False Reassurance / Live-Action TV

False Reassurances in Live-Action TV series.

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• In 24, Jack uses this when Nina panics about a terrorist killing her then himself when she is forced to cooperate. (Of course, this is in no way intended to reassure her.)
  "We'll make sure he doesn't turn the gun on himself."
• In the Angel episode "Conviction", a shotgun-wielding Elite Mook, Hauser, who now nominally works for Angel, gives him a "The Reason You Suck" Speech about how he's stronger than Angel because he believes in being evil, while Angel is conflicted, and there's nothing more powerful than conviction. Angel replies that there's one thing more powerful, "mercy." Hauser clearly sees this as confirmation of his own assessment of Angel's weakness. Then Angel forces Hauser to blow his own head off, to the shock of the subordinate mooks present. In other words, the power of mercy was the only thing that had kept Angel from killing people like Hauser long ago.
  Mook: What happened to mercy?
  Angel: You just saw the last of it.
• In an episode of Batman (1966), the Joker has captured Batman and Robin and asked them if they could swim. He put them in a smokestack and told them he would let them go if they could stay afloat for an hour. He then starts to fill the stack with poison gas instead of water. Robin calls him out on this, but Batman points out the Joker never said anything about using water.
  Robin: But you can't float in gas!
  Joker: No... BUT YOU CAN DROWN IN IT!
• Battlestar Galactica (2003): Number Six to a baby - "There, there. It's okay. You're not going to have to cry much longer."
• In A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Stephen and Hugh have broken into a woman's house and are ineptly interrogating her. When they ask to speak to her son, she wants them to promise to leave as soon as they've finished.
  Stephen: Of course, Mrs Popey. We'll leave just as soon as we've finished being here.
• In the Blackadder Goes Forth episode "Private Plane", Blackadder, on the quest for an easy life, decides to sign up for an air squadron called the "Twenty Minuters" on being told that on average that's how long they spend in the air. During his initial training for the Flying Corps, he learns that it's how long they spend in the air before being shot down.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • When Oz comes back from Tibet, he hopes to rekindle his relationship with Willow. From Xander, he's heard she isn't seeing a new guy. Willow hesitantly confirms this: "No. No new... guy."
  • And when Buffy is brought Back from the Dead, she tells the Scoobies, "You guys gave me the world. I can't tell you what it means to me." What it means is chronic depression because her friends yanked her out of Heaven into the harsh reality of everyday life, which Buffy tries to hide from them so they'll continue thinking they've done the right thing.
  • Also, in "Angel", a pair of vampire assassins return to the Master after failing their assignment to kill Buffy. He tells them that killing them for their failure would bring him little joy, and they react with relief. Then Darla kills them gleefully, and he notes that sometimes a little is enough.
  • In Season 9, Faith's dad tells her that he is really sober this time. He doesn't tell her that he's been involved in some shady dealings and some guys are after him.
• Castle:
  • "The Double Down" features a double-whammy as Beckett and Castle question a suspect:
    Suspect: You guys have any suspects at all, yet?
    Castle: [looking right at him] We're looking at someone right now.
  • And:
    Suspect: You're not accusing me of killing my wife again, are you?
    Beckett: I can assure you we are 100% certain you did not kill Ashley.
  • He actually arranged to do a Strangers on a Train-style murder-swap with someone else — and they know it.
• Criminal Minds: In "Omnivore", the Reaper menaces a terrified woman with a gun
  The Reaper: Shhh. I'm not going to shoot you. Shhh.
  Nina Hale: Thank you.
  The Reaper: You're welcome. [takes out a knife and stabs her]
• Dad's Army: A newspaper article lampoons the Home Guard patrol as going from one pub to another searching for German parachutists. Private Sponge assures Captain Mainwaring that not one drop of alcohol will touch their lips. After the Captain leaves... "OK, let's get some straws."
• Doctor Who:
  • "The Three Doctors": The Third Doctor says to Omega, "We will not leave here before you do." Omega assumes this means they will stay there with him. It doesn't.
  • "Boom Town": Margaret Blaine assures the citizens of Cardiff that the new nuclear power plant will cause no harm as long as she's walking the Earth. This is technically true, since she is an alien in disguise and plans to leave the planet before the meltdown occurs.
  • "The Eleventh Hour":
    The Doctor: You know when grown-ups tell you everything's going to be fine, and you think they're probably lying to make you feel better?
    Amelia Pond: Yes.
    The Doctor: Everything's going to be fine.
  • "Flesh and Stone":
    • The Doctor uses this on Amy when they're climbing aboard a spaceship. When Amy asks him what happens if the gravity fails, the Doctor tells her cheerfully that he's thought about it.
      Amy: And?
      The Doctor: And we'll all plunge to our deaths. See? I've thought about it.
    • Then it's played with, in that Octavian is savvy enough to pick on her hedging and is not impressed; he chews her out and promises that if she's wrong, she'll regret it.
      Father Octavian: You trust this man?
      River Song: I absolutely trust him.
      Father Octavian: He's not some kind of madman, then?
      River Song: ...I absolutely trust him.
  • "Day of the Moon": When Richard Nixon asks the Doctor if he'll be remembered, the Doctor replies with:
    The Doctor: Oh, Dicky. Tricky Dicky. They're never going to forget you. Say hi to David Frost for me.
  • "The Time of the Doctor": Eleven sincerely promises Clara that he'll never leave her behind, again. He promptly ditches her on Earth for her own safety. This technically doesn't break his word, because he hadn't promised not to leave her behind this time.
  • "Time Heist": Bank security politely asks the Doctor and crew to let them in, on the rationale that they don't want to hurt them before executing them.
  • "Hell Bent": Rassilon, the Lord President of Gallifrey, is increasingly freaking out as he realizes he has no control over the Doctor.
    Rassilon: What does he want? Revenge?
    Ohila: The Doctor does not blame Gallifrey for the horrors of the Time War.
    Rassilon: I should hope not.
    Ohila: He just blames you.
• Your more devious characters on Dollhouse are prone to this.
  Adelle, in Episode 6: This one will probably... struggle.
• The Drew Carey Show: Drew's boss Mr. Wick orders Carey to take urine samples for one of the company's drug tests. Since this isn't in Drew's job description, he futilely tries to get out of doing it until Mr. Wick gives him an ultimatum:
  Mr. Wick: I want that pee on my desk by tomorrow, or you're fired!
  Drew: Oh, it'll be on your desk...
  Mr. Wick: I want it in a cup!
  Drew: Oh, it'll be in a cup...
  Mr. Wick: Not my coffee cup!
• In an episode of Father Ted, the title character complains that when his friend said he would "take care" of the rabbits that had overrun the parochial house, he assumed he meant it in "a Julie Andrews way, not an Al Pacino way."
• Played somewhat humorously in the Firefly episode "Out of Gas".
  River: Don't be afraid. That's what it [The Bible] says. Don't be afraid.
  Book: Yes.
  River: But you are afraid.
  Book: Yes.
  River: You're afraid we're going to run out of air. That we'll die gasping. But we won't. That's not going to happen. [Beat] We'll freeze to death first.
• Friends: "The One with Chandler's Dad". Ross gives Rachel an unintentional (or maybe not) example after Rachel has been driving her car too fast and a police siren orders her to pull over.
  Ross: Okay, stay calm. Nothing is gonna happen to you. You are not in that much trouble.
  Rachel: Really? You think so?
  Ross: I was talking to myself! You're going down!
• Game of Thrones:
  • Khal Drogo promises Viserys "a golden crown that men shall tremble to behold." Men do tend to tremble when they see someone get molten gold poured over their head.
  • Mirri Maz Duur promises to save Drogo's life with Blood Magic and strongly implies that a horse can be used for Equivalent Exchange. In reality, Drogo is left an Empty Shell and Dany's unborn son is used instead of the horse.
  • The unofficial motto "A Lannister always pays his debts" can be used this way. At face value, it promises gratitude to those who do well by them, which is true, but it is frequently used to promise revenge to those who have wronged them.
    • Tyrion paying his jailer a bribe in full view of Lysa Arryn counts as both.
  • In "Blackwater", Sansa tells Tyrion that she will pray for his safe return... just as she prays for Joffrey's.
  • In "Mockingbird", Littlefinger assures Lysa he's only loved one woman his entire life. It's not her.
• In Heroes, DL asks Niki about her intentions. Unbeknownst to him, Niki's psychotic alter ego Jessica is in control and has murder in mind. Niki answers: "I promise you, I won't do anything I wouldn't want to."
• Francis Urquhart of House of Cards (UK) makes this into an art form. When he tells loose cannon subordinate Roger, "By Sunday you won't have to worry about anything ever again. That's a promise", he actually means he's going to lace Roger's coke with bleach while Roger's staying with him over the weekend.
• The It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode "Frank Sets Sweet Dee On Fire" has the gang attempt to engineer some heroism so they can report it on their news show:
  Frank: Just run in [that building], save the cats, and you'll be a hero!
  Mac: Save them from what? What are you planning here? [beat] Are you gonna set the building on fire?
  Frank: No!
  Mac: Are you gonna set the building on fire?
  Charlie: Yes.
• The Justified episode "Bulletville" has an example similar to the Sneakers example in the Film subpage.
  Bo: Who'm I kidding. I can't hurt my own son. Johnny, hurt my son.
• Legend of the Seeker:
  • In one episode, Darken Rahl says a merchant with information on the Seeker's whereabouts will be rewarded so that, "He will never want for anything in this world." Three guesses what happens when he gives up the information, and the first two don't count.
  • Rahl seems to like this one. In an earlier episode, he "reassures" a dying queen (after he slices her arm open from wrist to elbow) that her daughter will spend all her time surrounded by priceless jewels... because he's going to have her work as a slave in some diamond mines.
• The Pilot of Lois & Clark. When Lex Luthor tells you "Your final payment is in the helicopter. I assure you there won't be any loose ends.", you should probably take a cab.
• In Lost, Jack asks Ben if he knew that Locke committed suicide. Ben says he didn't know that. Because Locke didn't commit suicide, Ben killed him. Played with later. Jack calls Ben out, saying that he had said Locke hadn't come to him. Ben says that that is true — he had come to Locke. The thing is, even though that was the correct course of events, what Ben had actually said was that he hadn't seen Locke since they were on the Island. Jack, of course, accepts this.
• Married... with Children: Marcy and Steve once had to go to New York on a business trip. Marcy was afraid the plane would crash on the sea. Al reassured her it couldn't happen... because there's no sea between Chicago and New York. If the plane crashes, they'll hit solid ground.
• The Muppet Show: Sam the Eagle is worried by the apparent end of Liberace's very classy concert to the "Birds of the World", expressing concern that soon Liberace will "put on a rhinestone tuxedo and play that shameful boogie-woogie". Liberace reassures him that he's not going to do that soon.
  Sam: No?
  Liberace: No. I'm going to do it right now.
• In the Murder, She Wrote episode "Trial by Error", Jessica is leading a jury which finds a man not guilty of murdering his lover's husband, because she's worked out he was actually killing his wife, and used the husband's death at his own wife's hands as an alibi, figuring that if he took the rap for that, he could claim self-defence. Since all he knows is that he's been cleared, he thanks her and says he won't forget her. She replies that all the thanks she needs is knowing justice has prevailed, and she's quite sure he won't...
• NCIS: To get a criminal to give up some information, Gibbs tells him "I could talk to the D.A. which could reduce your sentence." After he gets the information he needed, he admits he never intended to plead on the man's behalf.
• A soul-eating Velvet in Neverwhere gives a Shout-Out to Dracula as she declines a normal meal: "I do not eat... curry."
• Once Upon a Time: Regina is in jail after the curse is broken. Gold walks into the room and Regina asks him if he's here to "finish the job." Gold says that he promised Belle that he wouldn't kill Regina. But he never promised that he wouldn't send something to do worse.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Halbrand assures Galadriel that he'll make sure nobody forgets how she helped him. Given that he's secretly the Dark Lord Sauron, the real meaning is much more menacing.
• In the first episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures, "Invasion of the Bane", this is combined with All-Natural Snake Oil. "Contains Bane. It's organic!" Technically true, but "organic" doesn't necessarily mean "something you'd want to ingest" — when's the last time you tried eating live scorpions, for example?
  • In chemistry, "organic" means nothing more nor less than "contains carbon molecules." Hydrogen cyanide (HCN)? Totally organic.
    • Well, maybe not. For weird, arbitrary, and historical reasons, a handful of carbon-containing compounds (including cyanides) are generally considered inorganic. Dioxin compounds, the stuff that made Agent Orange so deadly, on the other hand, are organic without question.
• In Sons of Anarchy, a guy being questioned by Bobby, Tig, and Opie turns out to have screwed up the business deal he was supposed to set up for the Sons, thereby outliving his usefulness to the club. However, Bobby says he won't kill him if he tells the truth about his role in the murder of one of the Sons' wives. After the guy tells him the truth, Opie and Tig kill him.
• In Stargate SG-1, Carter has to do an interview to discredit a businessman who revealed real proof of alien life. She uses this trope and it's immediately lampshaded by the businessman.
  Interviewer: We're all very eager to finally hear some reaction from Washington regarding the revelation made by Alec Colson.
  Carter: Well, first of all, I can assure people that, if aliens really existed and were visiting the planet, we would know about it.
  Interviewer: So, are you saying his claims have no merit? We all saw an alien on live television.
  Carter: Yes, well, Hollywood's been helping us see things on T.V. for a long time now.
  Interviewer: Are you saying that the alien wasn't real?
  Carter: It depends on what you mean by real.
  Colson: Notice she hasn't actually lied once.
• In the Star Trek: Discovery episode "Battle at the Binary Stars", Admiral Anderson arrives after a standoff between Federation and Klingon fleets breaks out into a firefight, and hails the Klingon leader, T'Kuvma, to negotiate a cease fire. T'Kuvma states that he is pleased that Anderson has arrived, because the Klingons have been waiting for someone... worthy of their attention. Admiral Anderson fails to get the subtext in the Klingon's message, and takes his next message at face value.
  T'Kuvma: Your offer of a ceasefire is accepted.
  Anderson: Good. Because if we're fighting, we're not talking.
  T'Kuvma: Prepare to receive my envoy.
• In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Manhunt", Captain Picard suddenly realizes that Lwaxana Troi has an ulterior motive in inviting him to dinner and, seeking an escape, invites Data to join them for dessert and conversation. Lwaxana protests, but Picard assures her she'll be fascinated by Data's small talk.
  Picard: Commander Data's after-dinner conversations are legendary aboard the Enterprise.
  [Cut to Lwaxana looking like she wants someone to kill her as Data rambles on in a lecture concerning orbital mechanics... complete with computer graphics.]
• Star Trek: The Original Series: At the end of "Mudd's Women", Kirk takes Mudd into custody:
  Kirk: I will appear as a character witness at your trial, if you think that'll help.
  Mudd: They'll throw away the key.
• An episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles has Cromartie reassure a terrified thief that Sarah won't kill him for betraying the heroes to Cromartie, as she had threatened when she spared his life. The audience is fully aware that this is because Cromartie will kill the thief himself as soon as he knows where the heroes are living.
• When Top Gear tested the new Ferrari 458 Italia against the F430 it replaced, Jeremy promised James that he would not drive his (James') Ferrari F430 quickly. He never said anything about The Stig, however.
• The Twilight Zone (1959): — "To Serve Man... it's a cookbook!"
• The Vampire Diaries: In "A Few Good Men", Damon is gloating to one person while sounding innocent to everyone else:
  Damon: I had a drink with her once. She was a great girl. I ever tell you that? 'Cause she was... delicious. Mmm.
• White Collar:
  • Neal borrows an FBI jacket from Peter, after promising that he won't pretend to be an FBI agent. Cut to Mozzie wearing the jacket and impersonating an agent instead.
  • Neal does this to Peter in almost every episode — one of the show's rules is that he does not tell direct lies to Peter, thus requiring this trope for whatever shenanigans he's pulling behind Peter's back this week. Of course, Peter knows this, but lets it slide because Neal gets the job done.

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