"The Reason You Suck" Speech/Live-Action TV: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

* [[Manipulative Bastard]] Adam Monroe, one of the principal villains of ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'', caps off the final episode of Season 2 with a magnificent diatribe against humanity's [[Humans Are the Real Monsters|petty nature]], successfully arguing in the process that Hiro Nakamura, the man who has come to stop him, effectively turned him into the man he is today.

** In the later seasons these start to become a signature move of supervillain Sylar, as he often hands one out to the other characters before killing them or simply to screw around with them. Presumably this is a function of his original power of understanding how things (and people) work, combined with his acquired ability to learn a person's memories through touch.

*** He also gives a reason WE suck to speech to Elle calling them both "damaged goods that will never change"

** Samuel, channeling a bit of Adam Monroe, delivers a diatribe of his own against humanity about their inability to accept evolved humans into society towards a waitress in a restaurant in the town near his carnival, right before he {{spoiler|drops the entire town into a big sinkhole.}}

* The [[Big Bad|Ori]] of ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' actually rehearsed and perfected their [["The Reason You Suck" Speech|"We're the Ori, you're the dummies, and we will rule you for your own good" speech]] with every planet they conquered. What made it worse is that for a while there, they really did seem unstoppable. And unlike the gasbags called the Gou'ald, the Ori really made it seem like they were doing it for everybody else's good.

* ''[[Malcolm in the Middle]]'': Malcolm is subjected to one of these by a girl on whom he has a crush. After pestering her for hours as to why she likes some relatively unintelligent guy and not him, she sort of breaks down and explodes at him.

** Lois of all people gets one at the hands of a snarky RA who calls her out for being a possessive, smothering loser who even forced her way onto her son's college visit, to the point of sleeping in his room with him.

** Lois also gives one to her oldest son, Fransis, for constantly blaming her for everything that goes wrong in his life, and never owning up to his part at all. In the end, he takes a long, hard look in the mirror... and blames his wife, for not pointing this out to him sooner.

* Dr. [[House (TV series)|House]] has patented these. So much so that at the end of season 3, {{spoiler|two thirds of his staff quit on him}}.

* Happens quite often on ''[[Angel]]''. It makes sense when it comes from someone like Wolfram & Hart, or another of Angel's old enemies. But they can even come from a source as unlikely an insectoid priest who lives in another dimension, who started taunting Angel about how Angel's son will never appreciate him.

** Another one of these speeches comes in "Conviction." Angel has stopped the bad guy of the week, a soldier working for Wolfram and Hart. The soldier says that all of his evil deeds were done simply because he likes being evil, but then points out that at least he believes in something. Angel, he is saying, has no real beliefs, and is just "going through the motions" (as Buffy sings about in her musical episode) without any real reason to want to do good.

*** Angel's response though, is one true [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]]:

{{quote|'''Soldier:''' You pathetic little fairy.

'''Angel''': [walking off] You just saw the last of it. }}

** In ''Destiny'', Spike gives one to Angel after defeating him in battle, explaining that Angel only does good when he has a soul, a soul forced on him as a curse. Spike was willing to do good even without a soul, and even then, he eventually ''fought'' to get one because he ''wanted'' to be a good person again.

'''Richard''': "Over, uh, twenty years ago, a man named John Locke, he walked right into our camp. And he told me that he was going to be our leader. Now I've gone off the Island three times, to visit him. But he never seemed particularly special to me." }}

* In "H.O.U.S.E. Rules", a season 1 episode of the sci-fi comedy ''[[Eureka]]'', resident smug snake Nathan Stark gets one in against idealistic super genius Henry Deacon when he tells him "People like you don't get to do what you do unless people like me do what I do. Idealist don't get much done without a few realists running interference for them. So get off your moral high horse."

** "Time Slides" has a distraught and disillusioned Lister blasting through a list of reasons he's sick of his fellow crew members—the vast majority aimed at and said to Rimmer, including, "...the fact that you always smile when you're being insulted."

** Rimmer does something similar in "Out Of Time", when he appoints himself Morale Officer for the crew. This seems to involve walking up to each of them and yelling at them a lengthy list of things about them that annoy him. Works for him, anyway.

{{quote|'''Number One''': '''I don't want to be human!''' I want to see gamma rays! I want to hear X-rays! And I want to - I want to smell dark matter! Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can't even express these things properly because I have to - I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid limiting spoken language! But I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws! And feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me! I'm a machine! And I can know much more! I can experience so much more. But I'm trapped in this absurd body! And why? Because my five creators thought that "God" wanted it that way!}}

** Both Adamas on the show beautifully deliver one to ''every single human in existance'', Bill gives his in the miniseries, and Lee when he testifies during Baltar's trial in "Crossroads"; in fact, if they weren't you know ''human'', Cavil would probably be begging them to teach him how its done.

*** [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Delenn's speech is so effective at shaming the council that more than half of them walk out of the room with her!]]

* The season three opener of ''[[Ashes to Ashes]]'' has {{spoiler|Gene Hunt receiving one of these from Jim Keats}}.

''(everyone flees in terror, Ted's phone rings)''

'''Punchy (on the phone):''' Ted I can't get married!

'''Punchy:''' You're right I do, thanks Ted! }}

* In the ''[[Farscape]]'' episode "Durka Returns," Rygel finally manages to deliver one of these to his old torturer.

{{quote|'''Rygel:''' Durka, you are pathetic. Look at you: salivating at the chance to maim and kill someone who can't even defend herself. Foaming at the mouth like a sick trelkez. Pathetic.

'''Lord Zedd''': ''QUIET!'' Those Power Rangers were nothing but mere infants! You were defeated by ''children!'' You dare call yourself the Empress of Evil? You have made me very angry! Your days of control are over! There will ''be'' no other chances!

'''Rita Repulsa''': Can't we talk?!

* Stephen Franklin to {{spoiler|himself}} at the end of his walkabout on ''[[Babylon 5]]''. {{spoiler|Bonus points for it doubling as a [[Rousing Speech]].}}

* ''[[Oz]]'': Wilson Loewen to Vern Schillinger.

* ''[[iCarly]]'': In ''iDate Sam & Freddie'', Carly is being dragged along to Sam and Freddie's dates to try and prevent them from fighting. She spends the entire episode watching Sam and Freddie bickering, fighting and making her fix their problems. At the end of the episode after they start another fight on a date at a fancy restaurant, Carly snaps. She delivers a "frustrated speech" version of this trope to Sam and Freddie about how they shouldn't be dating at all.

* Nicola Murrary's first day in ''[[The Thick of It]]'' starts going downhill when she finds herself on the recieving end of one of these speeches from Malcolm Tucker- specifically, when he learns that [[Hypocrite|she's supporting the improvement of public schools while sending her daughter to a private school]].

'''Malcolm:''' Yeah, I'm getting fuckin' tinnitus, here. ([[Beat]]) Look, your crooked husband I can make go away... but your crooked husband, ''combined'' with you being worried about your underaged daughter coming home ''up the duff'' from some truanting bastard, I cannot. She goes to the comp. }}

** An episode later, Nicola fucks up: her department has lost seven months worth of files, nobody has any idea where the backup went, Nicola has succeeded in making herself look like a [[Soapbox Sadie]] [[Granola Girl]] in a conference with the press, and ultimately ended up revealing the scandal about the lost files to an on-the-record journalist. And naturally, Malcolm lets her have it:

'''Malcolm:''' ''Enough.'' E-fucking-nough. You need to learn to shut your fucking cave. Right? Today, you have laid your first big fat egg of solid fuck. You took the data loss media strategy, and you ate it with a lump of ecoli, and then you sprayed it out of your arse at three hundred miles per hour.

'''Nicola:''' I simply made a mistake-

'''Malcolm:''' 'Course you do, mate. Montessori fuckin' Rockinghorses or something. ''The Mail'' have the motherload on this, so that means that there is a way through this for us, but it entails ''you,'' M'dear, [[Break the Haughty|eating a complete concrete mixer full of humble pie.]] }}

** In a later episode, one of the more seriously dramatic ones, someone who is totally unconnected to politics (and is indeed very sympathetic and admirable) has just had his career ruined thanks to Nicola. Notably, [[Even Evil Has Standards|even Malcolm feels bad about this]], and is trying (not particularly successfully) to be genuinely gentle and nice about it. While Nicola's trying not to break down with guilt, Malcolm tells her that this PR clusterfuck is a war with the Opposition, so she's going to have to fight. She responds with a short, but very accurate, rant about how all this trouble (plus virtually every other thing that's gone wrong in the series,) is the result of people like Malcolm being obsessed with fighting and power, and that this attitude is the reason people despise politics so much. Unfortunately, Malcolm isn't even vaguely impressed; after telling her to [[Shut Up, Kirk|"Spare me your psycho-fanny"]] and telling her a series of lies about how the opposition are mocking her misfortune, [[Deal with the Devil|he makes her an offer that makes her fling her priciples to the wind and turn the aforementioned PR clusterfuck into a war with the opposition]].

* On both the British and American editions of ''[[Kitchen Nightmares]]'', Gordon Ramsay frequently gives these to the owners and chefs of restaurants he works with, but the most scathing was probably to the eponymous owner of "Sebastian's" on the American edition:

{{quote|'''Gordon:''' I'm forty years of age, and I've gone to a lot of restaurants, but I've never, ever, ever, '''ever''' met someone I believe in as little as you.}}