Happily Adopted / Live-Action TV

Examples of Happily Adopted in Live-Action Television.

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• Subverted with Kendall Hart on All My Children and Carly Roberts of General Hospital. Though they were adopted by otherwise good and loving people, their adoptive parents keep their adoptions from them until each girl inadvertently learns about it. Kendall and Carly feel displaced and like they don't belong in their adoptive families, resulting in their bitterness over their adoptions and their longing to meet their birth mothers, yearning for their approval and a place to belong. Hurt and embittered by their adoptions, both girls begin to resent their respective mothers over it and lash out. However, Kendall and Carly eventually develop close, loving relationships with their biological mothers, come to appreciate their loving adoptive parents and how they each have two mothers, and in Kendall's case, her adoptive father's role in her life.
• In the HBO series Ballers, in the episode "Ride and Die," Spenser starts to tell Joe a story about his father.
  Joe: What, your real dad or your adopted dad?
  Spenser: Asshole, my adopted dad is my real dad.
  Joe: Good, I didn't want to hear a story about you searching for your biological father.
• Batwoman (2019): Ryan's biological mother died in childbirth (not really, but that's what she was told) and her biological father died sometime after, but she had an adopted mother who loved her and drove her to finish her education and get a job. Unfortunately, her adopted mother was killed by the Wonderland Gang.
• The hero Ray in BIMA Satria Garuda. His parents were killed by the series villains, so he grew up in a foster family for whom he has still fond feelings as an adult.
• Played straight with Michelle in Bones, who is adopted by Camille after her father's death. Camille used to date her father, but his philandering ways have led to their break-up. During that time, Camille and Michelle had grown very close. Later on, we're shown some friction between them, but it's not that much different between any mother and her teenage daughter. For example, when Camille refuses to allow Michelle to spend Christmas away with her friends, Michelle is initially angry, but then hugs Camille for wanting to spend Christmas as a family. At the end of the series, Camille states that she and Arastoo will be adopting three more children.
  • Also, Sweets. When he refers to his "Mom" and "Dad", he means his adoptive parents.
• In Charmed, Paige was adopted by a loving family. So the Powers That Be had to move them out of the way in a more brutal fashion. For a while after Paige is reunited with the Halliwells she's reluctant to accept her biological father or Grams in those roles because, as she points out, she already had a father and grandparents that she loved very much and doesn't like the idea of replacing them.
• In Chinese Paladin 3, Mao Mao seems have loved his adopted parents, and he really cares about his adopted brother Jing Tian.
• Cobra Kai goes halfway with Miguel. He still lives with his mother, who bailed on his father before he was born. After becoming the new Cobra Kai's first student he comes to see Johnny as a father-figure. (Johnny in turn sees Miguel as a second chance after becoming estranged from his own son.) Later on he tracks down his biological father who turns out to be a total scumbag, which further strengthens his bond with Johnny. Johnny eventually begins dating and prepares to start a family with Carmen. And for bonus points, Miguel and Robby, now future half-brothers to Carmen's unborn baby, finally put an end to their feud and become friends.
• CSI: NY has two cases, both of whom were told all along that they were adopted.
  • Jo Danville's daughter Ellie, whom Jo adopted after the girl's drug-addicted mother was sent to prison. She is adored by Jo's college-age son, Tyler, as well as Jo's ex-husband, Russ, who refers to her as "a great kid." (They were divorced before the adoption.)
  • Reid Garrett, Mac's step-son, had been given up for adoption by Mac's late wife before the couple met. He has a very good relationship with his adoptive parents, given that he tells Mac they are supportive of him searching for his birth mother.
• Deputy: Cade and his wife Teresa have been unable to conceive. As a result, they look into adoption, taking two orphaned kids in before adopting them. They become loving parents to their adopted kids Roberto and Camillo, gaining the trust of both while also finally having a biological child. Cade had grown up in the foster care system along with his sister, so he's determined to give the kids the loving family which he never had. Then their grandmother seeks custody though, so Cade and Teresa have to fight her over it, though the kids are happy with them.
• Dexter: Dexter Morgan finds a new and caring family, but his darkness can't be erased.
• Dexter: New Blood: Audrey was adopted by Angela when her birth mother abandoned her. She's a loving, dedicated mother to her, and Audrey seems happy with her life (at least insofar as any teen is). Though they butt heads, she still very much considers Angela her real mom and loves her as such.
• Dr. Amanda Bentley in Diagnosis: Murder came from a happy and well-off family. In later seasons, she revealed that she was a foster child (actress Victoria Rowell was also adopted). Later Dr. Bentley adopted Dion, rescuing him from an abusive foster family.
• Diff'rent Strokes is easily the modern Trope Codifier. Two street-smart black brothers, Arnold and Willis are adopted by a white family, the Drummonds. It spawned a notable copycat, Webster, with a similar premise.
• Early in Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Dr. Mike adopts the children of her friend Charlotte, who begged her to Take Care of the Kids before she died. There is some initial friction, but they eventually accept her as their mother; Colleen, the daughter, even decides to follow in her footsteps and become a doctor. After Mike marries Sully, it also takes them a little time to accept him as their new father. The first time Sully has to put his foot down, he struggles for a bit, but then resolves to do it. When the kid asks who he is to tell him what he can and can't do, Sully tells him "I'm your pa!" The boy walks away angrily, before running back and hugging Sully.
• Both subverted and played straight in EastEnders with Sharon Watts. While her adoptive parents were double-dealing womaniser "Dirty" Den Watts and alcoholic Angie, whose arguments caused Sharon a lot of emotional neglect, she was loved and spoiled by them as their 'princess'. Both attempts to find and connect with her biological parents ended badly, with her real mother wanting a friend but not a daughter, and her real father having sold her to Den as a toddler. Sharon comes to realise that, despite her resentment towards Den and Angie, they will always be her real parents.
  • Subverted with tragic consequences with both Donna Ludlow and Danielle Jones. Both were adopted by normal, happy couples but both daughters ended up feeling out of place and longing for their birth mother. Donna was rejected by her mother, Kathy, who revealed she was the result of a violent rape when she was fourteen. Donna ended up going off the rails, lying and conning everyone in the Square, before taking her own life from a heroine overdose. Danielle was also the result of a teenage pregnancy which her mother, Ronnie, wanted to keep but was manipulated by her abusive father Archie into giving up for adoption. Danielle is hit by a car only minutes after Ronnie discovers Danielle's true identity and she dies in her birth mother's arms.
• Back in the early '90s this storyline was done by the short-lived soap opera Eldorado as part of its attempt to stave off cancellation. It is one of the few acknowledged touching moments.
• Sky from Fate: The Winx Saga, was raised by his late father's best friend, Silva. While Sky has some angst related to his biological father, it's clear that he cares for and gets along with Silva.
• In The Flash (2014), Barry is taken in by Joe West after his mother was murdered and his father was wrongfully imprisoned. Joe raises him alongside his own daughter and despite the occasional challenges they face, they are a very tight-knit, loving family.
  Joe West: Barry, I know. I know I'm not your father.
  Barry Allen: You're right, you're not. You're just the man who kept me fed and in clothes, who sat beside my bed at night until I fell asleep because I was afraid of the dark, helped me with my homework. You taught me how to drive, and shave... and you dropped me off at college. Sounds a lot like a dad to me.
• In the Flashpoint episode "Severed Ties", two biological sisters named Becky and Riley are Happily Adopted by two different families. But their birth mother upon being released from prison was led to believe she still has custody over them and had a breakdown when realizing she would not be getting her daughters back. So she kidnapped her daughters as a way for them to become a family again.
• Friends: Discussed and implied with Jack and Erica, the infant twins Monica and Chandler adopt in the final episode.
  Chandler: I want to find a baby that needs a home and I want to raise it with you. And I wanna mess it up in our own specific way.
  • It's pretty heartwarming when you consider both of have pretty major issues with their own biological parents, suffering Parental Favoritism and Parental Neglect respectively. The fact that they want to prevent a child from experiencing that is very sweet and definitely implies a happy ending.
• Fringe: Because of events at the end of Season Three, some characters get new backstories at the start of Season Four. In the new continuity, Nina Sharpe is Olivia Dunham's adoptive mother — she took Olivia in after Olivia's parents died when she was twelve. Nina has a picture of Olivia on her desk at work, so things clearly turned out well.
• Game of Thrones: The revelation that Jon Snow is not Ned Stark's bastard, but rather his sister Lyanna's secret son with Rhaegar Targaryen (and therefore his nephew) means this. Jon very clearly loves the Starks, a feeling that is reciprocated.
• Colbert from Generation Kill was put up for adoption by his birth parents, and taken in by a Jewish couple. When one squad mate jokes about his birth parents already disowning him, he reminds that to him, his adopted parents' love was much more significant than what biological bond the squadmate had.
• In Good Omens (2019), the Antichrist was accidentally Switched at Birth and wound up being raised by the Young family as a happy, normal (well, normal except for the Reality Warper powers) child. When Heaven and Hell try to convince him to fulfill his expected role of bringing about Armageddon, he refuses because his human upbringing has shown him that the world is worth saving and he foils his biological father Satan's attempt to force him to still start Armageddon by telling him that "you're not my real dad" and that his real dad is the human Mr. Young who raised him like his own son. Thanks to the aforementioned Reality Warper powers, this declaration reshapes reality so that he really is Mr. Young's son and Satan thus has no power over him.
• Gossip Girl's Chuck Bass, who was adopted by Lily van der Woodsen when he was seventeen. Lily actually seems to be a much better parent to him than to her two biological children.
• Claire Bennett in Heroes is definitely this. She is very close with her adoptive family and remains so throughout the series. Though she is curious about her biological parents and ends up developing loving relationships with them, Claire's tight bonds with her adoptive family never diminish. She occasionally has some troubles with her adoptive father, but that has nothing to do with the fact she's adopted and everything to do with the fact she is a danger magnet and he is... overprotective.
  Claire: (after being told she needs to join her birth family at the end of Season 1) I already have a family.
• One House episode featured an adopted son as the patient — it may have been medically relevant, but otherwise it was no big deal.
  • Kutner was adopted, and was seemingly happy with his family, even though it came about under tragic circumstances (his biological parents were murdered). It was firmly established that his adopted family was not a factor in his suicide.
  • Though they got off to a rocky start, by the end of Season 5, this is clearly the case with Cuddy and her adopted daughter Rachel.
• While Cassie on The InBetween mourns the loss of her mother at age 13, she has a deep love and loyalty to her mom's best friend Brian and his husband Tom, who raised her afterward.
• In Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story, Ondine was this to Thunderdell until he was killed by Wilhemina.
• Jessie has the Ross kids (except Emma, the only biological child of the family). They were adopted by Morgan and Christina and have been a happy family ever since. One episode revolves around Luke trying to learn about his biological mother, but he eventually gives up on meeting her assuring Christina that she's his real mom.
• One episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent involves a German revolutionary who had kidnapped the child of one of his victims and raised her as his own. At first Nichols believes it was the means to an end, but he later realizes that, as messed up as the situation is, the man really does love the girl as his own. In the end, he's willing to sacrifice everything, including his ideals, to save her life.
  Nichols: She is your daughter. She wasn't, but now she is.
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit:
  • In one episode, the team uncovers in the course of an investigation a boy who was raised by adoptive parents after his mother was murdered and he was kidnapped (the adoptive parents had no idea about any of this). In the process of solving the murder of the boy's mother, the detectives find both his biological father and his maternal grandparents. A three-way custody battle follows and the father wins, much to the unhappiness of the boy; however, the ending implies that the father will do his best to ensure that all parties are a part of his son's life.
  • In the Season 15 finale, Olivia becomes the foster parent to a baby boy she had found working an earlier case. She formally adopts him a year later.
• Hardison from Leverage referred occasionally to his Nana, and the team always assumed he was raised by his grandparents, until the sixth episode, when he reveals that she was actually his foster mother. Besides providing An Aesop and contrasting Parker's experiences in the foster care system, she's treated within the character's backstory as if she was his biological grandmother.
  • The sequel series Leverage: Redemption introduces Breanna Casey, another of Nana's foster kids and thus Hardison's foster sibling. They get along pretty well, although Hardison tends to get a bit protective.
• One episode of Lie to Me has a teenage boy "hire" Dr. Lightman to find out the truth behind his family. When he meets his real wheelchair-bound parent and discovers they have nothing in common, he wishes he'd left well enough alone. Eventually, they get a custody-sharing agreement.
• Lost in Space (2018): In this version, Judy Robinson is Maureen's daughter from her first marriage. John Robinson adopted her when he married Maureen. Despite this it's made clear right from the beginning that they love each other a great deal, with John claiming that Judy is just like him even though they're not biologically related. A flashback in the second season shows Judy giving a presentation at school about her hero in which she gives equal praise to both of her fathers.
• Major Crimes: Rusty's guardian and later adoptive mother, Sharon Raydor, treated him far better than his biological parents and accepts and loves him no matter what. The last thing he wants to do is to cause trouble for Sharon and disappoint her.
• The titular hero of The Mandalorian was a foundling adopted into the clan, and he is fiercely loyal to them. He also helps ensure that other foundlings are also cared for. At the end of Season 3, he formally adopts Grogu.
• Mayfair Witches: Rowan and her adoptive mom clearly have a close, very loving mother-daughter relationship.
• The Nanny: After the many years serving as the chief maternal figure in the Sheffield household, after Fran becomes engaged to Maxwell, he at one point insist she sign a Prenuptial Agreement, which angers her. However after Brighton in involved in an accident, Fran comes to realize that the Prenup was meant to protect the children, which she agrees to sign. Maxwell however after witnessing the lengths of the love Fran has for the children-due to her not being technical family she was not allowed in Brighton's hospital room, so, long story short, she took part in some Wacky Shenanigans dressing up as a Nun-he instead hands her Adoption papers to start the process of making Fran the legal mother to Maggie, Brighton and Grace. By the final season, the adoption takes and she is referred to as the children's mother.
• Abby Sciuto is one of the few cast members in NCIS to have a happy childhood; her parents were both deaf, but loved her dearly. In the Season 9 episode "Enemy on the Hill", she was surprised to learn that she had a biological brother she never met...
  "This whole brother/sister thing, it didn't make any sense to me. I mean, Kyle and me, our DNA is a total match. So we have to have the same biological parents. So then I was like... what? Did they give him up for adoption. I can't imagine the wonderful loving parents that raised me and Luca ever giving up a child. But they would have adopted a child. And they did... me. I'm adopted, Gibbs."
• Ryan Atwood on The O.C. goes from the Orphan's Ordeal to this trope.
• This is the entire premise of the TNBC show One World, where two parents adopt five children of different ethnicities.
• Once Upon a Time.
  • Played with in the case of Regina and Henry. At first glance, Regina might appear as a stern but loving mother for her lonely son who has "delusions" about fairy tales. However, as the series progresses, while Regina does love Henry, there is emotional abuse on her part, like putting Henry in therapy to safeguard the curse she had cast, neglecting him at times, and threatening Henry's therapist.
  • At the same time, Henry clearly loves Regina. He wants to see her turn away from being the Evil Queen and be a good person. As the series goes on, Regina legitimately shows she actually wants nothing but the best for Henry and is willing to let him go if he doesn't want to be with her. Henry comes to recognize he has two mothers - his adoptive mother Regina and his birth mother Emma.
• The Outpost:
  • After he reveals her true parentage, Calkussar tells Gwynn that she probably shouldn't call him her father anymore. However, she replies that he raised, protected and sacrificed everything for her, so he's her father and will always be, which clearly touches Calkussar.
  • Talon, after losing her birth parents, found kind human ones who took her in.
• This has shown up a few times in Power Rangers. Twice, you get the sense that adoption is a hand wave to do family subplots while still filling Five-Token Band requirements (Ninja Storm has brothers Blake (Asian) and Hunter (white), while Dino Thunder has Trent (Filipino) and his dad Dr. Mercer (white)). Mystic Force, meanwhile, explains Nick as adopted to set up the biological parents as Chekhov M.I.A. for a Luke, I Am Your Father plot; he doesn't talk about his adoptive parents much, but never shows any problem with them and at the end of the season goes to introduce both sets of parents to each other.
• Princess Agents:
  • Chu Qiao was adopted by the Jing family and renamed Jing Xiao Liu to protect her. She was happy with them, but unfortunately by the start of the series she has amnesia and can't remember them.
  • Yuwen Yue was the grandson of Yuwen Zhuo's second brother. Yuwen Yue's mother went insane, so Yuwen Zhuo adopted him and raised him as his own grandson.
• Punky Brewster: Punky is a foster child of the kindly Henry; while she occasionally gets the urge to try and find her biological mother, it's clear the two of them are pretty happy together. Likewise, Punky's best friend, Cherie, is being raised by her grandmother after the death of her parents.
• The Queen's Gambit: It takes some time but ultimately Alma and Beth really do bond as mother and daughter. Alma isn't a perfect parent, accidentally setting up Beth to become an alcoholic, but she does her best to encourage Beth to expand her horizons while supporting her chess career.
• In Queer as Folk (US), Michael and Ben are Hunter's foster parents, but in the last season they offer to adopt him, and he's very happy to accept.
• Resident Alien:
  • After her mom abandoned her, Dan had raised Asta (we don't learn what became of her birth father). She fully considers Dan to be her father, and they clearly love each other (he's a bit overprotective due to her domestic abuse from Jimmy though).
  • Jay has an overall happy relationship with her adoptive mom (aside from the ordinary spats).
• In Romeo!, a Black family adopted a White boy named Louis.
• Sanctuary's Henry Foss was found on the moors as a child by Helen Magnus, who then raised him. Only once in the entire series does the subject of his birth parents come up, when it's offered to do a DNA check to see where they were from. There are no negative connotations, and Henry says the Sanctuary is where he belongs.
• Luke Smith in The Sarah Jane Adventures. Really, the heart and soul of the show is the bond between Luke and Sarah Jane, and how it changed both of them for the better. Sarah Jane has called him "the most important thing in the universe" and Luke's worst nightmare is that Sarah Jane regrets adopting him and doesn't really want him. Honestly, they are the show's love story.
  • Sky as well. She seems to consider Sarah Jane her mother, despite calling her by her first name. Luke, after some initial reservation, is happy to accept Sky as his sister.
• Ricky from The Secret Life of the American Teenager is not "officially" adopted by his foster parents. But to him, they're his mom and dad. They also refer to themselves as "Ricky's mom" and "Ricky's dad".
  • Also Tom Bowman, who is "officially" adopted.
• Plot point in Single Father when someone points out to Dave that, since he never married Rita OR officially adopted Lucy, he could lose custody of her, especially once she finds her biological father.
• Smallville: Since it’s about a teenage Clark Kent, Clark and Jonathan and Martha, natch. In fact, several characters flat out STATE they wish they had the Kents for parents.
• An episode of Smart Guy involved Mo finding out he was adopted at birth. He, TJ, and Marcus manage to track down his biological mother, but she doesn't seem to care for Mo because having a child was inconvenient then and now. In the end Mo realizes that, by raising him with love, his adoptive parents are his true parents.
• Cassandra, the adorable (human) alien child from Stargate SG-1, is adopted at the end of her first appearance by The Medic, Janet Frasier. Although Cassie only appears three times after this, she's mentioned quite frequently, and seems to have relatively little trouble being adopted on an alien planet. She remains a part of the backstory even after her mother's death, as the team seems to have become her adopted family, too, particularly Sam.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation: While the circumstances behind Worf being adopted by the human couple Sergey and Helena Rozhenko were far from happy (they found him as the sole survivor of his colony after a Romulan attack), he considers them as much his family as his Klingon ancestors. At one point, Guinan tells Worf's adoptive parents that when Worf looks out the window toward home, "He's not looking toward the Klingon Empire. He's looking toward you." Likewise, while Worf has a difficult relationship with the Rozhenkos' biological son Nikolai, he acknowledges Nikolai's fine qualities and the two immediately refer to each other as brothers when they met even when dealing with relative strangers.
• Stranger Things: Eleven is legally adopted by Hopper after Season 2, after she closes the Gate, and they are a pretty good family as well. So much that it's a genuine Tear Jerker when Hopper sacrifices himself and Eleven reads his last letter meant for her.
• Supergirl: Kara Zor-El really adores her human family, though unlike her more famous cousin, who has no memories of Krypton and grew up basically human, Kara still has fond memories of her birth family and Kryptonians in general, which sometimes forces her to make a choice between one or the other.
• Supernatural: From season 9 onwards, Sheriff Jody Mills forms a makeshift family with four orphaned girls: Alex Jones, Claire Novak, Patience Turner, and Kaia Nieves. Despite slight tensions, all of them quickly bond with each other. The fans termed them the "Wayward Sisters", a play on the Winchesters' nickname of "Wayward Sons", which in turn came from the unofficial theme song of the series.
• Too Close for Comfort: Muriel has a good relationship with her adopted parents, though she hates her mom's constant criticism of Henry.
• Trail of Lies: Though Paulinha doesn't know she is adopted at first, because her father Bruno had her registered as his biological daughter after found her in a trash bin, she's clearly very happy with her family.
• The Tunnel: In Season 3 Saban Kasanovich turns out to be have been adopted by a loving French family. Karl is torn over whether to tell him what his birth mother did in his name. The series implies that he'll never be told, and remain blissfully ignorant.
• The Walking Dead:
  • Carl and Judith Grimes are adopted in everything but name by Michonne. After several seasons and finally making peace with the death of Lori, Carl tells Michonne in that she's become his second mother. He also admits that he loves her and would never allow her to remain a walker. In Season 6, he tells Rick that he's wholly on board with their new relationship, though he was a bit surprised to learn of it by seeing them half-dressed when emerging from their bedroom.
  • In a Season 7 episode, Rick admits that Judith is not his daughter, but that of his late wife and best friend. He states that he loves her as if she were his own, though.
• War of the Worlds (2019): Theo has been adopted in all but name by Sophie after his family was killed, and he's very happy with the situation, as she's a caring, devoted mother to him. Her sister Catherine is very impressed by this, as she'd been a pretty irresponsible drug user until the invasion. Adopting Theo made her go clean and grow up greatly.
• Willow: Jade was adopted, raised and trained by Ballantine. Prior to him being possessed and corrupted, it seems they have a loving father-daughter relationship. Before he dies from her mercy stroke, Ballantine tells Jade how much raising her meant, along with his pride in her. Jade is heartbroken after having killed him, even if it was to spare him pain. The "happily" is further put into question when it turns out that Jade wasn't rescued from the Bone Reavers, she was abducted by Tir Asleen after her Bone Reaver father was killed.