Hit & Miss (2012) is a six-episode Sky Atlantic drama series starring American actress Chloë Sevigny utilizing an Irish accent.
It has a simple (if bizarre) premise, following as it does transgender hitwoman Mia as she discovers that she has a son by her late former girlfriend, Wendy, and attempts to bring her family together. The show did not get renewed for a second series.
Tropes:
- Affably Evil: Eddie seems friendly enough, but don't piss him off.
- Asshole Victim: Riley murders John, an abusive jerkass, when she's had enough of him, and she clearly doesn't want to have their baby under his thumb too.
- Auto Erotica: John has sex with Riley in his truck once.
- Cheerful Child: Despite (or because of) hallucinating her mother (or does she receive visitations from her ghost?), Leonie seems reasonably blithe.
- Cliffhanger: The series ends Eddie pointing a gun at Mia's head, while Ryan aims a rifle at Eddie. The series was not renewed.
- Corruption of a Minor: Eddie takes a special interest in Levi and decides to pay him to move "packages" and take messages about "jobs" being done.
- Creepy Child: Ryan gets a moment of this in the third episode, when he responds to being told to dissect a frog by holding a scalpel to his own throat, then stabbing the teacher's tie into the desk.
- Dead Guy Junior: Sort of. Mia's son Ryan is named after her male identity. So "Ryan" would have been dead to Wendy.
- Defeat Equals Friendship: After the punch in the head, Aaron seems to stop bullying Ryan and actually become his friend for... some reason.
- Double-Meaning Title: Mia's a female (miss) hitman trying to maneuver her way in a family that seems ambivalent at best and actively wanting her out at worst.
- Dysfunctional Family: Oh, Lord. Ryan's withdrawn and being bullied, Levi spends his afternoons assaulting girls by pulling their clothing up or down to reveal undergarments and snapping photos, Riley's fucking the asshole landlord actively trying to kick them out at every turn, and Leonie cuts off her dolls' hair to resemble her mother during chemotherapy and tries to communicate with her through them. For all her issues with connecting with the family, the fact that Mia's actually trying makes her the most well-adjusted member and she kills people for a living!
- Easy Sex Change: Averted. Mia has to take hormone pills and use hormone cream; she starts to panic when she misses them for a single day. She's also still saving up for sex reassignment surgery.
- Empty Shell: Mia's mother in the last episode. After a fashion, anyway; she seems barely aware of the world.
- Foreshadowing: We see the kids' stalker playing on a sports therapy football team for men with learning disabilities and mental health problems that Ben runs before he takes Leonie or is revealed to be their mentally ill uncle.
- Hitman with a Heart: Mia turns out to be one of these, especially when she adopts the kids as her own. Despite her status as a hitwoman, she's a kind and caring mother for them.
- Insane Equals Violent: Surprisingly subverted with the man who took Leonie, who turns out to be Wendy's brother Liam.
- In the Blood: For Leonie and Liam, hallucinations. For Mia and Ryan, badassery.
- I Wished You Were Dead: In one of the most positively intentioned iterations of this trope, Ryan prayed that his terminally-afflicted-with-cancer mom would be taken away by angels so she wouldn't have to suffer anymore, but still felt responsible for her death when it came.
- Lady of War: Zig-zagged. Mia glamors it up off the job, but dresses very practically (and, probably, deliberately androgynously) when taking out a mark.
- Late Coming Out: Mia is a trans woman, who transitioned after having a son with her girlfriend while she's in her late thirties (judging by the actress's age).
- Male Frontal Nudity: Mia is shown to be a trans woman right in one of her first scenes, showing that she has a penis while she's getting into the shower (Mia's saving for sex reassignment surgery). She continues being seen naked in other scenes as well ("male" obviously only refers to anatomy here).
- Mama Bear: Ben has apparently never heard of this trope, because he calls the violent look in Mia's eyes when the family finds the man who took Leonie "not very lady-like" and wonders if there's still "a bit of man" in her.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Mia gives one to the Landlord who's been giving her trouble.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Averted so far. It's almost impossible to tell that Sevigny is American.
- Oop North: Set and filmed in and near Manchester.
- Once an Episode: A nude scene showing off the prosthetic and someone dies.
- Parental Abandonment: Wendy dies and leaves her four kids alone, as none of their fathers were involved. Mia, who'd fathered Ryan while involved with her but wasn't aware before of her son (she's now transitioning) is told and steps up to raise them, sparking the plot. Riley, the oldest, had taken care of her younger siblings already though.
- Professional Killer: Mia is a hitwoman and very skilled at her job.
- Promotion to Parent: Riley, to the point of actively trying to keep Mia from having anything to do with the family.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Mia doesn't actually seem to enjoy killing people, nor is she a sociopath; she's just really good at it.
- Queer Establishing Moment: Maia is established as a pre-op trans woman very early on via undressing to take a shower, showing that she has breasts but also a penis.
- Questionable Consent: Riley is a teenage girl (of indeterminate age) who's sexually involved with John, her landlord. Most times he doesn't ask before having sex with her, and Riley looks pretty unhappy. On the other hand, she seems pretty devoted to him at first. Eventually she kills John to be rid of him though.
- Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Mia is pretty classically Irish in appearance and gets a lot of male attention (including male attention she'd just as soon not get from her skeevy landlord).
- Really Gets Around: Wendy had kids with three men at least, not to mention trans woman Mia (she's got four overall), while also being involved with her landlord in return for living there before she died.
- Samus Is a Girl: Surprise, the hooded killer in the first five minutes of the first episode is our female protagonist! Then that she's also trans since we see her penis while in the shower.
- Sex for Services: Wendy and John had an "arrangement" before her death, with her having sex with him so her family could stay on his property.
- Sexual Extortion: John had an "arrangement" with Wendy and tries to have the same with Mia. She pretends to acquiesce, only to have him agree to the arrangement she'd like at gunpoint.
- Snapback: The show does not deal with the ramifications of Mia getting injured badly and taken to hospital. (Either the actual injury or getting taken to hospital? Maybe in Season 2, which won't happen.) Also ignored: Ryan's behavior at school.
- Surprise Pregnancy: Riley gets unintentionally pregnant from John.
- Sympathetic Murderer: Riley murders John, who's a colossal abusive asshole, to break free from him.
- Trademark Favorite Drink: Mia likes her brandy.
- Trans Equals Gay: Played with. This is assumed by Wendy's children and Ben; defied by Mia.
- Traumatic Haircut: Mia's brother inflicts one on her.
- Twofer Token Minority: Riley is a biracial girl (white mother, unseen black father), the sole person of color in the otherwise all white cast.
- Underestimating Badassery: Something everyone does to Mia. Especially the landlord.
- Wall Bang Her: John comes across Riley doing chores and then has sex with her up against a wall.
- What Does She See in Him?: John is a thoroughly loathsome human being with apparently no capacity for empathy, a violent streak (it's implied he abuses his wife, let alone everything he does on-screen to Riley), and a general flair for being an asshole. Yet, somehow, he has both a loyal wife and, for most of the series, a fervently devoted teenage mistress.
