Narrowed It Down To The Guy I Recognize - Television Tropes & Idioms

You know this one. You're watching one of the various Law And Order shows, the story is starting to pick up, and as the detectives start going through the usual Red Herring suspects, they interview the victim's Mom and it's Angela Lansbury. Or their poolboy is Ian Somherhalder. Or William Mapother. Or "Trey" from The OC. Even though the detectives pass them over at first, you just know that they're going to be important in the episode, because they wouldn't have paid to cast a well-known actor in a throwaway role. It is very common that the most recognizable actor is the guilty party.

Sometimes you can narrow it down before the show actually airs due to the commercials for an upcoming episode playing up the guest star.

This can become self-subverting when watching reruns; someone high-profile now might've just been starting out when they appeared on the show. (Harrison Ford has said that, early in his career, he spent a lot of time playing "the guy that didn't do it".)

This can also happen in films. If a high-profile actor is playing a supposedly minor role (after becoming high-profile), keep a close eye on this person.

See also: Hey Its That Guy, Traitor Shot.

SPOILERS AHOY!

Examples:

An episode of CSI featured a star from the Canadian TV series The Eleventh Hour. His guest shot was overhyped in CTV commercials, making it obvious he was the killer when he failed to show up almost until the end. But then, CTV does this a lot. Cynthia Nixon's appearance on an episode of Law and Order: SVU, for another example.
- Aversion: Wil Wheaton appeared on an episode, bearded, homeless, and crazy. Not recognizable (unless you saw the guest star name at the beginning) or guilty.
- Also played with in an episode that guest starred Roger Daltrey. He did it, but his character spent most of the episode disguised as several other people. The guy you would have recognized did it, but he was unrecognizable.
CSI: Miami subverted this by having skateboarding (and video game) star Tony Hawk guest starring... as the victim (so naturally his role was in flashbacks).
- Michael Westen appears in an episode as part of a convict team fighting fire in the Everglades, while the CSI team is there investigating a different case entirely. He later takes Alexx hostage and escapes.
Subverted in CSI NY; an episode features a case of a guy who looks like retired tennis champ John McEnroe and then brings the man himself on to clear things up.
- Another episode of the show featured "magician" and professional poser, Criss Angel. When the team suspected him early on, it seemed obvious he wouldn't be the killer. However, by the end of the episode, he had performed almost all of his signature tricks. Oh, and killed someone.
- Also played in an episode that had Kid Rock being suspected of killing an employee who leaked his yet-to-be-released album. He didn't do it, the leak was a Viral Marketing ploy orchestrated by him.
NUMB3RS often did this. One episode featured two well-known actors. Of course, they had both done it.
- Exception: an episode with Wil Wheaton (again) and Christopher Lloyd. Neither did it.
- Another: Bill Nye the Science Guy getting called in as a consultant, and the criminal was someone completely unrelated.
Also frequently seen in Midsomer Murders.
We could fill this page entirely with Law And Order examples. It's pretty much S.O.P. for L&O shows: if the feature guest star isn't the defense attorney, the victim, or the first suspect, he's the perp. To be fair, on Criminal Intent it's often obvious who the killer is right from the start as the show is about how the detectives will catch them, rather than whodunnit.
- In an episode of Law And Order: Criminal Intent, Stephen Colbert plays a graphologist hired to authenticate some documents, only to find out that he forged them, and committed the original murder. This was before Colbert's show began, but he was already well-known as a reporter on The Daily Show and for Strangers With Candy.
  - By the by, in case someone thinks that plot is unbelievable: there's a reason they use the tagline Ripped From The Headlines.
- One episode of Special Victims Unit managed to avoid this by having three well-known guest stars (Bob Saget, Chris Sarandon and Catherine Bell) so it wasn't immediately obvious who the killer was.
- Yep... another Law And Order: Criminal Intent entry. They interview the woman who ran the prime suspect's foster home, Whoopi Goldberg (with short hair, no less). Guess who's behind the whole thing?
- A well done example is the episode of Law And Order Special Victims Unit featuring Martin Short. It's never in question that he's the guilty party, and the entire episode is a battle of wits between Short and the detectives as he taunts them to prove it.
  - The same approach was taken in an episode of Criminal Minds with Jason Alexander. Further, the Unsub or Unsub's accessory is frequently a recognized person: Wil Wheaton, Lindsay Crouse, James Van Der Beek, and others.
- A similar SVU example involved guest star Jerry Lewis. Producers must've been particularly aware of the trope this time as even the promos gave away that he did it, and indeed the crime ultimately committed by his character was done right in front of the eyes of the star detectives — the episode's plot revolved instead around tension leading up to the crime, whether or not he was justified in his actions and whether or not mental incompetence played a role.
- Just plain averted in the episode Trade with guest stars Matthew Davis and Stephen Collins. Neither one of them did it.
- Subverted in an original flavour Law And Order episode, in which Kevin Smith appears — in a one-scene cameo.
  - In "An Evening With Kevin Smith 2", he says that he wanted to play "the guy who leads them to the guy who leads them to the guy who leads them to the guy that did it". And he did.
- Also averted in an episode of SVU in which Karen Allen is the murderer's wife, but played straight in an earlier episode of the original Law And Order in which Allen is the killer.
- In a recent SVU episode, Eric McCormack played the killer's father. He confesses and everything!
- One SVU episode, in quick succession, had the detectives talking up a promiscuous female vic's sexual partners: Bobby Flay, Mark McGrath, and Jesse Palmer, all playing Expies of themselves, about halfway through the episode. It's not any of them; just sweeps.
- Subverted: One episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent featured Brent Spiner (Lt. Cdr. Data) as one half of a pair of married psychologists. They were both arrogant twits, but neither of them was the killer.
- An inversion: One episode of SVU in which the guest star was Lewis Black as a Howard Stern like radio-DJ. He was never a suspect, but later in the episode, he gets shot in the shoulder by the culprit's mother. The jury finds her innocent.
- Malcolm Macdowell deserves to be far more then the average perp when he appears on CI, and indeed, not only is a Chessmaster par excellence, he gets away with his crime in the end.
- This troper should have known that Peri Gilpin did it on Criminal Intent, since she was the only famous guest star in the episode.
- Another Criminal Intent subversion: Rip Torn guest starred in one episode as a rather cold, unfeeling, and downright unpleasant multi-millionaire who, despite being mean (and despite being portrayed by the big-name guest star), wasn't involved with the murder.
  - And another: John Glover not only got to be creepy and suspicious in his appearance as Goren's forensic psychology mentor, he also got to be completely innocent.
  - At least the first time he was on.
Subverted in the film Hot Fuzz, in which all of the supporting cast are famous actors, and all of them did it.
The first episode of Psych has the father of the kidnapped and then murdered young man played by Don S. Davis — who spent eight years on Stargate SG-1 as Gen. Hammond. He did it.
- One of the season finales had the guy who played Cameron in Ferris Bueller as a bank robber. Turns out he was being forced into it; the real baddies had his wife held hostage.
- Double subverted in a different episode guest-starring Rachael Leigh Cook as an old flame of Shawn's who agrees to go on a date with him...the same day he is taunted by a clue-leaving serial killer. Cook ends up nearly being a victim; the killer turns out to be played by Ally Sheedy, who the viewer had not seen yet, and didn't even realize until later had been hiding in nearly every scene of the episode.
- When David Naughton guest-starred in a Halloween episode themed around werewolves, it's easy to guess that he did it. Especially when his character was named after an Entertainment Weekly TV critic who doesn't particularly like the show.
In an episode of Strong Medicine, a flood of patients from a train derailment caused by a car on the track was followed by a frantic and confused young woman coming into the hospital. Nothing special, except that it was Delia Fisher from My So Called Life. She did it, but she didn't know she did it.
An episode of Cold Case had Daveigh Chase (Samara Morgan from The Ring) guest star as one of the suspects. Guess who the killer was?
- And in an episode of CSI, Daveigh Chase played the victim. Guess who the killer was that time?
An episode of Monk, "Mr. Monk and the Girl who Cried Wolf" featured Emma Caufield (the former vengeance demon Anya from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) as Sharona's creative writing teacher. She hadn't "done it" yet, but she was about to.
- Subverted in a later episode in which Bradley Whitford's character is NOT the killer.
- But still done an awful lot. One season 3 episode ("Mister Monk and the Kid") had a well-known actress in a minor role, and as soon as this troper heard her and said "Hey, that's Shego!" we knew who the kidnapper/killer was.
An episode of Bones featured Tom Wilson (a.k.a. Biff from Back To The Future) as the victim's boss. He turned out to be the killer.
- Though he did appear in a Psych episode as a clear secondary character with nothing to do with the crime. Though this is the same episode as the David Naughton ep in the Psych entry above.
- Another had Adam Baldwin as an FBI agent looking for a mob killer and protecting Brennan from a hit man. He was the killer and the hit man.
- A third episode has a People Who Died On Buffy reunion where both major lawyers and the lead investigator were all characters who died on Buffy. I was so sure one of them was dirty!
Movie instance in Twisted: Samuel L Jackson is playing the protagonist's foster father and mentor. Naturally, given the types of role Jackson usually plays, he's the killer. One viewer was suspicious of the character in question as soon as she identified the actor, and proved correct.
Subverted in Se7en, where Kevin Spacey's name is absent from all promotional material as well as the opening credits, so that his appearance as John Doe towards the end would be a surprise. Unless you recognized his voice when he calls the detectives before his appearance.
Done in Wolf, Jack Nicholson's 1994 vehicle where the killer wolfman is revealed to be Stargate-star James Spader, who had appeared in only a few scenes
Cleverly done in Sleepy Hollow, where the main character, already investigating a crime, is introduced the town's most important men and the audience is already looking for the guilty among them. They are all played by "vaguely famous" actors: former Maigret (and later Dumbledore) Michael Gambon as the leader, Jeffrey Jones from Amadeus as the reverend, Ian "Palpatine" McDiarmid as the doctor; Michael Gough, formerly Batman's butler and a usual in Burtons's films, as the notary; and Richard Griffiths from Naked Gun 2 as the magistrate. The guilty part is... A conspiracy among all of them! But wait: The real villain behind the ghost is the leader's wife, played by Miranda Richardson.
Even Battlestar Galactica is guilty of this, in a roundabout way. Lucy Lawless and Dean Stockwell both appeared as supposedly one-shot characters before being outed as Cylons.
Used in character in the movie Last Action Hero. Daniel pegs a character as The Mole based solely on the fact that his actor played Salieri in Amadeus.
The West Wing had Glenn Close show up during a search for a Supreme Court Justice.
- Which was the second time they did this - the first season had them looking for a Supreme Court Justice, and who should pop up but Edward James Olmos.
  - Who didn't actually show up until the end of the episode, when they had already decided to make him a Justice. But he did show up in the guest starring titles.
One episode of Burn Notice had Lucy Lawless play a grieving woman looking for her husband. ...until about halfway through the episode when she's revealed to be a spy looking to kill the man Michael unwittingly guided her to.
- Subverted in the Season 1 cliff-hanger finale, where Richard Schiff shows up as a guest star, and is killed off after just a couple of minutes of screen time. The DVD commentary says they specifically hired a big name so the audience would see him as the ultimate bad guy—they wouldn't pay a big star like that to be just a one-shot flunky.
When you see Leonard Nimoy in an episode of Columbo, it's only logical to assume he did it. Even before the Perp Sweating sets in.
- Especially since, like nearly all Columbo murderers, he's shown committing the crime before Columbo even appears.
Cited on The Simpsons:
Grampa: I say we call Matlock. He'll find the culprit. It's probably that evil Gavin MacLeod or George "Goober" Lindsay.
On Masterpiece Theatre's 2009 adaptation of Agatha Christie's "They Do It With Mirrors," the perpetrator is played by Brian Cox, otherwise known as Stryker from the second X Men film, or Ward Abbott from The Bourne Series films.
NCIS had a late first season episode that guest starred Adam Baldwin, Julie Benz, and Doug Savant (albeit this was the season before the later show started). Subverted in the fact that NONE of them are guilty - the murder of the week was actually a suicide.
Life On Mars did this a lot; then again, the week's crime case was usually the episode's least important plot.
Brilliantly averted in the 1988 film Shoot To Kill (starring Sidney Poitier and Tom Berenger), the yet-unseen villain joins up with a group of sportsmen who're going on a trek through the wilderness. Looking at the group, the villain could have been obvious, if not for the fact that the makers of the film deliberately filled the group with actors who had played prominent villains in the past, including Clancy "Kurgan" Brown and Andrew "Scorpio" Robinson.
Brilliantly subverted by the all-star cast (John Gielgud is credited ninth!) of the 1974 film Murder on the Orient Express. Of course, they all did it.
Averted in The Closer, Connor Trinneer plays one of the suspects but is quickly cleared within the first scene he appears in.
The Inside was pretty bad about this for its short run. William Mapother, Michael Bowen Jenette Goldstein, Hart Boecher and Amber Benson.... Averted in one episode, where master of scary characters Zeljko Mother Frakking Ivanek is an innocent nice guy who just doesn't know how to defend himself properly. The killer? Jeanette McCurdy.
Castle did this once or twice, with Carla starring as the perp in one episode, and another person playing a... suspect (but not the killer) in another. (Names and ep. titles would be appreciated)

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