Mugging The Monster / Live-Action TV

---

• From 1000 Ways to Die
  • A mugger tries to rob a sweet, friendly-looking old woman... who happens to be a fifth degree black belt and has been practicing for most of her life. Needless to say, it's a Curb-Stomp Battle, and ends with the old lady punching the mugger in the throat, crushing his larynx with his Adam's apple.
  • A rapist attacks a crossdresser, who happens to be a champion boxer. "I ain't NO lady!" Cue the rapist on the asphalt in the alley and dead.
  • A criminal preparing to rob a jewelry store ends up walking into a gun store, where Everyone Is Armed, because he covered his face with pantyhose and couldn't see which store he was entering. He's reduced to a dead hunk of Swiss cheese within seconds.
• Alias Smith and Jones likes this one.
  • The scenario usually goes that some random tough decides the too-clever-for-his-own good dark-haired gambler is winning far too much at poker and accuses him of cheating. The gambler's baby-faced blond partner then suggests that said accusation is taken back, the local tough declines the option and tells him to go for his gun. In the ensuing fast draw stand-off said gun is then pointed at the local tough before he has even had the chance to touch his own. Well done, you have just tried to draw against Kid Curry, the fastest gun in the west
  • The episode "Stagecoach Seven" opens with a particularly nice example of this. Steve Ihnat plays an arrogant jerk who decides to pick a fight with the amiable curly-haired fellow who happens to be Kid, with predictable results.
• The Americans: In the Season Four episode "Dinner for Seven", Elizabeth and her daughter Paige are leaving from church one evening when two men try to mug her. Elizabeth, being a Deep Cover Agent for the KGB, and who has already been shown beating up FBI agents (as well as her own boss), and killing others, knocks out one of the muggers, and stabs the other one in the throat with his own knife.
• Andor:
  • Two corrupt corporate policeman spot a shady character and decide to shake him down for some cash. Unfortunately for them, they are robbing Andor who knows how to fight and is in no mood to be taken advantage of.
  • Also applies to the Imperial cruiser which hassles Luthen's Fondor Haulcraft, not realizing that it's been modified to within an inch of its life specifically for the purpose of evading capture.
• Angel:
  • Rogue Slayer Faith arrives in Los Angeles, homeless, broke, and shivering from the cold. A pimp at the bus station spies her predicament and tries to prey on her vulnerability in order to lure her into his employ. Cut to Faith leaving the station with his wallet full of cash, his leather jacket, and the keys to a flat whose owner won't be returning anytime soon. Bonus points are awarded for attacking him while his arms are trapped in his sleeves, as he attempts You Must Be Cold.
  • When Connor first arrives in Los Angeles, he finds a drug dealer and his henchmen brutalizing an addict who won't pay up. They tell him to leave, and when he won't, attack him. Of course, Connor is also known as The Destroyer in a hell dimension, and has spent his entire life hunting down demons we couldn't imagine...
  • In Las Vegas, two bouncers of a rather shady casino attack Angel. Cue vamp face.
• Sort of a Running Gag in the backstory of Babylon 5:
  • At one point in their pre-contact history, the Centauri had all but renounced war when they made contact with the Xon, the other sentient race of their homeworld. Seeing a defenseless prey, the Xon attacked, caused the collapse of the Centauri First Empire... And its replacement with the Centauri Republic, that beat the Xon back in the sea, chased them to their continent, fought off a sudden alien invasion, and wiped the Xon out.
  • The above-mentioned alien invasion: the Shroggen, servants of the Shadows, had chased three Technomages to a world inhabitated by primitives and expected an easy victory, having to fight only three enemies and maybe a bunch of aliens at the start of their industrial age, except the Technomages had arrived early enough to increase Centauri technological level enough that they managed to fight the invaders off.
  • Shortly after Valen's Shadow War, the Garmak thought that the Minbari, still reeling from the devastation suffered against the Shadows, were nothing but a Paper Tiger, and started raiding them in preparation for an invasion. By the time the Minbari were finished, the entire Garmak military had been wiped out, and the Centauri, much weaker than the pre-war Garmak, waltzed in, conquered their entire empire without any meaningful resistance, and started reverse-engineer their technology to propel themselves as one of the three great powers of the Younger Races alongside the Minbari and the Orieni.
  • In the late 20th century the Orieni, knowing that Centauri admirals tended to be promoted for family connections and politics rather than competence and seeing the Centauri emperor was trying to end their century-long cold war with full peace, thought the Centauri were led by a weak ruler and thus ripe for being defeated and weakened. Turned out that Centauri industrial might was just too immense for the Orieni to break their military before the incompetent admirals killed in battle or otherwise replaced by more competent leaders, and the Centauri emperor was a formidable ruler that was more than willing to do everything it took to preserve the Republic. After almost ten years, the war ended with Orieni economy collapsed, their military decimated and on the verge of breaking, half their empire occupied and devastated, and their pissed opponents in orbit of their homeworld deciding to accept the Orieni surrender instead of willingly engaging in genocide.
  • In the 2160s House Jaddo had the monopoly of Centauri trade with Earth, causing their rival Houses to sponsor privateers that first attacked Earth shipping to the Centauri Republic and then expanded to all of Earth Alliance shipping. As this was perfectly normal of Centauri politics at the time and involving the Centauri emperor could have caused an immense political mess, Jaddo did not bring Earth's protest to the Centaurum once the humans realized where the raiders were coming from and provided proof, even as EarthForce patrols took to chase privateers across the border with enough numbers that only a fully armed Centauri military base could turn them back, as nobody would have been stupid enough to commit an act of war over some piracy, especially when the Centauri Royal Navy gave back the privateers' loot when they were chased to one of their bases... Except Earth Alliance considered piracy itself an act of war, and at one point one of their patrols chased privateers to a Centauri war base and nuked the place for refusing to give up the privateers too. As the Centauri Republic could not afford a war with Earth at that point and EarthForce was already mobilized, the emperor ended both House Jaddo's monopoly and the privateering practices before they started it.
  • In the 2240s Earth Alliance thought their one uncontacted neighbour was a Paper Tiger, and was a bit too careless in trying to establish first contact. Said neighbour was the Minbari Federation, and one misunderstanding later the Minbari were bent on genocide with EarthForce being unable to stop them, with the Minbari's sudden surrender as they were about to destroy Earth catching the entire galaxy flat-footed.
  • The Earth-Minbari War was one such moment for the Minbari too: as they knew exactly their technological superiority, the Minbari expected a short and victorious war, with the Black Star, their flagship, even managing to raid the Sol System early in preparation for a decapitation strike... Then EarthForce managed to blow up the Black Star, forcing them to greatly reconsider their approach. They still suffered worse losses than expected, and EarthForce's increasingly desperate measures meant it took them two years to finally get back to Earth.
  • During the Earth-Minbari War the Ch'lonas and the Koulani, Earth Alliance' warlike but much weaker neighbours, thought that the Minbari invasion would offer them a window of opportunity, and after the Minbari surrender they and a fleet of renegade Drazi raiders attacked in full force, with the Brakiri "offering" to buy a few border systems at a fair price "for such damaged goods". Even weakened by the Minbari onslaught, the remnants of EarthForce resisted long enough to be joined by ships that had been started building and included the new Omega-class destroyers designed to fight a Minbari warcruiser with a mere three-to-one superiority, and the Minbari weren't destroying them faster than they could be built anymore. Ch'lonas and Koulani were decimated, the raiders wiped out, and the Brakiri suddenly retired their "offer" and contributed to Earth Alliance rebuilding for fear of being the next on the list.
  • Finally happens on-screen in the episode "All Alone in the Night", a race of Inscrutable Aliens called the Streib have been abducting ships and experimenting on their crews. Unfortunately for them, one of the ships they attack belongs to Captain John Sheridan. Cue Roaring Rampage of Revenge by B5's fighter squadrons and the EAS Agamemnon, an Omega-class destroyer. It's also stated they did this to the Minbari in the past, and as Delenn puts it, the Minbari "made sure they understood the depth of their mistake."
• In Being Human, Owen is a scum of a man who murders Annie and, even after seeing her as a ghost, continues to hurt her going so far as to indirectly tell her that he cheated on her before her death while comfortingly holding his new girlfriend (and Annie's old friend). He believes that Annie can do nothing to him since she is shy and insecure. Until she digs up some courage and has George and Mitchell stand behind her. Suddenly, Owen finds himself confronted with a werewolf, a vampire, and his former fiancée who stare him down before Annie tells him "the secret only the dead know", which is apparently horrific. Sometime shortly after, Owen is incarcerated into the nut house.
• The first few episodes of Better Call Saul involve a pair of petty scammers going for a faked injury claim (i.e. deliberately skate in front of a slow-moving car, get hit, and then claim they broke their legs and they'll sue if you don't reimburse them now). Their scam is cut short, however, when they try to do it to a nice old lady who is also the abuelita of psychotic gang enforcer Tuco. Even worse, they try to get into her house, insult her, and intimidate her, all while in front of Tuco. Tuco breaks both their legs for real, and that was only after Jimmy managed to talk him down to a Laser-Guided Karma punishment; prior to that, he was considering giving them Colombian neckties.
  • Also in Better Call Saul, Mike goading thugs into trying to mug him. It doesn't go well for one of the thugs.
• In Black Sails, three men with drawn swords turn up to force a merchant captain called Drummond to attend their sister's wedding. Their determination turns to fear when said captain informs them he's actually a pirate by the name of Teach, whereupon he calmly shoots all three with the pistols he has strapped to his chest.
• Boardwalk Empire:
  • A pair of low-grade messenger boys for a local crime boss try to mug Jimmy Darmody (Jimmy's a World War I vet, has been The Dragon in two different major mobs already, is a ruthless personal friend of Al Capone, etc.) when he's coming out of a poker game a few bucks richer. Jimmy kills both of the gunmen with his combat knife and bare hands.
  • Also happens with Nucky Thompson. He discovers someone is robbing him of his goods. At first, he thinks it's one of his many enemies, instead, he finds out it's a young man by himself. During the whole episode, it seems like the young man is winning Nucky Thompson over and eventually asks to join his crew. Instead, Thompson kills him when the guy doesn't see it coming. Thompson also does this as a warning to one of his men.
  • Throughout the series criminals come to Atlantic City and try to take over Nucky's rackets thinking that he is just a weak politician. They discover that Nucky can be as ruthless and murderous as any street gangster.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • The series is built on this very trope. Joss Whedon has often stated that he felt sorry for that pretty, blonde girl in every horror movie who is inevitably monster food and wanted to make a movie (which later became this show) about letting her finally be the one to open up a can of whoop-ass on her attacker.
  • Announcing this switcheroo of intent, it opens with a pair of apparent high school students, a nefarious young man who lures a timid, helpless-looking, blonde girl into a darkened school building. Once he assures her they are completely alone, that no-one is going to catch them, she (Darla) turns on him and drinks his blood.
  • Faith is actually introduced this way. A vampire seemingly seduces her in a club, and Buffy follows them out to an alley, only to see Faith stake the vampire and walk off.
  • Played with in one Season 6 episode, where Buffy rescues a woman from vampires... and holds back the lethal force at the last second when she realises the "vampires" are just ordinary muggers.
  Buffy: But come on, rush me. It'll be funny.
  • In the Season 3 episode "Beauty and the Beasts", a jealous, rage-fueled jock taking a homemade super serum tries to kill normally-scrawny Oz... just before dusk during the full moon. When that doesn't work, he then attempts to kill the interceding Buffy, even less aware of who he's facing than that rare vamp who doesn't recognize the Slayer. Surprisingly, he doesn't do too badly. Then Angel shows up.
• Burn Notice:
  • In the pilot episode, a drug dealer named "Sugar" learns to his everlasting detriment that one does not mess with Michael Westen, no matter how much of a pushover Michael may look like. Sugar returns in a later episode... as Michael's biggest fan.
  • In another episode a groups of Russian mercenaries are quite aware how dangerous Michael is and come prepared. However, they do not realize that the man they kidnap alongside Michael is actually an important business associate of one of the heads of the Russian Mafiya. No matter how things turn up they are royally screwed either way.
  • In a later episode, Fiona, currently imprisoned, sends Madeline to pick a package from a fellow inmate's ex (working out a favor). The ex, being a clear sadist, pushes Maddy against a wall and threatens to break her teeth if she ever comes back. Undaunted, Maddy comes back later. Only this time, Michael is with her... and he's in a VERY bad mood.
• In an episode of Charmed, Piper and some mythical Valkyries are cornered by a biker gang after arriving on Earth. The next scene shows the bikers Bound and Gagged, with the female members of the group stripped of their clothes so that the Valkyries can use them to blend in.
• In Part 3 of Chiefs, a racist police officer in a small town in the Deep South in the 1960s pulls over a black man and harasses him, for no good reason. The target of his harassment turns out to be the newly appointed Chief of Police.
• Chuck: The plot of "Chuck Versus the Wedding Planner" is kicked off by Chuck and Sarah being swindled by a con artist named Daphne Peralta who posed as a wedding planner to steal money from them. Unfortunately for Peralta, Chuck and Sarah are not only very capable CIA agents, but one of them is the daughter of a con artist herself and enlists his help to track her down.
• The Cold Open of the first episode of Cleverman has four drunk hooligans sexually harassing a young woman on a late-night bus, only for her to turn out to be a superpowered Hairy Person, slash the face of one of them, and terrify the others.
• Cloak & Dagger (2018): Variant. Connors has learned that Tyrone has teleportation powers, so decides to threaten him by aiming a gun at Tandy instead. He quickly discovers that while Tyrone's powers are purely defensive, Tandy's are purely offensive. She cuts his gun in half and casually threatens to slit his throat.
• Cobra Kai:
  • Mirroring the events of The Karate Kid, the first episode has some bullies beating up a kid and having a random man intervene. They think they can take the "random bum who eats his dinners at the Mini Mart" but what they don't realize is said random bum is Johnny Lawrence, the top student of the psychotic John Kreese who holds a black belt in the particularly savage titular form of karate. They get at best a couple of decent shots in on the guy but one serious ass-whupping later and three of the bullies are on their backs while the fourth is on his knees with a set of hands around his neck.
    Johnny: What's the matter? Having trouble breathing?
  • Those same bullies get in on the action again the third time they decide to pick a fight with Miguel. The first time Miguel was a simpering dork who was barely able to stand up for himself, and Johnny had to intervene on his behalf. The second time Miguel's a Badass Wannabe at best who at least has the guts to try and stand up for himself and promptly gets his ass kicked. The third time however he's become pretty good at Cobra Kai this time around — cue yet another humiliating ass-whupping where all the bullies get the crap kicked out of them by the kid who's pretty damned tough now. Third time really IS the charm.
  • A later episode has Johnny and his old Cobra Kai buddies meet to take their one ailing friend, who's dying of cancer, on a road trip for one final hoorah. They run of some toughs in a bar and as it turns out all four of them, even the one dying of cancer, can still kick some serious ass even when outnumbered by much larger foes. Cobra Kai are the only ones left standing in the end.
  • Not to be outdone of course, Daniel LaRusso intervenes to defend one of his students from a trio of thugs on the beach. They're all much younger and one is much bigger, and they all think it's funny "some old grandpa" wants to try and fight them right up until Daniel completely dismantles all three of them without even breaking a sweat.
  • And not to be outdone either is John Kreese. Yes, he's a washed up hobo who is psychotically desperate to resurrect his old brutal form of Cobra Kai with little more to his name than some memories and a barrack box of clothes. When his landlord shows up with some thugs to try and evict him however, John just smirks and politely refuses to leave, and while we don't see the massacre we see the aftermath — said landlord on the phone, visibly beaten up, stating he's never going to go after Kreese again.
• In one episode of Covert Affairs, some Somali pirates just happen to capture and hold for ransom Auggie, a brilliant CIA agent on vacation... who's hampered only by the fact that he's trying to avoid blowing his cover.
• The episode "The Big Wheel" of Criminal Minds had a pair of thugs trying to rob the episode's Serial Killer, an unstable obsessive-compulsive. The leader of the mugger duo gets knifed in the chest.
  • On the other hand, the serial killer is shot in the struggle and ultimately bleeds to death.
  • In "Third Life", the UnSub abducts two teenagers to rape, torture, and murder them. Turns out one their dads is a retired mob hitman. Oops.
• Dexter:
  • This was toyed with in one episode: although both Dexter and the perp knew one another (he being a member of an escaped victim's gang), Dexter plays it off as an attempted mugging, leading to many trope-invoking comments from the other Miami PD.
  • Also in "Dex Takes a Holiday", Dexter focuses on Zoey Kruger, a police officer whose husband and child were killed. The blood evidence suggests that she may have actually murdered them and planted evidence to incriminate a known thief. She goes to kill Dexter (whom she sees only as a nosy blood guy) and plans to make it like he was killed in a house invasion. Little did she know that she was dealing with a Serial-Killer Killer.
  • It even happens among criminals. In "Swim Deep", Dexter attempts to set Isaak Sirko, a Ukrainian mobster, up to get killed in a Colombian mob bar. Dexter gets called back to the scene of the crime, expecting to see Isaak's corpse. The actual result: three dead Colombian mobsters.
• Diablero: In Nancy's first scene, she has checked herself into a mental hospital, and an orderly attempts to assault her. He has cause to regret this.
• Doctor Who: In "Silver Nemesis", a pair of men try to mug the time-travelling 17th century villain Lady Peinforte and her criminal servant Richard. The next time we see the men, they're hanging by their ankles from a tree, Bound and Gagged, in only their underpants as their clothes burn in a pile beneath them. The expression on Richard's face when the robber demands money and pulls a knife on him is actually quite charming. After a long time being a Fish out of Temporal Water, he's finally encountered a situation he understands.
• Dragnet
  • A bank robber's MO is to thumb rides with women and then force them at gunpoint to aid him in stickups. Fourth time around, he's getting a tad overconfident and lets his guard down. Unbeknownst to him he's picked a karate instructor. An epic Damsel out of Distress beatdown ensues.
• Fallen Angels. In "Tomorrow I Die", adapted from a short story by Mickey Spillane, the protagonist played by Bill Pullman is taken hostage by a gang of robbers who mistake him for a local politician. Turns out he's actually a Professional Killer when he produces two spring-loaded derringers and guns down the criminals. And the remaining hostages so he can take the loot for himself.
• In the Farscape episode "I-Yensch, You-Yensch", a couple of petty crooks try to rob a bar and grill where Scorpius, Braca, D'Argo, and Rygel are attempting to engage in tense negotiations. However the crooks' incompetence ends up making the situation even more dangerous and volatile, despite how superior the regulars are to them.
• In Firefly, a gang of thieves holds up a family in a wagon... unaware that they're our Big Damn Heroes in disguise. A crossdressing Malcolm Reynolds utters the memorable line "If your hand touches metal, I swear by my pretty floral bonnet I will end you." Their hands touch metal. Mal's pretty floral bonnet remains clean.
• The Flash (2014):
  • An episode opens with Barry being mugged at gunpoint immediately after getting coffee. After being utterly baffled by Barry's cheerful amusement at being targeted, the mugger finds himself disarmed, stripped to his underwear and suddenly standing in front of a cop.
  • A later episode sees a homeless youth being targeted by a pair of muggers, only for it to turn out that it's Ronnie, and he not only survived the explosion of the particle accelerator, but was empowered by it.
  • In Season 4, this happens to Barry and Ralph (just starting out as Elongated Man). Barry sees this as the perfect chance for some on-the-job training — until the mugger loses patience and shoots Ralph, whose rubbery body deflects the bullet into the mugger. Incidentally, the mugger is the same guy who tried to mug Barry in the first example. Guess he didn't learn his lesson.
• On the Fringe episode "The Human Kind" two highwaymen kidnap Olivia, quickly learn that she's a fugitive, and attempt to turn her over to the Observers for a bounty. They don't seem to know the details of why there's such a big bounty on her, and they don't keep watch on her and... it ends badly for them.
• Grimm.
  • Wesen look like regular humans until they woge into their natural form so frequently a criminal will end up missing an arm or a head before he knows what hit him. In one instance a mugger makes the mistake of trying to rob a harmless looking elderly lady who also happens to be a legendary criminal killing monster. In turn, many Wesen were in for a rough surprise when they attack Nick, an average looking police detective, and discover that he is a Grimm, the boogieman Wesen mothers scare their children with. Since Wesen can't normally spot whether someone is a human or an unwogen Wesen, you sometimes also get situations where a Wesen finds out that he just attacked another, much more powerful Wesen. In one case, a nigh-immortal Wesen comes out of the ground only once every seven years to party and find a fat person to feed on for the next seven years. This time, he picks up an overweight woman, kills her boyfriend, takes her to his park, and knocks her out. Then Nick, Hank, and Wu show up, but the Wesen overpowers all three. Then a larger Wesen appears from behind and bites his head off. Whoops. Probably shouldn't have hit her on the head so hard.
  • Happens in full hilarity because viewers know just how poorly it's going to go in "Blind Love" for The person who tries to get at Sean by kidnapping Diana. Made even more funny by Sean starting to panic, before he realises that it isn't his daughter who's going to need the rescuing.
  • The A-plot of the same episode is also an example; a Wesen wants revenge on Nick for arresting his father, which happened prior to Nick discovering his powers. He's very surprised to discover Nick's friends are Wesen, and goes to his death without ever learning Nick is a Grimm. Hank observes that if he had known that, he probably wouldn't have tried anything.
• Hack: In "Pilot", a group of muggers attempt to mug one of Mike's fares just after he gets out of the cab. When Mike comes back to rescue him, he gives the muggers the option of walking away, and even taking the fare's cash with them. Instead, the head mugger attempts to smash Mike's face with a cobblestone. Big mistake.
• An episode of Hawaii Five-0 starts off with Steve McGarret picnicking with his girlfriend in his car... and a mugger shows up, trying to carjack them at gunpoint. Smash Cut to an annoyed McGarret dragging the scum to the police station — after ripping off his nose ring. The sergeant welcoming them, good ol' Duke a.k.a. the guy who gets to watch Five-0 in action all the time, finds this very funny, and comments to the perp that he picked the wrong guy.
• Heroes:
  • In Volume 5, a Rabid Cop locks the door of an interrogation room, disconnects the camera, and threatens to beat a murder confession out of his rather mild-mannered suspect. Too bad for him the suspect in question is Sylar (currently suffering Laser-Guided Amnesia, which is why he's so mild-mannered), who instinctively uses his telekinesis to toss the cop through the room's one-way mirror.
  • A pair of muggers target Mohinder after he injects himself with a Super Serum.
• Homicide: Life on the Street:
  • Munch and some of the other detectives are walking out of a bar after having had a few post-work drinks when they notice a youth loitering around them, clearly with the intent of getting some easy money from these easy targets. After first sniggering about the youth's obvious lack of intelligence, Munch brazenly walks up to the kid, flashes his badge and sneers "Yo, we're cops. Go mug someone else." This was based on a real incident that David Simon witnessed while following some detectives for the original book.
  • In another episode, in response to a series of murders of priests, members of the homicide unit are acting as decoys dressed as priests in various parts of town. Two youths accost Detective Munch at a bus stop.
    Mugger: Hey Father, you know what time it is?
    Munch: (pulls out gun) It's Glock time, you son of a bitch.
• Human Target
  • Guerrero's first scene sees him approached by two goons working for the head of a shady bank. When they threaten to beat him, he tells them that he'll take it but that he'll then kill each of them in their sleep while revealing personal information about them. The two wisely walk away.
  • Baptiste, notorious talented assassin for hire, is introduced by having a mugger ask for his wallet and watch. Baptiste takes the mugger's gun, removes the clip in about half a second, hands it back, and tells the mugger to run along. Even worse than that: Baptiste doesn't even take it out of the mugger's hands. He just waits until he is distracted by something then dismantles the gun in a fraction of a second by hitting the magazine release, the slide release, and pulling the slide off. He does this so fast it looks like he just touched the gun and it fell apart on it's own.
• The Iceman Tapes is an HBO series of interviews done with notorious psychopath and hitman for hire, Richard Kaklinski. During his third and final appearance where he talks to a renown psychiatrist, he tells the story of three drunken young men whom were harassing him on the highway one night. Richard chases them off the road, gets out of his car and kills them. When the psychiatrist questioned whether killing the young men was necessary, Richard gets annoyed and warns the shrink that he almost made him angry by questioning his actions.
• The Incredible Hulk (1977): Basically Once per Episode, someone has the bad idea of threaten, harass or harm David Banner... until he transforms into the titular character and goes after his offenders, who have an Oh, Crap! moment when seeing a tall, green, muscular guy roaring at them.
• iZombie: Liv is a waifish medical examiner who can't help joining in the police investigation and confronting the killers. She is also a zombie, and on this show, that means a Healing Factor, superhuman strength, and other benefits. In the pilot, she rode on top of a fleeing murderer's car, got shot, grabbed the steering wheel through the windshield, forced him to drive into a tree, and walked away. Other encounters with people who underestimate her have gone little better for them.
• Jekyll: "He's got a knife. Minimum necessary force." Of course, it's Mister Hyde's definition of minimum necessary force.
• Knight Rider:
  • Many a random criminal has tried to steal or damage KITT, who looks like a cool but normal car, but is actually both sentient and super tough. KITT's responses range from snapping at the crooks for disturbing him to deliberately freaking them out, to simply sitting there and confusing them with his invulnerability to all their attacks.
  • The first episode merits a mention: KITT's sentience is introduced when Micheal drives him up to a convenience store and leaves him unlocked, with the keys in the ignition. A pair of crooks see an opportunity, get in, and drive off, pleased with themselves — until they realize they aren't steering. KITT leaves them at the police station, and then goes back and berates Micheal for being an idiot.
• Kung Fu (1972) has, almost Once per Episode, some Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy who thinks he can push around Caine. After all, it's an unarmed, barefoot, shabbily-dressed, softly-spoken Chinaman who actively avoids fighting unless there's no other choice or someone is being bullied. And he's Just One Man, often outnumbered two or three to one. What can he do? As it happens, he's a Shaolin priest, and doesn't need to carry a weapon. The result? Almost inevitably a Curb-Stomp Battle.
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit "Chameleon": The man the cops are chasing takes a prostitute up to a motel room to rape and murder her, but is instead killed by her. Turns out, she's full on Serial Killer, and one who tends to choose to "service" violent men so she can feel justified in killing them.
  • A slightly lighter, but similar example happens in an episode starring John Stamos as a notorious playboy proudly responsible for impregnating hundreds of women worldwide. Despite the detectives being angry and disgusted with his hobby, they eventually come to the conclusion that there is nothing they can do, because he is not breaking any laws. The episodes ends with one of the women determined to stop him luring him to her apartment with the pretense of sex and then killing him. She brags about the act and then ask the detectives if she can finish her glass of wine before they arrest her.
• Leverage
  • In "The Bottle Job", a Loan Shark targets Nate's favorite pub after its owner had borrowed money from him. The shark does this after the funeral of the original owner while the wake was still happening.
  • In "The Top Hat Job", Parker, Hardison, and Eliot try to get into the private food company. Nate knows this is a bad idea and even a simple scouting job will be doomed. Turns out the company has ex-Special Forces as security and state-of-the-art protection for all the food patents. Eliot couldn't even get past the lobby before they were smoked out.
  • In "The Studio Job", a corrupt record producer sends his henchman to kill Eliot but the guy is surprised by Eliot's fighting skills.
  • In "The French Connection Job", a gang of black market truffle dealers try to abduct Eliot who is working undercover as a chef. The men have no idea who Eliot is and all get knocked out for their trouble.
• In Lucifer, trying to attack the titular character is typically likely to land you in a hospital, or a straightjacket, if he feels like showing you his Game Face. In the Season 1 finale, Lucifer and his angelic brother Amenadiel are confronted by a dozen heavily-armed Mooks. Yeah, the results are predictable, even though Lucifer asks his brother not to use his Time Stands Still power. In a Season 3 episode, Lucifer sets himself up to be fake-kidnapped by a company specializing in this type of prank. As soon as the kidnappers turn around, he frees himself, ties them up, and tortures them for information. In Season 2, this also applies to "Mother", when a mugger tries to threaten her, resulting in the mugger being flung at the nearest wall with great force, likely killing him. Later on, someone tries to stab her. However, her divine light, trying to break free out of her human vessel, shines out of the wound and incinerates the attacker's head.
• In an episode of MacGyver (1985), a bunch of thugs try to mug the Woobie of the Week, a mentally unstable veteran with a wrestler's physique. Lampshaded by the would-be victim: "Are you crazy? I could have torn your head off!"
• The Americans: In Episode 11 of Season 4, some muggers try to mug Elizabeth and Paige in a parking lot. While Elizabeth was perfectly willing to give up her money to avoid trouble, when the muggers make sexual comments about Paige, they find out very quickly why you shouldn't mess with an elite KGB undercover agent. She dispatches both of them with two moves, and leaves one stabbed in the throat with his own knife.
• The Man in the High Castle: Narrowly subverted. When Kido and Kotomichi visit Denver late in Season 3, two bounty hunters almost pick a fight with the Chief Inspector of the Military Police and the Oyabun of the Yakuza. They decide to let the matter slide before they both unknowingly would have ended up face-down in a ditch.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Iron Fist (2017): Colleen Wing is ambushed by four people, she easily fights them off... and then it turns out they were her students, and this was a field exercise. She gives them a severe tongue-lashing for failing. This serves as foreshadowing for later revelations. Most kendo classes don't teach stealth-ambush and pursuit tactics.
  • The Punisher (2017): The worksite bullies in Episode 1 of Season 2 finally push Frank too far. They all end up dead, as per Frank's MO.
• Merlin
  • In the Series 4 finale, Arthur, Guinevere, Tristan, and Isolde are trying to escape from Agravaine in a series of tunnels. Merlin doubles back, intending to lead them away, but gets cornered. He tries to convince them to leave him alone, but Agravaine decides to kill him anyway. Left with no other choice, Merlin uses his magic to defend himself, and kills all but one of the men in an instant with a flick of his eyes. The surviving man dies less than two minutes later, again at Merlin's hand.
  • This actually happens to Merlin a lot, as in this version of the legend he's a peasant teenager who often goes unarmed. By Series 5, he's grown so tired of this that when a group of bandits tries to mug him and his companion, he just tells them to back off and sends their leader flying when they don't comply. Give them credit, though, they're Genre Savvy enough to get out of there once they realize who they're up against.
• Monty Python's Flying Circus. One of Terry Gilliam's animations had a mugger saying "Hands up!" to a victim. The victim puts his hands up — and then another pair of hands (and arms), and another... then slams all of his hands on the mugger's head.
• In Murder Most Horrid a bank robber takes a hairdresser hostage and forces her to drive him to safety in her own car with her murdered husband in the boot, which the ending strongly implies the bank robber will be convicted over.
• NCIS:
  • In the episode "Blowback", Ziva and McGee are out on an Op when three punks try to sexually harrass Ziva. As in, a lady who used to kill terrorists for a living.
  • In another case a hitman is hired to kidnap Abby. By the time Gibbs and Tony find them, Abby has subdued him with her taser. Some fans would argue that the taser is merely keeping him subdued, and that the initial whooping is delivered with the item in her other hand: a set of brass knuckles.
• The New Avengers: In "Dead Men are Dangerous", a mugger attempts to mug a ex-spy and trained killer. The spy slams him around and then recruits him as a henchman.
• "The Devil is Not Mocked", a story on Night Gallery set in Transylvania had an SS unit hunting partisans invade a castle that turned out to be Count Dracula's stronghold. 'Nuff said.
• One Step Beyond (1959) has an interesting version. In "The Burning Girl", Alice is a quiet, put-upon young woman accused of starting fires and getting into (sexual) trouble. Fires do start when she's around, but not the way people think, and she doesn't remember what happens. It's only after a row with her aunt and a near-rape by a local that the truth of her pyrokinetic abilities comes out.
• In the third season of Orphan Black some gangsters decide to try to force Donnie and Alison to continue dealing drugs for them, by threatening to kill their children. Unfortunately, "Alison" is actually her clone-sister Helena in disguise, and Helena is a highly-skilled assassin with no qualms about killing people and a huge Berserk Button about children being threatened or harmed. She pushes Donnie out of the building, slams the door, and comes out a few minutes later soaked in the gangsters' blood.
• The Outpost: Two roadside musicians turn out to be bandits who try robbing Janzo and Talon on the road. She easily scares the pair off with her combat skills.
• In Penny Dreadful, the Putney family, who run a waxworks, unknowingly employ Frankenstein's Monster, thinking he's just a deformed man. They seem to accept and make friends with him, but are actually plotting to imprison him and use him as the first exhibit in an abusive freakshow. Unfortunately, he's strong enough to rip the bars of his cell out of the walls and floor without breaking a sweat, and then kill Mr. and Mrs. Putney in seconds, leaving their equally evil daughter as a blind orphan standing over her parents' corpses.
• The pilot of Person of Interest. Some wannabe toughs start hassling a hobo on a New York subway. When one gets rough, the hobo, a Special Forces-trained ex-CIA operative named John Reese, takes them down with alarming rapidity.
• Psychopath Diary:
  • Sung-cheol threatens In-woo with a knife and tells him to drive where Sung-cheol tells him to. In-woo goes along with it... for a while.
  • Mu-seok attempts to blackmail In-woo with photographs of a murder he committed. In-woo hides in Mu-seok's car, knocks him out, and kidnaps him.
• "Reacher": When Reacher needs guns and money, he antagonizes drug dealers until they are foolish enough to attack him.
• Reservation Dogs: In a flashback, Big is stuck in the convenience store bathroom while it's being robbed by two masked men. They knock out the cashier and threaten the only other customer, who happens to be the legendary Deer Lady. She proceeds to murder both of them (and hand Big the roll of toilet paper he needed).
• The Seinfeld episode "The Opera" has Elaine's ex "Crazy" Joe Davola attending Pagliacci dressed as the titular clown. A group of punks surround Davola and begin to threaten him, only for Davola to wipe the floor with them.
• Siren (2018): A lowlife tries to rape Ryn in his car, and she rips his throat out before smashing him through the windshield, since he didn't realize she's a mermaid with sharp teeth (plus much greater strength than a human).
• Special Ops: Lioness: Three young thieves try to rob the house where Joe's team are. After easily being captured, they get the fright of their lives, sent off with a $10,000 bribe and death threats to never speak about their experience.
• In the Stargate SG-1 episode "Memento Mori", Vala, an intergalactic con artist and mercenary, loses her memory and settles into a "life" as a diner waitress in a small town. Two armed thugs decide to rob from everybody there. Vala knocks one of them unconscious and holds one of their weapons against another one's head without breaking a sweat (as the detective questioning her puts it).
• In an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, an alien race called the Husnock attack a Federation colony which happens to be inhabited by an omnipotent entity posing as a married, elderly man. The pacifistic entity refuses to fight, until he discovers his human wife among the casualties. The entity reacts by utterly obliterating the entire Husnock species.
• Star Trek: Voyager has the episode "Scorpion". In the opening credits two Borg Cubes advance on something offscreen, while saying their usual "You Will Be Assimilated" greeting. Just as the cubes get to "resistance is...", said something blows both cubes up.
• Supernatural: A random passerby, while texting, brushes the tall, cadaverous man in black, then has the nerve to tell him to watch where he's going. The passerby walks a little bit further, than abruptly drops dead. Nice job provoking Death, dumbass.
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles uses this a lot:
  • Similar to the Terminator example, the three protagonists teleport to the future and arrive naked. Three street thugs confront the naked hot girl Cameron, who turns out to be a powerful robot. She beats them up and steals their clothes.
  • Later on, the leader of an organized crime group threatens the Connors by saying he's got an assassin watching Sarah's children and, if they don't comply with his demands, will have them both kidnapped/killed. Unfortunately for both the crime boss and his luckless assassin, they have no idea that one of Sarah's "children" is Cameron, and she is far better at spotting lurking threats than the assassin. The next scene we see of Cameron has her nonchalantly stuffing the assassin's brutalized corpse in the trunk of his car. Lampshaded by Derek, who amusedly points out that the assassin has no idea what he's walking into.
  • In another case, a group of apparent Yakuza try to con Sarah out of a large sum of money. Faced with a gun-wielding and furious Sarah and Cameron, they quickly save their lives by admitting that they were just amateur con artists pretending to be gangsters.
  • Then in the final episode, an ordinary Terminator attempts to kill Weaver, not realising that it's attacking an almost indestructible liquid-metal Terminator. She destroys it within seconds with minimal effort.
• The Torchwood episode "Sleeper" had two men attempt a home invasion on a nice young couple. The wife turned out, unknown even to herself, to be an alien sleeper agent sent to prepare for a planetary invasion. The burglars didn't survive.
• The employee who tackles Number Five in Season 2 of The Umbrella Academy. They're surrounded by the dismembered corpses of the boardmembers and Five is covered in blood and wielding an axe. Lucky for her, he only knocks her out.
• In the Wayne and Shuster, "Dr. Jekyll and Mrs' Hyde", Jekyll is on the comical rampage as the clownish villain Mrs. Hyde and is about to be attacked by Jack the Ripper. Hyde easily beats him up and robs him, followed by a headline, "Jack the Ripper Ripped Off!"
• The West Wing:
  • On an early episode, a few guys get a bit aggressive when flirting with Zoey Bartlet and promptly end up arrested by the Secret Service after Josh presses the panic button on Zoey's keychain.
  Josh: Yeah. You guys don’t realize it, but you’re having a pretty bad night.
  • Another example is when Simon Donovan, a Secret Service agent walks into an armed robbery in a convenience store and whups the robber's ass. Subverted when the robber's unseen accomplice shoots Donovan and kills him.
• The Wire:
  • This is Omar's occupation as a stickup boy, someone who robs drugs dealers and other criminals. Even the top dog, most ruthless drug empires in the city are just another target for Omar. How long and how openly he's been doing this speaks volumes about him, and the fear that even the most hardened enforcers have of him speaks even more.
    Asst. State's Attorney Ilene Nathan: What is it you do for a living, Mr. Little?
    Omar: I rip and run. [Sees the looks of confusion in the court] I robs drug dealers.
    Ilene Nathan: And exactly how long has this been your occupation, Mr. Little?
    Omar: Oh, I don't know exactly... I venture to say about 8 or 9 years, thereabouts.
    Ilene Nathan: Mr Little, how does a man rob drug dealers for 8 or 9 years and live to tell about it?
    Omar: [Shrugs and smiles] Day at a time, I suppose.
  • In the finale, Michael takes up the same career.
• Wonder Woman: This happens several times especially during World War II until the Nazis learn what Wonder Woman can do. For example, in the pilot a gun toting robber tries to push her away by shoving on her shoulder. She informs him of the error of his ways by flipping him over a car.
  Thug: Get outta here broad! [pushes her shoulder]
  Wonder Woman: It's also dangerous! [throws him over a car]
• Happens a few times on Wu Assassins.
  • In the second episode, "Misspent Youth", a gang of neo-Nazis pick a fight with CG and Kai, and promptly have their asses handed to them. The real point of this scene - aside from livening up the episode — is to establish that CG can definitely handle herself in a fight.
  • Later on, in the episode "Legacy", Uncle Six and Kai get racially harassed by some rednecks at a diner. Six tries to defuse the situation with a history lesson on the hardships of the Chinese-American experience, but the rednecks really want a fight, which they get. It's probably one of the most gratuitous and plot-irrelevent action scenes in the whole show, but it's pretty damn satisfying nonetheless, and as usual, the choreography is great.
• The X-Files:
  • "Terms of Endearment" involves a part-demon man who would extract the demonic fetuses of his wives before they could be born and reveal his secret. Until he tries it on one woman who wakes up during the extraction process. "I said, what are you doing, Wayne?" In the end, she escapes with the baby, and Mulder and Scully conclude that he finally found someone more evil than he.
  • Played with in "Shadows", in which Lauren Tyte is a rather shy and pretty much harmless secretary who, due to various corporate malfeasances on the part of her weapons-manufacturer employer, is targeted by numerous assassins. Unfortunately, what these assassins don't know is that she's also being haunted by a very angry, very vengeful and very protective spirit who is a lot less harmless...

---