Basic Trope: A character's missing relative turns up again.
- Straight: Alice discovers that her new neighbour, Dave, is her father, whom she had never met.
- Exaggerated: Half the neighbourhood turns out to be Alice's long-lost relatives.
- Downplayed: Alice knew Dave was her father, but they hadn't seen each other for a few years.
- Justified:
- Dave broke up with Alice's mother and moved away shortly before she found out she was pregnant.
- Dave had to leave Alice to protect her and her mother from his enemies.
- Alice was adopted as a baby.
- Inverted: Alice grew up knowing Dave, but then he abandons her.
- Subverted:
- Alice is lead to believe that Dave is her father, only for it to turn out that Charlie is actually her real father.
- Dave pretended to be Alice's real father to get money from her.
- Double Subverted:
- Charlie isn't interested in having a relationship with Alice, but Dave, who has grown to love Alice, decides to become her surrogate father.
- But then it turns out Dave is actually Alice’s dad after all - meaning he was trying to scam his biological daughter and not a stranger as he previously assumed.
- Parodied:
- A married couple discover to their shock that they are actually brother and sister.
- Two characters have a conversation where they talk about missing relatives and fail to notice that they are describing one another.
- Zig Zagged: Alice thinks Dave might be her real father, but cannot be certain because her mother also slept with Charlie when Alice was conceived. Dave is only pretending to be Alice's father to get money out of her, but then learns he might actually be Alice's father for real. To make matters worse, they live in a time before DNA testing so they cannot be certain.
- Averted:
- Dave never went away.
- Alice never finds her father.
- Enforced: The creators have a character reunite with a relative they haven't seen in a while to add a level of poignancy to the series.
- Lampshaded:Ella: So, Bob’s Alice’s dad. But that’s not all - Charlie’s actually her brother!Felicia: What’s next? The lunch lady’s her long-lost aunt?
- Invoked: For an improv class, Alice and Bob have to act out a skit on the spot where Alice is a woman looking for something important but can’t remember what. Bob then comes in and randomly says he’s her long-lost dad who went missing at sea.
- Exploited: Dave, a con artist, knows Alice - the daughter of an ex-girlfriend of his - never knew her dad and claims to be her father to extort money from her.
- Defied: Dave disowns Alice.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed: Dave has missed out on just about everything involving Alice as she grew up into a young woman, and by the time he's back in her life, she barely resembles the little girl he once knew. On top of that, there's a lot of resentment that Alice has for Dave, as from her perspective, he decided he didn't want to be a father after she was born and so ran away from his responsibilities. There is a good deal of friction between the two, especially as Dave keeps trying to insist on a connection that was never properly forged in the first place due to his absence.
- Played For Drama: Alice finds out she's Dave's daughter...after they started dating.
- Played For Laughs: Alice comes home with her long-lost dad Dave. Her mother Gina responds with “great, we’re gonna need another family photo!” and points to the dozens of other photos that initially feature just Alice and Gina with all the subsequent photos increasing in size of family members until there’s Alice and Gina and about twenty previously long-lost relatives.
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