Basic Trope: The most obvious suspect is revealed to be innocent, and usually the least obvious one is guilty.
- Straight: Bob is murdered. His wife Alice was in the house at the time and has an affair with another man. She is revealed to be innocent, and Adam, an acquaintance from Bob’s school days who seems to have nothing to do with it, is revealed to have murdered him for an old grudge.
- Exaggerated: Elderly Tycoon Bob is murdered. His Trophy Wife Alice is a quarter his age, was married to him against her will, had a strained relationship with him and an affair with another man, gets all of his money and was found with a bloodstained knife in her hands. She is revealed to be innocent, and the real culprit is a seeming passerby who turns out to be a maniac with a hatred for old men.
- Downplayed:
- Bob is murdered. His wife Alice has an affair with another man and gets 2/3 of the money, while his daughter Clara gets 1/3 of the money. Alice is innocent and Clara is guilty.
- Alice is a criminal, but not the criminal; she was an accomplice.
- Justified: The innocent party was being framed because they had the most obvious motives.
- Inverted: Bob is murdered. His wife Alice, who has an affair with another man and gets all the money, is revealed to be guilty.
- Subverted: The police prove Alice’s alibi was fake. She is revealed to be guilty after all.
- Double Subverted:
- But the policemen were also mixed up in the plot. They were bribed by the real culprit to put Alice behind bars.
- While Alice did attempt to kill Bob, another murderer had finished him off.
- Zig-Zagged: Alice is innocent of the crime, but she has been planning to kill Bob, it’s just that the other murderer got to him first.
- Enforced: The writers make Alice the obvious suspect as a Red Herring and provide possible fuel to a prejudice Aesop (regarding Alice's race, age, social status or whatever else the executives decided was a good "-ism" to decry), plus the obvious issue that if Alice was the actual guilty party, the episode would run way too short.
- Lampshaded: "I knew you were innocent. You would have taken care not to become suspect number one!"
- Discussed: "So many clues point to Alice that I believe somebody’s framing her."
- Conversed: "How’s it going?" "Oh, the guy’s now killed, and the wife’s standing over him with a bloody knife. Do they honestly believe we’ll think her guilty?"
- Implied: Alice is immediately arrested for the murder. While she is being arrested, she vehemently attempts to explain how it's just a really unfortunate coincidence.
- Invoked: Adam realizes his own motives to kill Bob will look quite strong, so he needs somebody else with ostensibly stronger motives to be seen as having done it.
- Exploited: Alice uses this incident as an alibi for a later murder she did commit.
Who took away the link to the main page? Well, I've worked in this neighbourhood for years, and if I've learned anything from my experience, it's that it's Never the Obvious Suspect.
