My Own Worst Enemy

• Main
• YMMV
• WMG
• Wikipedia
• All Subpages
• Create New

Spy Fiction television show. Manchurian Agent Edward Albright allowed his agency to create a Split Personality in his head at the age of 19. Edward was officially dead, while "Henry Spivey" existed, married, had two kids and worked a normal job. Every time Henry goes on a business trip, Edward is revived, where he lives the secret agent lifestyle, then he "goes back to sleep". The place where Henry works maintains more than one Manchurian Agent with a double lifestyle.

Things get tricky when the programming appears to break down and Henry awakens in the middle of Edward's secret mission. He eventually finds out that he's just a creation and Edward is the real thing.

Tropes used in My Own Worst Enemy include:

• The Big Board: The briefing room monitor.
• Character Blog: Okay, not exactly a blog, but the Dangerous Workplace has a website.
• Cliff Hanger: The series ends on a particularly nasty set of cliffhangers that will likely never be resolved. The glitch that allowed Henry to wake up during Edward's missions is ready to be fixed, and Henry is ready to be more or less "put to sleep" for good. On their way to fix the glitch, the programmer that will carry it out is suddenly revealed to be dead, and the agency itself goes into a blackout. All of this on top of Raymond's wife catching him murdering someone. Doesn't that just suck.
• Da Chief: Mavis to Edward/Henry, Trumbull to Mavis
• Elaborate Underground Base: and a finely furnished one, at that.
• Everything Is Online: Traffic cams, security footage, voicemails...
• First-Name Basis Henry, Mavis (Heller), Tony, Raymond
• Fun with Acronyms: or in this case, anagrams. AJ Sun = JANUS
• Gollum Made Me Do It
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Henry doesn't smoke, but Edward does.
• Government Agency of Fiction: JANUS
• The Great Politics Mess-Up: Apparently in the MOWE-verse, the KGB is alive and well despite the collapse of the Soviet Union.
• Hyde Plays Jekyll
• I Have Your Wife: naturally, or at least the family is threatened
• In Medias Res: Practically all of the episode openings.
• Jekyll and Hyde (the entire plot of the show) and Meaningful Name (Edward Hyde and Henry Jekyll. One might argue that "Spivey" is a hint towards spying as well.) In a rather clever twist on the trope, the "Hyde" personality is the original and the "Jekyll" personality is an artificial construct.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: In the case of terminating an operative, all other instances it's Laser Guided Memories.
• Last-Name Basis: (Alistair) Trumbull, Dr.(Norah) Skinner
• Let's Have Another Baby: Henry and Mary.
• Magical Database: And how. Tony can get his hands on practically anything.
• The Men in Black: Very much so to civilians and other agencies, even if they don't dress the part.
• No Name Given: Those two Systems Management guys seen flanking Dr. Skinner.
• Oddly Small Organization: While it's implied that JANUS has other locations and offices, the only people ever seen working are Mavis, Tony, Edward, Raymond, Dr. Skinner and those guys from Systems Management. The only personification of a higher official seen is Trumbull.
• Playing Against Type: Former Nickelodeon game show host and sitcom star Mike O'Malley as agent Raymond Carter. As Tom, Raymond's alter ego, he plays the dad type; but as Raymond, you'd never expect a sitcom dad to kick enemy butt.
• Product Placement: Obvious in the case of Henry's Traverse and Edward's Camaro, mostly subtle with AJ Sun/JANUS' Dell setups.
• Spell My Name with an "S": JANUS is pronounced in-show as jay-nuss as opposed to the more common jah-nuss.
• Spy From Weights and Measures: JANUS' primary cover is that of AJ Sun, a financial consulting company, and their HQ under its skyscraper. This is additionally subverted in the fact that JANUS' Manchurian Agents don't follow that cover while on missions, only referring themselves to other authorities as "US Intelligence".
• Sigil Spam: Slightly subverted in the fact that JANUS is never given an insignia, but a recurring hexagon motif is associated with them in too many places to count from AJ Sun's helipad to the base's ceiling and briefing desk.
• Inner Dialogue (via video and writing on the hand)
• Tomato in the Mirror: Henry has bouts of dealing with this in the early episodes.
• Wall of Weapons: Conveniently stashed in Edward's hideout.
• Viewer-Friendly Interface: The briefing room monitor, Tony's "billion dollar mainframe" and the memory machine.
• You Said You Would Let Them Go and I Lied (of course)