Bitch In Sheeps Clothing / Live-Action TV

Bitches in Sheep's Clothing in Live-Action TV series.

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• 90210:
  • Naomi's older sister Jen seemed like she truly cared about Naomi in her first appearance. Right until we learn that she slept with Ethan while he and Naomi were together (she would later go on to sleep with Liam while he was dating Naomi and blame Annie for it).
  • Annie and Dixon's cousin, Emily, seemed like a sweet, innocent girl who looked up to Annie at first. Then, she turned all of Annie's friends against her, tried to steal Liam away from her, and got Annie fired from her internship and suspended from school...all while pulling the Wounded Gazelle Gambit.
  • Valerie from the original series spends her first episode acting like a Kelly Kapowski Expy (portrayed by the same actress!), apparently hitting it off with the gang. Then in the end, she calls a friend and proceeds to complain about everything and everyone, revealing that she has nothing but contempt for them. She keeps the act up with the group for a few more weeks until Kelly smells marijuana on her and later walks in on her and Dylan (she'd been dating Steve and was therefore cheating on him).
• Jasmine from Angel has a hypnotic power that causes everyone who sees her to instantly become entranced and view her as perfect and beautiful, which hides the fact that her true appearance is of a decaying maggot-covered corpse, and she eats people. A lot. And wants to enslave the Earth. More to the point of the trope, while she acts like a wise and all-loving goddess when she's getting her way, an awful temper and vindictiveness lie beneath.
• Evelyn Sharp/Artemis in Arrow. At first she appears to just be a Jerk with a Heart of Gold Broken Bird, until "Vigilante" reveals she's The Mole, working for Prometheus.
• Eva from Awkward. When you first meet her, you'll think she's nice and hip if a little pretentious. Then she'll start going after Matty and you'll realize she doesn't have a soul.
• Bad Girls had Natalie Buxton. She was introduced to both the viewers and the other characters as a nice-as-pie, meek, timid woman who wasn't in jail for much of a crime. Turns out she's a pedophile with a tendency to beat the crap out of people if she doesn't get her own way. She eventually becomes the Top Dog because everybody is too scared to challenge her.
• Banshee: Sanchez comes off as a charismatic guy at first. But he's soon revealed to be a violent rapist who exploits his fame to get away with crime.
• Better Call Saul:
  • Chuck McGill, who starts out seeming to be Jimmy's straitlaced but supportive older brother. Except then it turns out that he pathologically despises the fact that Jimmy's a lawyer like he is, to the point he's been purposefully impeding Jimmy's career at every turn, while making his law partner Hamlin take the blame for it.
  • Lalo Salamanca, on first introduction, seems very cheerful, lighthearted, and charismatic, swearing up and down he's just in town for a while to oversee the finances of the business. It then starts becoming more and more apparent that he's utterly vicious, to the point he makes his two predecessors, Tuco and Hector (his cousin and uncle, respectively), look manageable by comparison.
• The Big Bang Theory:
  • Emily, Penny's friend from a common yoga class. Feeling bad for Raj, unable to hold a girlfriend due to his embarrassing selective mutism towards girls, Penny and Howard try to hook him up with a sympathetic, funny, and likable deaf girl. While the plan seems to be successful, Emily soon reveals to be much less cute and loving than she seemed to be, pestering Raj for expensive gifts and a lavish lifestyle, ultimately turning against him when her plan is discovered and Raj tells her to live a more conservative lifestyle from then on.
  • On the show's main trope page, Raj's sister, Priya, is implied to be one as well.
  • Penny finds Raj to be thoroughly unpleasant when drunk, only for one of his friends to point out that he's always unpleasant, it's just that his selective mutism keeps it from being apparent around her.
  • Bernadette shows patches of this, especially later in the series. She's four foot eleven and has a high childlike voice, but everyone at work is terrified of her, and she shows flashes of this to her friends.
• Birds on the Wing: On the surface, Charles is a simple businessman, and Elizabeth and Samantha are a pair of innocent young girls. In reality, the three are a trio of con artists who will stop at nothing to get as much money as they can.
• The Boys (2019): Stormfront seems upbeat and outgoing at first glance, making a big show of being in favor of feminism and equality... before it turns out that she is in fact a horrendous racist who deliberately targets people of color.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Cordelia, in the first episode. She's very kind to Buffy and looks out for her on the first day, but Buffy sees her for what she is when she insults Willow for her admittedly hideous outfit. Cordy eventually redeems herself in both Buffy and especially Angel, but can still pull out the bitch card when needed as seen in "Rm w/a Vu".
  • Whereas, by Season 7, one suspects that the reason Buffy spends every single scene with Spike is that no one else can stand her anymore. This is to the extent that the Scoobies and the Potentials get fed up with her bossiness, as well as having doubts over both her leadership skills and methods, and finally decide that Faith would be a better leader and kick her out. Then again, considering the sheer amount of PTSD she's dealing with at that point, no wonder Jerkass Woobie Spike is the one who can stand her. Still a bitch, but with, unfortunately, enough justification to make her sympathetic.
  • Willow can be this occasionally, especially in Season 6.
  • Halfrek is a seemingly sweet-natured guidance counselor who is really a vengeance demon. Also, her insinuations against Xander to Anya.
• The titular character of Columbo is a rare heroic version. He always goes out of his way to be very friendly with murder suspects, playing along with whatever their alibi is and taking an interest in their lives and hobbies, only for it gradually to become apparent he's manipulating them to get them to trip up and willing to go to extreme lengths to back them into a corner. It's for the greater good, given he's solving murders, but he's quite cutthroat underneath the harmless facade.
  Abigail Mitchell: I'm beginning to be very fond of you, Lieutenant. I think you're a very kind man.
  Columbo: Don't count on that, Miss Mitchell. Don't count on it.
• Shirley Bennett in Community tends to use a sugary-sweet personality and her devout religious beliefs to conceal and avoid dealing with her many personality flaws, including an extremely short and vicious temper, judgmental and hypocritical self-righteousness, mild racist beliefs and what is at times a very bitchy and nasty personality.
• Control Z: Pablo seems to be a nice, charming popular student, but once the hacker leaks Isabela's secret and María breaks the news to him that she's got pregnant, he completely sheds this facade, retoring to more violent tendencies once the hacker's identity is exposed.
• The Crowded Room: Marlin at first seems like a normal man who at worst has a bad relationship with his stepson Danny, while he seems like a caring counselor for juvenile offenders. Soon we learn he's really a serial child molester who abused Danny for years, and it's easy to imagine he abuses juvenile offenders as well, given how much power his position with them must have.
• In the second season of CSI: NY, we are introduced to Stella's artist boyfriend, Frankie, who seems like a decent guy at first. That is until Stella finds out that Frankie had been filming them having sex and posting it online, causing her to break up with him. Frankie does not take it well as he breaks into Stella's apartment, ties her up, and sticks her in the bathtub, getting ready to kill her. He gets even more angry when he finds a sculpture he made for Stella in the garbage. Luckily, Stella is able to cut herself loose and gets in a huge fight with Frankie right before she grabs her gun and shoots him in self-defense, killing him.
• Damages: Patty Hewes seems to be invited to guest at a heck of a lot of morning news-and-chat shows in spite of her numerous nefarious, under-the-table deeds.
• Let's hear it for Grace Whitney of Dance Academy: first she gets thrown out of the Royal Academy for driving another girl into a nervous breakdown; then she sets up Abigail (the only one who's even remotely onto her) as a villain to isolate her from her tentative friends Kat and Tara while also putting the moves on Abigail's choreographer Ethan and claiming he jumped her; she shows her true colours as a shameless and manipulative liar while rehearsing a 'self-revelation' choreography assignment, but still manages to convince everyone that she's a total sweetheart and 'the least competitive girl at the Academy'. Don't you believe it; Grace will do anything to get ahead.
• Dark Desire: Lys is initially introduced as a kind, comprehensive and approachable woman who befriends Alma at the counseling meetings, both of them depicted as Birds of a Feather after having got out of the toxic relationships they had with Darío. However, this turns out to be a facade as she wants to seek revenge on Darío for abandoning her by trying to ruin his engagement with Julieta and even frames Alma, who is targeted as a prime suspect, for the murder
• Marisol from Degrassi: The Next Generation is cute and cheerful (if a bit dim), however, she flirted with, and possibly had an affair with, KC while he was living with his girlfriend and son, and told the entire school that her childhood best friend Katie was a recovering bulimic, almost causing Katie to relapse, all because Katie was dating Drew, who Marisol went on one date with months ago.
• Deus Salve O Rei: Princess Catarina of Artena puts on the Princess Classic facade, but she is actually an ambitious, militaristic War Hawk that wants to expand her kingdom's domain even further and is also a rotten person to the core saying she will not be "weak and soft" like her father King Augusto, who is painfully aware of her nature and tries to set her right.
• The Devil Judge:
  • Sun-ah seems normal... at first. Then she kidnaps Yo-han, and reveals how manipulative and psychotic she really is.
  • Professor Min seems to be Ga-on's friend, but he's really working with Sun-ah.
• Drake & Josh: Megan often pranks her titular brothers just for the heck of it, and when the two try to tell their parents about Megan's devious schemes, the latter two don't believe them and are even quick to believe Megan after she tells her parents that her brothers inflicted some type of harassment on her despite the lack of evidence of such. Megan gets away with pretty much ''anything'', and the only time she DOES get in trouble with her parents was for something she didn't do.
• Everybody Loves Raymond: In a flashback episode, Robert's ex-wife Joanne is revealed to have been one of these. She cared for Robert at first, but soon became an angry and controlling wife. She always wanted a reason to divorce him, and when he yelled at her (he was standing up for Ray, who had come to stay the night, which she didn’t want), that was the perfect one.
  • Marie can also count as one as well, seeming sweet and loving, but also being condescending and hypocritical, and rather obsessively controlling too.
  • Debra also has her moments, acting like a typical housewife, but actually being psychotic, condescending, and vicious, particularly in the later seasons.
• Extraordinary Attorney Woo: The theme for Episode 11 is that outwardly nice people can be hiding ugly personalities.
  • The client of the week initially presents himself as a devoted husband and father who only fell into bad habits out of desperation. However, he soon reveals himself to be an abusive cheater only out for himself.
  • Soo-yeon starts dating a man she met in the previous episode. He appears to be charming and caring but is unmasked as a conman who targets young women in high-paying jobs and bilks them out of large sums of cash.
• Eye Candy: Jake acts like a friend and then love interest for Lindy, to the point they have sex, aiding her in the hunt for the killer. Then it turns out he is the killer.
• The Flash (2014): Season Two's Big Bad, Zoom/Hunter Zolomon, spent most of the season making Team Flash (and the audience) believe that he was a heroic speedster called Jay Garrick who also went by the name The Flash on Earth-2, even mentoring Barry to learn a few new tricks to better use his powers. As it turns out, not only he planned to steal Barry's speed for himself, but he also kept captive the real Jay Garrick and used his name to instill a false sense of hope in people so he could take it later.
• Firefly has Saffron/Yolanda/Bridget/whatever her real name is. A con artist with Companion training who works by seducing anyone worth a mark.
• In the Korean Series 49 Days, In-Jung is the best friend of a girl in a coma. Come to find out, she set up the hostile takeover of her friend's company two years before the beginning of the story, using her boyfriend/lover as bait.
• Daphne from Frasier is a rather harmless and comedic example. While perfectly nice when she gets her way, she has also proven to be selfish, manipulative, petty, and a huge hypocrite who is quick to blame others for most of the problems she causes. This is actually lampshaded shortly after she gets together with Niles, when she believes that her overeating binge was caused partly by anxiety over the fact that she knows she's not as sweet as she acts and doesn't think she can live up to Niles's expectations of her after he has built her up and worshipped the ground beneath her feet during seven years of Unrequited Love. It turns out that Niles is perfectly capable of coming up with a long list of things he hates about Daphne, but loves her all the same.
  • Dr. Nora appears to be sweet and humble when Frasier interviews her for a hosting gig at KACL, but the second she gets on the air she turns out to be extremely conservative and berates her callers for being "whores". Frasier eventually tracks down Nora's mother who acts like a sweet old lady until she gets in the booth with Nora and greets her with "You little WHORE!". Clearly, the apple didn't fall too far from the tree.
• Friends:
  • One of Rachel's boyfriends (played by Ben Stiller) in Season 3. He seems perfectly fine until someone or something pisses him off.
  • Emily, Ross's 2nd ex-wife. Later on in her appearance, she became much more...not bitch per se, more along the lines of 'possessive extremist with a short temper'. Granted, she had reason for being not so innocent anymore (Ross said the wrong name at the wedding), but her 'demands' were admittedly quite unreasonable...
  • Phoebe openly admits her late grandmother was one of these, claiming that while she treated her granddaughter well she was terrible to everyone else and is definitely in Hell. Frances only appeared in one episode during which she seemed pleasant enough but we find also out she's been lying to Phoebe about who her father and grandfather are, claiming that photographs of a random male model and Albert Einstein were pictures of said relatives. Being related to such a liar might explain why Phoebe took such a level in bitchiness later in the series.
  • Gunther, the manager at Central Perk, has a tendency to be this, most notably when he intentionally spills to Rachel that Ross slept with the copy girl and also towards Ross in general, as well as any other guy Rachel dates or has a crush on her.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Cersei and Joffrey both deceive Sansa with this in Season 1. Later, Joffrey again pretends to be a decent guy for Margaery.
  • Ramsay is revealed to be capable of this when he puts on a sane and cheerful façade for Littlefinger in "High Sparrow".
• The Good Doctor: Morgan Reznick is a textbook example. She immediately starts in being nasty to Claire Browne's face, sticking her with unpleasant tasks, and generally being a manipulative bitch...but she's ultra nice if anyone else is watching.
• Homicide: Life on the Street: Colonel Granger is more polite than Captain Barnfather, but he's just as much of a slimy careerist as he is.
• Lily in How I Met Your Mother. She's manipulative and controlling and very rarely takes other peoples' feelings or opinions into account, but never gets called out on it. She appears to be the sweet, maternal member of the group but is revealed at one point to have been quietly manipulating her friends' lives and relationships for YEARS (going back to before the show began).
• iCarly:
  • In one episode Carly meets up with an old friend named Missy, but Sam has suspicions that Missy is trying to get her out of the picture. Carly believes otherwise. It turns out that Sam was right all along, and after winning a chance to take a cruise, Missy confesses to Sam about her intentions. Carly was within earshot at the time, and it also turns out that Freddie won the cruise and gave it to Missy, who is actually prone to seasickness.
  • The episode "iRocked the Vote" introduces us to Wade Collins, the runner-up of a signing contest. During an interview, Wade seems like a nice guy who admits that he wished he won the contest because he was going to use the prize money to pay for an operation his mother needs. Carly and Sam feel bad for Wade and decide to invite him on their show and even agree to help him make a music video. But when they meet him, Wade reveals to be a complete jerk who is rude to everyone and calls them all "Hobknockers" (We never find out what that means. All we know is that it's gross. And illegal) And if that wasn't bad enough, Wade reveals later on that he made up the whole story about his mother needing an operation just to gain sympathy.
• Jeremiah: Libby spends the first half of season 2 being a snarky, eager-to-please Genki Girl and Wide-Eyed Idealist. But once she's revealed as The Mole for the Valhalla Sector, she watches Sims killing and kidnapping townspeople she has just befriended and then compliments his efficiency, while also mocking Smith for his eccentric reputation after he catches her spying and trying to kill him even after he shows a desire not to hurt her and is willing to let her go.
• Kamen Rider:
  • Kamen Rider Blade: Miyuki Yoshinaga/Orchid Undead was introduced as a Nice Girl who ended up being Kotaro's girlfriend, but in reality was trying to lure him into a trap to kill him and make Kenzaki surrender his Blay Buckle. She later keeps up the nice act with Mutsuki, but for his Remote Tapir card, in hopes of unsealing her fellow brethren just to reignite the Battle Fight, only to backfire as the Rider fights back against her.
  • Kamen Rider Double: Wakana Sonozaki started out as this, acting friendly to all her fans while secretly showing contempt for them and some of the things they give her (as shown with Shotaro). By the time of the Violence Dopant scenario, Wakana eventually underwent Character Development, especially after her encounter with Phillip and the conversation and advice they had.
  • Kamen Rider Drive: Medic is presented as the sweetest thing ever in Heart's perspective. Everyone else, up and including other Roidmudes, she treats with disdain at best. Although this wasn't completely her fault.
  • Kamen Rider Ex-Aid: Kuroto Dan/Kamen Rider Genm initially presents himself as his father's penitent successor, eager to atone for Masamune accidentally instigating Zero Day. It goes without saying that he's anything but sorry, let alone innocent.
  • Kamen Rider Zi-O: Ora, for every time she seems to be doing something nice for someone else, it's either because the action directly benefits her personally or a setup to make the other person drop their guard so that she can do something absolutely horrendous.
  • Kamen Rider Zero-One: As tends to be very playful and cheerful, especially when compared to Is, yet in reality, desires endless malice which involves taking actions that pit MetsubouJinrai.net and the protagonists against each other, all to fuel the conflict between humans and Humagears.
• Kevin (Probably) Saves the World: Dave. Initially coming off as a Big Fun angel to contrast Yvette's more straightforward approach, he's eventually revealed to be pissed about being stuck on Earth. And attempts to sabotage Kevin's efforts to find The Righteous Souls.
• Kluen Cheewit: Sathit's first impression of Jeerawat. He completely believes she's a horrible person who killed his fiancee.
• Jim Hobart of Mad Men initially appeared to be very congenial when dealing with Don and the partners of SC&P, but he ultimately reveals himself as quite sexist and petty when dealing with Joan's frustrations.
• Felix Khoury from Trail of Lies may look like a dedicated son and loving brother at first; in actuality, he's a very conniving person who would stop at nothing to ensure that he is the only heir to his parents' fortune and also to take over control of the hospital his family owns.
• Marcy from Married... with Children, who is often presented as being old fashioned and loving of her husband Steve (and later Jefferson). However, she often ends up in situations where someone has wronged her, and this often causes her to describe in violent detail how she is going to exact revenge on them. In a similar fashion, she's also shown to be sex-obsessed, but she tries to keep this persona hidden from the Bundys because she wants to look wholesome and be the voice of reason. It never works.
• The Mary Tyler Moore Show had Phyllis Lindstrom, and later Sue Ann Nivens, as mildly comic examples of this (making them perfect foils for the Minnesota Nice Mary.)
• M*A*S*H: In the tenth season episode "The Tooth Shall Set You Free", Major Weems at first appears to be someone devoted to his men, always visiting them when they're wounded, and talking about how commanding troops is more than just ordering them into battle. In reality, he's a racist who gives the blacks in his unit the toughest jobs, and ensuring they suffer most of the casualties so he can ship them home and not have to deal with them anymore.
• Morgana from Merlin has fallen into this, mostly in the earlier seasons when she was pretending to be the good girl princess-her temper and strong will showed up from time to time, but Uther never knew she was as bad as she was. And she's openly evil nowadays. She wasn't really pretending to be good in the earlier seasons, she genuinely was kindhearted, yet fiery when she needed to be. Since learning she had magic and resenting how magic-users are treated in Camelot, she turned against her old friends and became the evil villain she is now. Although, after turning to darkness, she did admittedly pretend to still be an ally of Camelot for a while, before dropping the ruse.
• Million Yen Women: Shin's rival writer Yuzu Hanaki. He puts on a friendly face for his media appearances as a writer who is successful among readers and critics alike but can be quite mean once the cameras aren't running.
• Monarch: Legacy of Monsters: In May's (real name Corah Mateo) backstory in Episode 7, Brenda Holland is introduced taking Corah out to dinner and convincing her to come work for her tech company, AET, saying she sees great things in Corah. Corah becomes curious about the Cybernetic Neuro-I Nterface Unit project that her research is being fed into at the workplace, but Holland insists that she doesn't need to know about it. When Corah goes snooping in the company's secret files on the project anyway, she discovers a video of agonized lab monkeys with wires inserted into their skulls, much to her horror, prompting her to crash Holland's database and then go on the run to avoid Holland's retribution. In the present, Holland has Corah kidnapped for sabotaging her work, and she tries to blackmail Corah into spying on Monarch for her if she wants to avoid jailtime.
• The series Motive has the killer revealed to the audience in the opening scenes. Flashbacks show how the crime happened and why and often reveals the "victim" wasn't that nice and that others involved aren't good either.
  • A limo driver kills a cop to protect his girlfriend. The flashbacks reveal the woman was actually a con artist setting him up the whole time.
  • A father is murdered by a man who then kidnaps his daughter. However, it turns out the "father" is the one who kidnapped the girl years ago and his killer is her real father coming to rescue her.
  • A pilot appears to have been cheating on his fiancee with another woman who boasts an engagement ring and photos of them together and he killed her to marry a richer woman. But when arrested, he reveals the "girlfriend" was a woman he sat with on a single flight and stalked him, faking photos of them, stealing that ring, and trying to ruin his life. When he finally confronted her, she attacked him and he had to kill her in self-defense.
  • A truly dark case in "The Frog and the Scorpion" as a woman has pleaded innocence for murder and when another killing like it occurs, it seems to prove it. She's freed as it turns out that the killer was her therapist, who'd fallen in love with her and committed this murder to get her out. They're at a cabin together...at which point, she stabs him in the neck with a corkscrew. As he lies dying, he sees her wicked smile and realizes she was guilty all along and used him to kill an innocent woman just to get out of jail. When the cops burst in, the woman starts crying out about how the man kidnapped her but they've already figured out the truth and arrest her.
  • Subverted in "In Plain Sight" as a long-lost girl comes back to her dying mother and older sister. The sister is suspicious of things, especially her mom changing the will to give her newfound daughter more money. The cops figure out that the girl isn't the missing daughter but part of a con. But as it happens, the mother had figured it out and knew the con artist was a good person and wanted her to end her life with dignity. Sadly, the sister never realized and so killed the con artist, thinking she was protecting her mom.
• Once Upon a Time:
  • Regina in Season 1 is very good at acting caring, hurt, joyful, etc, etc, until the act is no longer needed and is dropped like it's going out of style.
  • In Storybrooke, Zelena acts as a kind midwife. She drops the act when her secret is out.
• J-Drama Onna no Sensou ("Women's War") is a whodunnit where every contestant in a reality show where they have to win the affection of a rich bachelor hides some secret. The worst one is probably Rio Ichinose, a former idol who acts overly friendly and cutesy, but is actually a nasty piece of work who constantly spouts insulting remarks towards everyone and backstabs other women every way she can, even with the help of one of her fans and "sugar daddy". To add a layer of irony and Self-Deprecation, her actress Rio Teramoto (almost every character is The Danza) is a working idol in real life.
• In Oz, Schillinger offers to be Beecher's new cellmate to seemingly protect him from Adebisi. Beecher accepts the offer from the seemingly helpful Schillinger, but on their first night in the cell together Schillinger rapes Beecher and "brands" him by burning a swastika design into his right buttock.
• HRH The Princess Eleanor from The Palace charms the public with her poise and charitable endeavours, but she's really a ruthless schemer who will abuse anyone's trust to get to the throne.
• Part of Me: Elena pretended to be Mónica's kind and dutiful niece while plotting behind her back her whole life. She only shows her true colors to Mónica when Mónica's on her deathbed to taunt her about how she's planning to kill Mónica daughters to steal their forture. Unfortunately for Elena, Mónica comes Back from the Dead in Adriana's body, but Elena still keeps up the act for the rest of the family for a long time.
• Peaky Blinders Grace presents herself as an innocent barmaid when really she's The Mole attempting to gain crucial information on the Peaky Blinders for Inspector Campbell. Even after she falls for Tommy and quits her position, Polly lays into her that she betrayed him and the family to the coppers and failed to warn Tommy of what she'd done before the final showdown, and that even if Tommy chooses to forgive her, Polly certainly won't. Then she tells her to get the hell out of Birmingham. Grace remains enormously self-centred throughout the series right up to her death shortly after she marries Tommy.
• Person of Interest: This happens multiple times, in keeping with the central premise that the protagonists only receive the identity of a person involved with a murder-to-happen — whether it's the victim or the murderer is up to them to find out, with several "obvious" victims turning out to be either the perpetrators of the crime in question or guilty of other crimes. Specific examples (all three of them from the first season) include:
  • The prosecutor in the pilot. The guy stalking her is trying to uncover her crimes, her trying to find another witness is so he can be silenced and the obvious trap she's walking into is merely her meeting her associates.
  • Elias, the bogeyman of organized crime, plays the part of a school teacher who apparently has witnessed a murder and is now on a hit list. Reese protects him for most of the episode until Elias shows his true colours, cuffs Reese to a railing and escapes.
  • When we see Root in the season finale, she plays the part of a meek therapist who is being hunted down, giving no evidence of her true nature until we see her shoot a woman from behind and hold Finch up at gunpoint. Technically, she was the victim of the episode, but that was because she put a hit on herself so she could find the heroes who would come and rescue her.
• Princess Silver: Ning Qian Yi is a male version. At first he seems a fairly decent Nice Guy, but he shows how possessive and manipulative he really is when Zhao Yun tries to get out of marrying him.
• Prodigal Son: A constant in the series as so often, a seemingly mild-mannered and innocent figure is the killer.
  • The best example is Vivian, presented as a bright eager nurse seduced by Martin...until she kidnaps him and stabs herself as a frame job. To top it off, when the cops figure out the truth, it turns out that she's responsible for eleven deaths at her various hospitals.
  • Martin Whitly was an example himself before being exposed. He was a nice, seemingly normal family man and respected surgeon, but secretly a vicious serial killer. Even now, he's very affably evil and a charming man, who's quite manipulative, insisting that his time in a mental institution worked to cure him. Martin claims he's remorseful and wants to make up for his actions, but Malcolm never buys it (nor the "cured" claim).
• Psychopath Diary: In-woo is a male example. He pretends to be kind and friendly to hide his true nature. Best shown when Dong-sik phones him and In-woo pretends to be sympathetic while laughing at Dong-sik.
• The Rise of Phoenixes: At first Ning Qi seems to be one of the nicer members of the royal family. Then he turns out to be just as cruel as most of his brothers.
• Robin Hood: Isabella shows her true colors when she tries to kill Robin after he dumps her. However, it is unintentionally subverted considering Robin's questionable behavior in this particular season and the fact that it is heavily hinted that Isabella has mental problems thanks to seventeen years of an abusive marriage. Likewise, the Derailing Love Interests trope played a part, as Robin hooked up with Kate soon afterwards.
• Scandal:
  • Becky, Huck's girlfriend turns out to this. No one could have ever suspected this person of shooting the President and framing Huck for it or being such a murderous psycho in general.
  • In Season 7, President-elect Frankie Vargas is killed on stage right after winning the election. This leads to a complex series of events ending with Millie voted President by the Electoral College after choosing Frankie's widow, Luna, as her VP. On the night of the Inauguration, Liv confronts Luna on how she was the one behind her own husband's murder, all as a plot to be named President herself. Luna defends herself on how Frankie would have had to make compromises and not get enough done. "Imagine what Jackie Kennedy could have done after Dallas," Luna says, making it clear she thinks she could have achieved Frankie's plans better. She pays for it by being forced to kill herself.
• Scrubs:
  • How Dr. Kelso was introduced. He later turns out to be a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, especially after he retires.
• The Serpent Queen: Diane de Poitiers initially behaves in a friendly manner towards series protagonist Catherine de' Medici, casting herself as a helpful confidante who can show Catherine how to handle life in France. When Catherine finds out about Diane's relationship with her new husband Henri, however, they become instant rivals—and it only gets worse from there.
• Sisters. A Whole-Plot Reference storyline had oldest sister Alex hiring a new assistant Evelyn, who rapidly made herself indispensable while simultaneously fawning and gushing over her. It soon became obvious that the girl was in fact undermining her and after her job.
• On Smallville, Mikhail Mxyzptlk is introduced at the beginning of the episode as someone who isn't too bad a guy. He helps Chloe place a bet on a football game that Clark's taking part in. He later helps Chloe write an article for the Torch. Later in the episode though, it's shown that he's actually a very manipulative person, demonstrated further by his ability to control people's actions by speaking.
• Sonny with a Chance: Penelope. She seemed sweet at first, but she found out that Sonny and Chad were in love, she went completely psychotic, even plotting to kill Sonny. When Chad (understandably) rejected her, she left him to die on an abandoned plane.
• Stranger Things:
  • Dr. Brenner seems (to some extent is) an amicable and caring father figure to Eleven as well as the other Psychic Children, but is unmistakably an emotional abusive Manipulative Bastard to the core and reveals a particuarly cruel side when things don't go his way. Averted with Dr. Owens as despite being played by Carter Burke, is a geuinely good man who hates using Eleven or lying to her.
  • Steve's friends Carol and Tommy initally seemed like rambunctious but fun people, with Carol being pretty polite and friendly to Jonathan at school, in actaulity they are bullies and assholes of the highest order. Steve himself was a case of this, being a very friendly and loving boyfriend to Nancy but displays an inredrible nasty streak destroying Jonathan's camera, partaking in Carol and Tommy's Slut-Shaming of Nancy after he mistakes Jonathan being in her room as her cheating on him and even mocks Will's disappearance to his brother Jonathan's face which results him in getting his ass beaten. Subverted later as Steve goes on a Redemption Quest and takes a serious level in kindness.
  • Angela in Season 4, in her first apperance seems like just outgoing and charming valley girl, but her Alpha Bitch nature is still palpable as she looks down on El and criticises her hero presentation about Hopper. Out of class she puts up no pretence and is wickedly cruel to Eleven and only puts on the sheep clothes again at the roller rink in order to publicly humilate her. This only makes the scene where El snaps and breaks her nose all the more satisfying.
  • Jason is a much greater and more sinster example of this. His Establishing Character Moment is a truly uplfting Rousing Speech to the school which along his blonde haired good looks makes him seem like a small town Captain America, however by next scene we learn not all that glitters is gold as Jason shoots venom at Eddie across the canteen revealing himself a Jerk Jock who depises "freaks" like Eddie and the Hellfire club. He only manages to get worse after his girlfriend Chrissy dies he starts a Witch Hunt and becomes a massive thorn in the side of the heroes and reveals a truly psychotic side to him. Even Lucas who looked up Jason as someone normal and popular soon concedes bitterly Jason was really a Broken Pedestal all along.
  • The young ordely that helps Eleven in Season 4, seems like a geuinely good guy that wants to help her from her crueller adoptive siblings and escape captivity being her only friend after Eight (Kali) got away and El is grateful enough that she removes the chip from his neck. This proves to be a massive mistake as the ordely is actually Henry Creel aka goddamn Big Bad One/Vecna himself who reveals his true colors by buterching the rest of the children with impunity and reveals to Eleven he intends to subjugate the Muggles and rule the world as a god. Thankfully El takes issue with this and banishes him to Upside Down. Although he Comes Back Strong.
  • One that is more easily missed, is Laura Cunningham, Chrissy's mother. When we briefly see her in the flesh at her daughter's funeral she seems like a genuinely grieving and loving mother but as seen but Chrissy's Vecna-induced nightmares she is really a horribly absusive woman who put a massive amount of Weight Woe on her daughter and caused poor Chrissy to develop an eating disorder. Unike the rest examples listed here, she's a Karma Houdini.
• Star Trek: The Original Series:
  • Khan seemed like a really swell guy, 'til he set out to kill Kirk, steal his ship, and conquer the known universe.
  • The episode "Amok Time" gives us T'Pring. More of a bitch in Emotionless Girl's clothing, really, but still the ex-wife from hell whose Jerkass moves include: provoke a situation knowing that she will get back at him and it will literally kill him (given the situation, her choices would be perfectly understandable if it was, even partly, for other motives, but it is apparently only for this), trying to make him fight his captain and his friend to the death, then revealing that even if Spock still wanted her after all that, she would have cheated on him anyway. On the other hand Spock had made her wait twenty years for her wedding night and made it clear to all Vulcan that the only use he had for her was sex to save his life. However, that may just be the cultural norm for Vulcans in general, as no one seems to find it unusual that Spock waited until Pon Farr hit to finalize the marriage.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation:
  • Admrial Norah Satie is a particularly nasty case of this as seen in the episode "The Drumhead". At first Satie seems like a Cool Old Lady who has the best interests of Picard and the Federation while they are investigating a possible sabotage attempt (later revealed to be a accident) from a possible Romulan spy among their ranks. Satie effortlessly charms Picard and inspires passionate determination from even Worf, however it turns out Satie is a ruthless Knight Templar who starts a fearmongering Witch Hunt, cruelly interrogates and ruins the career of a young medical technician who had a Romulan grandfather and lied about on his Star Fleet application. When Picard prevents her interrogations, Satie puts him on trial, accusing Piccard and the Enterprise crew of being Romulan colabrators. Thankfully Picard shoots her down with an excellent speech recited from own father's memoirs. This trope is even lampshaded at the end.
    Worf: I believed her. I, I helped her. I did not see what she was.
    Picard: Mister Worf, villains who twirl their moustaches are easy to spot. Those who clothe themselves in good deeds are well camouflaged.
  • One-time character, Nicholas Locarno, while nice and charming on the outside, is actually a really nasty person beneath the surface, according to Word of God. He seems like A Father to His Men at first, but he persuaded his flight squadron to perform a forbidden maneuver that got one of them killed, and then he strong-armed the others into covering up the truth. When he returns in Star Trek: Lower Decks thirteen years after being expelled from Starfleet Academy, the sheep's clothing wears thinner to reveal a full-blown narcissist who refuses to admit that he screwed up.
  • The Crystaline Enity can be considered this in some ways, it's a beautiful glowing snowflake-being that makes lovely humming noise as way of speaking. A lot of the Enterprise crew are charmed and in awe of it with Picard himself defending it againist Doctor Kila Marr who wants to destroy it. Yet for all it's magnificence, the Crystaline Enity still lays waste to planets and actually worked with Data's Evil Twin Lore and after he was defeated, the Enity actually fled displaying an alarming amount of It Can Think. Of course, it's possible (as Picard preposes) the Crystaline Enity is just an animal that doesn't know any better and Lore was just an evil influence for it, but even for something that's supposedly the equivalent of a space killer whale the Enity comes off as more of an Eldritch Abomination than anything else.
• On Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Vedek (later Kai) Winn: wise and benevolent religious leader on the outside, but full of biting, passive-aggressive insults that quickly reveal the depths of her envy and pettiness.
  • Odo's former mentor, the Female Changeling, first appears in "The Search" as a wise, serene woman who is delighted that Odo has returned to his people. She and the other Founders are later revealed to be the rulers of the tyrannical Dominion. Throughout the series, we see examples of the malevolence behind her zen-like facade, such as when she impersonates Kira, leads the Dominion occupation of Deep Space Nine, and orders the genocide of the Cardassians at the end of Season 7, out of spite.
• The Thundermans: In the episode "Pretty Little Choirs", The Thundermans has the character Veronica, who pretends to be a sweet, charming goody-two-shoes around her chorus teacher and around other school authorities, but elsewhere when she's with her personal gang of alpha bitches, she enjoys intimidating and bullying those whom she sees as a threat to her, especially Phoebe, who wanted to compete with her for their school's chorus auditions. Phoebe even tries to be nice to her at first, but instead of reciprocating the kindness, she proceeds to threaten Phoebe and hurl spitballs at her and Phoebe's best friend, Cherry. When the day of the chorus auditions finally comes, when Phoebe, her brother Max, and Cherry are late for the auditions, Phoebe discreetly uses her telekinesis powers to make the hands of the clock on the wall spin backwards to fool everyone into thinking it's still a few minutes earlier. Phoebe then sings her big musical number to audition for chorus, but while she sings her song, Veronica tries to shoot a spitball at her open mouth while she's singing to get her to choke. Max foils this by secretly using his telekinesis powers to redirect the spitball back at Veronica and she ends up choking on it herself. When she recovers from the choking, she tries to also hurl a whole pie she had in her backpack at Phoebe as well, but Max again uses his telekinesis to redirect the pie back at her, splattering her all over her face.
  • What's even more interesting is that the actress who played as Veronica in The Thundermans, Gilland Jones, during this point in time in her career playing for Nickelodeon and Disney Channel, she almost always played as truly nice, sweethearted, goody-two-shoes characters who didn't have an evil bone in their bodies whatsoever, so this instance with her playing as a "Bitch in Sheep's Clothing" was very ironic considering her other acting credits.
• Becky Slater, Kevin Arnold's ex from The Wonder Years. When they were dating, he said mean things about his friends and made goofy imitations of them, which she laughed her head off at. But when they broke up, she told them about what he said, just to hurt him. She’s also done many cruel things to him post-breakup, like beating the tar out of him, pouring milk in his lap and trying to run him over with a bike.
• Torchwood: In "Small Worlds", Wicked Stepfather Roy is implied to be an In-Universe case. Besides Lynn being unaware of how bad he really is towards her daughter, there's a lot of friends gathered at their barbeque and he does manage to come off as quite charming when he makes a speech (less than two minutes after he's just slapped Jasmine painfully hard and called her a little bitch where no-one could see or hear).
• Sherry Palmer from 24 could've been the trope-namer. Initially appearing to be David Palmer’s devoted wife, she’s actually a political power animal, willing to do whatever it takes to further her own goals, be it blackmail, assault or outright murder.
  • In all fairness, she did get a Pet the Dog moment by helping Jack stop Peter Kingsley.
• Alan Harper on Two and a Half Men is the kind of guy who has spent his whole life living by an arbitrary morality, and is now mad that he hasn't reaped the rewards he thinks he deserves for it. Yes, life hasn't treated him all that well, but a lot of that is because Alan is a spineless doormat; he is incredibly resentful against his brother, who lived in hedonistic revelry that Alan secretly wanted himself, but never allowed himself to go for because he thought that the universe would automatically reward him for his passive-aggressive nice guy act. In the last few seasons of the show, however, he seems to have realized this and consequently has relinquished all pretenses of being a Nice Guy.
• Victorious had a girl named Ponnie, who pretends to be innocent and befriends Tori, but drives Tori insane because she claimed the moment Tori enrolled, Ponnie got kicked out. This is proven by Sikowitz to be false, but Ponnie still wreaks havoc.
• WandaVision:
  • Agatha Harkness aka Agnes, for the first six episodes seems to be a constantly upbeat and sassy Nosy Neighbor who’s always quick to kindly help out Wanda and Vision when she can. By the seventh episode though it’s revealed she’s a dog killing Wicked Witch who’s been manipulating Wanda and actually wants to steal her magic and threatens to kill her twin sons.
  • Tyler Hayward, when first introduced, is a stoic but affable S.W.O.R.D operative who’s courteous and empathetic to Monica since her mother died. As the series goes on though he reveals himself as a tyrannical General Ripper who despises superpowered individuals and is even willing to shoot children.
  • “Pietro” at first seems like a jokey and cheerful Cool Uncle who cares greatly for his “sister” Wanda and nephews. By the next episode though he reveals a nasty streak and even jokes about Vision’s death, which enrages Wanda enough to Hand Blast him. And he turns out to be under Agatha's control.
  • Played with Wanda herself. For most of the episodes, she puts up the facade of a bubbly and happy Housewife. Beneath the Mask though she’s incredibly bitter and possessive and willing to do anything to keep the ideal world she has created for herself, even if it means trapping an entire town full of people. At one point when a disillusioned Vision states she can’t control him, Wanda drops her facade and replies darkly, “Can’t I?”. Subverted at the end though, as Wanda has a Heel Realization and frees the people of Westview from her control.
• Xena: Warrior Princess:
  • Amarice in her first appearance was similar to Velasca, but was also more of a Well-Intentioned Extremist, even trying to take on Xena, in her attempted protection of Gabrielle in "Endgame".
  • Ephiny inverts this trope in her first appearance by being aggressive, unfriendly, and cold toward Xena and Gabrielle, before eventually becoming one of their best, and most trusted friends for the rest of her life.
• Yellowjackets has Misty Quigley. She is an attention-seeking equipment manager with the Yellowjackets soccer team who is always looking to get in, but can't quite seem to, but definitely has darkness running underneath. She is shown watching a drowning rat in a pool just before the teams' flight to the nationals takes off, and one of the publicity quotes for her character reads "I know you don't see someone that you should be afraid of, but you're wrong." As an adult, she is as a nurse who deprives an elderly patient of her morphine after she ticks her off.

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