Badass Family / Live-Action TV

---

• What can we say about The Addams Family? They seem to be inmune to pain and injury, expert swordfighters even as kids, even their youngest member Wednesday is a competent Judoka capable of defeiting a grown man, and they have an adult lion as pet; what more badass than that? Good thing they are pacifists though.
• Against the Wall: The Kowalski cops. Don is The Patriarch beat cop, Donnie is the eldest brother and a beat cop (later SWAT team member), Richie and Steve are the two other beat cops and the youngest sister and protagonist Abby is the Internal Affairs detective. Not to be trifled with.
• Angel Investigations in Angel may not be a biological family, but deep down, they love each other very much, and take perceived betrayal as personal as you would take from a family. As early as season 1, when fixing breakfast, Cordelia gives Angel some blood in a container and tells him point blank "Don't be embarrassed, we're family." Later on, when he finds out that she's in the hospital, he drops any and all pretenses of even pretending to not be in a bad mood. It's telling that Kate, the former friend on the force, who previously had no problem pushing his buttons, backs off immediately upon seeing what a mood he's in. This exchange sums it up pretty well:
  Hospital Nurse: Are you a friend?
  Angel: No, I'm family.
• Banshee: The Hopewell parents team up to give a spectacular beating to some delinquents in Season 3. Not only it's a rare scene of them fighting together but Gordon holds his own against a much younger armed opponent.
• Barry: The Proxin family from "ronny/lily" consists of a tenacious taekwondo master father who keeps fighting even after getting shot in the face and having his trachea broken (all while experiencing the side effects of having just smoked a joint) and a daughter capable of such superhuman (and scary) feats of physical spectacle that Barry questions if she's even of this earth. Both of them give Barry the fight of his life.
• The Adamas, both in Battlestar Galactica (2003) and its prequel Caprica:
  • William Adama, who's in his sixties at the least, won a brawl with a Cylon man who although sick was strong enough to tear a pipe out of its fittings. He beat him to death, as he'd done to a CENTURION when he was young. He also actively fought in combat to retake his ship from mutineers. Oh, and if you count the Old Man's True Companions, which he explicitly regards as surrogate family: Saul Tigh, Laura Roslin, Chief Tyrol, Karl "Helo" Agathon, Sharon "Athena" Agathon, and Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, who he refers to as a daughter.
  • As for Lee...In or out of the cockpit, you do not mess with him.
  • Sam Adama, who by his job regularly kills people and appears badass and snazzy as he does so. And he is the only Adama family member in the two series so far who is happily married.
  • Even Bill's father Joseph, initially a Non-Action Guy, gets in on the action when he goes Papa Wolf on a Drag Bar filled with gangsters that is standing between him and finding Tamara. The flashback episode The Dirteaters shows little Joseph Adama, killing three soldiers with a handgun, then performing a Mercy Kill on his father. The same episode has Grandpapa Adama describing the Adama family motto to Joseph and Sam, which amounts to "When we start a war, we end it. We don't quit halfway through". That's right folks. The Adama badasserry is hereditary.
  • Tamara Adama, who goes from meek and frightened girl to full-fledged Badass Adorable in the space of one episode (the first episode, in fact, to feature her prominently at all) and goes on to become something of a legend in cyberspace.
  • Then there's William Adama, who even at age ten, shows he's capable of kicking ass, when he beats the crap out of a (much) older boy who was making racist jeers in his direction.
  • Grandma Ruth, Joseph's mother-in-law (making her an Adama by association), who as an old woman proved capable of taking down an assassin. We then learn that she knew all the assassin's tricks because she had formerly been one herself.
  • The Greystones aren't too bad themselves either.
• The Reagans of Blue Bloods, a family where every adult male member is either a serving or retired NYPD officer, with Tom Selleck as The Patriarch and current police commissioner. Oh, and his adult daughter is an ADA. When one of Danny Reagan's elementary-school-age sons asks if a robber would target them:
  Great-Grandpa Henry: Are you kiddin'? He'll get one look at this table and run the other way.
• The Cartwrights of Bonanza.
• The Borgias, upon whom The Godfather's Corleones are based. There's Pope Alexander VI; his Magnificent Bastard firstborn, Cesare Borgia; his Femme Fatale daughter, Lucrezia Borgia; and the mother of his children, Vannozza. Juan doesn't quite count, but he can sword fight. Sort of. Don't bother with Gioffre.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Buffy and Dawn Summers. Buffy is a Slayer, kicking all kinds of vamp and demon butt. And Dawn steps up her game in learning to fight from Buffy. Technically Dawn isn't really a sister so much as a clone but the mystics that created her from Buffy's blood implanted Buffy (and everyone else) with a full set of kid sister memories. Mother Joyce may be a regular amidst the supernaturals, but when Spike threatens Buffy in Season 2 she goes Mama Bear and floors him. They also have a badass extended family with Witch Willow, Vamps Angel and Spike, ex-demon Anya, Badass Normals Xander and Giles (who do save the day once or twice) and eventually a whole gang of fellow Slayers.
• While in Burn Notice Michael Westen is the main badass of the Westen family, both mom Madeline and brother Nate occasionally show some badassery. Especially Madeline, who's gone from a chain-smoking hypochodriac to taking at least three levels in badass.
• The Charmed Ones in Charmed. They are sisters who fight demons on a weekly basis. One can blow stuff up. One can move anything. And the third can do kung fu.
  • Then there's the half-sister, with various Whitelighter powers, including orbing (transporting), healing, and other angelic/white mage-esque powers.
• Chuck:
  • The Bartowskis. Chuck's spy work outshines trained professionals, Ellie is a Badass Normal, their father Stephen has been on the run from the government for ten years and their mother Mary is an undercover agent within Volkoff Industries. Ellie's husband Devon may not be cut out for spy work, but he has a Heroic Build and is a fierce fighter. Sarah later marries into the Bartowskis, and she's no slouch.
  • Also the Volkoff family, including a multi-millionaire Arms Dealer, his daughter whom he groomed to inherit his company, and even his elderly, gun-toting mother.
• Doctor Who has The Pond family. Amy fights pirates and tells an army to be afraid of what's coming for them and, in an alternate timeline, lead her own army. Rory is known as the Last Centurion, blew up a Cyberman fleet and generally kicked ass, also he punched out Hitler. And Melody grew up to become a woman who makes Daleks beg for mercy. And guess who is married into the family now...
• Firefly: The Tams. Simon broke into a high security Alliance facility to rescue his sister, who by the way can kill you with her brain.
• The West-Allens from The Flash. Father, Joe, is a police detective, Barry is, of course, The Flash, Iris, is an investigative reporter, and Wally is Kid Flash.
• Played with in Frasier, when Martin reads an obituary for another man named Martin Crane:
  Martin: Multi-millionaire. Decorated war hero. Wrote a spy novel. "Survived by his wife Florence — a former Miss Washington — and two sons, Joe, a Marine Corps colonel, and professional baseball player Mickey Crane." Nothing like starting the day off jealous of a dead guy.
• Walter and Peter Bishop of Fringe. Walter's a genius, albeit not entirely sane, whose work is part of what caused the whole story arc of the show. Peter is equally smart, but also very street-smart, and he can fight. Walter even traveled to a parallel universe when his son died to get a new version which apparently had to happen because Peter is the Destroyer of Worlds The Bishop family badassery has been fully expanded in Season 5 with the addition of a third generation (granddaughter Henrietta) and the whole family turned into outright resistance fighters against the Observers.
• The Lannisters, Baratheons, and Targaryens from Game of Thrones all aspire to embody this trope, in various flavors and with various levels of success. The Cleganes, Umbers, and Mormonts seem to produce nothing but badasses. House Stark is full of legendary heroes, warriors and wargs. The direwolves are siblings and they're vicious fighters.
• GARO has the Saejima family, though we only see three members; Taiga, Kouga, and Raiga. All three of them have inherited the armor of the Golden Knight GARO, and are feared among Horrors for their well-earned reputation as protectors of mankind.
• Grimm runs with this trope, every single Grimm is in someway related to each other, and they are effectively a race of greatly feared Empowered Badass Normal Warriors and Hunters who possess incredible powers such as True Sight, Super-Strength, Adaptive Ability and incredible combat prowess. They have been keeping Wesen under control for thousands of years. Their family stretches across the entire world and through the chapters of history. Their reputation is so great that all but the most powerful Wesen fear them (and even them either hate them or respect them) and its a reputation they can easily live up to. Even the members of their families who don't inherit there gifts, still normally end up being an Action Survivor to deal with there inheritance. Every single recorded Grimm qualifies as having done something Badass or other. Going into more direct family we have Nick's Aunt Marie, who was still hunting Wesen into her sixties and ended up killing her own assassin while bedridden and dying of cancer. Kelly Burkhardt, Nick's mother and the undisputedly most Badass character in the show (which really says something) Nick Burkhardt who has not only fought and killed several of the rarest, oldest, most dangerous and powerful Wesen, but has also unlocked several unique (or at least incredibly rare) powers of his own.
• On Heroes, The Petrellis and The Bennets. In the Petrellis, there's Arthur, the father, who can take other people's powers through physical touch. He's in charge of Pinehearst, which recruits people with abilities for nefarious purposes. His wife, Angela (formerly Angela Shaw) who can see the future through dreams, tries to stop him. She also has mysterious connections and is a very strong woman, even without her powers. Angela's long-lost sister, Alice Shaw, can control the weather including lightning and summoning floods. She's a bit crazy, however. Angela and Arthur, have two sons, Peter and Nathan. Peter has "power mimicry" and can copy other people's powers, with various levels of effectiveness throughout the series. He eventually helps save New York from getting blown up by a man with nuclear powers. His future self comes back to the past and shoots his brother, Nathan. His future self has shapeshifting powers and a badass scar. Nathan Petrelli, his brother, is an ambitious anti-hero senator with the power of flight. He is an intense hypocrite, and goes on to try to capture many people with abilities because they're "dangerous". Nathan's biological daughter, Claire, has regenerative powers and helps her uncle, Peter, to save the world. She's a cheerleader and is incredibly tenacious. Claire's biological mother, Meredith Gordon, has pyrokinesis, and eventually sacrifices herself to save Claire, Nathan, and Angela from Sylar. Claire's adoptive father, Noah Bennet, is a Badass Normal man who works for several companies and the government and eventually helps Nathan hunt people with abilities. Flint is Meredith's brother, making him Claire's uncle. She has a really screwed up family once she starts digging into it. This family tree looked like it was going to get even crazier when Angela and Arthur told Sylar that he was their son. That turned out to be a lie.
  • The Nakamuras are a superpowered family but maybe not quite Badass as Hiro's parent's powers don't seem to be immediately useful in a fight (though healing is useful for afterwards.)
  • The Bishops. Elle has electrical powers and her father can do alchemy.
  • The Sanders-Hawkins family. Niki was a Mama Bear with a Superpowered Evil Side, D.L. can phase through things and was a firefighter, and little Micah can talk and use computers to his advantage. Plus, there's Niki's long-lost sister Tracy who can freeze things and turn into water, and Micah's cousin Monica, who can imitate any physical action.
• The Cooper's in K.C. Undercover, with Action Girl KC, Action Dad Craig, Action Mom Kira and Little Miss Badass Judy. Being a family of spies, this goes with the territory. Its revealed to go back at least three generations to KC and Ernie's Maternal Grandparents, with Retired badasses Pops and Grandma Gayle. Even Ernie has his moments.
• Married... with Children: The Bundys are not afraid to kick ass individually or as a family. Even Peggy and Seven get their shots in.
• Merlin (2008) has Arthur Pendragon's family. Uther and Morgana are both shown to be pretty handy with swords, and there's Morgana's sorcery.
• The David/Haswari family of NCIS. Ari was a double agent (well, actually, he was more like a triple agent), a doctor, and an assassin. Ziva starts out as an assassin and becomes a talented investigator while working at NCIS, and as for Daddy Eli David? He's the freaking director of Mossad! Admittedly, Ari is a villain and Eli... is not a nice guy either, but they all still qualify.
• Sam and Michelle Hanna from NCIS: Los Angeles. Sam is a former Navy SEAL turned NCIS investigator. Michelle is a CIA operative. Their son is a military cadet and their daughter is already eying the family business, applying to the same military academy as her dad and brother.
• Once Upon a Time gives us an interesting version: Snow White and Prince Charming are a Battle Couple in the fairy tale world but have been turned into strangers in the real world, but their long-lost daughter Emma is an Action Girl who goes after bail jumpers. Emma's long-lost son Henry is also proving to be quite the Guile Hero and isn't the least bit intimidated by his adopted mother (step great-grandmother's) bullying, either.
  • And the family is actually even more badass with the revelation that Henry's father is Baelfire, whose father is Rumpelstiltskin
  • Though there's only two members of the family left, Red's family contains at least four werewolves. They don't automatically count because of this, but since both Red and Granny prove very useful in helping Snow do things like raid a castle and are both on her and Charming's war council, they certainly should be included.
• Peaky Blinders has the Shelby family. Three badass war-veteran brothers (Arthur, Tommy, and John), Little Miss Badass snarky younger sister Ada, and Evil Matriarch Aunt Polly. Even 10-year-old Finn gets in on the action.
• Unlike most seasons (which only get as far as a pair of siblings), Power Rangers Mystic Force had a mother-father-son-niece combo of White-Purple-Red-ally, an unrelated set of fraternal twin girls as Pink and Blue, and the Queen of Vampires and her daughter.
  • And the origin series, Mahou Sentai Magiranger, is a family: The main five Magirangers are siblings, Magimother is... du'h, Wolzard is the dad and Magishine is their sensei/student of their dad who ended married to Magiblue before the final arc.
  • Kyuukyuu Sentai GoGoFive also had the entire team be siblings. (American counterpart Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue limited it to two siblings with dad as the team's mentor, and the brother filled a Canon Foreigner role not in GoGoV.)
  • And let's not forget the very first all-sibling Sentai team, Chikyuu Sentai Fiveman.
  • While none of the team in Samurai Sentai Shinkenger or Power Rangers Samurai are related as far as we know, aside from the Reds in Samurai, they represent the 18th generation of the group. Which means that there are five families that have been kicking obake ass for that long at the very least.
  • The main five rangers of Shuriken Sentai Ninninger are two siblings and three cousins of the Igasaki ninja clan who battle youkai every week. Additionally, their grandfather is the Last Ninja who had defeated the Big Bad before the series began.
• The Teller/Morrow family of badass bikers in Sons of Anarchy, including Clay, Jax and mama Gemma, none of whom you'd want to cut off on a California highway.
• The Campbell-Winchesters
  • The Campbells are hunters of the Supernatural going back to at least medieval times and the Winchesters are Badass Bookworm Watchers who have been at it for just as long. And both sides are direct descendants of the Nephilim.
  • This includes those the Winchesters consider family such as the Harvelles and Bobby Singer and
  • The Angels: Castiel, Gabriel, and Annael.
• The Connors: Sarah (the Action Mom), Kyle & Derek Reese (the resistance fighters), and John who becomes the leader of mankind. Then, depending on whether you consider them a part of the family, there are Ahnold and Cameron, the reprogrammed terminators.
• The Argents on Teen Wolf. Even (or especially) Mrs. Argent, whom we never actually see in combat, but who is consistently described by fans as the most terrifying character, in spite of being on a show about WEREWOLVES.
  • What's left of The Hales, Derek and Peter. Peter is Season 1's Big Bad, Derek becomes the Alpha after killing him.
• Though not overwhelmingly awesome like most examples, the Stackhouses from True Blood have shown a few signs of this.
• Ultra Series: Ultraman Taro forms the centerpiece of one. His dad is the Ultra Father/Father of Ultra, the Big Good of the Land of Light; his mom is the Ultra Mother/Mother of Ultra, a healer capable of even reviving the dead; his adopted brother is Ultraman Ace; his son is Ultraman Taiga; and his cousin is Ultraseven, who has a son of his own named Ultraman Zero.
• The Originals in The Vampire Diaries. Also doubles as a Big, Screwed-Up Family
• The Walking Dead (2010): While they eventually treat each other as such, some of the members of Rick's group are actually bound by blood, specifically The Grimeses, The Peletiers, The Greenes and the Sibling Teams of Daryl and Merle, Andrea and Amy and Tyreese and Sasha.

---