History Series / Hustle

* DirtyCop: ''Hustle'' would sometimes feature Dirrty Cops who thought they could manipulate the crew for their own ends. This always ended badly for them. D.I. Fisk in "Curiosity Caught the Kat" is a typical example.

** The end of the first series, in which Mickey tells us "We'll be gone for a while' in one of the gang's many fourth-wall breaking moments.

* GracefulLoser: This is the main thing that separates our heroes from the marks, especially Mickey. On the rare occasions our heroes completely lose, they tend to take it quite calmly, and in one episode where they were completely and utterly owned [[spoiler:by a little girl, though they didn't know that]], they actually showed approval. By contrast, whenever a mark loses, they tend to scream, yell and throw tantrums. Mickey often says his motivation for taking down a mark is to see if they can dish it out as well as take it, and he apparently holds himself to that.

* HonorAmongThieves

** They do con a Japanese businessman at the start of one episode, but it's not exactly made clear whether he's particularly bad or not. He certainly doesn't seem it, but then they get conned themselves by one of his (poorly treated) workers and his little sister.

* PutOnABus: Mickey in Season 4, Danny and Stacy in Season 5.

** They do con a Japanese businessman at the start of one episode, but it's not exactly made clear whether he's particularly bad or not. He certainly doesn't seem it, but then they get conned themselves by his son and his girlfriend.

-->'''Ash''': Well your supposed to clap and cheer at that bit

-->'''Ash''': There's lolly in it. Lot's a lovely lolly

* BookEnds: The first and last episodes both feature a [[spoiler: an extended BreakingTheFourthWall sequence that goes far beyond an AsideGlance and a StagedShooting as part of a con Mickey is claiming will be his last before retirement.]]

* YouFailBiologyForever: In one episode the gang has to prove Albert is the son of Queen Mother. To do that they switch a sample of her DNA for his. Not only does no one notice that the DNA is identical, they fail to notice it's the wrong sex.

* SherlockScan: Part of the art of the cold read. Albert gives a detailed explanation of the process to Danny in "Gold Mine", and Ash explains it to Sean in "Lest Ye Be Judged".

* SexyShirtSwitch: In "As Good as it Good", the crew is stunned when a girl they have never seen before wanders out of Sean's bedroom into the kitchen were they are having breakfast wearing Sean's shirt.

* {{Squib}}

** They do con a Japanese businessman at the start of one episode, but it's not exactly made clear whether he's particularly bad or not. He certainly doesn't seem it, but then they get conned themselves by his son and his girlfriend. ** At the beginning of series 6 they con a rich Arab.

* ReverseMole: While not directly done, the same concept is used in that a random character often turns out to be working with Mickey and the team.

* BrainBleach: Sean tries desperately to apply this in Series 8 Episode 2 after he has had to get...[[{{Squick}} close]] to a much older lady in order to find a missing painting.

* ActorAllusion: In a season eight episode, Jodie Prenger plays a friend of the gang who winds up in hospital after using a dodgy diet product sold by that episode's marks. Before her acting career took off, Prenger won the UK version of TheBiggestLoser and subsequently worked as a writer on diet issues.

* AssholeVictim: Who the hustlers generally target, partly to justify their crimes to themselves since otherwise they are in it just for the thrill and the money. Notably they are reluctant to go after the ''really'' evil {{Asshole Victim}}s, like gangsters and killers, purely because they know their normal marks won't chop them to pieces if they get caught out, and not because they think their normal targets deserve it more.
** Played with when Emma and Sean go after their DisappearedDad, who vanished when they were kids shortly before their mother died and never showed up again. Sean expects him to be this and had been waiting for years to get back at him; part of his con rests on the idea that his dad (who doesn't recognise them, since they were only kids) will screw him out of a deal. He doesn't, and it never even occurred to him to do so, which leaves Sean shaken. It turned out that he didn't know his wife died and when he found out, he actually did try and find them, to no avail. They are still mad at him, especially since he started another family and didn't tell them what he had done, but they decide not to ruin his new life and only take from him the money they think they are owed in allowance, passing up a chance to rob him of more. He admits to them that he loves and is proud of them before they leave.

* BreakTheHaughty: Any Police officer, Customs Official or MI6 agent who believes they can catch or [[BoxedCrook manipulate]] Mickey and the gang.
** Also, Victor Maher is Series 1.

* BreakingTheFourthWall: Monologues to camera or, sometimes, two of the characters having a conversation while everyone else is frozen.
** Also, some Characters wink into the camera (seemingly at the audience) with some ironic smile at certain moments. AKA AsideGlance

* ButtMonkey: Eddie, especially in Season 6. They occasionally reward him well for putting up with them, but they constantly con him out of drinks and wreck his business. One wonders why he puts up with them.
** Justified after the return of Mickey in series 5, as he and Ash are then the owners of Eddie's Bar.

* CompanionShow: ''TheRealHustle'', which is somewhat stylistically inspired by ''Hustle'': a show that tells viewers about real cons and how to avoid them. Making it a show easy to watch in its own right without watching ''Hustle''.
** It's really a companion show InNameOnly.
* TheCon
** TheConWithinACon: In season 2,''[[spoiler:The Lesson]]''
* ContinuityNod: Season 8 episode 2 is full of them, including Ash's speech about what great grifters they are, which is mostly a list of previous plotlines; also former recurring character Cyclops puts in his first appearance since season five, and at the end Mickey (jokingly) moots a con involving a fake Mondrian painting, which the original crew already did in season one (he even suggests they use the same forger again).

*** Series 3 Episode 5 has the team trying to fool a newspaper into believing an old urban myth about the Royal family. Danny warns them 'I ain't nicking the crown jewels again!' referring to when they did just that in Series 2 Episode 6. This is also referenced in the following episode but is less of a 'nod' and more an explicit explanation of it in order to impress someone.
* CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming: Episode 4 in the first series.

* EndOfSeriesAwareness: Seemingly at the end of Series 2, and very much so at the end of the final series.
** And the end of the first series, in which Mickey tells us "We'll be gone for a while' in one of the gang's many fourth-wall breaking moments.
* EnforcedMethodActing: Occasionally, an in-character version as the team mislead one of their own to get a better reaction; for example in the first episode, a realistic reaction to [[spoiler:Mickey being fake-shot in the head]] can only be guaranteed by Danny not being in the know.

* FiveManBand, but in terms of specific con roles:
** Danny: ConMan (slick). The youngest member of the group, with a crush on Stacie.
** Mickey: ConMan ({{hustler}}). The leader of the bunch. Arguably a ({{Chessmaster}})
** Albert (played by Robert Vaughn): TheRoper, and resident CoolOldGuy
** Stacie: The banker (played by Jaime Murray, who is also in ''{{Dexter}}''), occasionally required to ShowSomeLeg
** Ash: TheFixer, occasionally providing MissionControl as well. He has a metal plate in his skull and frequently allows himself (off-screen) to get [[{{Flopsy}} hit by cars]] so he can get the insurance money.
*** Reworked somewhat in seasons 4, 5 and 6. In 4, Mickey is away in Australia, selling the Sydney Opera House, and Danny takes over his position for the crew's time in the USA, with a young (and forgettable) con artist called Billy [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute replacing him]]. In 5 and 6, Stacie and Danny (and the single-season Danny-clone from season 4) have been PutOnABus, and replaced with the BrotherSisterTeam of Sean and Emma. The roles remain basically the same, however, with Sean replacing Danny as the young, talented but inexperienced learner, and Emma as the sex appeal/love interest for Mickey. Actually, when Emma and Sean first join the gang '''she''' is actually stated to be the "young, talented but inexperienced learner" ("A natural," Albert describes her as, much as he had previously done for Danny) while her kid brother wasn't sure if he even wanted to be a grifter and was more or less the [[TagalongKid Tagalong Kid]]. It was later that they slid into their [[TheChick Chick]] and Team Protege roles, respectively.

* JanitorImpersonationInfiltration: In "Eye of the Beholder", Ash gets a job on the cleaning crew at the museum so he can scope the place out as part of the team's plan to steal the Crown Jewels.
** And Emma does it in "Eat Yourself Slender".

* KarmicThief: They only con those who deserve it.
* KickTheDog: Most marks get at least one moment.

* MeaningfulName: Mickey ''Stone'' is a meticulous planner, while Danny ''Blue'' prefers to fly by the sit of his pants.
** Arguably Albert ''Stroller'' being the [[CoolOldGuy old guy]] (though he's not ''that'' old).

* MsFanservice: Stacie and her successor, Emma.
** More so Emma; the woman [[{{Stripperiffic}} very rarely has anything covering her legs from the thigh down]]. [[AllMenArePerverts Not that that's a bad thing.]]

---> '''Mickey:''' ''Because we're professionals, because we don't like prison and because we don't work with anyone who has 'Liability' in their name!''

* PositiveDiscrimination: Almost everyone they con is white. They con an Indian guy, but then realize that he's not that bad and that they've put his entire factory out of work, so they give him money from another con. In another episode, they're conning an African dictator (and obvious Robert Mugabe [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed parallel]]) but then [[spoiler: it turns out that he was Mickey in disguise, and they're actually conning somebody else]]. Another episode has them conning an Indian sweatshop owner, but [[spoiler: he completely reforms himself, so they can't finish the con]].
** They do con a Japanese businessman at the start of one episode, but it's not exactly made clear whether he's particularly bad or not. He certainly doesn't seem it, but then they get conned themselves by his son and his girlfriend. Is that karma or not?
*** His son and his girlfriend? [[spoiler: They get conned by their previous mark's ''employee'' and his much younger, genius ''sister''. It was actually her master plot to do so, so that they would have enough money to leave the previous mark's harsh employ. To be fair, though, part of the con was the man ''pretending'' to be an avenging son. ]].
** At the beginning of series 6 they con a rich Arab.
** So far in series 7 they've conned a woman of mixed race, an Iranian man [[spoiler: although it turns out the crew themselves were the marks in this scheme]], and a black man.
** And in season 8 they con a black man again.

* RippedFromTheHeadlines: The mark in the first series 6 episode was a banker who had been bailed out and retired on a massive pension.

* RunningGag: Eddie, the barman, is always falling for short cons from the crew and has never fully been paid for the drinks he's provided.

* ScaryBlackMan: Mickey, normally more of a [[GentlemanThief Gentleman Thief]], resorts to this to frighten a bank manager in the first episode of series six.
** There was also the time Mickey beat a man to a bloody pulp with a baseball bat for sleeping with his wife. That was probably quite scary for the other guy.

* ShoutOut: to a number of movies in the Hollywood episode.

* SpanishPrisoner: Oddly, they've yet to do this one, though Danny mentions it in one episode.
** Now done in the first episode of season seven [[spoiler: with four marks at the same time]].

* StagedShooting: Used to scare the mark into taking off and not coming back for his money (it's an old con trick, but something of a FridgeLogic moment now days, as even if the mark left the country they would undoubtedly look up on the internet to find out what the police were saying about the non-existent shooting). Subverted on one occasion when the mark got caught up in the emotions of the moment, drew his own firearm and fired a couple of ''real'' bullets into the 'victim' as well! [[spoiler:Fortunately, he survives.]]

* UndercoverAsLovers: [[spoiler:Mickey and Emma have to pretend to be lovers as part of a con. Sean doesn't realise they are just pretending.]]
** [[spoiler: Of course, they don't tell him that the whole lovers scheme was Mickey's idea in the first place...]]

* ArtShift: Used for exposition scenes. A description of a very old con trick is done via a B&W silent movie, and an explanation of fugu fish preperation is done with anime.

It has an [[ThePond across the pond]] [[TransAtlanticEquivalent counterpart]] in ''{{Leverage}}'', though save for general concept and at least one prominent guest star appearing on both shows, the two shows are unrelated.