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Chabal2
Since: Jan, 2010
Is there a trope for when you have two (or more) warriors or experts on the same side, and they both recognize that while they are teammates, they are also each other's rival, and they end up in some kind of contest to prove which one is stronger, faster, smarter, or whatever. But rather than actually pick one of them and declare that one is better than the other, particularly if they are regular non-guest characters, the show avoids resolving it by throwing something else at them - a third character interrupts or something - and the contest is canceled/aborted. An example of this is season 14 of NCIS. Post-Tony Di Nozzo (Michael Weatherly) departure, the show has added two "alpha"-type male characters portrayed by Wilmer Valderrama (Torres) and Duane Henry (Reeves). In one episode, they finally go at it with an arm-wrestling contest, but it is canceled by the arrival of other characters and a case with assignments for them.