit in response to finding out that Mac had slept with Dennis and Dee's mom. At first, in order to get out of menial work, Dennis threatens to sleep with the Waitress, who is the object of Charlie's desire. However, Charlie brings Dennis to witness Mac leaving Dennis' mom's house, but prevents Dennis from physically confronting Mac, suggesting the alternative of having Dennis sleep with Mac's mom. Charlie then enlists the help of Dee by promising to relieve her of the menial labor bestowed upon her the previous episode. Dee brings the Waitress to witness Dennis attempting (and failing) to seduce Mac's mom. Dee then suggests to the Waitress that she get back at Dennis by sleeping with Charlie. The Gambit inevitably fails, however, as the Waitress opts to sleep with Dennis' dad instead, much to Charlie's chagrin.
  • Dennis pulls a successful one later, when he has a conflict with a local hippie trying to save a tree. Dennis offers to chain himself to the tree, which makes him look selfless and goads the hippie into chaining himself there instead. While he stands in the rain all night, Dennis bangs his girlfriend. Then he comes back the next day, unchains him, and makes him watch the tree being bulldozed.
• JAG: In the climax of "Shadow", the crew informs Grover that they have seized control of the torpedo only to realize it has locked onto the Tigershark as a new target. Grover instructs Meg on how to disable the torpedo, only to find they had never been able to gain control of his laptop or the torpedo to begin with.
• Joy of Life: The main character, Fan Xian, uses these often, and often to great success.
  • An example of this is when he single-handedly orchestrates Shen Zhong's downfall in Northern Qi by first maipulating Shangshan Hu into pledging to the empress dowager, then using Shen Zhong's loyalty to his country against him and disfavoring him in the eyes of the court.
• Justified starts with one of these. Raylan Givens tells a criminal to leave town in 24 hours or he'll kill him. He sits down counts the seconds left. The criminal starts complaining about how he won't shoot an unarmed man in broad daylight in front of dozens of witnesses, getting a little panicked near the end. He pulls his gun to kill Raylan, but Raylan is quicker on the draw and kills him. Since the criminal pulled his gun first, the shooting is Justified.
• Just Roll With It: This was revealed to have been pulled by DJ Dirty Dan's family in "Family Squabbles". While Owen and Blair are meeting Dirty Dan's children, they tell him he recently lost his job and the family is on the risk of going broke and living Off the Grid. Owen feels bad for them and he and Blair answer their bonus question wrong on purpose so Dirty Dan can win the game and money out of generosity, but then it's revealed that Dirty Dan never lost his job and he and his family tricked the kids into feeling sincere for them so they can steal the victory. Byron is angry at them for being tricked, but is nevertheless happy they did the right thing in their book.
• Goren does these almost Once per Episode on Law & Order: Criminal Intent. He's usually compared to Sherlock Holmes by the series' creators, but he's really a lot more like Columbo.
• Leverage runs on this. Since part of the team's job is to get the people at the top to expose themselves for the cheats and frauds that they are, they will often set up elaborate hoaxes on their marks to get them to out themselves by making them think they're covering up their actions. Once the trap is sprung, the mark will begin frantically trying to sure up their duplicity all the while playing into the team's hands. The way they took down Duberman is a great example of this (relying on subconscious manipulation in order to get him to change the password on the computer he runs his Manticore software package from to something that they could simply guess).
  • The Season 1 finale of Leverage, "The Second David Job", specifically draws attention to this:
    Jim Sterling: Your entire plan depended on me being a self-serving, utter bastard.
    Nathan Ford: Yeah, that's a stretch.
  • That episode revolves around the team working with Nate's ex-wife, Maggie. She points out a flaw in his plan: you can't just make people do what you want them to. Nate is a little embarrassed, and the team react with amusement to this objection, "that's what we do."
• Cal Lightman on Lie to Me uses this incredibly often, much to everyone's annoyance.
• In Lost, Desmond Hume in the parallel-alternate-off-island reality ran one of these gambits to get everyone to remember their lives on the island.
  • Also recall Sawyer's explanation of the Long Con: "[It's] when you get people to think it's their idea, but it's really your idea." Most of Sawyer's cons revolves around this.
  • Un-Locke also pulls a special one in the last season, with the double-gambit of passing the timebomb to Jack, to get it into the submarine with all candidates and knowing they will try to defuse it, consequently killing themselves (or at least a few of them), since he wasn't allowed to kill them himself according to Jacob's game.
• In an episode of Malcolm in the Middle where Malcolm, Reese, and Dewey are blackmailing Francis with an incriminating letter, Francis sends his friends over to get the letter, with Ritchie managing to find where it was hidden by reading Reese's face. Malcolm then proudly reveals that he predicted all of this, hiding a fake letter and telling Reese the wrong location knowing that Francis would call Richie and that Reese would give the location away.
  Malcolm: I knew Francis wouldn't leave us alone without getting something and I knew you'd give it away. I knew exactly what everyone would do.
  Reese: So where's the real letter?
  Malcolm: I had to think of the one place they'd never think of looking. I had to give it to the one person they'd never think I'd give it to. I did the most brilliant thing of all: I gave it to Dewey.
  Dewey: And I hid it under Mom's pillow!
  Malcolm: You what?!
• In one episode of M*A*S*H, Hawkeye, BJ, Charles, and Margaret are embroiled in a prank war due to April Fool's...which they celebrate for more than one day. Potter puts the kibosh on that while a visiting colonel, Tucker, is inspecting them, and Tucker berates and verbally abuses the four until finally stating his intent to court-martial them for insubordination. They play a prank on him, and he has a heart attack. As he lies dying, he beckons Hawkeye closer and tells him, "April Fool." Turns out he and Potter are old friends, and Potter knew if Tucker pushed the younger officers enough, they'd do something stupid and create an opportunity to pwn them.
  • Father Mulcahy pulls one in the following episode, "The Best of Enemies": Potter and Winchester get into a grudge match bridge tournament, with Margaret and BJ as their reluctant partners. They frustrate the two until they switch partners, with Potter partnered with BJ and Winchester partnered with Margaret. Even this doesn't settle them, to the point that they switch again - with Potter and Winchester as partners instead of rivals. Margaret and BJ win - as does Mulcahy, who, figuring Potter and Winchester's egos would get in the way, was the only one to bet on them.
• MasterChef US, Season 4: after winning an advantage, Eddie uses it to assign mushrooms for the next challenge... but instead of assigning cheap canned mushrooms to the better chefs and fresh-picked wild mushrooms to the worse chefs, he assigns the good mushrooms to the good chefs and gambles on them getting overconfident and ruining their dishes. All three of the bottom contestants turn out to have ruined the wild mushrooms, the judges describe Eddie's gambit as a "tactical strike", and The Ace Jordan gets eliminated.
• Patrick Jane in The Mentalist constantly pulls these off. Most episodes involve him "fishing"—setting up a trap, and then just waiting to see if it works. As Jane himself pointed out, "if not, we get a relaxing day out of it."
• Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries: As Jack concedes at the end of "Blood and Circuses", Murdoch Foyle's plan to escape from prison by Faking the Dead was cooked up on the belief that the bodies would not be claimed. Unfortunately for him, his mother caught wind of her son's alleged passing, and so his plan literally went up in flames... or did it?
• About 90% of Mission: Impossible episodes center around a Batman Gambit on the part of the IMF. The remaining 10%, and the first movie, center around what happens when such a gambit goes horribly wrong.
  • But, when things are just about to go wrong for the gambit (which is usually once an episode right before a commercial break, just to keep viewers glued to their seats), Xanatos Speed Chess ensues or a Deus ex Machina will come around and distract the mark and draw them away from discovering The Masquerade.
• Modern Family: In the Season 5 episode “A Hard Jay’s Night”, Cameron's father made the topper for Mitchell and Cam's wedding cake. The top portrays Mitchell in a very… feminine position. Mitchell had used up all of his "vetoes" on things he didn't want in the wedding but Cam did, which means he can’t tell Cam that he hates it. He unsuccessfully tries to destroy it in several ways, including having Lily play with it in the tub and giving it to Stella (Jay’s dog). Eventually, he just told Cam he hated it, and Cam suggested that he would let Mitchell veto the topper if Mitchell also gave him one more veto. Mitchell agreed and Cam vetoed the wedding singer. And that was Cam’s plan all along: he had his father make the top like that so that he could get rid of the singer.
• In NewsRadio, Jimmy James has proven himself able to use these upon his employees. Most of the other employees have managed to pull off one or two of their own as well.
• The titular character of Nikita pulls one of these in practically each episode of season 1, before finding herself more frequently as the recipient in season 2.
• Nirvana in Fire: Basically all of Mei Changsu's strategies are this The best example is when Mei Changsu tricks Xia Jiang into leading our protagonists straight to Wei Zheng's secret location by manipulating him to infer that they have already discovered his location themselves.
• Done by an antagonist in NUMB3RS. Arrested for treason and facing a life sentence at least, he arranges the murder of an intelligence agent. He expects the FBI to figure out that there's a connection between him and the victim and come looking for information, which he can then use as leverage to get himself a deal, while at the same time they won't suspect him for the murder because he was locked up at the time. The FBI actually does react in the exact way he had anticipated; it's the victim who throws a wrench in the works and manages to lead the FBI to the truth even as he lies dying in an ICU.
• Once Upon a Time has many.
  • Mr. Gold's plan to help Emma win a municipal election. While Emma is in the Mayor's office arguing with Regina, he sets fire to City Hall, giving Emma a chance to rescue Regina and be shown to be a hero. When Emma finds out about this, she is furious, but Gold points out that if she denounces him, she loses the election and disappoints everyone. She does denounce him and wins anyway, which Gold then reveals was All According to Plan. Saving the rather unpopular Regina wouldn't have been enough to win Emma the election. Showing everyone that she was tough enough to stand up to Gold, the most feared man in town, however, was a different story.
  • It's been revealed that the entire Dark Curse was caused by him so that he could get to the real world, and once he did he manipulated everything so that he would get his True Love potion and use it to bring magic to Storybrooke so that he could find his son. (Who had been transported to the real world long before the curse).
  • The Evil Queen also pulls off several gambits.
    • Manipulating the Genie into killing her husband so she would be free
    • As Mayor Regina Mills, arranging to steal Mr. Gold's most prized possession, Belle's chipped cup. She is able to count on his willingness to do anything to get it back in order get Mr. Gold to reveal that he remembers his fairy tale identity.
    • A multi-gambit with Mr. Gold to convict Mary Margaret of murder. Too bad for her, Mr. Gold has his own agenda.
  • It seems to run in the family. Her mother, Cora, ran one on Regina in "The Stable Boy": She spooked Snow's horse with magic, knowing Regina would help the girl, which leads to the King showing up at their doorstep and proposing to Regina so she can be Snow's replacement mother.
  • Cora does it again in "The Cricket Game" by posing as her daughter and staging Archie's death so that whatever new found trust that Regina has built with the Charmings will be destroyed and Regina will give up on redemption and seek her mother out for help for revenge. It works, and she even gloats about it to Hook.
  • Heck, even Captain Hook gets one in "The Outsider". He attacks Belle knowing that Mr. Gold will come to her rescue. This leaves Gold's shop open so that he can have Smee sneak in and take Baelfire's shawl, the talisman that Gold needs to leave the town.
  • Snow herself uses one in "The Miller's Daughter". She secretly curses Cora's heart which needs to be re-inserted into Cora to kill her. When she's caught by Regina, she appeals to Regina's desire for her mother's love and gives it to Regina, counting on the (very likely) possibility that Regina would put the heart back into Cora.
• Only Fools and Horses: Del defeats Slater the first time by exploiting the latter's desire to have Del under his thumb for all time - he gets himself immunity from prosecution if he reveals who stole a microwave. It was him.
• Our Miss Brooks: Occasionally used by Miss Brooks to have Mr. Conklin or Mr. Stone go along with her ideas - or to help someone get out of trouble.
  • In "New School TV Set" (a radio episode), Miss Brooks has everyone talk like a cowboy to demonstrate the deleterious effect the television had on the students and faculties alike (in the 1950s, with certain exceptions, Westerns dominated television schedules). Mr. Stone, in exasperation, demands the television set be disposed of.
  • In "Turnabout Day" (a television episode), when students act as teachers and teachers as students, Miss Brooks protects Walter Denton from being expelled for forging a letter from Mr. Stone approving the event. Miss Brooks uses gossip she heard about Mr. Stone's recent absent-mindedness to convince him he forgot approving the letter and should go on vacation immediately. Miss Brooks also gets Mr. Stone to give her and Mr. Boynton a free trip to the (well-chaperoned) vacation lodge in Eagle Springs.
• Person of Interest: Root gets the better of Reese and Finch by counting on them to do what they do best: helping the helpless. She puts a hit out on her own alias and leaves a digital trail for the Machine to spot, knowing that it will tag her as a POI and bring Reese and Finch to her.
• Pretty Little Liars: Too many examples. For starters Lyndon's Batman Gambit which involved kidnapping the person Emily loved, Paige, and attempting to Murder the Hypotenuse and Emily (because If I Can't Have You…), by sending a message threatening to hurt Emily if Paige didn't go to a certain place, and nabbing her on the way there, and then bringing Emily to the intended murder location under the pretense that they were to be meeting up with her ex-girlfriend's family when they got there. The whole plan depends on Paige putting Emily first and sure enough, that's what she does. But that's also what gets them out of trouble since when given a chance, Paige tried to communicate to Emily to leave her behind and run, which was what saved them both in the end. Then there's the time A nearly managed to pin Emily's ex-girlfriend's death on her current girlfriend (Paige) by planting evidence on her and counting on Emily's friends to be mistrusting and snoop through her things and find them. It worked so well that by the time they figured out she was innocent the real murderer had taken their friend somewhere secluded AND kidnapped Paige. Which was when the gambit failed. Not because the people that were involved in the gambit didn't follow through as planned, but because the actual murderer threw a wrench in the works by trying to murder someone else, therefore exposing himself as the murderer. The end also implies that most of the show's events were a Batman Gambit by Mona. There are theories however that since pretty much everything has turned out to be part of a Batman Gambit, there were maybe more that were just never exposed and would explain the numerous plot-holes and absurdity of the ending and last season (or two...or three) such as for example that Alison was running one all along. YMMV for the most part though.
• Prison Break. The initial prison break from Fox River was one big Batman Gambit. Note how Michael included the reactions of criminals he doesn't even know in his plans. It is also interesting that Michael learns that it isn't as easy as he thought, leading to some use of Xanatos Speed Chess. However, he also requires dumb luck (if it weren't for circumstances changing for characters included in his Batman Gambit, such as Sucre and Westmoreland, they would never have played along).
  • It's actually lampshaded by Lincoln, who tells Michael that he may have the blueprints of Fox River and a plan to break out, but that he can't rely on or predict criminals.
  • In the episode "Hell or High Water", Scofield tells the other would-be escapees that once he cuts the power, there's only 30 seconds to get across the no-man's-land surrounding Sona and through the electrified fence before the backup generator kicks in. The three looking out only for themselves insist on going first and are caught out in the open when the lights come back on 10 seconds later. Their recapture then serves as a diversion while he and the rest escape.
  • Christina Rose shows in S.O.B that the Batman Gambit is hereditary, manipulating an alleged buyer for Schylla into instead becoming an unknowing sacrificial lamb that catalyzes the change necessary to maximize Scylla's true worth, while getting Lincoln Burrows and his posse to ignorantly take the fall for said lamb's slaughter.
• Probe's "Computer Logic, Part 2": Austin tries to fool the Artificial Intelligence program "Crossover" by asking it on what hand he wears his watch on. Crossover, realizing that Austin is right-handed and trying to trick it, responds that it must be on his right hand. Austin then pulls up his sleeves to show everyone that the watch is, indeed, on his right hand.
  Crossover: You stand like a righthander. Most righthanders wear their watch on their left hand. You wear yours on your right. Otherwise you wouldn't have asked such an orchestrated question.
• Richard Pryor's "Prison Play" skit involves the play's producer promising the warden that "The Nigger gets killed" as Laser-Guided Karma for daring to fall in love with a White woman. However, it ends with the father-in-law accepting the suitor and wanting to becoming a paragon of true love. The Faux Affably Evil Warden isn't happy.

  Warden: Horseshit! Wait a minute! Just wait a goddamned minute! You said the nigger got killed! I wan' me a goddamn dead nigger up in here else I'll hang here one of these homosex-u-als!

• In the Raising Hope episode "Hey There Delilah", Maw-Maw uses Virginia and Delilah's rivalry to get Virginia to take the promotion at 'Knock Knock Knock Housekeeping' by stating that whomever goes without attack the longest gets everything. She then using comments to keep them in close proximity until either Virginia snaps or Delilah lies about being attacked. Delilah would then have to make Burt and Virginia leave the house, and knowing that they're both too old to live in the van AND Virginia's too proud to go live with their son's family, Virginia would have no choice but take the promotion that Maw-Maw knew she was good enough for.
• In the tenth series of Red Dwarf Episode 2 Fathers and Suns. Lister self-destruct pulls this on himself. Every year He writes himself a Father's Day letter then gets really drunk so he won't remember what he wrote. This year the next morning he finds a video from the perspective of his father talking to him like a son telling him he's a disappointment and to go get his tooth filled and join the engineering corps before watching the next message. Dave being Dave skips ahead immediately only to find message two rebuking him for just skipping ahead and tells him to go do what he said once more. Dave skips again only to be threatened with having his guitar flushed out an airlock if he skips once more. Dave skips again and at first the message acts like he believed Dave completed his tasks and to go over and play a song on the guitar. When Dave goes he finds it's a cutout and his real guitar is floating in space and he's warned to go do it now or he'll get more of daddy's discipline.
  • The new computer in that episode was programmed to make Batman Gambits in order to gets jobs done quicker. In addition to helping Lister make the videos mentioned above, she informed the crew of the events of their conversations so they wouldn't need to have them; deleted the second season of a show Rimmer was watching becasue she predicted he wouldn't like it; she even destryoed a corridor because she was programmed to do jobs exactly like the highest ranking officer, which at that point was Rimmer. And she knew that Rimmer would cock-up the repair-job so she cocked it up for him. Then she predicted that he would blame Kryten and walk off smugly.
• Season 4 of Resurrection: Ertuğrul has one revolving around Ertugrul’s Papa Wolf relationship with his oldest son, Gunduz. Here, Tekfur Ares sends the mercenary Titan to introduce himself under the alias “Darius” and build an amicable relationship with Gunduz. At the ripe opportunity, Titan abducts Gunduz and brings him to Karacahisar in an attempt to entice to his father into a trap.
  • Another example (Also with some aspects of Papa Wolf) occurs with Bamsi late in season 5. During a carriage ride, the Umurogullari kidnap Bamsi’s son Aybars before handing the kid over to Dragos. When Bamsi learns about this, he becomes so desperate that he ignores Ertugrul’s announcement that they were going to rescue him no matter what and when he arrives, he is told that Aybars’ life will only be spared if he brings Alincak to him. When he does, Dragos reveals that not only did he want to ally himself with Alincak for once, but that he plans on murdering the kid directly in front of him.
• Revenge has Emily Thorne- she knows exactly how her enemy Victoria will respond to her actions. The same applies to Emily's numerous other targets as well.
  • Subverted with Emily's failed plan to frame Victoria for murdering her on her wedding day. Emily predicts that Victoria will retreat to her quarters alone after having a drink spilled on her and that no one will leave the yacht's lounge area while Emily is enacting her plot. However, when the actual plan is put into motion, several of the characters do not behave as predicted, culminating in Emily being shot for real by Daniel and falling overboard.
  • Played entirely straight with Emily's successful takedown of Victoria at the end of Season 3. Emily predicts that Charlotte will leak information to Victoria, that Victoria will believe her and follow Emily to a graveyard, and that the authorities will believe Emily when she tells them that a knocked-out Victoria was digging up Amanda Clarke's grave. It works, and Victoria ends up being institutionalized.
  • The same follows true for Emily's takedown of Conrad in the penultimate episode. She rightly anticipates that Jack will go against Aiden's wishes and release a captive Charlotte, who will then immediately return home and confront Conrad about the David Clarke conspiracy, prompting Conrad to go into a self-incriminating rant that is broadcast on live TV via Charlotte's bugged jacket.
• Friar Tuck pulls one of these in the first episode of the third series of the BBC's Robin Hood: Robin has become disillusioned, so Tuck gets the rest of the gang captured. Naturally, Robin goes to save them, which also rekindles the myth - the population think he's dead, so naturally, appearing just after an eclipse is quite a spectacle...
• Jim Rockford is a master of these, whether as part of a con, or to catch a criminal. Two of his best appear in the episodes "There's one in Every Port" and "Joey Blue-Eyes". They are far too beautiful to describe.
• The Rookie: Feds episode "Burn Run" features an assassin who specialises in killing people in a manner that looks like accidents, who stages a plan to force a reclusive billionaire out of his penthouse. In order to do this, the assassin kills the billionaire's former lover, anticipating that the woman's death would prompt the man to attend her funeral and thus be in a position for the assassin to go after him.
• Rumpole of the Bailey: Rumpole becomes a minor master of these, pulling them off with some regularity as time went on. His most fascinating and awesome one involved him settling both major plotlines in one move, faking his death to both collect from a shady and notoriously hard-to-find solicitor known to try and bargain down his back payments to barristers with grieving widows (thus solving some money trouble that had gotten him in serious trouble with his wife Hilda). This allowed him to then serve a subpoena to the solicitor; the solicitor's testimony won him the case he was arguing.
• The Sanctuary episode "Veritas" features a Batman Gambit by the immortal doctor/scientist Helen Magnus which involved self-induced madness and the apparent death of a friend at her own hand. It's not clear exactly who is/are the target(s) of this gambit until the very end—unless you caught a fleeting glimpse of the little smile on the face of the guilty party at a highly inappropriate moment.
• A minor version in the "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" episode of School of Rock when Summer is trying to get Zach back in the band. She asks his current band for use of their amp. She knew that Zach would have no problem but the others would belittle her and the School of Rock, making Zach come to their defense.
• The Secret Circle: Apparently the binding of the new circle's powers is exactly what Dawn Chamberlain and Charles Meade wanted in the first place.
• Seinfeld:
  • Todd Gack has figured out a "dating loophole" where he intentionally makes bets with women that he knows he is going to lose, where the loser buys dinner for the winner. This allows him to essentially go on as many dates as he wants without ever having to actually ask a woman out, and therefore never get rejected.
  • Jerry and George attempt the Impossible Task of successfully pulling off "the switch" — breaking up with a girl in order to date her roommate instead — and after much deliberation, come up with a plan where Jerry proposes a ménage á trois. It relies on the following: 1. His current girlfriend is disgusted by the suggestion and breaks up with him. 2. She tells the roommate about it. 3. The roommate is flattered to have been included and agrees to go out with him. 4. His current girlfriend is so over him that she tells the roommate "if you want that pervert you can have him". It all blows up in their faces when it turns out the girlfriend and roommate were both into it. George considers this development to have turned the plan into a true Xanatos Gambit, but Jerry is too uptight to go through with it.
  • In a later episode, George is uncomfortable with his girlfriend having a male roommate (especially one that looks very much like him) and convinces her to kick him out, only to discover that all of the velvet furniture in the apartment that he loved was actually the roommate's and is now gone. Seeing no reason to stay in the relationship any longer, he tries to play the "ménage á trois" card in order to get dumped. This time the girlfriend and roommate are not only into it, they thought of it before George did and had already been discussing it!
• There was a three-part Sesame Street "News Flash" segment where Kermit was called out into the middle of a snowstorm to find someone who was outside in the storm for a long time. Everyone he talked to was only out for a short time, and poor Kermit became too cold to continue reporting on the matter. Along comes Harvey Kneeslapper, who informs Kermit that he made the call to the news people, and the actual person standing in the snow for a long time was Kermit, who at this point was up to his neck in snow.
• The Shield: It took nothing more than the promise of total immunity from prosecution and a cushy federal job to get Vic to confess his laundry list of dirty deeds over the reign of the Strike Team. And since he could secure immunity for only one of them, he had no problem serving up Ronnie on a silver platter.
• The Argentinian series Los Simuladores is entirely about pulling Batman Gambits on unsuspecting people to make them change somehow or right a wrong. One episode, for example, features a faked bank robbery meant to delay the purchase of a bank, while another involves staging a date with a Paul McCartney impostor in order to bring up her self-esteem and make her more socially active.
• In the eleventh episode of Spartacus: Blood and Sand, Batiatus sets in motion his own revenge-driven Batman Gambit by kidnapping Magistrate Calavius, and instructing Ashur only to kill him at the appropriate time. Batiatus times this with Pompey's primus so that he can get close to Calavius' son, Numerius, and have an alibi. Meanwhile, Ashur has been gaining the trust (read: money) of Solonius by warning him of attempts Batiatus has made on his life. Ashur is too frightened of the repercussions of this plan to talk about it however. Eventually, Ashur wants out and wants to spiel on Batiatus's plan in exchange for enough cash to get out of town. When Ashur leads him to the magistrate, he already has had his throat cut. Batiatus then conveniently bursts in with his guards and with the magistrates son and Asher goes to his side. Solonius is then caught over the dead Magistrate holding a dagger and seized at Batiatus' order.
• In the opening episode of the second series of Spooks the villain of the week makes a couple of gratuitous hits on military targets so the heads of the Army and Government will call a meeting of the emergency COBRA committee to discuss where his next target is. The next target is, of course, the COBRA meeting.
• In the episode of Stargate Atlantis, the heroes pull one off to reclaim Atlantis from the Asurans (Human-form replicators who were spurned creations of the Ancients made for combating the Wraith). They infiltrated Atlantis, told their plan to General O'Neill and Mr. Woolsey, knowing full-well that they'd be mind-probed, that O'Neill would see through their plan, and that O'Neill would figure he'd have to hold out just long enough for Woolsey to sing. The team's apparent plan of sabotaging the shield generators was foiled... but when the Asurans fired up the shield generators to repel the Daedalus's attack, the entire city was pulsed with a replicator disruption pulse, killing all the Asurans instantly (the heroes' ulterior, REAL plan). All this hinged on Woolsey not figuring out the plan and O'Neill holding out against interrogation just long enough for the Asurans to believe Woolsey.
• In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the Founders pull off a pretty cool one that may actually be the result of a retcon. Season four ends with Odo being taken inside the Founders' "Great Link" to be judged for killing one of his own, during which he can sense that they're trying to keep certain faces and names secret from him in the telepathic orgy. He figures that these are people who the shape-shifting Founders have killed and are impersonating, and later realizes that one of them was Gowron, the leader of the Klingons. The season five premiere features a mission to expose this Founder, and the only way to do it is to kill him. Luckily, Odo realizes at the last moment that the real Founder is the Klingon general Martok, who would be perfectly positioned to take over the empire after Gowron was killed, with the Federation thinking he was dead.
  • And, even better, in Season 7 this turns out to be a two-way Batman Gambit, because it is revealed that Section 31 had infected Odo with a Founder-killing virus and used his "trial" as a way of infecting the whole Great Link with it.
    • They shouldn't have been surprised. After all, the Founders fairly effortlessly managed to manipulate the secret police of both Romulans AND Cardassians into the mother of all massacres — when of course, they thought that THEY would be exterminating the Founders... and again, this was all thanks to Odo.
  • "For the Uniform" features one of these: After Eddington, a traitorous former Starfleet officer poisoning colonies, gives Sisko a copy of Les Misérables, Sisko realizes that Eddington is living out the role of Jean Valjean. Sisko uses this knowledge to convince Eddington to give himself up, as part of his Hero Fantasy.
  • Better than all of the above in "In the Pale Moonlight": IT'S A FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE! Almost a Gambit Roulette — the plan relies on the FAAAAAAAAAKE being discovered in order for it to work — and Sisko could have ended it all if it weren't so damn awesome. Brilliant Batman Gambit in that it's fueled by crazy preparedness, like predicting how one character will react... and then predicting another character's reaction to the reaction.
    • However, the plan didn't require that the fake be discovered. The Romulan could have left for home believing the recording to be genuine, Garak still would have assassinated him by planting a bomb, and the Romulan government would respond accordingly.
  • Quark pulled one in "The House of Quark". Quark finds himself in charge of a Klingon house, and the only way to save it from being conquered is to face his rival in a duel to the death. Rather than try to fight someone he has no hope of beating, he shows up for the duel, but immediately surrenders. He then goads his opponent into trying to kill him, all while reminding the crowd they all knew the outcome before they even walked into the room. His opponent is more than happy to oblige — until Gowron stops him and strips him of his honor for trying to kill someone as pathetic and low as Quark. Just as planned.
  • In "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges", Dr. Bashir believes he has discovered a Section 31 assassination plot on Romulus, but can't trust any of the other Federation personnel because they might be part of it. Desperate, he enlists the help of a sympathetic Romulan senator to stop it, even though the plot's target is her political opponent. In reality, the "target" is a Federation mole and is never in any danger. The real purpose of the plot is to destroy the senator's reputation by getting her to violate security protocols, which she does because Bashir asks her to. The scheme works only because Sloan knows Bashir will always act honorably, and manipulates him into playing the "hero" for the benefit of the Romulans, while Sloan plays the part of villain.
  • Bashir turns it back on Sloan a few episodes later. Sloan keeps Trespassing to Talk, so Bashir sets up a forcefield trap, then claims to have something Sloan can't allow to be circulated, a cure for the engineered plague afflicting the Changelings...in order to extract from Sloan the exact thing he's claiming to have.
• Star Trek: The Original Series: Captain Kirk lived for this trope. The aptly titled episode "The Corbomite Maneuver" features Kirk bluffing a powerful alien force. He later reuses this particular ploy in "The Deadly Years". His entire battle with the Romulan commander in "Balance of Terror" features him and the Romulan commander pulling these on each other in rapid succession. Kirk and the Romulan are able to predict each other's behavior as being "just what they would have done." And in "A Taste of Armegeddon", Kirk is able to stop a centuries-old "clinical war" by destroying the war computers, abrogating the treaty between the two worlds. The two planets were now faced with the prospect of the horrors of real war, or actually working for peace.
  Kirk: Death, destruction, disease, horror... that's what war is all about, Anan. That's what makes it a thing to be avoided. But you've made it neat and painless — so neat and painless, you've had no reason to stop it, and you've had it for five hundred years. Since it seems to be the only way I can save my crew, my ship... I'm going to end it for you — one way or another.
  • And when Spock points out the possibility that the gambit may have failed:
    Spock: Captain, you took a big chance.
    Kirk: Did I, Mr. Spock? They had been killing three million people a year. It had been going on for five hundred years. An actual attack wouldn't have killed any more people than one of their computer attacks, but it would have ended their ability to make war. The fighting would have been over. Permanently.
    McCoy: But you didn't know that it would work.
    Kirk: No. It was a calculated risk. Still, the Emenians keep a very orderly society, and actual war is a very messy business. A very, very messy business. I had a feeling they would do anything to avoid it, even talk peace.
  • Spock's fiancée T'Pring pulls one on him in "Amok Time". Rather than choose her actual boyfriend as her champion in a duel to the death to dissolve the engagement, she chooses Kirk, reasoning (correctly) that whoever wins will be too upset about killing his best friend to go through with the wedding. Even when McCoy Takes A Third Option and both Kirk and Spock survive, she still gets her way.
• Sticking with Star Trek, there is the big one pulled during the Star Trek: Voyager finale "Endgame". Getting everyone home safe involved one hell of a Batman Gambit on the Borg. Admiral Janeway from the future steals a time-traveling ship and knowledge of a neurolytic pathogen and travels to present Janeway's timeline so as to speed up the trip home by some 19 years, thanks to a Borg Transwarp Hub and a some subtle mindgames she plays with the Borg Queen. The mindgames continue until the Queen finally "checkmates" Future!Janeway and assimilates her... which was exactly what Future!Janeway wanted, as she had taken the pathogen... an anti-Borg weapon. Assimilation meant the Borg-killing bug would hit the Borg collective from the top down, crippling them and allowing Voyager to complete its daring run for home.
• Another Star Trek one. In the Star Trek: The Next Generation two-parter "The Best of Both Worlds", Commander Shelby briefs Captain Picard on a possible Borg attack plan involving separating the stardrive and saucer sections and attacking it with the stardrive with the saucer as a distraction, despite Commander Riker feeling the plan would fail as they'd lose the saucer's impulse engines. When Picard is assimilated into Locutus of Borg, Riker decides to use that plan knowing that Picard would know of the plan. When they catch up to the cube following the devastating Battle of Wolf 359, they initiate the plan and the Borg fall for it, ignoring the saucer and going after the stardrive, allowing an away team to beam in and rescue Picard.
• In Supernatural, the psycho hunter, Gordon, uses one on Dean to get to Sam. After capturing Dean, he forces Dean to call Sam to bring him to a specific place, but putting out the caveat that if Dean said one word about being captured, he was going to blow his head off. During the conversation, Dean uses the word "funkytown," which is a pre-arranged code for "Someone has a gun on me." However, Gordon was expecting Dean to get a warning to Sam. Which is why he had the back door armed with a tripwire and explosives. Sam hears the warning, scouts the place, sees Gordon in the front window, goes around back, trips the explosives, and ka-bam.
  • Hell, he even planted a second explosive in the house to be triggered if Sam survived the first. And, even then, this doesn't get to go under Crazy-Prepared because, well, they're Winchesters. A nuke wouldn't be enough to keep them dead.
• Super Sentai:
  • Awesomely implemented in Samurai Sentai Shinkenger; the title team tricks one of the Big Bads into kidnapping one of them instead of the baddie's original target in order to find out where she's holding the rest of her captives. Unfortunately, the Big Bad knew they were going to do this, and had her minions kidnap the real target, anyway, using the Shinkenger in her custody to lure the others into a trap. However, the Shinkengers anticipated that, and replaced the real target with another of their members, using him to find out the location of the Big Bad and using shadow puppets to make it look like they had fallen for her trap.
  • Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger had one with why Aka Red created the Red Pirates by convincing Marvelous and Basco that he needed the Ranger Keys to find the Greatest Treasure in the Universe. He wasn't: he was going to just return the keys to the powerless Sentai warriors. However, both pirates believed it, Basco pulled a Face–Heel Turn and Marvelous would go on to form the Gokaigers to find the treasure.
• Torchwood. The episode "They Keep Killing Suzie" reveals that Suzie Costello (who killed herself in the first Torchwood episode) pulled a Batman Gambit on the rest of Torchwood to bring her back from the dead. She "programmed" some random guy to, after going 3 months without hearing from her, to go nuts and start killing people and writing "Torchwood" on the wall in their blood. The idea was they would figure out it had something to do with her and bring her back with the Resurrection Gauntlet to find out what was going on. It worked.
• The Twilight Zone:
  • In "The Obsolete Man", Wordsworth's plan to ridicule the Chancellor and his regime depend on them being so driven to not show any weakness that they would prefer to let the Chancellor be blown up by a bomb (that Wordsworth asked them to install in his bedroom as the way he wished to be executed) rather than, say, kick down the door to Wordsworth's room and blow him away. And that the Chancellor would be totally incapable to Face Death with Dignity when told he is locked in a room with a time bomb about to go off. But he didn't, and they didn't, and that sealed the Chancellor's fate.
  • The episode "Uncle Simon" features a perfect textbook example. The titular uncle's plan to torment his never-do-well niece from beyond the grave depends on one single condition: that she will be so stubborn she will try to fulfill the stipulation he left on the will (to be a servant to an indestructible robot of his invention that acts even more childishly than he did) and not just decide that the inheritance is not Worth It and walk away.
• The Vampire Diaries
  • Katherine begs Damon to NOT kill Elijah stating that since Elijah had compelled her to stay in the tomb, his death would keep her trapped permanently. Elijah gets killed. Then Damon finds out that Elijah's death actually cancels the compulsion he gave Katherine. So Elijah's death = Katherine's freedom. Brilliantly played!
  • Stefan pulls one off in "Family Ties". He gives Caroline a drink with vervain in figuring that Damon would try to drink her blood. When Damon tries to kill her, he ends up drinking poison.
• In the Veronica Mars episode "My Mother The Fiend", Veronica gets detention for breaking into Vice Principal Clemmons' office with her own set of keys. She's assigned to clean up some old files in the basement. One of those files shows her mother was suspended when she was a student at Neptune High, supposedly for spreading a "false and malicious rumor" about another student. When Veronica investigates (to prove to herself that her mother did have some good in her), she discovers Principal Moorehead, back when he was a teacher, fathered a child with Mary, a deaf woman (she works as a janitor at the school) who was a student back then, and when Mary gave the baby to him, he left it in the woman's bathroom (Veronica's mother got in trouble because she *wouldn't* say what happened). When the truth comes out, the principal is forced to resign, and Clemmons takes his place, which turns out to be why he gave Veronica detention all along.
• The Wire:
  • Subverted in Season 1. When Stringer and D'Angelo suspect that someone in the Pit crew worked with Karmic Thief Omar to rob the crew, Stringer recommends that D'Angelo invent a fake reason to withhold the crew's pay; he believes that the informant will be the one member of the crew who doesn't raise a fuss, since they'll have money from working with Omar and won't need their regular pay. There is one person who doesn't complain about being denied their pay, and it turns out that she was actually Stealing from the Till, not working together with the thieves who robbed them.
  • Fails twice in Season 3.
    • The MCU decides to arrest a competent drug lieutenant, not because they think he'll give up his bosses, but because they hope that Joe will replace him on the corner with the denser and more talkative Drac, who is Joe's nephew, who might give accidentally spill critical information on the wiretap. But then Joe picks a different nephew, Cheese, instead.
    • The mayor holds up Daniels' promotion to major as a way to convince Daniels' wife to drop her primary bid against a sitting councilwoman who is one of the mayor's strongest supporters. Instead, Daniels decides to give up on the promotion.
  • Gone Horribly Right for Prop Joe. After initially failing to convince Marlo Stanfield to join the co-op (a sort of round table of the city's drug kingpins, who cooperate on drug product and settle disputes at a discussion table instead of via Mob War in the street), at the start of Season 4, he sets up Marlo to get robbed by Omar. Sure enough, this and the other benefits of the co-op make Marlo change his mind and join the co-op, which also gives the co-op the power of Marlo's army of trained killers. Ultimately this it backfires, as by Season 5 Marlo has decided to take over the co-op from within, as he convinces Prop Joe's main drug supplier, The Greek, to do business with Marlo after Marlo kills Joe and becomes the new head of the co-op. He then turns Prop Joe's nephew Cheese against Joe, which allows Marlo kill Joe. Afterwards, he forcibly absorbs the co-op into becoming part of his drug empire, making Marlo the undisputed king of the city, ruling nearly all of the drug trade in Baltimore.
• In Wolf Hall, Thomas Cromwell is trying to stick charges of treason to Thomas More for refusing to recognize Henry VIII as head of the Church, but while More won't sign, he does not openly express any opinion about it. Silence is a known legal precedent that could sink the case, since More hasn't actually said anything treasanous. Cromwell's final move is to take away More's books and papers and instructs Richard Rich to do so personally, banking on More's longstanding disdain for Rich to loosen his tongue. In court, Rich testifies that More finally broke his silence by answering a hypothetical question about Henry's authority in the negative, and it condemns him.
• In Xena: Warrior Princess, there are many characters who do this, but perhaps none so well as Xena herself. One particularly notable case is when Xena, driven mad by the Furies, needs to find a way to avoid killing her mother, who had killed her father, since Xena is required to avenge her father's death (long story). So what does she do? Convince everyone that Ares is her father - in huge part relying on her mother to tell all present that her husband returned unexpectedly home the night Xena was conceived, when he was supposed to be on the battlefield, and on Gabrielle's knowledge of myths to inform everyone that Ares is known for sleeping with the wives of his warriors by taking on their forms - without discussing it with Gabrielle or Cyrene first! Her gambit works, naturally.

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