Calling The Old Man Out / Live-Action TV

People Calling the Old Man Out in Live-Action TV.

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• On The 100, the first time Clarke and her mother have a private conversation after Clarke was sent to the ground, Abby makes the mistake of telling Clarke how proud her father would be of her, not realizing Clarke now knows that Abby's the one who turned him in to be executed. Clarke tells her exactly how hurt and betrayed she feels, and it's a long time before she agrees to talk to her mother again.
• The Affair: In season 2, Helen calls out her mother Margaret for wanting to see her daughter's marriage fail out of resentment for being in an unhappy marriage herself.
• Played for laughs in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., "T.R.A.C.K.S.", when Simmons stages a calling-out scene as part of her cover (she's playing Coulson's daughter during a mission):
  Simmons: All Mom ever wanted was your love. To be with you! In our two-story Victorian home in the Cotswolds! But could you even give her a moment, what with your banking job requiring you to travel to the States from Tuesday to Saturday every other week? No!
  Passenger (a cameo appearance by Stan Lee): [interrupts] Excuse me, ma'am, I'm personally sorry for your loss. [turns towards Coulson] As for you, this is your chance to do better!
  Coulson: I understand. [the passenger walks away]
  Simmons: He's right. You never had time for her, but you had time for your work! And your prostitutes!
  Coulson: Prostitutes? Plural?
• Comes up many, many, MANY times in Alias. To the point where it's maybe half of Sydney's interactions with Jack, Sydney's interactions with Irina, and, eventually, Nadia's interactions with Sloane.
• Gloria Stivic does this a lot on All in the Family. She chides Archie for his treatment of Edith, and takes him to task for his bigoted remarks, particularly against women. At times she hits him on top of the head. Despite this, however, and unlike most other examples on this page, they love each other dearly and it shows.
• On the Angel end, we have Connor, who spends most of Season 4 doing this repeatedly to Angel.
  • This happens a lot in the Buffyverse, against both actual parents, mentors and the occasional Parental Substitute. For example:
  • Buffy to Joyce in "Becoming Part 2":
    Buffy: Open your eyes, Mom! What do you think has been going on for the past few years? The fights, the weird occurrences... how many times have you washed blood out of my clothing, and you still haven't figured it out?
  • Willow to her mother in "Gingerbread". (Or at least she tries to).
    Willow: Mom! I'm not acting out. I'm a witch. I can make pencils float. And I can summon the four elements! Okay, two, but four soon. And-and I'm dating a musician!
  • In "Lineage", Wesley finally vents some bile toward his father as the pair engage in Gunpoint Banter. Roger blasts Wesley for constantly failing him and working for Angel when he knows all the evil he's done. Wesley in turn taunts his father, insinuating that Roger always belittled him because he feared that Wesley would outshine him.
  • Buffy to Giles in "Lies My Parents Told Me".
  • Parodied in "Tabula Rasa" when all the Main Characters are hit with a memory-erasing spell, and amnesiac Spike starts thinking Giles is his father. (They both have British accents, physically they're the right ages...)
    Spike: God, how I must hate you.
    Giles: What did I do?
    Spike: There's always something.
    • Later circumstantial evidence seems to indicate that Spike's first name is "Randy" (which means "horny" in British slang).
      Spike: I knew there was a reason I hated you!
      Giles: Randy's...a family name, undoubtedly.
  • Spike to Angel (Spike's Evil Mentor before their respective Heel-Face Turns) in "Destiny".
    Spike: Every time you look at me, you see all the dirty little things I've done, all the lives I've taken... because of you! Drusilla sired me, but you... you made me a monster.
    Angel: I didn't make you, Spike. I just opened up the door, and let the real you out.
    Spike: You never knew the real me. Too busy tryin' to see your own reflection, praying there was someone as disgusting as you in the world, so you could stand to live with yourself. Take a long look, hero. I'm nothing like you.
• Arrow
  • Laurel Lance calls her father out for using her as bait to catch the Vigilante. She tells him that the most frightening part, the most dangerous part, was having guns pointed at her by the police.
  • In "Heir to the Demon", Oliver tears into a hateful speech against his mom after finding out she's been lying to him and Thea about Thea being Malcolm Merlyn's daughter and ultimately disowns her as a mother.
  • In "The Return", Thea does an epic calling out of Malcolm Merlyn on discovering just how much he has manipulated her for his schemes, making it clear that from now on she will never regard him as her father.
• Ashes of Love: Run Yu gives Tai Wei a "The Reason You Suck" Speech after Tai Wei orders his arrest.
• Lee Adama's closing speech at Baltar's trial in Battlestar Galactica (2003) included Calling The Old Man Out (for a twofer, as father and as "the Old Man" as commander of the ship) for some of Adama Senior's actions (however justified they might have been), and at mother-figure Laura Roslin.
  • Lee has called out his father several times — for example, he believed Adama was the main cause of the death of his brother Zak — pressuring him to become a Viper pilot despite his lack of aptitude. Lee also opposed his father on the issue of martial law to the point of being sent to the brig for it.
• In the Beverly Hills, 90210 sequel series, when Navid tells a school counselor that an underage student from the school starred in one of his father's porn films, the police investigate his father. His father blames Navid for that, who retorts that his father broke the law.
• In the first episode of Billions, US Attorney Chuck Rhoades is disgusted to discover that his father - also a lawyer - is trying to maneouver him into extending leniency towards a friend facing corruption charges, and promptly blows his stack in front of both Dad and the friend.
• Dinah does this to her mother, Black Canary, in Birds of Prey (2002) when she comes back and says she wants to "make things right."
• In The Borgias, Cesare and Lucrezia both try to call out Rodrigo for not letting Vannozza come to Lucrezia's wedding. In the end, it doesn't quite work; Vannozza still can't go to the actual wedding, but Cesare brings her to the party afterwards and Rodrigo doesn't really care, although Giovanni Sforza does.
  • Cesare later calls Rodrigo out on favoring Juan by giving him a post as commander of the army that he had just proved he wasn't suited for, while Cesare who would be suited for it was stuck being a cardinal instead. Rodrigo does eventually see sense and put Cesare at the head of his army, but only after Juan is dead...at Cesare's hands.
• Breaking Bad: Walter Jr. (or Flynn) gets to lay out both of his parents in the last few episodes of the final season when he finally finds out the truth. First, in "Ozymandias" when Marie forces Skyler to confess to Flynn that Walt is a drug dealer and Skyler helped him launder their dirty money, he's furious that she's been lying to him for so long and calls her just as bad as Walt for going along with his crimes. In "Granite Slate", when Walt is able to sneak a phone call to Flynn while on the run, Flynn rejects Walt's offer of sending him the drug money out of spite, ripping into Walt for the death of Uncle Hank, and wishing that he would just die already, being hanging up on him (this is the very last thing he ever says to his father to boot).
• Parodied on The Colbert Report — when mentor and father figure Bill O'Reilly makes a derogatory comment about how badly the show is coping during a writer's strike, saying that Colbert "can't even find the cameras", Colbert reacts with a violent "FUCK YOU, OLD MAN!!" tirade... to the wrong camera. He realises this, and immediately apologizes — "Busted."
• Jeff from Community has a lot of resentment towards his deadbeat dad. After over twenty years, he finally meets him — and his half-brother, who is a neurotic wreck. Eventually, Jeff's father confides that he's proud of how Jeff turned out, and how it was better he wasn't there... to which Jeff spells out just how emotionally maladjusted, hurt, and bullied he became because of him.
  • Abed has Asperger's and a difficulty directly communicating with others, particularly his father. His father wants him to take over the family restaurant, while Abed himself wants to go into film. Still unable to tell his father off, Abed instead films a documentary using Jeff and Britta as stand-ins for his parents. Showing the final product to his father confirms that Abed's mother walked out and that Abed's father blamed the stress of raising a special needs child like Abed. Amid a Heel Realization, Abed's father realizes that film helps Abed communicate, and is therefore a worthy pursuit.
• When Dr Reid from Criminal Minds was a child, his father abandoned the family, leaving him in the care of his loving but severely mentally ill mother. While being married to a paranoid schizophrenic who flat out refused to seek treatment can't have been easy, the fact that he didn't even try to take custody of Spencer doesn't speak well of him as a parent. When Reid meets him as an adult, his father says that Reid doesn't look like him, Reid replies by mentioning the phenomenon where people start to resemble their pets over a long period of time, before saying: "So, I guess it makes sense that I don't look like you, since I haven't seen you in fifteen years. "
• Catherine has gotten into this a time or two on CSI... once, she didn't hesitate to call Sam a murderer for ordering a showgirl killed, and another time, when her daughter was kidnapped by one of Sam's rivals, Catherine angrily calls him a "thug in thousand dollar shoes".
• Adam does it in CSI: NY. His dad has been moved to New York because he has Alzheimer's. Adam finally breaks down in "The Real McCoy" and can't keep from letting out his rage about the abuse he suffered, even though his dad can't remember it anymore.
• Rita in Dexter lets her mother have it after her mom moves in and starts rearranging her life.
• Doctor Who:
  • In "The Idiot's Lantern" (the full exchange is on the quotes page), Tommy finally gives his dad Eddie the put-down he deserves and encourages his mum to throw the dad out at the end of the episode.
  • "Journey's End": The Doctor really lets Sylvia Noble have it for her emotional abuse of her daughter Donna.
• Ray Vecchio on Due South "North". He gives it to his (dead ghostly) father big time when Vecchio Sr won't stop belittling and annoying him about his actions in the woods.
• Echo (2024):
  • In "Taloa" Maya tells off her grandmother Chula about breaking contact with her years before after they meet again.
  • Maya rightfully calls out how shallow Fisk's attempt at winning her back is, since he went out of his way to commission technology just so he wouldn't have to be bothered to actually learn ASL, something all of her real family have done.
• In the last ever episode of The Fast Show Competitive Dad's father comes round for Christmas and is an even worse bully than his son. In a touching moment for a comedy sketch show, the grandson snaps and tells the old man off... only for his dad to start with the "How dare you talk to my father like that" routine. A moment later when granddad has left he finally tells his son he loves him.
• In Firefly, Simon calls out his father on his callous disregard for River's abuse at the Academy.
• In Forever (2014) when Henry learns that the Morgan shipping empire has been engaged in the slave trade, he confronts his father, who had always taught Henry that slavery was evil and shameful. He breaks ties with his father, refusing to take anything that came from the profits made on the deaths and suffering of so many human beings, and makes plans to move himself and his wife to the colonies to get away from his family completely, calling him out by his actions as well as his words.
• On Frasier, the reverse is usually true; Martin (the Old Man) often ends up calling out his two sons Frasier and Niles for their poor behaviour, especially towards him. Martin isn't the perfect father, however, and, on occasion, Frasier and Niles call him out with justifiable complaints; such as the time Martin berated Frasier and Niles for not welcoming a woman Martin liked with open arms because they didn't like her, only for Frasier and Niles to angrily point out that Martin himself never bothered to make the effort to be welcoming to any of their love interests if he didn't like them.
• One moment from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air pops up in "You cry, you lose" threads on forums more than possibly any other scene in TV history: Will's father deciding to abandon him once again, leading Uncle Phil to deal him a scathing remark before Will walks in. After his father leaves, Will vents his anger to Phil, calmly at first, before eventually breaking down into tears and hugging Phil as the episode ends. "How come he don't want me, man?"
• Friends:
  • In the first season, Chandler, after some encouragement from Ross, finally calls out his amazingly embarrassing mom for everything she did that caused his Hilariously Abusive Childhood and also for kissing Ross.
  • When Phoebe finds out about her adoption in "The One At The Beach", she angrily calls out her birth mother for giving her up and never having been part of her life.
    Phoebe: I'm a really cool person. And you know, you had twenty-nine years to find that out, but you didn't even try! And you know what? You walked out on me, I'm gonna do the same thing to you.
  • Ross eventually calls his father out on treating Monica as The Un Favourite after Jack reveals he used the boxes containing her childhood belongings to protect his Mid Life Crisis Car from water. To his credit, Jack is horrified to realise his daughter thinks he doesn't love her as much and decides to start making it up to her by giving her the car.
• Game of Thrones:
  • There's a scene which wasn't in the books where Theon Greyjoy calls out his father Balon for his hypocrisy in complaining about the way Theon's changed during his time with the Starks (despite Balon being the one who gave him to them as a hostage,) and for calling Theon weak for not espousing the Might Makes Right traditions of their people (despite Balon being comprehensively defeated on his own terms and clearly considering his conquerors wrong). Balon clearly looked guilty about this (a really big deal for him), and the fact that he immediately backhanded Theon for his impudence in no way detracts from Theon's awesomeness in this scene.
  • Subverted with Lord Tywin Lannister; his son Tyrion and daughter Cersei try to call him out on his ruthless behaviour or his coldness towards them, but he always has a devastating Shut Up, Kirk! response. Played satisfying straight in "The Children", Tywin having a crossbow bolt fired into his chest by Tyrion can only manage a feeble "You are no son of mine", at which Tyrion coldly reminds him of the truth he hasn’t been able to accept for years: "I am your son. I have always been your son." before shooting Tywin again, killing him.
  • Yara Greyjoy:
    • True to sibling fashion, she tears into Balon in "Mhysa" when he callously decides to leave Theon to be tortured to death, ceaselessly degrading and dehumanising him in the process. The result is pretty fantastic.
      Yara: He's your son!
    • She demonstrates this again in the sixth season, giving her father a blunt dressing-down for the outrageous stupidity of their continued involvement in the war.
  • Myrcella gets one in Season 5 when she points out Jaime doesn't know her at all, to which he has no rebuttal.
• In the first episode of the Seventh Season of Gene Simmons Family Jewels, Sophie confronts her father, Gene, about how he was always with gorgeous scantly clad women and that it hurts her and family. She told him that she loves him but she doesn't have to talk to him.
• Being as show primarily about parent/child relationships, this happens with some regularity on Gilmore Girls. Usually it's Lorelai calling out her mother when she oversteps a boundary, and it's generally the same points being argued each time. However, Rory gets her own chance, albeit downplayed, in the 2016 revival, when she talks to Christopher about being an absentee father. She's less angry and more curious, but her hurt over the fact he never fought to see her after Lorelai left Hartford is evident and it's the only time in the series Rory actually confronts him about it.
• This happened in Glee — when Sue's mother shows up for her daughter's "wedding" and starts making all sorts of demands, Sue demands to know how she could just up and leave her daughters for years before coming back and trying to call the shots. And all the mother could say was "Oh, you don't know how hard this has been on me, the sacrifices I had to make for a life of adventure!".
• In the finale of Good Omens (2019), Adam calls out his biological father, Satan himself. When Satan catches wind of Adam refusing to start Armageddon, he shows up in person to try and order him to. Adam promptly tells him off, pointing out that Satan, despite claiming to be Adam's father, isn't the one who raised him, nor did he even try and contact him for the first eleven years of his life — so why should Adam care what he wants, anyway?
• Gossip Girl: For Eric Van Der Woodsen when his father reappears after having been gone for fifteen years.
  Eric: Please stop acting like you and I have any kind of relationship.
  Will: You're right, I have a lot to make up for.
  Eric: I'm sorry. The window for that closed somewhere between my twelfth birthday and my suicide attempt. Don't worry, I'm fine now. Going through all that without a father made me realize that I don't need one.
• Hart of Dixie: Zoe gives one to her father for abandoning her after he found out he wasn't her biological father.
• For some reason, this happens a lot on Heroes:
  • In the first season, Nathan Petrelli made it clear what he thought of his mother for her willingness to sacrifice her younger son, Nathan's brother Peter, for the "greater good". They're still on (somewhat strained) speaking terms in Season Two, however.
  • Matt Parkman found out he shared mind powers with the father who abandoned him at age 13. He then engaged his father in a mental battle in which he locked the man in a mental version of the very apartment where the abandonment took place many years in the past. Matt added a "And unlike you, I'M a good father!" kicker to all of this as well.
  • Claire Bennet read the riot act to her father, Noah Bennet, when his increasing paranoia caused serious problems for his family and particularly for Claire. While she made some good points, the unfortunate truth was that his paranoia was actually justified...
  • Claire also manages to call out her father, Nathan Petrelli, on several occasions, including during Into Asylum and How to Stop An Exploding Man, pushing Nathan into a Heel–Face Turn. However, she is less successful in Trust and Blood when she attempts to call out both her dads at the same time. Instead, Noah and Nathan just send Claire back home and continue rounding up people with abilities so she uses her immunity from this operation to defy them from home, hiding super-powered people from her fathers and the government.
  • Sylar does this to his biological father. Though he failed at that. He goes in ready to kill him for killing his bio-mom only to find that he's dying of cancer and he'd be doing him a favor. He learns that he has already made the same mistakes as his father and when he demonstrates that he's already surpassed him in terms of power and is effectively immortal Samson simply replies, "You just have that much longer to suffer." In the end, he is still living in his parents' shadow by going after the "Big Game" to prove him wrong.
• Not entirely sure that Gregory House is physically capable of going a week without calling the parent(s) of a young patient insensitive, incompetent, overprotective, a Jerkass or any of a thousand other kinds of general idiot.
  • When it came to calling out his own dad though, Greg did it when he was twelve, point-blank telling Daddy-House he wasn't his father. Greg half-deduced, half-convinced himself this was true after taking years of borderline-abuse of neglect. After this happened, his father didn't speak to him for months, and their relationship never improved before Daddy-House's death.
    • He was right.
  • At his father's funeral, House's mother browbeats him to speak. House gets up and calmly gives a damning "Reason You Suck" Speech, noting that no one that served under his father is there, and saying that "if the test of a man is how he treats those he has power over, it was a test my father failed."
• House of Anubis:
  • Eddie did this to Mr. Sweet when the audience learned about their relationship. Feeling abandoned and rejected due to Mr. Sweet having left him to run the school, he insisted that he was never his father and never will be. This deeply upset his father, who'd been looking to try and develop a relationship with him. They eventually managed to get closer.
  • Jerome has a minor one when meeting his father in jail. He tells him "Darth Vader" has nothing on him, and almost attempts to leave before they truly talk. It's not long before they start to mend their relationship despite Jerome's show of anger.
• The Hexer:
  • When the Old Witcher is reaming out fresh-out-of Kaer Morhen Geralt for meddling into human affairs and trying to play a hero, Geralt eventually calls him back on backstabbing unsuspecting target or using a bow. The Old Witcher just smirks, considering such reaction from Geralt part of the lesson he's giving to him.
  • By the series finale, Geralt goes back to Kaer Morhen, now abandoned and in ruins, to finally face the council, or rather what's left of it. He chews the surviving trainers and druids for their pride and hypocrisy, but ultimately letting them go unharmed, wanting to break the cycle of cruelty.
• How I Met Your Mother:
  • In "Legendaddy", Barney finally meets his Disappeared Dad, only to be distraught to find out that he settled down with another family in the suburbs and angrily calls him out on it.
    Barney: You're lame, okay? You're just some lame suburban dad.
    Jerome: So why does that make you so mad?
    Barney: Because if you were going to be some lame suburban dad, why couldn't you have been that for me?!
  • In "Band Or DJ?", Robin eventually calls her dad out after finding out he got remarried without telling her first or even inviting her to his wedding, even threatening to uninvite him to her own wedding with Barney. This actually pays off as Mr. Scherbatski finally decides to start acting like the normal dad his daughter wants him to be and even agrees to a dance with her.
• Justified: Boyd Crowder goes all Badass Preacher on his father by calling him out on how his drug peddling has ruined Harlan County.
• Legion: In "Chapter 26", David Haller (more accurately two of his multiple personalities) calls out his biological father, Charles Xavier, for abandoning him.
  Legion: We're here for justice. Because you couldn't protect us.
  Charles: Me?
  Legion: Daddy. The leaver. The great abandoner. Who put a monster in our head and then threw us away. Adoption. Betrayal.
• Lost:
  • Sawyer unknowingly does this for Locke's father, which culminates in Sawyer killing him. When Sawyer learns of this revelation, he finds out that's precisely why Locke wanted him to meet him since the man had done terrible wrongs of the same nature to the both of them.
  • In a flashback, Ben kills his father during the DHARMA-ville purge as retribution for years of abuse and neglect (such as forgetting his birthday every year) by his alcoholic father who was constantly blaming him for the death of his mother (who died giving birth to him). May or may not be Disproportionate Retribution, but after seeing Ben being battered around by his father (later seeing him with broken glasses and a black eye for no reason other than doing as he was told) and how he is terrified at being taken back to him after being healed by The Others, he may have deserved it.
  • Sun does this to her father, chewing him out for his treatment of her husband. She also informs him that she bought a controlling share in his company.
• Love, Victor: Victor gives this to his parents in the penultimate episode of the first season, telling them in no uncertain terms that the constant tension between them is affecting him and his siblings adversely.
• The Magnificent Seven: Resident gambler and con man Ezra Standish does this the first time his mother — from whom he learned all his less savory skills — shows up.
  Ezra: You didn't raise me as well as a... as a stray cat raises a litter. You-you dumped me. Remember? At every aunt and uncle's house you could find. Unless, of course, you needed me... for a con.
• Malcolm in the Middle:
  • Francis's final words to Lois before moving to Alaska were nothing short of hateful.
  • Hal berates his dad. It starts out with how his entire family is being horrible to Lois at his dad's party and his dad is doing nothing about it. It then extends to how his dad doing nothing is a running theme; while his dad was always joking around with him, they never had an emotionally close relationship because of this. He goes on to list problems he had while growing up that were made worse because they were ignored (Interestingly, Hal himself ignored one of these same problems in Francis, Reese, and Malcolm just a few episodes before.).
• Done with a slight twist in one episode of M*A*S*H. Colonel Potter calls out Margaret's father for making her feel, in spite of her excellent service record and profound diligence as head nurse, like nothing's ever good enough. Daddy Houlihan had actually fled the operating room because the blood made him sick, but Margaret mistook it for his being disappointed in her. She didn't have the heart to call him out herself, so Potter did it for her.
• On Merlin, Arthur has called out Uther a time or two, although since Uther's the king, it didn't make a whole lot of difference. Morgana did this in a way as well after she found out the truth in Season 3, and it ended with Uther in the dungeon.
• Midnight Caller: When Jack's brother Frankie meets their father J. J. for the first time since Frankie was a baby, the first thing he does is punch J. J. in the face, knocking him to the floor.
  Frankie: I always promised myself I'd do that if I ever met this son of a bitch.
• Nathan Young delivers a spectacular one of these speeches to his father in a second-season episode of Misfits, after finding out that he cheated on his mother, went on to abandon his illegitimate son, Jamie, once the affair was over — and refused to even speak to Jamie when they met again. It's one of the few times in the entire show Nathan sounds genuinely emotional and not just sarcastic:
  You know what? He's better off not knowing you! I wish I was him!
  (A pause, and then Nathan's father leaves the room)
  Where're you going? That's right, dad, walk away with your tiny little legs, you FUCKIN' midget!
• NCIS:
  • Cementing his status as Papa Wolf to his team, episode 7x12, "Flesh and Blood" features Gibbs calling out the elder Anthony DiNozzo, on Tony's behalf. Specifically for one incident, and implicitly for a lifetime of neglect.
    Papa DiNozzo: We keep in touch.
    Gibbs: Really? Four years ago, Tony almost died of pneumonic plague. I expected to see you then. I didn't.
    Papa DiNozzo: He never told me he was sick.
    Gibbs: Well, Tony gets his personality from somewhere. I'm betting there's a lot of things in your life you don't share.
  • Gibbs does this for Ziva, although he delivers the speech to a messenger instead of her actual father.
  • As of season 10, Gibbs has called out McGee's father, a Navy Admiral who was up for a Presidential cabinet post and seemed to have little problem being verbally demeaning to Tim right in front of Gibbs. Ever the Papa Wolf, Gibbs finally told the man rather scathingly what he thought of him.
    Gibbs: You make him think he's nothing. You're the one worth nothing.
• Never Have I Ever: Gender-Inverted Trope. Devi calls Nalini out for saying Devi isn't her daughter.
• In the No Good Nick episode "The Fool's Errand", Nick calls out Tony for dragging her into his revenge scheme against the Thompsons, pointing out that, regardless of what they did to him, the decisions that landed him in prison were his and his alone.
• NUMB3RS:
  • Megan does this at one point to a millionaire who acts incredibly cold and distant towards his daughter. Something of a Freudian Excuse, given that the dynamic clearly reminds her of her history with her own father.
  • Don's not above giving one of these to powerful people if he feels they deserve it.
• Ode to Joy:
  • Fan Sheng Mei calls out her family for favoring her brother over her and constantly demanding her money without considering her needs.
  • An Di calls out her father for abandoning her mother because of her mental health after she was born.
• Once Upon a Time: Belle calls her father out when he has her kidnapped and then tries to force her over the Storybrooke town line (which would erase her memories) in order to get her away from Rumplestiltskin.

• In Oshin, Oshin's husband Ryuuzo finally gets the chance to tell his overbearing mother Kiyo to shut the hell up and that he won't ditch his wife no matter what, when he finds out through Oshin's other prospect love interest Kouta and his sis-in-law Tsuneko that Kiyo was hiding Oshin's letters from Sakata, with the intention to trick Oshin into thinking that Ryuuzo has abandoned her.
• The Outer Limits (1995): In "Fathers & Sons", Ronnie Dell has a very close relationship with his grandfather Joe but a distant one with his harsh and demanding father Hank. After Hank sends Joe to the retirement home Silver Sunset, Ronnie tells him that he wishes that Joe was his father instead of him. Later, Ronnie learns not only that Joe and all other Silver Sunset residents have had their memories systematically removed and sold to others but that Hank is one of the people buying the memories. When Hank argues that it is a way to keep Joe alive, Ronnie says that Silver Sunset is destroying everything that Joe is and that he is disgusted that his father is involved in it. He then tells Hank that he hates him. This conversation causes Hank to realize what Silver Sunset is doing is wrong.
• Near the end of OZ, Ryan O'Reilly confronts his father, whose abuse arguably shaped him into the sociopathic Manipulative Bastard that he is and probably led to the current conditions that he and his brother Cyril are in. He promptly tells him that if he ever comes out of prison, he will immediately hunt him down and murder him.
• Pistvakt: The final episode of season 2 finally shows us what happened to the protagonists' father. However the one who found him does not take it lightly, calling him out for abandoning them 27 years ago and even disowning him in the process:
  [...] But my father doesn't do that. My father, he saved peoples' lives, he was spoken of as a hero. He killed bears, and climbed mountains, and said good night to us every night. [now in tears] Then he disappeared. Haven't seen him since. You're not my father. You hear that?! You're not our father!
• Powerpuff: When Drake reveals he spent most of the girls' trust fund, they tear into him for everything he put them through. Blossom even asks him why he deliberately made them heroes instead of regular kids.
• Princess Silver: Wu You calls his father out in episode four for the way he treated his mother.
• Radio Enfer: Léo's mother comes to school in order to talk to Camille about the latter breaking up with her son. When Léo shows up, he starts ranting to his mother about the latter still treating him like a 3 years-old kid.
• In Series X of Red Dwarf Lister (with a little help from Rimmer) realizes his father isn't a very good one and calls him out on it. The interesting part? He's calling out himself-thanks to "some time-travelly paradoxy sci-fiey smeg" he's his own father.
• The Rise of Phoenixes: After revealing the Crown Prince's crimes Ning Yi confronts his father about how he was shunned after his mother's apparent death, and how Ning Qiao was the only one of his relatives who was kind to him. The emperor asks if Ning Yi is blaming him for this. Ning Yi bluntly says he is.
• In Salem, Anne expresses outrage at her father's duties involving the witch hunt, particularly killing people only presumed guilty. John Alden lives for this trope, though he doesn't do it to his father (who's died by this
• Search: Jun-seong learns Lee Hyeok murdered Min-guk and hid it by claiming Min-guk defected to North Korea. He confronts his father over the phone, and hangs up in disgust when Lee Hyeok denies it while still ordering Jun-seong to bring him the footage.
• Smallville:
  • Lex Luthor does this to Lionel every other Sunday. Well, he did it before he threw the old man out a window. The Voice of Jor-El's been called out a few times as well, both by Clark and by Jonathan on Clark's behalf.
  • In the episode "Abandoned", Lois called out Jor-El's voice as well for abandoning Clark, at one point shouting, "You're not one-tenth the Kryptonian he is! He's lucky to be rid of you!". When the Fortress's computer systems threatened her in response, Clark angrily announced to Jor-El, "After this, we're done!"
• Inverted in a Season 4 episode Sons of Anarchy, when Opie's father Piney calls him out for cheating on his wife by punching him in the face.
• Subverted in The Sopranos: After Tony finds out that mother tried to have him killed, he goes to her retirement home to Call The Old Woman Out, only to find that she's had a stress-induced stroke, and is probably unable to consciously hear any of his rage-fueled confrontations. This continues in later seasons, as Tony tries to call her out more than once about her attempt at killing him, and the heaps of psychological abuse she's put on him and his family over the years. Each attempt never comes to any kind of definitive resolution of their issues. In the end, she dies at the beginning of the third season, leaving Tony psychologically scarred with no clear picture or resolution of his feelings of his mother, and this affects him for years afterward.
• South of Nowhere has Spencer calling out Paula after the latter has spent too much time at the hospital (fueling speculation that she may actually be having an affair).
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: in "Dr. Bashir, I Presume", Julian Bashir calls out his father for not only running away from his problems but for having him undergo an illegal genetic enhancement operation so as to avoid the shame of having a special-needs child.
• Star Trek: Picard:
  • Elnor is bitterly disappointed that he's only seeing Jean-Luc Picard, whom he regards as a surrogate father, for the first time in fourteen years because Picard needs something from him, and lets him know this in no uncertain terms.
    Picard: Will you come with me? Will you bind your sword to my quest?
    Elnor: (angrily) Now that you have use for me? Now that I have value to you? You left me on my own, old man.
    Picard: I never meant to—
    Elnor: I see no reason not to do the same. (leaves in a huff)
  • Raffi became severely depressed after she was let go from Starfleet, and she got lost in her "crackpot, tin hat" theories about the synth attack on Mars and her substance abuse, which resulted in her being estranged from her son Gabriel Hwang and her husband. When she attempts to reconcile with Gabriel on Freecloud, he's still so resentful over how his mother had treated him and his father that he only allows Raffi a short moment to meet his Romulan wife Pel, who is pregnant with their daughter, before leaving his mother behind.
    Gabriel: (furiously) Tell me what was worth ignoring me and Dad until we hardly recognized you. Why you abandoned us for some crackpot, tin hat conspiracy—
    Raffi: (Suddenly Shouting) It wasn't crackpot! That attack was not what it seemed! Baby, there is a conspiracy, and it's bigger than anybody knew, there were lives at stake—
    Gabriel: Our lives, Mom. Our lives mattered, too, just not to you. I don't think you understand just how much it sucked to be your kid.
• Supernatural:
  • Sam and Dean Winchester spent about half a season calling out their father John for his various sins toward them until eventually he died, saving Dean's life in the process. Well, that's one way to make it up to the kid.
  • Bobby gets a moment like this in "Death's Door" as part of his death scene. As he lies comatose from a gunshot in the previous episode, Bobby is forced to watch/relive many of his memories. Through this, we learn that his father was a total asshole who physically and emotionally abused Bobby and his mother until young Bobby shot him in self-defense. Near the end of the episode, Bobby full interacts with a memory and confronts his father in a conversation that ends with the below (paraphrased) dialogue:
    Bobby: I was so afraid of becoming like you, I never had kids of my own!
    Bobby's Father: Good. You break everything you touch.
    Bobby: Oh yeah? Well, as fate would have it, I adopted two boys, and they grew up great! They grew up heroes! So you can go to Hell!
  • In "Don't Call Me Shurley", of all people, Metatron speaks on behalf of the angels and humanity and calls Chuck/God out for his assholery.
    Metatron: It wasn't just the saps on Earth who were praying to you. The Angels prayed too. And so did I! Every day!
    Chuck/God: I know.
    Metatron: You want to write the best-selling autobiography of all time? You explain to me, tell me why you abandoned me! Us!
    Chuck/God: Because you disappointed me. You all disappointed me.
    Metatron: Look, I know I'm a disappointment, but you're wrong about humanity! They are your greatest creations because they're better than you are! Sure, they're weak and they cheat and steal and destroy and disappoint! But they also give and create, and they sing and dance and love! And above all they never give up... but you do.
• That '70s Show:
  • Eric gets one when he finally stands up to his overbearing father Red, who is particularly bitter over having sold his Corvette to raise money for what he thinks is his wife Kitty's pregnancy (turns out she's actually going through menopause). After Red snaps at Eric one too many times, Eric finally loses his temper and tears a strip off Red for whining about losing his Corvette, when Kitty is extremely upset and needs his support. Eric concludes by reminding Red of all the times he'd told Eric to "be a man", and then tells Red to practice what he preaches and "be a man" for his wife. It does a good job of snapping Red out of his self-pity, too.
  • When Hyde's father comes back to town. Hyde eventually calls him out on abandoning him, but it's subverted when he readily acknowledges that he pulled a dick move. It ends with them calmly discussing it over a beer, then getting smashed.
• Tidelands (Netflix): Cal has a tendency to give her mom flak for past and present mistreatment.
• Done for laughs on Titus. Titus has a flashback when he tried to do the 'coming of age' thing by picking a fight with his father. Cut to the 'fist cam' of dad knocking Titus on his ass. Dad happens to be played by Stacy Keach. If you have ever seen the film The Ninth Configuration, you know what a bad idea it is to mess with 'Killer Kaine'. Having seen his run as Mike Hammer, it always was a bad, bad idea. The source material lampshades just how bad an idea this was.
  Titus: Hi, you've just instigated your own mugging, come on down!
• Suki does this to her father in Tower Prep:
  "If my family built this school...then I have no family. You are not my father."
• True Blood:
  • In one episode, Tara's alcoholic mother will not bail her out of jail after she had done the same thing for her many times before. "The first time I'm in trouble you turn your back on the one person who stood by you. After all the times I cleaned you up? All the times you beat me, and stole my money? My whole life is shit because of you! You're not my mother. Get out my sight, you evil bitch!" Tara's mom tries to say, "I love you." Tara won't have it. "No, you don't. You never did."
  • In the season 2 finale, Hoyt unloads on his overbearing mother after learning that she lied about the death of her husband to get his life insurance. He unloads on her for guilting him into staying with her, even forgoing college and basic rites of adulthood, based on a lie. He turns to leave, adding as his parting words, "I wish Jessica had finished you off."^note This is after an incident where Jessica had snapped and bit Maxine after bearing the brunt of numerous insults from her
• Two and a Half Men:
  • Charlie, having been bugged all day by his mother to try and get him to tell her why he hates her, finally calls out his mother on how horrible she was to him and Alan and blames her for their father's death. Evelyn, true to character, acts as if Charlie is being a whiny brat and walks out.
  • This trope becomes a major plot point when Evelyn makes Jake uncertain about his abilities after getting his first (and only) A on a test. Alan, having enough, manages to tell her off, saying that she doesn't want her to do to Jake what she did to him and Charlie.
    Evelyn: What did I ever do to you and Charlie?
    Alan: What did you do- what did she- Charlie, tell her!
    Charlie: Why tell her when we can show her?
• Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Deconstructed in the season 2 finale, where Kimmy confronts her mother about her flaws as a parent. While her mother accepts her mistakes, she also points out that she was a single mother at 17, with no idea about what to do or how to raise a daughter and that she did the best she could. Kimmy understands that they can't do anything now and exploding at her mother won't change what happened to them, so she just accepts her mother for who she is and attempts to move on.
• The Umbrella Academy (2019):
  • In episode 7 "The Day That Was" Klaus gets to call out his domineering father Hargreeves in Heaven for the cruel and strict upbringing he and his siblings got during their childhood, calling him a “sadistic prick”. Hargreeves shrugs off Klaus’s remarks trying to justify his actions, claiming everything he did in regard to his children was For the Greater Good and for them to reach their full potential. Klaus is shocked that not even death has humbled his father in the slightest, though Hargreeves does show some regret in regards to sending Luther to the moon under false pretences.
  • In the second season during episode 6 "A Light Supper" the siblings (especially Diego) attempt to call out Hargreeves again. But it’s subverted since they have traveled back in time to before Hargreeves adopted and raised them so the effect they were hoping is lost on him.
  • Lila in the second season calls out her adoptive mother The Handler multiple times, but she just laughs her daughter’s complaints off. Although when Lila gets genuinely suspicious about her parent’s death and starts angrily questioning her mother, the latter subtly reaches for a letter opener before Lila incorrectly guesses that Five was solely responsible for parents death and The Handler breathes easy. Played straight in the finale when Lila learns the truth and defies The Handler, who kills her and Umbrella Academy siblings in response, before Five rewinds time.
• War and Peace (1972): Natasha calls out her mother twice:
  • One, for selfishly refusing to use their wagons to carry the wounded soldiers at the sacrifice of their furniture and possessions.
  • Two, for keeping secret the fact that Andrei is among the wounded with them (so it will not cause a reconciliation that will hinder Nikolai's financially lucrative courtship with Marya).
• Happens a few times on Veronica Mars, given how common terrible parenting is in Neptune:
  • Logan hates his dad, and is calls him out a few times — once on Lynn's death, which Aaron is held accountable for, given how he cheated on her until she couldn't take it, and threw herself off a bridge. Later, in Season 2, the two are put in a jail cell together, and Logan yells at Aaron about the fact he slept with then killed Logan's girlfriend, then tried to kill Logan's next girlfriend, despite Aaron's denials.
  • Dick gets a pretty epic one in Season 3 when his dad suddenly returns and he calls dad out on the way they treated Cassidy, how much responsibility they have in Cassidy killing a dozen people and throwing himself off a hotel roof, and why dad didn't come back for Cassidy's funeral.
  • In the Season 1 finale, Veronica has become completely disillusioned with her mother, yells at her for not going through the rehab Veronica put her in, and making Veronica's college money a waste. She's so angry she kicks Lianne out.
  • In Season 2, Trina finds out who her biological father is, and calls him out for abandoning her in a bathroom at the school he taught at.
• Hugo's moment on The Vicar of Dibley is when, after being told by his emotionally and mentally abusive father David that if he marries Alice then "you will no longer be welcome in this house, you will no longer be my son, and as this will attests, you will have nothing!" he actually stands up to David (a rare feat for him), shoves the will back at him, and says, respectfully but coldly, "On the contrary, sir, I shall have everything in the world that I desire."
• In the second season finale of Weeds, Shane uses the occasion of his elementary school valedictory speech to Call Out The Entire Community.
• The West Wing: Ellie Bartlet, who believes herself to be suffering from Middle Child Syndrome, tells her father she doesn't know how to make him happy after she calls a reporter to offer support for her godmother, the Surgeon General, who made waves by essentially reversing the administration's position on marijuana. The end of the episode reveals that this isn't the case.
  President Bartlet: The only thing you ever had to do to make me happy was to come home at the end of the day.
  • The same line word for word is also used in Sports Night (though in a slightly different context) by the same Creator.
• In one episode of Wings, Joe and Brian's mother, who abandoned them as children, returns to the island. Brian is thrilled to see her, but Joe is not so forgiving:
  "I was twelve years old; you left me with a sink full of dirty dishes and two kids to take care of, Brian and Dad. I have taken crap my whole life for being too serious, for being a worrier. Well, why do you think that is, huh?"
  • Made stronger by the fact that, just after arriving, the mother makes light of Joe's non-forgiveness, saying he was 'anal even in the womb'. She slinks out of his anger by admitting the stunningly obvious — that she's just a lousy mother. One basic rule of Wings: Joe is never allowed to successfully call out anyone, ever.
  • This actually pales in comparison to when Joe actually calls out his own father:
  Joe: How would YOU know what Brian’s like? I raised him, I took care of him. When he had a nightmare in the middle of the night, he came to me, NOT TO YOU!
• Young Sheldon: In "Babies, Lies and a Resplendent Cannoli", Missy calls Pastor Jeff to offer to babysit, and Jeff tells her that Mary told him she wasn't interested. Missy then calls Mary out for lying to Pastor Jeff and for not thinking she was responsible enough to babysit.

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