I Have Your Wife: Difference between revisions

* After playing it straight multiple times, there is a spot of [[Lampshade Hanging]] on ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]''. Harmony claims to have the perfect plan to defeat Buffy, but when Spike outlines the above plan as a guess, she steals the idea. Of course, it fails miserably.

* In the ''[[Burn Notice]]'' episode "End Run", Michael is controlled by threats against his brother who, ironically, is completely unaware of his danger {{spoiler|right up until Brennen ''shoots him''.}}

* Neatly averted in the ''[[Due South]]'' episode "The Vault". Ray and Fraser are trapped in a vault with armed robbers outside. The robbers capture Ray's sister Francesca, and call a phone located inside the vault. They inform the heroes that they have Francesca, and Fraser immediately responds by disabling the phone before the robbers have a chance make any demands. Fraser correctly reasons that if the robbers cannot communicate with them, they have no way to threaten them and no reason to harm Francesca.

* At the end of the miniseries ''[[Kill Point]]'', [[Worthy Opponent]] Mr. Wolf {{spoiler|takes negotiator Horst Cali's wife hostage to force him to slip Wolf and his team out of the police standoff. To his credit, Wolf doesn't seem happy to do it and, when one of his men decides not to let her go, he gives Cali a gun and covering fire to go to her rescue}}.

* In the ''[[Lost]]'' episode "The Hunting Party", after Jack tells Kate to stay behind while he, Sawyer and Locke search for Michael, she follows them and gets captured by the Others. Jack was not too happy.

** Also, the Mexican drug cartel's have Gibbs' {{spoiler|heterosexual life partner, Franks}}.

* In the current third season of ''[[Prison Break]]'', [[The Government|the Company]] [[blackmail]]s the brothers into working for them by kidnapping the remaining people they care about. When the seemingly impossible task set by the villains forces the brothers to make a desperate attempt at a rescue, one of the captives is {{spoiler|[[Anyone Can Die|executed]]}} as an object lesson.

* This is subverted in an episode of ''[[Sharpe]]'', when a villainous Frenchman tells his more noble countryman he won't plead for the release of his English wife. Sharpe promptly walks over and helps the English wife mount a horse behind her husband.

* In the first season finale of ''[[Los Simuladores]]'', their leader Santos is kidnapped in exchange for helping a mob boss being set free.

* On ''[[The X-Files]]'', Mulder makes it very clear very early on in the series that the only way to hurt him is to hurt Scully, and that he'll [[Always Save the Girl|go to great lengths to get her back.]] So, Scully falls victim to this quite a lot. But as the bad guys quickly figure out, this never has the desired effect. If anything, it makes Mulder even more resistant to dealing with them and he [[Took a Third Option|gets her back his way.]] Not to mention the [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] that goes along with this. This trope makes up about half of the 1998 movie ''Fight the Future.''

** It totally works the other way around, too. And if anything, Scully is even ''more'' frightening when Mulder is taken. In season 8, Mulder is missing and she unleashes hell on whoever gets in her way. Never mind that she's pregnant. It takes Skinner pointing out that Mulder wouldn't want her to risk her life and the baby's to get her even take a breath.

* This trope is the reason why the human rights commission agent in ''[[NCIS: Los Angeles]]'' uncharacteristically attempted to kill the defected sister of the Sudanese dictator in transit before she could testify against her brother: A French CEO kidnapped his wife and daughter, and he threatened to have them killed if he didn't assassinate her.

* Done by the villain in the ''[[Rizzoli and Isles]]'' episode "My Own Worst Enemy" is order to ensure the cooperation of an importer.

 

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