Deconstructed Character Archetype / Live-Action TV

Deconstructed Character Archetype in Live-Action TV.

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The following have their own pages:

• Marvel Cinematic Universe
• The Boys (2019)
• The Umbrella Academy (2019)

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A-I

• 30 Rock:
  • Liz Lemon deconstructs characters like Murphy Brown, Mary Richards, and Julia Sugarbaker, feminist TV heroines who constantly fight to stand up for themselves and use dry, sarcastic wit as a weapon against those they consider unrighteous. Her wit is paired with a Hair-Trigger Temper, an incredibly vicious, condescending, and self-righteous manner, an extreme stubborn streak, and a drive to prove herself that goes past feminism and straight into It's All About Me territory, and while she is the Only Sane Employee holding TGS together, that speaks less to her stability than to the fact that everybody else on the show is even crazier than she is.
  • The episode "Reunion" deconstructs Liz's teenage counterpart, the "cool loser" a la Daria Morgendorffer or Angela Chase. Liz considered herself a Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold in high school, having few friends and coping with harassment by the Alpha Bitch and her Girl Posse by making witty remarks. At her Class Reunion, she discovers that everyone else saw her so-called "snarky comebacks" as mean-spirited insults and they all saw her as The Bully, hence why no one liked her. Her so-called friends were acquaintances who only hung out with her due to proximity, and the supposed Alpha Bitch was actually a Class Princess who tried to reach out and befriend her (surprise, surprise, her friendliness was actually why she was so popular in the first place). She even had to go to therapy to cope with the abusive remarks Liz inflicted on her.
• Barry:
  • The titular character deconstructs Hitman with a Heart. Yes, Barry is sympathetic, but he's trapped in a profession that doesn't leave much room for a heart of any kind (not to mention a profession that a truly moral person wouldn't take up in the first place).
  • Sally deconstructs the Morality Pet Love Interest. While Barry considers Sally to be one of the primary things motivating him to change as a person, Sally doesn't know that he views her as such, and is made uncomfortable on the occasions when he makes it more obvious. Furthermore, Sally is consistently shown to be a very selfish person with her own mountain of personal problems, which, combined with her lack of insight into Barry's past, often causes her to unintentionally be much more harmful to his emotional well-being than she is helpful. Barry places a lot of pressure on her to provide him with emotional support; pressure that she is neither aware of nor equipped to deal with.
• John Mitchell and Hal Yorke from Being Human (UK), along with the many other good vampires in the show, deconstruct the idea of the Friendly Neighborhood Vampire. Despite how much a vampire may wish to be this and become The Atoner, it is very much apparent that vampires are an inherently destructive and predatory race, and any attempt to be otherwise is doomed, as the hunger always wins. If anything attempting to control their psychological addiction to blood just leads to their relapses being even more bloody and violent than usual, and these relapses can be caused either by extreme emotional stress or due to one mistake. It's also pointed out that since they're immortal, it's only a matter of time before they slip up since they literally can't control their bloodlust for an eternity.
• Better Call Saul:
  • Of the typical Amoral Attorney through Jimmy/Saul and Hitman with a Heart through Mike. The show establishes that for a person like Jimmy or Mike, the process of becoming a sleazy ambulance chaser or a professional hitman is long and full of painful leaps and sacrifices.
  • It also deconstructs Cain and Abel. Jimmy McGill (the future "Saul Goodman") and his older brother Chuck McGill are two brothers who alternate between showing genuine concern for each other and attempting to sabotage each other. Because Jimmy is the protagonist and an underdog, initially it seems like Chuck is supposed to be the "bad brother" and The Resenter, but over the course of the series, it becomes clear that both McGills are quite prone to petty jealousy, underhanded schemes, and their criticisms of each other are not unfounded. In the end, it's Chuck who dies in a house fire that he himself started, with the implication that his last fight with his brother caused a relapse of Chuck's mental illness.
• Black Mirror deconstructs Asshole Victim in several of its episodes, particularly in "White Bear", "Shut Up and Dance", "Hated by the Nation", "White Christmas", and "USS Callister". The jerks have done things that make them unsympathetic, such as being a rude person overall, being mean to somebody who is lower than them on the social totem pole, or cheating on their spouses. In some instances, they willingly committed legitimately horrible and inexcusable acts (such as murdering an innocent kid, or possessing and masturbating to child pornography). However, the events that the assholes are forced to go through are so utterly horrific that any sense of schadenfreude is drained right out from the viewers. Meanwhile, their tormentors (those that have designated those characters assholes) are very clearly little better than those they attack and humiliate, especially because they often use pretensions of vigilante justice to justify who they choose as the victims of their own horrible actions. Long story short, those episodes force viewers to question their perceptions on revenge, vigilantism, and punishment, and they force viewers to wonder if the asshole victims truly deserve what happens to them despite what they've done.
• Breaking Bad: Walter White, the Villain Protagonist of the series, deconstructs the Justified Criminal. The plot is kicked off when Walt is diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer, with the best-case scenario being he only has two years left to live. His jobs as a high-school chemistry teacher and a car washer hardly make enough money for his family to live on, let alone pay for his cancer treatments. As a result, he decides to team up with his former student Jesse, a street drug dealer, and use his chemistry skills to cook meth to earn cash for his cancer treatments and to leave money for his family to live on. His actions have far-reaching consequences that he couldn't even begin to imagine, as he ends up getting several people including at least two innocent kids and his own brother-in-law killed. As the series goes on, it becomes clear that Walt enjoys the thrill and challenge of doing the wrong thing, and whatever noble intentions he may have had at first fall by the wayside more with his family being more of an excuse for him to keep going. Moreover, it's made clear that Walt's decision to turn to a life of crime was motivated more by his own pride and ego than anything else, as he's given a legitimate means of accomplishing his goals through his old friends Elliot and Gretchen offering to pay for his treatments but because of a falling out they had in the past (mainly with Gretchen, whom Walt dated in the past and then broke up with over his own inability to handle the fact that she was born into wealth, meaning much of his present financial issues are his own fault, which he refuses to admit any responsibility for), he refuses to take it and just continues on with his criminal activities. And by the end of it all, when the lid blows open and he's discovered, his family turns against him and it's only through a desperate last-ditch effort at making amends that he's able to accomplish his original goal.
• Castle deconstructs Manic Pixie Dream Girl through Castle's first ex-wife and Alexis's mother. Her first appearance demonstrates that despite her cheerful and bright personality, Meredith is very flighty, impulsive, irresponsible and even more immature than Castle. Castle describes their relationship as being like eating a deep-fried Twinkie, in that "once in a while is a treat, all the time will kill you."
• Dr Will Halstead from Chicago Med is a deconstruction of the archetypal TV doctor who strives to do the best for his patients in defiance of medical bureaucracy and the higher-ups, as he appears to have a full on messiah complex in his need to save lives and relieve suffering, to the point that someone declining treatment sends him into a downward spiral and he has on several occasions indicated that he believes he should have the right to force medical treatment on people against their will. He has defied legal DNR orders, desperately performed CPR on a brain dead man, opened an illegal injection site, tried to smuggle methadone to a detoxing heroin addicted doctor who he himself turned in, compromised an experimental drug trial and repeatedly tried to treat a local gang boss despite explicit orders from the FBI not to. Additionally his conflicts with his bosses often seem to come less from a place of principle and more from an instinctive reaction to authority, as shown when he immediately becomes hostile to one of his closest friends when he is promoted over him. He is stuck working as a lowly ER doctor for his entire career despite his skill and seniority, because the hospital administration don’t trust and won’t promote him, and his Ultimate Job Security eventually runs out in Season 6.
• Midway through season two of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, the title character becomes a deconstruction of the invoked Canon Sue after she is resurrected by Lucifer and gains powers far in excess of any other witch. For a brief moment, she completely upends the established rules of the setting, performing powerful magic without the trade-offs and sacrifices required of other witches, and the villains clearly regard her as a threat to their power. In other words, Sabrina is acting like a self-insert in a bad fanfic. But wait. Isn't there a figure in Christian eschatology who we are told will perform great, magical feats resembling those of Jesus and amass an army of followers, all in service to Satan (and make no mistake, Sabrina and her fellow witches are all Satanists in the classic horror movie mold)? Yup. Sabrina is The Antichrist. Turns out that Sabrina's newfound Sue-ish characteristics include The Reveal of the requisite special lineage — in that her father is Satan, and he "chose" her to destroy the world, much to the horror of all her friends and Sabrina herself.
• Johnny Lawrence in Cobra Kai deconstructs the '80s high school bully stock character that he helped codify and popularise back in The Karate Kid, first by showing why he was that way, and then how his adult life turned out. Johnny wasn't a bully just because he was an asshole who liked pushing weaker kids around; he was a lonely child and the victim of verbal and emotional abuse from his stepdad, resulting in low self-esteem and a lot of pent up aggression he had no way to release. Cobra Kai gave him a circle of friends and a father figure in John Kreese, and karate made him feel powerful and provided an outlet for his anger, so he quickly fell into a gang mentality with Cobra Kai and acted out with his violent bullying of others. Furthermore, once he graduated, he found that his adolescence as a delinquent left him completely unprepared for adult life. As a Jerk Jock in a high school that was unable or unwilling to moderate his extreme behaviour, Johnny reigned supreme as the alpha bully of West Valley High School, but as an adult he quickly found that, since he had largely neglected academics, he was unqualified for anything but low-paying menial work and that in the real world, you can’t just threaten and intimidate people without consequence. This, along with the loss of his Cobra Kai support network, and his humiliating defeat at Daniel’s hands left him as a broken, depressed Jaded Washout at the start of the series. It’s subsequently revealed that most of the original Cobra Kai crashed and burned in a similar way to Johnny, because the aggressive “strike first, strike hard, no mercy” attitude drilled into them as teens crippled any attempts to function in normal society.
• Community:
  • The episode "Studies in Modern Movement" deconstructs the "Loony Friends" part of the Loony Friends Improve Your Personality trope. After the strait-laced Annie agrees to move in with the eccentric Troy and Abed, she tries to go along with their zany antics and off-the-wall kookiness, but gradually gets more and more frustrated with their eccentricity and the selfishness, obliviousness, and annoying behaviour it leads to. The point is clearly made that while the Loony Friends may seem cool, wacky and fun in small doses and from a distance (such as the twenty-odd minutes you spend watching them on television), if you had to spend any meaningful amount of time up-close and personal with them they'd quickly become insufferably selfish and annoying if they weren't willing to tone things down a bit.
  • Jeff Winger deconstructs this from the other side. Yes, the Loony Friends gradually help improve his personality... but only because it turns out that for all his pretensions towards normality and his condescending attitude towards them, he's actually way more messed up than they are. He also deconstructs the "whacky lawyer who wins all his cases through courtroom antics" type by showing that a person who can win any argument and acts like the rules don't apply to him would probably be very hard to put up with in everyday life.
  • Pierce Hawthorne can be considered a deconstruction of the "wacky old person" character. His insensitivity makes him seem like a Jerkass, his Fair for Its Day outlook gets him ostracized, and his attempts to fit in turn him into an unlikeable Attention Whore. He can also be seen as a deconstruction of typical sitcom Butt-Monkey characters like Jerry, Scully, and Zoidberg; usually the oldest character in the group, lots of self-esteem issues, considered out of touch and uncool, and almost always the butt of everyone else's jokes to the point of being a Chew Toy. Pierce shows how this sort of treatment can eventually foster serious resentment from whoever's on the receiving end until things get ugly. Pierce lashes out at the group in increasingly mean-spirited, disturbing ways, in large part because of this treatment (he even says as much). Not that he doesn't bring it on himself most of the time, but he isn't really antagonistic until the group's treatment of him gets worse.
  • Shirley is essentially the sensible wife out of a wholesome family sitcom who's forced to interact with people who are neither her children nor her Manchild husband and who thus don't regard her as inherently more moral than them.
• Crazy Ex-Girlfriend deconstructs (what else?) the Psycho Ex-Girlfriend trope. Our protagonist and title character, Rebecca Bunch, latches onto her ex-boyfriend Josh Chan because she's deeply unhappy with her life and wishes to return to the days when they were happy together. Add in a borderline-abusive childhood, some improperly-managed mental health issues, and a friend who thinks she's in a romcom, and you've got a recipe for disaster. To her credit, Rebecca does occasionally have flashes of self-awareness where she realizes how screwed up her actions are, but they never last for long.
• Criminal Minds frequently deconstructed Vigilante Man with several of its unsubs. While the level of deconstruction varies, what remains constant is that vigilantes are ultimately killing to make themselves feel better, not much different from the show's typical Serial Killer. Furthermore, there is always innocent collateral damage to their rampages, either because of Misplaced Retribution, an incorrect assumption about someone's guilt, or simply someone getting in their way. The very first vigilante the team dealt with was ultimately a schizophrenic who thought killing his victims would make the voices go away, and it's entirely up in the air whether or not his victims were truly guilty. Regardless of how the general public feels about them or how deserving the victims are, the BAU cannot ignore or condone their actions, and have to treat them as they would any other murderer.
• In The Crown (2016), Phillip's initial and only role is to be the Hot Consort to Queen Elizabeth, after having given up his career, his home, his name, and his self-worth. He had no other duties besides looking presentable next to his wife and is stopped at every turn from contributing anything that he could call his own. All of this results in him feeling inferior to his wife and causing tension in their relationship, frequently partying and getting drunk with his friends because he is bored out of his mind. In later seasons, he comes to terms with his role as the British consort and his marriage grows more stable. This is shown in the very last scene of Series 4, when Princess Diana complains about her unhappy marriage with Charles to him, but he takes the moment to firmly remind her that her first and foremost duty is to Elizabeth and the Crown.
• Dead Like Me deconstructed Cool Old Lady in the form of Grandma Phyl who spent so many years doing "cool" stuff in foreign places that she neglected her own daughter which caused Joy to grow up anal and overly self-reliant.
• Degrassi: The Next Generation being a teen drama frequently lauded for its realism, is practically made of this trope.
  • Craig, Eli, and Miles are all deconstructions of the Troubled, but Cute archetype that are typically popular with the mostly female audience. In every case, they draw in women with their charm and good looks, only for said women to gradually discover that they're not simply troubled, but have legitimate mental health issues that need to be professionally addressed and treated, and those same quirks that initially drew them in later push them away when they stop being cute and start being dangerous. Also, the men are not Easily Forgiven and each spend season's worth of time and character development earning the trust of their friends and exes back, (and in Miles's case, never manages to at all.)
  • Early on in their runs, multiple episodes that featured Holly J and Dallas thoroughly deconstructed the Alpha Bitch and Jerk Jock archetypes commonly seen in teen dramas. In numerous occasions, both of them learn the hard way that when you're needlessly cruel and boorish to everyone around you, even your own 'friends', sooner or later you'll encounter someone who won't just take it lying down, that even your friends can and will turn on you if you push them to their breaking points, and that far from being admired and respected, it turns out all your peers actually hate you. Unlike many examples, though, these experiences actually do humble them and they become genuinely nicer people as a result.
  • Audra Torres can be seen as one to both My Beloved Smother and Mama Bear. While she unquestionably fiercely loves her sons, Drew and Adam, and actually is correct most of the time, her overly controlling and domineering attitude means that the boys often feel as though they have no room to voice their own opinions, make their own decisions, and learn from their mistakes. It reaches a head when Drew, sick of his mother attempting to control every aspect of his life, temporarily moves out, cuts contact with her, and begins acting recklessly, all out of a burning desire to prove that he actually can function without her, even as if becomes clear that he has no idea what he's doing.
• The Firefly episode "Trash" is a notable deconstruction of The Vamp (in the person of "YoSaffBridge"), showing how depressing and dehumanizing it can really be to be one, and how psychologically messed up someone would have to be to want to be one. Saff has completely mastered the art of seduction, but at the cost of any chance of ever having a meaningful relationship with another human being. After years of getting ahead through lying and manipulation, she's left a trail of abandoned identities behind her - to the point that even she barely knows who she is anymore - and a long line of men that she abandoned soon after marrying them for profit. At the end of the episode, Mal outright dismantles her whole M.O. in a well-timed "The Reason You Suck" Speech, where he points out that people like him will always trump people like her - because unlike her, he has a devoted crew of True Companions that will always have his back. In a pinch, well-earned loyalty always trumps cheap manipulation.
• The first 2 seasons of Downton Abbey deconstructed The Dutiful Son (or daughter, in this case) with Lady Mary, who was brought up believing family honor is everything even above personal happiness. She eventually falls in love with Matthew but her mother's pregnancy and possibility of finally having a male heir causes her break things off because Matthew would be title-less. When Cora loses the baby, Mary again tries to be with Matthew but he loses trust in her and believes her to be a Gold Digger. In season 2, Mary becomes engaged to Sir Richard who could provide for her even if everyone hates him. She breaks it off eventually and her father finally recognizes his fault in making Mary sacrifice love for honor. He tells her she can marry whoever she wants because a little scandal is worth it as long as his daughter is happy.
• Farscape:
  • Captain Bialar Crais deconstructs It's Personal and Insane Admiral. After his brother is killed by John Crichton when his brother's ship accidentally crashes into Crichton's, he takes his Command Carrier to pursue Crichton throughout the Neutral Territory to kill him, expending his resources and ignoring orders from his superiors to give up his chase. His increasingly irrational behavior causes his crew to hate him, and the second he encounters Scorpius, another Peacekeeper of the same rank, he gets relieved of his command for going against orders and wasting resources over his grudge. Crais later admits that much of his anger was fueled by his frustration over his failing career, meaning he was just using this to play the hero.
  • John Crichton deconstructs The Captain and Fish out of Water. Crichton is good at stopping the crisis of the week and keeping the crew together, but the stress of the constant threat of death causes him to develop PTSD. As well, he often will abandon whatever he is doing when he sees a chance to get home, and is as prone to selfishness and cruelty as the rest of the crew, and while he is good at appearing unflappable and openly unaffected by numerous horrific experiences, he’s clearly traumatized and it causes severe Sanity Slippage. As well, being new to the strange universe he finds himself in means that Crichton is dismissed as an idiot for not grasping the basic tenets of space life, and his unfamiliarity with the universe and constantly being thrusted into unusual and highly dangerous situations does not help his mental state.
  • Stark deconstructs The Millstone. He often causes the crew trouble and makes situations for them even worse, but this is because he has genuine mental problems, and he has extremely powerful psychic abilities, meaning that his paranoid freak outs result in extremely dangerous situations.
  • Scorpius deconstructs Darth Vader expies and Chronic Backstabbing Disorder. While externally he fits the archetype, being a disfigured enforcer of a tyrannical regime clad entirely in black armor with a tragic backstory, Scorpius relies more on his wits and intelligence than brute force. He keeps his men loyal by being a Benevolent Boss, and he only uses You Have Failed Me or You Have Outlived Your Usefulness when in a very desperate situation or when someone makes a very big screwup. However, his tendency to backstab those he allies with results in almost no one trusting him aside from Captain Braca, and Crichton and Moya’s crew quickly get used to him trying to backstab them and prepare for it, meaning that even when he is genuinely aiding them, they are more likely to betray him than he is to betray them.
• The Firefly episode "Trash" is a notable deconstruction of The Vamp (in the person of "Yo Saff Bridge"), showing how depressing and dehumanizing it can really be to be one, and how psychologically messed up someone would have to be to want to be one. Saff has completely mastered the art of seduction, but at the cost of any chance of ever having a meaningful relationship with another human being. After years of getting ahead through lying and manipulation, she's left a trail of abandoned identities behind her - to the point that even she barely knows who she is anymore - and a long line of men that she abandoned soon after marrying them for profit. At the end of the episode, Mal outright dismantles her whole M.O. in a well-timed The Reason You Suck Speech, where he points out that people like him will always trump people like her - because unlike her, he has a devoted crew of True Companions that will always have his back. In a pinch, well-earned loyalty always trumps cheap manipulation.
• In Flashpoint:
  • Anytime an untrained bystander attempted to do something heroic or resolve the situation, it either makes things worse or disrupt Team One's efforts to deescalate the situation, such as in the episode "Grounded" where Parker would have been able to talk down the hostage takers peacefully if a passenger hadn't tried to be a hero.
    • Also deconstructed in "Day Game" when ex-cop Gil deliberately engineered a hostage situation in order for him to heroically show up and defuse the situation, so that he prove specifically to Parker that he was SRU material after Parker had denied his attempts to join SRU in the past. Unfortunately for him, things got out of hand and Gil ended up accidentally shooting the hostage.
  • Mama Bear is taken apart in "Severed Ties" and "Custody". In "Severed Ties", the mother kidnapped her children after both were Happily Adopted by two separate families so the three of them could be a family again but when one of the girls suffers a severe allergic reaction, she did not want the police or paramedics involved as she was determined she alone could protect them. In "Custody", a woman loses custody of her children to her ex-husband and kidnaps them to flee the country. When the team stopped her, she pulls out a gun, seeing them as a threat to her children.
  • Cold Sniper is deconstructed by Ed who tends to keep his emotions in check when it comes to his job and avoid talking about the difficult and traumatizing cases he has dealt with. However as time goes on, Ed is far more affected by it than he thinks, suffering from PTSD from previous kills he had to do and soon having daily panic attacks the longer he refuses to talk openly about it.
• Gilmore Girls: Jess is remembered by the fandom as Rory's "bad boy" Love Interest, but is actually a deconstruction of it. He's introduced as one, sent From New York to Nowhere after allegedly being so unruly his mother can't deal with him anymore. He's surly, he skips school, he smokes, he has no respect for authority, and he generally enjoys being an asshole to everyone. It quickly comes out that he's the way he is because he's spent the last 17 years dealing with his addict mother, who left him to raise himself while getting high and going through scores of unsavory men. He's intelligent, but lacks social skills and would rather be reading than interacting with pretty much anyone, which doesn't help his image. He has no tact, but his Brutal Honesty usually comes in the form of an Armor-Piercing Question, and is most often used to confront issues other characters would rather not talk about but should. After he leaves town, he sheds a lot of his more abrasive personality traits and becomes The Reliable One, returning in season 6 to give Rory a much-needed "Reason You Suck" Speech and the 2016 revival to save his mother from a vegetable cult. As if the deconstruction were not obvious enough on the part of the writing team, Jess is most often compared to James Dean by other characters, likely referring Dean's role in Rebel Without a Cause, which is similarly a deconstruction of the "bad boy" trope.
• Despite The Glades being about a Cowboy Cop, the first episode showed somewhat realistic consequences to having an officer who tramples all over the rules and gets away with it because of his skill and talent. Specifically, his partner feels overshadowed by him, and complained about it to his wife so much it eventually destroyed their marriage. When she tried to leave him, he killed her. She's the Victim of the Week.
• The Haunting of Hill House (2018) deconstructs Good Parents, showing that actively trying to be the perfect parent to your kids is not just unhealthy, but can actually make things worse. Hugh and Olivia Crain go out of their way to give their children as much intellectual and emotional support as they could, and turn as many activities as possible into teachable moments. These efforts begin to take their toll on Olivia, as the stress of renovating Hill House, the malevolent influence of the House, and her own existing emotional issues all combine into a perfect storm, until her desire to be the perfect parent leads her to conclude that the only way to protect her children from the dangers of the outside world is to kill them, so they stay innocent forever. And in the aftermath of Olivia's own suicide, Hugh inadvertently makes it worse by refusing to tell the kids the truth, because he wanted them to remember her as a good mother. This means his older children idealize their dead mother and hate their father, while the younger ones resent him for refusing to acknowledge what they know Olivia tried to do to them.
• Homicide: Life on the Street: Bayliss deconstructs the Wide-Eyed Idealist and Naïve Newcomer. While he initially plays the archetype straight to the hilt, it becomes increasingly clear that his naïveté and idealism is very much a product of his own self-righteousness and his way of coping with an abusive childhood that left him with deep-seated emotional problems and identity issues.
• How I Met Your Mother:
  • Barney deconstructs Sensei for Scoundrels in that he only learned his ways because he has no reliable father figure to teach him right from wrong. His refusal to commit came from his brother James, his greed and materialism came from Benson the guy who stole his girl and his hedonism came from his mother's lover who ironically is his birth father. Further still, James has moved on and become a married man (at least for a while anyway. Barney was initially upset though cheered up at the idea of unclehood) while his birth father cleaned up his act and became a family man too. Barney shows some resentment at the family life he has since he was not there for him as a dad.
  • Amicable Exes is taken apart through Robin and both Ted and Barney.
    • Ted and Robin decided to break up amicably because both wanted different things and didn't want to force the other to compromise. But they eventually realize they are too amicable with each other and thus cannot maintain any lasting romantic relationships because in the back of their minds, they have a faint (but false) hope that they will get back together and unconsciously wouldn't fully commit to new relationships.
    • While they remained friends, Robin later reveals she was hurt by Barney's numerous "conquests" after their breakup, making her feel she was just another number to him. And similar with Ted, Barney has moments where he still pines after Robin. This ends up costing him when in a moment of weakness, he and Robin slept together and subsequently, both cheated on their respective partners.
  • While it's undeniable the gang are True Companions, the show is pointing out how dysfunctional they are because they constantly meddle in each other's affairs, as well as the fact that Robin had dated two of them at different times. Others have pointed out to Ted that because he is in such a tight-knit group of friends, it's near impossible for him to find someone to enter that bubble and many of his relationships fail because of it.
  • The effects of being a Disposable Fiancé are shown through Ted who was left at the altar the day he was supposed to marry Stella despite doing no wrong to her. He was completely devastated since Stella only left him a note before running off and this left Ted with serious emotional baggage and trust issues that affected the rest of his future relationships.
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Dennis is one of the Only Sane Man, namely by showing what kind of person they'd have to be to hang around a group of insane assholes. While Dennis is the one who is most adjusted socially, it's because he's a manipulative, sociopathic Narcissist who uses his friends to make himself look better to other people and as pawns for his own amusement, tricks women into having sex with him by being charming and acts as The Face to get the gang's schemes rolling.

J-R

• Kamen Rider:
  • Kamen Rider Amazons does this with the Monster of the Week in the Amazonz. The general MOTW serves as meaningless fodder for the Riders with only the stronger ones having any real consequence, often mindlessly following whatever Big Bad is in charge. The Amazonz, however, normally able to mimic humans and live peaceful lives, the eventually regress into ravenous flesh-eating monsters when the medicinal suppressant within their armlets runs out after two to three years. Many of these Amazonz don't want to become monsters, and a few go as far as to hunt their own kind to prevent the loss of human life.
  • In Kamen Rider Double, Kirihiko is the Henpecked Husband to his wife Saeko and usually does his best to please her. But failure after failure gets her frustrated and disappointed with him. It cumulates to the point where she domestically abuses him before killing him in cold blood.
  • Kamen Rider Ex-Aid has one of its main villains Parado, a video game character brought into the real world who acts like any other player would in a video game. This manifests as him being a borderline sociopath who picks fights whenever he finds it fun, only calls fairness when it makes things less boring for him while he's often okay with beating up anyone who gets in his way when they're often leagues below his power, and having an unhealthy obsession with the main protagonist because he thinks of him as a fun Final Boss. Not only this, but his logic is less reliant on allegiance than it is with winning or losing, often willing to kill those he views as "losers", including his own kind. It's only when his "lives" are in danger that he begins to worry, losing his composure and going into a panic.
  • Kamen Rider Gaim does this with its characters.
    • The main protagonist, Kouta, just received a belt that allows him to transform. But since he knows nothing about the beings threatening their world, he just uses it to play in street games for money. What's more, since he just received his powers, he's absolutely terrible at fighting, meaning someone more skilled than him can easily kill him. And when he survives, he isn't determined to get stronger and beat the guy who nearly killed him, he's traumatized and nearly stops fighting altogether.
    • Kaito is a deconstruction of the "Cool Jerk" archetype. Even though he has the charisma to attract and befriend many people, his resentment and cold personality drive away anyone who could be his friend. Also, while most Secondary Riders slowly warm up to the protagonist and later become straight-up heroes, Kaito's held on to his beliefs for a long time and, simply put, is not ready to give them up anytime soon.
    • Micchy is the secondary rider who's young, wants to help his friends, and has a crush on his friend, Mai. All of these traits are portrayed as negative: the fact that he's young means that he can be easily corrupted; his loyalty to his friends means that he'll commit horrendous acts for them; his crush on Mai is at first portrayed as positive, but as time goes on, his loyalty to Mai borders on Yandere, causing him to snap when she gets mad at him, blaming Kouta for his problems and eventually culminating in him almost killing Kouta out of rage.
    • Mai in the later episodes is the deconstruction of the Living Macguffin. The trope is taken to its logical conclusion, outright saying that Mai's become the Kamen Rider equivalent to Eve. Meanwhile, the reactions from both of Kouta's rivals are either desiring Mai as a prize to be won rather than a person or being so devastated that she's become nothing more than an object now that he doesn't bother fighting for her. Only Kouta has no minding towards Mai's status as a Macguffin.
• Kevin Can F**k Himself is a vicious deconstruction of sitcoms, so the usual character types seen in those shows get taken apart and looked at with a critical eye.
  • The eponymous Kevin himself is one for the "immature doofus Lazy Husband" prevalent in many a Dom Com, showing just how exhausting and insufferable such a person would be to deal with in real life over an extended period of time. Kevin is a self-absorbed Manchild who, at best, is genuinely oblivious to the destructive effect his actions have on other people, and at worst, is a petty and mean-spirited bully whose goofy behavior is partly an act to get away with his more deliberately malicious actions. His Zany Schemes have wreaked utter havoc on his household's finances, has recklessly blown money on frivolous purchases, and has even drained their savings on a Get-Rich-Quick Scheme. He treats his wife Allison more like a maid and a surrogate mom than a partner while his friends are more like butt-kissers who have to go along with everything he does. Meanwhile, Allison's initial attraction to him during the start of their relationship and marriage has completely evaporated away over the years, not helped by how his antics have taken up all her time and energy, leaving her isolated and with no way of having any life of her own. And when Kevin ends up inadvertently driving away his social circle as Allison's attempts to break free from his "sitcom world" have ripple effects on the others, he's revealed at the bottom of everything to be an utterly monstrous and violently abusive (but ultimately pathetic) lout who only got away with his actions for as long as he has by bulldozing other, weaker willed people.
  • Allison is one for the Closer to Earth sitcom wife. On the surface, she seems like the typical snarky but ultimately devoted and supportive wife; underneath, she's deeply unhappy and utterly tired of having to act as the "voice of reason" only to be dismissed as a "nag" when she tries to get Kevin and his friends to not do something stupid for more than five minutes. And when she finds out he drained their savings, she snaps and finally decides enough is enough. But since she's unable to just divorce him thanks to him controlling all their money and isolating her from having a social life of her own (thus leaving her with no one to really turn to for help), she decides she has to resort to less savory methods (first attempting to kill him, then faking her own death) to finally be free of him.
  • Patty deconstructs not one, but two character trope types.
    • The Snark Knight: Patty's disdainful of everyone and everything around her, but also holds a bit of self-contempt due to her own resignation from being stuck in the drudgery of Worcester. It's deconstructed in that it's clear Patty's miserable, only participates in Kevin's shenanigans because they're funny, and failed to consider their destructive consequences in addition to contributing to the abusive and toxic environment Allison's put up with for the last ten years.
    • One of the Boys: Patty starts off the series as the "token woman" of Kevin's friend group, expressing little sympathy or patience for whatever Allison is going through despite knowing full well what kind of person Kevin is, even frequently making snide comments about Allison's "girly-girl" personality type and interests. It's deconstructed in that Patty herself is also mistreated, insulted, and put down by the guys as much as Allison is. And after Allison calls her out for failing to consider the harmful consequences of Kevin's antics (like getting her fired from a really nice career because he thought she was having an affair with her boss), Patty is horrified with herself as she realizes how she enabled Kevin's abuse of Allison because she thought it was funny.
  • Kevin's father Pete is not so much the Cool Old Guy dad usually seen in sitcoms so much as he's an enabler who has completely failed to raise his son properly. And even then, as the second and final season reveals, he's got limits, such as not being so willing to forgive Kevin for shutting a car door into his hand (without even apologizing for it) and interfering in his relationship with his new girlfriend Lorraine.
  • Neil gets the most as the Bumbling Sidekick and Yes-Man. He's even more immature than Kevin is, which is heavily implied to be the result of some kind of mental disorder, and it's made clear that he's just as much a victim of Kevin's abuse as Allison and Patty are, with Allison even noting how Kevin laughs when Neil bleeds and a flashback showing Patty having to get painkillers for him when he injured himself during a stunt gone wrong. He's also very dependent on Kevin's very conditional approval and while Kevin is closer to him than he is to Allison, Kevin is repeatedly shown to not care for Neil's Undying Loyalty. He's taken apart even further in the second season after he spends the first season finale trying to attack Allison when he finds out about her plot to kill Kevin, where it's revealed that he is a bit more perceptive than he lets on (though he's still not the brightest bulb), has a drinking problem, and a lifelong problem of not knowing his own strength. Getting his eyes forcibly opened (metaphorically speaking) to Kevin's toxicity also forces him to see how little his so-called best friend cares for him and ultimately reaches his own breaking point as well.
• In The Mandalorian:
  • It deconstructs the Bounty Hunter lifestyle, which is often shown as a glamorous, high-risk/high reward job full of danger and excitement that was popularized by Boba Fett. However as seen in the show, when the Mandalorian meets with Greef to collect his bounty, the reward is barely enough to pay for fuel and the vast majority of the bounties are all petty criminals and bail jumpers. There are high paying bounties but as one inexperienced hunter finds out, there is a good reason even experienced hunters don't take those since the chances of winding up dead far exceeds the pay. In general, bounty hunting is an extremely dangerous and morally grey job straddling the line between corrupt cops or assassins-for-hire, with people being attracted to this job are either unafraid of hunting others for money, desperate deadbeats willing to do anything for cash, or a mix of both.
  • Toro is The Gunfighter Wannabe who fashioned himself as a badass bounty hunter. His disinterest in money hints he is from a more privileged background and simply wants to make a name for himself. But his naivety and inexperience shows as he easily became in over his head when he chose Fennec Shand as his first target, someone even veteran hunters wouldn't go after and he would have ended up dead very quickly if it wasn't for the Mandalorian. He also later turned against the Mandalorian and took the Child hostage, all to gain glory and recognition. This would backfire on him and the Mandalorian would kill him.
• Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide tends to deconstruct every high-school stereotype in the book.
  • Cookie is your typical Black and Nerdy Gadgeteer Genius, right? Not exactly. During the show, we see that despite Cookie’s intelligence, he is barely able to function in the real world. He always tries to think up the most outlandish ways to succeed in school and always backfires. Eventually, he realizes that in order to get by, he needs to start thinking rationally and give up the high-tech solutions.
  • The typical mean kids on campus, Alpha Bitch Missy and Bully Loomer. They just seem like your typical jerks at first, but as the series progresses, they get to grow. By Season 3, Missy has lost a lot of her popularity and most people at Polk recognize she’s just a jerk and nothing more. Nowadays, she’s mostly crushing on Ned and trying desperately to remain relevant. Short story: mean girls on campus are rarely ever popular in real life. As for Loomer, he and his gang spent the start of the series pulling pranks on Ned and Cookie. At first, it seemed to be For the Evulz, but as the series goes on it’s clear he’s just a troubled kid taking out his frustration on everyone else.
  • Most of the mean teachers on the show may seem stereotypical at first, but as we grow with them, we realize they aren’t that bad and genuinely care about their students. Even V.P. Crubbs, who by season 3 seems to be the only staff member at Polk who appears to prioritize self-interest, mentions that all he wants is to keep the school from running like a madhouse. During the finale special, we see Mr. Sweeney tell Ned that although he did terribly in his science classes, he was still one of his favorite students because he always took school seriously and put in every ounce of effort to help both himself and other students do their best.
• The Office (US): James Spader's character Robert California is a deconstruction of the charismatic Bunny Ears Lawyers he usually plays, showing how offputting someone who always succeeds, has supreme self-confidence and acts as if the rules of society don't apply to him would be. Like most of Spader's characters California is intense and hypercompetent, and the cast are drawn to and fascinated by him. However as time goes on his eccentricities become increasingly more pronounced and the people around him find him disturbing and then legitimately frightening. By his last appearances he is portrayed as dangerous, threatening and potentially mentally unwell.
• Once Upon a Time:
  • Emma is the Agent Scully, but her skepticism is borne of lack of trust due to past abandonment issues.
  • Henry aspires to be a Kid Hero but his need to live a more exciting life causes him to needlessly risk his life.
  • Regina is a "Well Done, Son" Guy who is never able to free herself of wanting to please her mother Cora. She blames Snow White for the death of her first love even though it was Cora who killed him.
• One of Us is Lying has two examples in the second season:
  • Maeve deconstructs the Tagalong Kid. While she helps them alot, she is rarely credited for her efforts and is kept in the dark a lot, especially by her sister Bronwyn and her girlfriend Janae. Whenever she gives an opinion at any meeting the Murder Club has, she is routinely ignored. This increases her resentment so that she goes rogue and teams up with the Big Bad (Fiona, Nate's tutor) to keep everyone out of jail by framing TJ. She does it once again when she realizes that their plan to frame her for Jake's death won't work without her fingerprints on the gun, so she tricks everyone in order to get Fiona to hold the weapon. It works, but it also results in her and Addy being trapped on a burning boat, Cooper getting injured trying to save them, and Bronwyn getting stabbed by Fiona. In the end, everyone is not on speaking terms with her.
  • Vanessa is a big deconstruction of the Amateur Sleuth. After Jake's disappearance/death, she uses her platform on social media to investigate what happened, only to really humiliate and harass Addy and the rest of Murder Club. She obviously does all this to hurt them as well as put the spotlight on herself. She ends up being used by Giselle, a stalker of Jake's, as well as Simon Says, the new Big Bad, to pass on false and incriminating evidence. She doesn't care who gets hurt until Giselle's death. When Simon Says kills Giselle, she is blamed for it and becomes scared that Murder Club killed Giselle and will kill her next. She goes offline for a while, only to learn that no one took her investigation seriously. When TJ is framed, she doesn't help him until her disdain for Murder Club drives her to do so. Throughout her investigation, she keeps finding clues but also comes to the wrong conclusions all of the time. When Cole informs her that Jake did in fact kill Simon, she loses faith for a moment before taking advice from a priest the wrong way and continuing. This results in her going from being a pawn of Simon Says to the next target and Murder Club resorts to kidnapping her and telling her the truth to keep her safe. When the situation is over, Vanessa goes on television to uphold Murder Club's story while taking all of the credit. In the end, Vanessa achieves very little and just makes things worse.
• Mabel's friend Zoe in Only Murders in the Building who had mysteriously died prior to the start of the series deconstructs Asshole Victim and Manic Pixie Dream Girl.
  • Asshole Victim: From the little scenes we see of her, she is a very conceited and elitist person and only died because she was trying to shove Theo but accidentally tripped and fell over the building roof. However, her death only made things worse and the fallout ended up destroying the friendship between the remaining members of the Hardy Boys gang.
  • Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Towards Theo as she was one of the few people who could and was willing to speak to them, even flirting with him, resulting in Theo developing a crush on her. But Zoe could be very nasty when angered and Theo finds out the hard way when she laughs at their heartfelt romantic confession and she started insulting them when they tried to give advice to her.
• Power Rangers Jungle Fury deconstructs the Rookie Red Ranger, a trope the franchise spawned, with Casey. Unlike Theo and Lily, he wasn't chosen for being an experienced student but because of his latent talent and how he stood up to Jarrod. As the least experienced in combat and in his weapon, he's looked down on by Theo while Lily treats him like a little brother. It bothers him enough that he gets extra training from RJ. Although he's made leader to make him less wary, he gets upset when RJ becomes a Ranger, feeling that his position is challenged. Theo and Lily outright reject his belief that Jarrod can be redeemed, forcing him to go one his own and prove them wrong. In the end, he ends up losing his lack of confidence in himself and plays the trope straight.
• Julius Caesar in Rome deconstructs The Chosen One. He validates his extralegal actions by getting approval from the gods. He gains this by bribing the head pontiff. This, among many actions, upsets Lucius Vorenus who believes in the sanctity of Roman institutions.
• Pretty Little Liars: Alison provides a perfect deconstruction of the Alpha Bitch and The Friend Nobody Likes. Her behavior gained her and the Liars the disdain of 90% of the town, and she has multiple enemies in the A-team that want her dead. By season 5, the Liars themselves wonder why they ever put up with her and do everything they can to get her arrested when they suspect her of murder. In fact, Alison is so hated that when she was hit in the head with a rock and presumed dead, her own mother buried her to cover for her attacker!

S-Z

• Vic Mackey and Shane Vendrell of The Shield are utterly brutal deconstructions of the Cowboy Cop. Both are macho, tough cops willing to bend or even outright break the law in order to see justice done and more than willing to perform Jack Bauer Interrogation Techniques on suspects. Rather than make them appear admirable, the series shows that they're amoral Dirty Cops who are no better than the criminals they catch and whose idea of justice boils down to pointless sadism and murder. Similarly, the series demonstrates that their behavior is more living out a power fantasy than anything else; Vic is an Attention Whore and a Control Freak who loves the job because it allows him to indulge in this, while Shane is a pathetic, mentally unstable screw-up who relishes in his power and being able to vent his frustrations by beating anyone at his mercy.
• The Sopranos:
  • Villain Protagonist Tony Soprano deconstructs The Don. Tony is not a ridiculously powerful kingpin with high resources like most Mafia bosses in fiction. Sure, he has resources, but these resources are limited. This makes sense, since the show is set in modern times, where tougher racketeering laws give Tony nightmares. Besides, his crime family shows that The Mafia today is at a downfall from informants, the government, infighting within the various families, and drugs. On top of this, the family he runs is located in New Jersey, meaning that he can't compete with the power of the major families across the river. While those families work with him for mutual benefit and he is friends with a number of them, they will use their overwhelming power advantage to force better deals for themselves and, behind his back, they speak of him as a small fry. By the end of the series, this family is basically on its way to extinction since they simply do not have the manpower to rebound from the Mob War they got involved in with the New York family. Additionally, his personality is a far cry from the wise and honorable Neighborhood-Friendly Gangsters like Vito Corleone. At his core, Tony is a manipulative narcissist who only gets worse over time as all his various justifications for his lifestyle and his claims of honor are revealed as hollow or simply the excuses of a self-serving hypocrite. All these attributes make Tony Soprano one of the most realistic representations of an American mob boss in the modern-day.
  • Tony is also one of the Justified Criminal archetype. Tony begins the series by going to therapy and expressing remorse over a lot of what he's done, but it becomes apparent as the series goes on that he's mostly looking for salvation without doing anything to earn it. Tony believes that since he feels bad about the things he's done, he deserves some form of redemption and is better than his contemporaries (despite being just as complicit as them, not to mention being the boss of his crew). As his therapist continually shuts down his Necessarily Evil motivations, he mostly comes away from their sessions less with a desire to change his ways, and more armed with language to excuse the bad things he's done. This unwillingness to change eventually turns him into a full-blown Villain Protagonist.
• Stargate Atlantis deconstructs the Space People trope with the introduction of the "Travelers." As cool as it sounds to be a people that lives their entire lives on ships in interstellar space, by the time of the show it's proven to be a cultural dead end. Without access to planetary resources they're unable to build new ships. The ships they do have are aging clunkers kept running with scavenged parts, and none of them are replaceable. Their population growth has to be strictly controlled because they only have so much living space. They keep to themselves so much that most other civilizations aren't even aware of their existence, or else consider them untrustworthy scavengers who'll do anything to survive. They are slow to form alliances or expose themselves to situations that could lead to open conflicts, because they have so much to lose. Many have simply abandoned the Traveler lifestyle and integrated themselves into terrestrial societies.
• Stranger Things.
  • Eleven is a deconstruction of the Magical Girlfriend. Once she and Mike become an Official Couple, El has no idea how to handle the pitfalls of a normal romantic relationship, along with having a life centered entirely on Hopper and Mike's desires. Fortunately, this is reconstructed when she seeks out Max in Season 3 who shows her "there's more to life than stupid boys", helps El develop her own inner life and independence, while also pushing Mike to treat El like a real partner rather than a Wish-Fulfillment pet, so by the end of the season the two have a just as loving but much better relationship.
  • Hopper deconstructs the Cowboy Cop and The Heroes of The '80s. He's very much aggressive and hotheaded like most of the famous examples, but this sometimes leads to his suspension as well as (temporarily) alienating his loved ones, like Eleven in Season 2 and Joyce in Season 3. He clearly means well but can't show it properly due to his tough guy persona.
  • Steve Harrington. Ever sat through an '80s film and yelled at the chick-magnet Jerk Jock for being a stereotypical Card-Carrying Villain for no good reason beyond "we need a jerk character in this spot for you to hate"? Well, here we have one who refreshingly wises up to, and actively faces down, his slight Inferiority Superiority Complex problems before he becomes a punchable cardboard cut-out destined for Wall Street. He about-faces and goes quite a long way towards mending busted fences like a human being with a semi-functional social intelligence quotient should. And, also gives us a pretty good reason why Nancy saw anything in him beyond his looks in the first place by doing so, to boot. And in season two he keeps the pace up and becomes an affirmative Nice Guy and forms a bond with Dustin of all people.
  • The Mind Flayer deconstructs the Eldritch Abomination. It's an immensely powerful, wholly unique being, but because it's so powerful and thus so used to getting what it wants, it essentially has the mindset of a toddler. It doesn't know how to deal with resistance or setbacks to its plans, only being able to throw a temper tantrum in response. And since it's so unique and self-reliant, it has no idea how to interact with and blend into a social species like humans, to the point where it has to effectively leave its hosts on autopilot most of the time, because when it takes them over directly, it can't act in a way that doesn't immediately clue every human in to what it actually is. Furthermore, since its sheer power makes it used to easy victory, whenever it is significantly harmed, or especially defeated in one of its plans, it will launch into a full blown petty revenge mode from which it will never leave, even when the petty revenge is detrimental to its long-term goals, such as when it blows its cover when possessing Will just to get revenge on some Mooks. In short, while it is powerful and dangerous, it also showcases all the ways that existing as an Eldritch Abomination would limit an individual psychologically.
  • Erica Sinclair deconstructs the Annoying Younger Sibling. At first, she acts like a typical one to Lucas, spending her time trolling him just for the fun of it, but since she has no idea what's going on, she assumes that anything the boys get up to is just one of their nerdy games. When Dustin tries to send Lucas a Code Red, she rudely cuts him off, not knowing about the real danger they're dealing with. After she joins the Masquerade, she begins to change her outlook, but she's so set in her ways that she finds psychic powers and other dimensions easier to accept than her brother being a part of it. It takes a long time and a lot of Character Development before the siblings can connect. At the same time, Dustin discovers that there's a lot more to her than just being a Bratty Half-Pint.
  • Jason Carver in Season 4 is a deconstruction of The Hero, and of teenaged detectives like Archie from Riverdale and several characters from modern Teen Dramas. He certainly seems to think he is the hero, and so do many others. And if Jason was the protagonist, he’d be like Archie. However, since Stranger Things's cast are all outsiders and nerds, the exact opposite of Jason and many other Teen Drama protagonists, the only things he appears to be good at are basketball and self-indulgent speeches, none of which makes him a good detective, yet he still believes he has the right to lead his friends on a manhunt. That, and his "investigation" basically amounts to vigilante justice, torturing Eddie's friends for information, and presumably planning to murder Eddie, things that would probably be considered justified or at least understandable. Plus the Rousing Speech that Archie likes to do all the time on Riverdale? It’s turned on its head as Jason uses it to whip Hawkins up into a frenzy by tapping into the Satanic Panic rhetoric big in the day. And ultimately, it turns out that Jason's completely out of his depth, as he winds up dying a pretty Undignified Death via being caught in the crossfire of the portals opening and being burnt and torn apart.
  • Yuri Ismaylov is one for the Lovable Rogue. He has no issue breaking laws to smuggle in goods to Russia for the right price, and seems affable when he first meets Joyce and Murray, but at the end of the day, he is only looking out for himself. While this kind of character might be considered a Jerk with a Heart of Gold in another story, it's made pretty clear here that he's a complete Jerkass whose only priority is how much money he can make. This is why he ultimately reneges on the agreement he made with Enzo: Why simply take the $40,000 he's going to receive anyways when he can also betray Hopper, Enzo, Joyce, and Murray to the KGB and make even more money off of that? Unfortunately for Yuri, this ends up proving to be his undoing: When Joyce and Murray eventually break free and overpower Yuri on the flight over, they crash his plane in Russia, take Yuri hostage, force him to help them break into the prison to rescue Hopper, and make it very clear to Yuri that the only "reward" he's getting at this point is not being tied up and left to freeze to death in the wilderness.
• Supernatural:
  • The series deconstructs Hunter of Monsters, placing a heavy emphasis on how much that life sucks: hunters typically make money by hustling pool and poker and credit card fraud, often end up with criminal records, generally end up emotionally traumatized to some degree due to the things they've seen and experienced, and when they die, which they probably will sooner rather than later, there's a good chance no one will know how to dispose of their body properly (if it's even recoverable) but other hunters.
  • The Season 14 finale and Season 15 also deconstruct the Author Avatar and the Audience Surrogate through none other than God Himself. Previously, He, as Chuck Shurley, had been a friendly stand-in for the writers and the audience, writing an in-universe Supernatural book series perfectly chronicling the Winchesters' adventures. However, Supernatural is a very dark show. The angels are no better than demons, innocent humans die horribly at the hands of the many species of monsters out there, and the Winchester brothers are heavily traumatized and riddled with mental health issues and dysfunction. For the writers and the audiences, it's good entertainment because the Winchesters and the people around them really are made for our entertainment. But if we existed in this universe, where these characters are fully sentient people, we would be engineering and enjoying real tragedy. Indeed, in the Season 14 finale, Chuck reveals that He's actually a sadist whose been playing the Winchesters' whole lives for His twisted amusement.
• Ted Lasso deconstructs several archetypes found within inspirational sports dramas.
  • Ted himself is a deconstruction of The Pollyanna archetype. Ted is so relentlessly optimistic and so generous with his love for others that he barely takes care of his own issues, thinking that all the love and cheerfulness will bear him through any problem. Season 2 is about him acknowledging the fact that no, some of those issues don't get fixed through positive thinking, and needs to be a little selfish and vent some of his negative emotions not just so that he can become healthier, but so that he can be a better friend and coach. The Reveal that his father committed suicide when Ted was 16 also exposes how a traumatic event created someone deeply terrified that he can't help others, resulting in frequent panic attacks when he seems to fail.
  • Rebecca Welton deconstructs the Rich Bitch schemer hoping to sabotage the hero's progress. Rebecca's initial goal is to destroy AFC Richmond in order to screw over her ex-husband, no matter whose career is ruined in the process. It quickly becomes apparent that the years of emotional abuse from Rupert has destroyed her self-confidence and her ability to trust others. Its repeatedly shown that she was a fun-loving, generous person with a variety of friends and frequent charity work, before her husband's abuse gradually wore her down. Her villainous acts barely affect the intended target and only make her more miserable as well. Even after she becomes a Defrosting Ice Queen and makes a Heel–Face Turn, she still struggles to be vulnerable and honest with her friends.
  • Coach Beard becomes one to the Hypercompetent Sidekick with an Expansion Pack Past. Beard is a valuable asset to Ted's coaching style, keeping him on-track to actually win football games as well as improve individuals. His life outside of work seems to be adventurous and thrilling. However, his A Day in the Limelight episode demonstrates major insecurities tied to success, with his supposed hyper-competence emerging from an aggressive need to avoid failure. His numerous flings are all toxic and unfulfilling. His funny Noodle Incidents are indicated to be self-destructive cycles where Beard seeks out dangerous, thrilling situations so that he can punish himself for his perceived failures. And he's aware of these issues, which only makes the cycle worse.
  • Nate's Season 2 arc reveals himself to be one for the bullied Extreme Doormat assistant archetype. Nate's story in season 1 begin as a shy, but capable kitman whose talents are discovered by the kindly Ted. Slowly, Nate begins to grow a spine and become a valued member of the team, even by players that used to bully him. However, Nate's meekness doesn't translate to being nice after gaining confidence. When Ted works hard to make Nate feel validated and confident, Nate's desperation for that validation results in him lashing out at any sign of disrespect. His experiences with bullying from his father and the team has created a young man who internalized fear with power and desperately chases the high of validation, at the cost of his new friendships.
• True Detective:
  • Rustin Cohle is a deconstruction of the Straw Nihilist and Misanthrope Supreme tropes, showcasing just how miserable and psychologically broken someone has to be in order to believe in those things, which his partner points out when he goes on his philosophical musings. He eventually overcomes it after nearly dying in the final confrontation with the killer he and his partner had pursued for years and realizes that perhaps there is still hope to be found in his life.
  • Martin Hart is a deconstruction of Poor Communication Kills and the Rabid Cop tropes, the horrors that Marty sees at his job gets to him more than he'd like to admit and it's his inability to communicate with his wife that leads her to eventually leave him (though the cheating didn't help either.) He's also a quick tempered cop with jealousy issues who is prone to making hasty decisions without considering the consequences of those actions, except oops; the guy he killed turned out to be the only witness to the case that he and his partner were attempting to solve, allowing the real killer to continue his reign of terror for 17 more years.
• Two of a Kind deconstructed Papa Wolf in one episode. Ashley has a crush on her tutor but discovers he has a girlfriend and is heartbroken. When Kevin finds out, he fires the tutor thinking it would help. Instead Ashley yells at him for meddling in her private business and Carrie points out how Kevin assumed he would be helping rather than actually asking Ashley about her feelings. Kevin eventually admits it was more out of a desire to come across as a hero - and hires the tutor back.
• The Wire:
  • The Cowboy Cop is deconstructed with Jimmy McNulty, who, despite being an excellent detective, allows his free-wheeling ways to cause much destruction to both his personal life and performs numerous, possibly career-damaging moves on his way towards cracking any given case. Rather depressingly, he also continuously gets himself in hot water with Da Chief (Rawls and the like) by not being a typical gung-ho cowboy cop arresting petty drug dealers, but through building cases against immunized high-level drug traffickers, which leads to embarrassment for his superiors as it makes them look ineffectual. He ultimately ends up faking evidence to get the resources he wants, which costs him his job and almost winds up getting him in front of a grand jury.
  • Herc and Carver show how their gung-ho, headcracking style of busting street corner hustlers is actually not very useful police work. Over the course of the show, Carver matures into a more competent policeman who becomes a part of his community and uses more intelligent tactics to disrupt the drug trade. Herc, not so much. He ends up getting fired after pissing off the wrong people and instead becomes the bodyguard of an Amoral Attorney.
• Z Nation shows what happens when someone like Murphy is forced to be The Chosen One: to say he doesn't handle it well is an understatement, seeing as how he keeps screwing over everyone trying to protect him, indirectly got several people killed, caused another apocalypse, and turned Cassandra into a feral zombie hybrid only for her to die at the hands of Ten-K.

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