Revenge By Proxy / Live-Action TV

Instances of people attempting to take Revenge by Proxy in Live-Action TV series.

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• The first season of 24 involved the first scenario — with a daughter too. One was a guy called Jack. Jack enacts this in the final season when he sets out for revenge against the entire Russian government. At one point, he murders Dana Walsh primarily because she had been working with them, even though she had nothing to do with the crime that set him off.
• In The Adventures of Superman, "The Perils of Superman", the Villain of the Week lampshades this, saying that while he can't hurt Superman physically, he can "strike at him through his friends." To this end, he ties Perry to a log in a sawmill (and Lois to the train tracks), uses acid on Jimmy's brakes so that he'll crash when he has to take a twisting road, and lowers Clark into an acid bath.
• Daniel Holtz of Angel gets back at Angelus - who is now the souled Angel - by kidnapping his baby son and raising him in a hell dimension to hate and kill his father. Centuries before Angelus also killed Holtz's wife and daughter — the latter in the most horrible fashion, by vamping her so that Holtz himself would be forced to finish the job (by throwing the girl into sunlight). In a final desperate attempt at revenge, Holtz kills himself, framing Angel so that Connor would kill his own father. Connor instead does the next-worst thing, locking Angel in a steel box and sinking it in the Pacific for four months — Angel cannot die this way because he is a vampire, but the hunger drives him half-mad.
• Arrow: This is the strategy of Season 2 Big Bad Slade Wilson; through his minion Brother Blood, he intends to destroy everything Oliver cares about, without harming him directly, in what he sees as retribution for Oliver being unable to save Shado (whom they both loved) back on the island.
• After the Centauri conquer Narn in Babylon 5, the list of policies they enact on their newly defeated foes is that any crimes committed by resistance forces will result in disproportionate retaliation against the Narns, starting with the perpetrator's family.
• Boardwalk Empire: After Jimmy Darmody ordered an unsuccessful hit on Manny Horvitz, Manny broke into Jimmy's house intending to kill him. He found Jimmy's wife Angela and her lover Louise instead.
  Manny Horvitz: [to Angela Darmody, before shooting her in the head] Your husband did this to you.
• Breaking Bad:
  • Besides for his own gain, this is why Gustavo had Hector's grandchildren killed. The man wouldn't care much if he himself died, so Gus went for his family, which is all he really cared about.
  • Also why Todd killed Andrea to punish Jesse for trying to escape.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Angelus makes it clear that he intends to kill everyone Buffy cares about to get back at her for making him feel human.
  • A non-fatal example in "Homecoming": Faith knows all about Scott Hope dumping Buffy, so after seeing him with another girl, she pretends to be an ex and claims she's getting over the various sexual diseases she got from him, sabotaging his efforts to put the moves on the girl.
• In the Cold Case episode "Sabotage", one man went after the people who indirectly caused his sick daughter's death. His boss who had fired him, making him lose his benefits to help his daughter. The doctor's assistant who did nothing when his daughter was in pain. But the man crosses into Moral Event Horizon when he goes after his brother, who had refused to help him save their parents' old house, his attempts costing an innocent man his arm and leading to him try to kill his brother's innocent wife and daughter. Worse of all was after a bad day, he killed a store manager who wouldn't give him refund on a product without a moment's hesitation.
• Criminal Minds:
  • The villain, Henry Grace, of "Masterpiece" blamed Rossi for ruining his life and for the loss of his family (as Rossi caught his brother William, a notorious serial killer who was later executed, which disgraced Henry and caused his fiancé to break off their engagement), so he attempted this by trying to kill Rossi's own "family" (the other members of the BAU) in return. However, due to both Plot Armor and Rossi being a badass, it didn't work.
  • The Reaper does this to Hotch's ex-wife Haley in Season 5 since he knows that doing that would get to Hotch more than if he did anything to Hotch himself.
  • One unsub targets the people he considers responsible for his best friend's suicide. He directly targets the school principal and substitute teacher he feels weren't strict enough on the bullying (debatable Misplaced Retribution, but at least direct), but since the main bully himself had joined the military and is out of the country, he instead targets the bully's girlfriend's parents.
  • The unsub in "The Anti-Terror Squad" got revenge against his and his friends' bullies by killing every member of their immediate families except the bullies themselves (until he starts devolving) under the logic that he wants them to suffer, and they won't be suffering if they're dead.
  • In general, the concept of surrogates is this. The killer can't or won't directly attack the true object of their rage, so they target people who remind them of that person in hopes that it will be enough to satisfy their anger. Of course, it never works.
• In the season five finale of Desperate Housewives, Dave attempts this against Susan as revenge for accidentally killing his wife and daughter in a car crash by setting up a trap that'll kill both her husband and son, Mike and MJ. He ends up letting her MJ out of the car when he realizes what he's become...and then tries to kill Mike anyway, and fails.
• One episode of El Chavo del ocho centered on Doña Florinda ordering Don Ramón to take his pants down from the communal clothesline, when he refused, she told El Chavo that Don Ramón gave him the pants on the Clothesline. When Chavo tells Don Ramón of that fact, Don Ramón retaliates by stealing Quiko's sailor suit from the clothesline and putting it on.
• ER:
  • In one episode, a man that Kovac had treated ended up with his right arm paralyzed. After that, his life went from bad to worse, eventually getting divorced by his wife, losing his children, and getting fired from his job. So to get back at Kovac, he had Kovac break his own hand and wanted to take Kovac's life for ruining his.
  • A child's father obviously wanted to do this. Greene had noticed some heavy implications of child abuse on the man's son and the child was taken into protective custody and away from the father. After the father has been spotted around the area where Greene lived with his wife Elizabeth and their daughter, he got worried that he would try to harm them for taking his son away. Ultimately leads to nothing, as the father is brought to the ER as a patient, suffers cardiac issues when he's alone in an elevator with Greene, and Greene denies him proper treatment, the father dying.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Petyr Baelish conspires with Olenna Tyrell to poison King Joffrey because of Joffrey's grandfather Tywin Lannister's part in the murder of Petyr's life-long love Catelyn Stark at the Red Wedding.
  • Karstark murders Willem and Martyn Lannister, two unarmed teenage hostages, just because he wants to do damage to a Lannister, any Lannister, in revenge for the deaths of his sons (one in battle, the other at the hands of the Kingslayer).
  • A double feature of this trope appears in the Dorne arc. First, as revenge for the death of Oberyn Martell during a trial by combat arranged by the Lannisters, Oberyn’s lover Ellaria Sand murders Myrcella Baratheon (the daughter of Cersei Lannister) with a poisoned farewell kiss. Some time later, when Ellaria and her daughter Tyene are later captured and brought to Cersei as a gift, Cersei proceeds to inflict the exact same poisoned kiss on Tyene that Ellaria had used to kill Myrcella. Ellaria is left alive in the same prison cell as Tyene, Forced to Watch as Tyene inevitably dies from the poison and then slowly decomposes after death.
• Gang Related: It's stated the Metas' standard practice is this: rather than just kill their enemies, they'll murder their loved ones first. So after Chapel's daughter Jessica is slaughtered in the wake of his raids shutting down their operations, naturally they're suspected. However, it turns out they were framed by Los Angelicos.
• In Heroes, Matt Parkman nearly kills Danko's innocent girlfriend (despite knowing that she knows nothing of what he's doing) in retaliation for Danko killing Daphne, but he can't bring himself to do it.
• In an episode of Highlander: The Series, an Immortal is revived after thousands of years in a sarcophagus; when an Immortal who was first her lover and then her enemy at the time tries to make peace with her, she takes revenge by killing his totally innocent mortal wife. She blames him for her Queen's suicide. After killing his wife, she says "an eye for an eye".
  • The recurring villain Kalas repeatedly attempted to kill or disgrace protagonist Duncan's friends as revenge for Duncan having upended his life centuries ago.
• How I Met Your Mother: One of Barney's "plays" to trick women into sleeping with him is called "The Two Can Play at That Game". When trying it on-screen, he knocks on a random woman's door, and lies that her husband is cheating on her with his (nonexistent) wife. The goal is for the woman to invoke this trope and have sex with Barney, but the woman decides a better form of revenge would be to join forces and kill them both. He instead closes the door and knocks on a different one.
• In the backstory of Kamen Rider Drive, Prof. Banno went to a young businessman to get a research grant, but the businessman turned him down due to the morally questionable nature of the work. Enraged, Banno had one of his Roidmudes imitate the businessman's appearance and used it for this trope by beating it to a bloody pulp. This kicked off the plot of the series in two ways: Banno's partner Krim Steinbelt found out about this and ended their partnership (which also lead to his creating the Drive System), and the victimized Roidmude (who would later adopt the name Heart) turned on Banno before plotting to wipe out all humanity.
• In Kamen Rider Geats, Smug Snake Daichi Isuzu gets repeatedly humiliated by The Lancer Keiwa Sakurai over their repeated encounters in the show. As part of his vendetta, Daichi begins to target Keiwa's sister Sara after she joins the DGP, and later succeeds in turning her into a Jyamato and getting her killed at the hands of Anti-Hero Michinaga Azuma, which drives Keiwa right into the Despair Event Horizon.
• In one episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a cop's daughter goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the loved ones of the people she blames for the hardship that's befallen her father and family. Rollins, the first target, escapes with only a shoulder wound, but others aren't so lucky.
• Ben on Lost wants to do this to Charles Widmore — off Penny because Widmore's men offed his (stolen) daughter.
• Merlin:
  • In the pilot, the mother of a wizard Uther executes puts it this way. Fortunately, Merlin is able to stop her.
    Mother: An eye for an eye! A tooth for a tooth! A son for a son!
  • The irony is that this is really just the circle of revenge going full circle. Uther started his crusade against wizardkind after his wife died by a spell that allowed her to be pregnant with Arthur. So Uther's crusade falls under this trope, in a bizarre way.
  • When Uther dies and Arthur becomes king, Morgana immediately shifts her goals towards Arthur. This is at least partially justified, as pointed out here:
    Arthur: You can't blame me for my father's sins.
    Morgana: It's a little late for that, isn't it? You've made it perfectly clear how you feel about me and my kind.
• Played for Laughs of all things on My Name Is Earl - When Ralph learns that Earl accidentally had sex with his mom, his second solution is to in turn have sex with Earl's mom. (His first solution is just to kill Earl.)
• Oz:
  • William Cudney was so enraged by his wife's decision to abort his child that he got revenge on the doctor who performed the abortion — by killing his son.
  • Tobias Beecher and Vern Schillinger arrange the deaths of the others' family members as part of their series-long vendetta.
• In Sinbad, Lord Akbari kills Sinbad’s brother, right in front of him, because Sinbad accidentally killed Lord Akbari’s son in a fighting competition.
• An interesting variant in Single Father. Sarah cheats on her boyfriend Matt with Dave, so Matt sleeps with Dave's daughter (she's 18, it's okay) to punish Dave.
• In the second season of Sleeper Cell, the protagonist's girlfriend is killed by an underling of Faris al Farik, so he has Farik's wife killed.
• Smallville: As with the comics, if Lex can't hurt Clark directly, he'll settle for hurting his loved ones in an incredibly petty fashion, like having Jimmy and Chloe arrested by the FBI.
• Sons of Anarchy: In the season 4 finale, Tig unwittingly killed the girlfriend of another gangster during a Drive-By Shooting when he was aiming for the gangster in retribution for another crime (his culpability for which had been fabricated by Jax). It turns out that the girlfriend was the daughter of Damon Pope, the undisputed kingpin of black crime in Oakland. His retribution for Tig's stupidity is to burn Tig's daughter alive.
• In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Bloodlines", DaiMon Bok declares that he will kill Picard's son because Picard killed his. This sounds difficult because Picard doesn't actually have a son, but Bok manages to find a way around that.
• In season three of True Blood, Eric kills Talbot and is willing to put several others in danger because Russell was responsible for the death of his family several hundred years ago.
• The Walking Dead (2010): Negan kills Glenn as revenge for Daryl punching him in the face.
• Three Monsters of the Week in The X-Files episodes "The Walk", "Theef", and "Redrum" carry this out.

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