History Series / ShakespeareAndHathawayPrivateInvestigators

* TheBet: In "In My Memory Lock'd", Frank and Lu's argument about identifying their amnesiac client leads to a bet that she can successfully disguise herself to him. He rumbles her first two attempts, but she gets him in the end.

* HypocriticalHeartwarming: In "The Envious Court", Lu's mother is engaged to the owner of a country club. When the owner's granddaughter calls Genevieve a ''floozy"'', Lu objects that only ''she'' is allowed to insult her mother (who's been giving her grief the whole episode).

* LargeHam: Any episode involving acting, especially Shakespearean acting, will have these. Certain examples are the [=LARPers=] in "The Play's the Thing", the WhiteDwarfStarlet actor in "This Cursed Hand", and Sally in "Exit, Pursued by a Bear". Sebastian is a very downplayed example as most people find him very believable when he goes undercover. When he's actually acting, his hammier side can come out. There's even a character called Harold Hamworthy in one episode!

** In "Exit, Pursued by a Bear", someone laces the poison chalice in a production of ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'' with actual poison in an attempt to kill the actress playing Juliet.

* UndercoverAsLovers: In "The Chameleon's Dish", Frank and Lu go to silent retreat to keep their surveillance on their client for a weekend, only to find their client has booked them in as newlyweds. They also briefly pretend to be lovers in "Exit, Pursued by a Bear".

* SeriousBusiness: In "Outrageous Fortune", a shipping millionaire left his entire estate to his faithful dog, who is now attended upon by an entourage of assistants, including a professional animal physical therapist, and a professional pet stylist. Frank's expression as these persons explain their professions indicates that he's about to have a stroke from keeping his YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe reaction concealed.

* CharacterNameAlias: In "Exit, Pursued by a Bear", an actress receiving death threats is sent a threatening teddy bear (ItMakesSenseInContext). Tracking down the courier service who delivered it, Frank says it was sent by a [[Literature/TheJungleBook Mr. Baloo]]. DI Marlowe mutters about how stupid you would have to be not to pick that as a fake name.

* TheDiva: Sally in "Exit, Pursued by a Bear".

* ExplainingTheSoap: In "Exit, Pursued by Bear", Lu starts watching episodes of an old soap called ''Ward 9'' as background to a case. She starts showing Frank relevant episodes and explaining the plot. He is initially dismissive but quickly gets hooked.

* PainToTheAss: In "Exit, Pursued by a Bear", Frank is interviewing a suspect when he sits down heavily on a pin cushion and jumps immediately to his feet. The pincushion later turns out to be a vital clue in solving the mystery.

* ARareSentence: In "Exit, Pursued by a Bear", Lu suggests that the crime could be the work of "aggressive Shakespeare traditionalists, which isn't something you say very often".

** In the ColdOpen to Season Two's "The Offered Fallacy", Keeler is handed a new case: a pair of con artists working over the area. He looks at the artist's sketch of the perpetrators, sees the faces of Frank and Lu, and sprays his tea all over his desk.

** In "[[Recap/ShakespeareAndHathawayPrivateInvestigatorsS2E10 Too Cold For Hell]]", Frank and Lu's search for a young couple's belongings stolen by a fraudulent moving company ends up netting a notorious international mobster and his £3 million stash of uncut diamonds.

** In "Ill Met By Moonlight", [[spoiler:an aristocratic lady had an affair with her groundskeeper and kept his identity a secret from their daughter. The father believed that the lady just regarded their affair as a summer fling and was on the verge of moving away to Spain forever, but changes his mind when he realizes that the "priceless" necklace that she offered 10,000 pounds to Lu and Frank to recover was the cheap costume jewelry piece he gave her nineteen years ago, which she never threw away. He decides to stay in England and have a go at being a family with their daughter.]]

* FakedKidnapping: In "Ill Met by Moonlight", the daughter of a local aristocrat disappears (along with a priceless heirloom necklace). Although Frank and Lou initially treat this a runaway case, the girl's bloody hoodie turns up accompanied by a ransom note demanding 50,000 pounds; leaving Frank and Lu wondering if this is a genuine kidnapping or a fake. [[spoiler:It's a fake. The girl is attempting to raise cash so she can run away and join her real father.]]

** In "[[Recap/ShakespeareAndHathawayPrivateInvestigatorsS2E10 Too Cold For Hell]]", Frank and Lu's search for a young couple's belongings stolen by a fraudulent moving company ends up netting a notorious international mobster and his 3 million stash of uncut diamonds.

* MinorCrimeRevealsMajorPlot: In "O Thou Invisible Spirit Of Wine", Frank is mortified at being hired to investigate a suspected haunting in a local pub. At the end of the case, they've solved a murder, helped two feuding families to bury the hatchet, and ensured that the pub will remain in its owners' hands. Shortly after Frank takes a victory lap around DS Keeler, Lu takes her own victory lap around Frank, who is forced to admit that the case wasn't a total waste of time. The fact that the pub owners have promised them a hefty commission on top of their usual fee ''and'' a free drink leaves him unable to say anything else.

* LikeAnOldMarriedCouple: Frank and Lu are this in spades, and act more like a couple than business partners. In "[Recap/ShakespeareAndHathawayPrivateInvestigatorsS2E10 Too Cold For Hell]]", they even play the roles of a couple going through a divorce, and their bickering is so believable that their "mark" never questions that they're married. Doesn't hurt that their namesakes Creator/WilliamShakespeare and Anne Hathaway were husband and wife.

** In "[Recap/ShakespeareAndHathawayPrivateInvestigatorsS2E10 Too Cold For Hell]]", Frank, Billy the Brick, and DS Keeler are all trapped in a refrigerated shipping container, slowly freezing to death. Keeler starts to berate Billy for being a worthless criminal, causing Frank to hotly speak up and say that Billy may be no angel, but he's done better than could have been expected considering that the deck was stacked against him from the day he was born (to a heroin addict mother who overdosed shortly after giving birth to him). Billy warmly says he's always thought of Frank as a surrogate dad. Keeler scoffs, but Frank puts a fatherly hand on Billy's.

** PlayedStraight by [[spoiler:"This Promised End", where a wife leads her husband to believe he will be killed because of his abuse.]]

* AllForNothing: Marlowe confides to Lu that Frank was dismissed from the police after TakingTheHeat for her mistake: [[spoiler:planting evidence to secure a conviction against a pedophile who'd abducted and murdered a six-year-old boy. Ironically, the pedophile was himself murdered in jail while awaiting his trial, so she could have spared herself and Frank the trouble.]]

* ApologeticAttacker: Billy the Brick "borrows" DI Marlowe's car to make his getaway, but leaves it at a convenient location, with a note apologizing for the busted wing mirror.
* AwesomeMcCoolname: William Porter, a.k.a., "Billy the Brick", awards himself the nickname "Billy Two Bricks" after simultaneously knocking out a mobster and a thug threatening Frank and DS Keeler (with a brick in each hand). He even leaves the name on a CallingCard left on DI Marlowe's car, which he ditches after "borrowing" it to make his getaway.

** In "Too Cold For Hell", Frank, Billy the Brick, and DS Keeler are all trapped in a refrigerated shipping container, slowly freezing to death. Keeler starts to berate Billy for being a worthless criminal, causing Frank to hotly speak up and say that Billy may be no angel, but he's done better than could have been expected considering that the deck was stacked against him from the day he was born (to a heroin addict mother who overdosed shortly after giving birth to him). Billy warmly says he's always thought of Frank as a surrogate dad. Keeler scoffs, but Frank puts a fatherly hand on Billy's.

* BedmateReveal: At the end of "Ill Met by Moonlight", Spider (a NoSocialSkills hacker Frank sometimes employs) is shown waking up next to the high-class girl he had been trying to pull at the ball the previous night. However, the true reveal occurs when the girls ex-boyfriend rises from the other side of Spider; equally naked and looking thoroughly confused as to what is going on.

* DoWrongRight: In the Season Two finale, "Too Cold For Hell", DI Marlowe confesses to Luella that Frank was dismissed from the police force after TakingTheHeat for her mistake: [[spoiler:planting evidence to secure a conviction against the murderer of a six-year-old boy, after a legal challenge to the outsourced police lab made the DNA evidence unusable. Frank knew what Marlowe was going to do, and he told her: ''"Don't be stupid... but if you do it, don't get caught."'' Unfortunately, she did, and she was.]]

* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: PlayedWith in "Too Cold For Hell." The MacGuffin of the episode is an urn in the shape of an angel that holds the ashes of a young wife's beloved grandmother. She honestly has no idea that her Uncle "Cuddles", who gave her the urn, is a violent international gangster, who will go to ''any'' lengths to recover it after it's stolen - [[spoiler:not because it contains his mother's ashes, but rather because it also contains his stash of uncut diamonds worth over 3 million pounds.]]
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Billy "the Brick" [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom unwittingly set in motion the events]] of "Too Cold For Hell" by nicking an angel sculpture from his boss's latest haul of stolen goods, but only because he wanted something nice for his foster mother's birthday. When he realized the sculpture was an urn containing a deceased person's ashes, he immediately placed it (with all respect) on a grave in the local cemetery (unfortunately, returning it to the original owner would have been awkward).

* FluffyTheTerrible: In "Too Cold For Hell", Bianca Percy honestly has no idea that her uncle Claude Mortimer, a.k.a. "Uncle Cuddles", is a violent international gangster.

* FramingTheGuiltyParty: Part of [[spoiler:Christina and Frank's]] DarkAndTroubledPast, as revealed in the Season 2 finale. [[spoiler:Christina framed a pedophile who murdered a young boy after the original evidence was tainted, and Frank [[TakingTheHeat took the heat]] for her.]]

* ItWasWithYouAllAlong: In "Too Cold For Hell", a mobster is enraged when the urn containing his mother's ashes is stolen from his niece by a gang of fraudulent movers, and then even more enraged when the urn is recovered - [[spoiler:minus his stash of uncut diamonds that he was keeping safe in case he needed to flee the country. When questioned, the niece and her husband say they noticed how heavy the urn was and found a false bottom weighted with what they thought were pebbles, so they used them to spruce up the bottom of their goldfish "Julius's" bowl. Since they removed the "pebbles" well before moving, and the fish bowl was the only thing the phony movers didn't take away, the mobster could have saved himself a ''whole'' lot of trouble.]]

* LockedInAFreezer: In "Too Cold for Hell", Frank, DS Keeler, and Billy the Brick are locked in a refrigerated shipping container.

* LikeAnOldMarriedCouple: Frank and Lu are this in spades, and act more like a couple than business partners. In "Too Cold For Hell", they even play the roles of a couple going through a divorce, and their bickering is so believable that their "mark" never questions that they're married. Doesn't hurt that their namesakes Creator/WilliamShakespeare and Anne Hathaway were husband and wife.
* MakesSenseInContext:
-->'''Frank''': "And the moral of this story is, [[spoiler: Billy]]? [[RobbingTheMobBank Don't nick a mob boss's dead mother!]]"

* MoreExpendableThanYou: Frank was dismissed from the police force after TakingTheHeat for Christina Marlowe's mistake. Marlowe believes that, among other reasons, Frank knew that he'd never be promoted past Detective Inspector because of his problems with authority, but believed that Marlowe had the potential to go much higher. This expression of faith only makes her more driven to succeed and conscious of how much she owes him.

* NeedleInAStackOfNeedles: In "Too Cold For Hell", Billy the Brick admits to Frank that he left the MacGuffin on a grave in the local cemetery; it was dark, but he remembers the name on the tombstone. Frank sarcastically asks how useful that is, when the cemetery has upwards of 19,000 "residents." Lu looks online and says the cemetery has a handy app for finding a particular grave.
-->'''Billy''': I thought we could split up...\\
'''Frank''': 19,000 divided by 3 equals ''no way'', Billy!

* RobbingTheMobBank: In "Too Cold For Hell", Florian Fortes ran a fraudulent moving service that allowed him to steal other people's valuables. This backfired when his latest client turns out to (unknowingly) be the niece of a violent international mobster, who entrusted the niece with the urn containing his mother's ashes.

* ShamuFu: In "Too Cold for Hell", Frank, Billy the Brick and DS Keeler are [[LockedInAfreezer locked in a refrigerated shipping container]]. When the crooks return, Billy throws a frozen fish in the face of one of them and escapes in the confusion.
** Billy also uses a frozen lobster's claws to saw through the zip-ties around their hands, which works despite Keeler's skepticism.

* SignificantAnagram: In "Too Cold for Hell", Frank and Lu are hired to find a fraudulent removal man. [[ThemedAliases His aliases are all anagrams: Foster, Forest, Froste, Softer, etc.]] They soon identify him as Florian Fortes.

* ThemedAliases: In "Too Cold for Hell", Frank and Lu are hired to find a fraudulent removal man. His aliases are all anagrams: Foster, Forest, Froste, Softer, etc. They soon identify him as Florian Fortes.
* TooMuchInformation: In "Too Cold for Hell", Frank, DS Keeler, and Billy the Brick are locked in a refrigerated shipping container. When Keeler asks how long it will take them to freeze to death, Billy says he saw a documentary about men in the exact same scenario, and it took them 45-60 minutes. He then goes on to add that extreme cold creates the illusion of extreme heat, and the men in the documentary bizarrely started stripping down and were found naked below the waist. Keeler and Frank both tell Billy he can shut up now.

* UndignifiedDeath: In "Too Cold For Hell", Billy the Brick tells Frank and DS Keeler about a documentary he saw about three men who froze to death inside a shipping container (as the three of them are doing at that moment). According to the documentary, extreme cold creates the illusory sensation of extreme heat, which means that as the men got closer to the end, they started stripping off their clothes in a bizarre attempt to "cool down" and all three were found naked below the waist. Frank and Keeler agree that this is TooMuchInformation.
* TheUnfavorite: Kate Minola, as measured against her younger sister Bianca. Her father even accuses Kate of being involved with the plot to kidnap Bianca and her new husband.

* BitchInSheepsClothing: [[spoiler:Bianca Minola in "Best Beware My Sting." She comes off as a sweet, innocent DaddysGirl, especially compared to her fiery sister Kate. She turns out to have masterminded a plot to discredit the environmentalist group harassing her father's company, [[BlackWidow murder her newlywed husband for his fortune]], and scam her father out of a 2 million pound ransom payment. When confronted, she even laughs as she recalls stabbing her husband in the heart: ''"I know I shouldn't laugh, but you should have seen the look on his face..."'']]

** In "Best Beware My Sting", energy company owner Mr. Minola decides to go green and hire the environmentalist group that was protesting against him as consultants, after [[spoiler:his own daughter tried to frame the group leader for murder just to preserve his bottom line.]]

* SchmuckBait: In "Best Beware My Sting", Frank confiscates the bratty Kate Minola's book after she throws it at him. She apologizes, asks for it back and promises not to throw anything else. He opens the door... [[GroinAttack and she knees him in the crotch]].

** In 'Best Beware My Sting', ''Theatre/TheTamingOfTheShrew'' gets remade with an aggressive, violent environmentalist as Kate, a spoiled DaddysGirl as Bianca, and both are daughters to an energy tycoon.

** Bianca Minola in "Best Beware My Sting"; she and her new husband are kidnapped between the ceremony and their wedding reception, and he is killed while they are trying to escape their kidnappers. [[spoiler:At least that's what it looks like...]]

* CarFu: In "This Promised End", the VictimOfTheWeek is run down and killed in an attempt to MakeItLookLikeAnAccident.

* IHaveYourWife: In "This Promised End", Mr. R and Mr. G use threats against Peter Quintus' wife to prevent him from going to the police. [[spoiler:It is actually an elaborate scheme engineered by the wife.]]

* ScaryBlackMan: Subverted by "The Promised End", as one of the scary gangsters (who is black) is actually just [[spoiler:a mild-mannered actor]] hired by [[spoiler:an abused wife, to scare her husband.]] Played straight in "The Play's the Thing", where, in reference to Othello, a charming black man is in fact responsible for the accidental death of one of his fellow soldiers and covers it up. [[spoiler:He's ''not'' the killer, but he's still extremely aggressive and attempts to imprison Lu.]]

* ConMan: The VictimOfTheWeek in "[[Recap/ShakespeareAndHathawayPrivateInvestigatorsS1E1 O Brave New World]]" is a con man with an M.O. of romancing single women, marrying them, embezzling all of their money, then faking his own death and disappearing.

* LikeAnOldMarriedCouple: Frank and Lu are this in spades, and act more like a couple than business partners. In "Too Cold For Hell", they even play the roles of a couple going through a divorce, and their bickering is so believable that their "mark" never questions that they're married. Doesn't hurt that their namesakes Creator/WilliamShakespeare and Anne Hathaway were husband and wife
* MagicPlasticSurgery: The killer in [[spoiler: "[[Recap/ShakespeareAndHathawayPrivateInvestigatorsS1E1 O Brave New World]]."]]

* NotableNonSequitur: In "[[Recap/ShakespeareAndHathawayPrivateInvestigatorsS1E1 O Brave New World]]", when the hotel staff are being interviewed after the murder, one of the waitresses complains that a pair of shoes have been stolen from her locker. These later become the vital clue Frank uses to crack the case.

* RubeGoldbergHatesYourGuts: In "The Chimes at Midnight", the murderer rigs a RubeGoldbergDevice to drop his victim off the roof of the building to allow him to establish an alibi by being inside in full view of everyone else when the body hits the ground.