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Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: Difference between revisions
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** Yet another episode featured [[Jeffrey Combs]]. As a [[Re-Animator|coroner]]. He was barely even a suspect.
** [[Zachary Quinto]] was on an episode as a mechanic before ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' or ''[[Star Trek]]''. {{spoiler|He didn't do it.}}
** CSI is very guilty of casting actors that are go-to TV bad guys as the eventual killer. It's pretty simple to pick out whodunnit if you've watched enough TV (especially 90's dramas like the X-Files). More than once they've cast two "that guy" actors in an episode, and more likely then not they both did it.
** Pretty much everyone who was in any way interested in ''[[iCarly]]'', knew that Nathan Kress' appearance on CSI was as a bad guy.
** Averted again in "Rashomama" when Ray Wise, who has played [[Twin Peaks|a killer]] and [[Reaper|the Devil himself]] was only a suspect for a short time. The same episode also had soap opera actress Rachel Miner and [[Big Love]] star Amanda Seyfried. Which, if either of them did it? Well, {{spoiler|they both participated, with help from two others.}}
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* ''[[CSI: NY]]'':
** Subverted in an episode features a case of a guy who ''looks'' like retired tennis champ John McEnroe and then brings the man himself on to clear things up.
** Another episode featured "magician" and professional poser, Criss Angel. When the team suspected him early on, it seemed obvious he wouldn't be the killer. However, by the end of the episode, he had performed almost all of his signature tricks. Oh, and killed someone.
** Also played with in an episode that had Kid Rock being suspected of killing an employee who leaked his yet-to-be-released album. {{spoiler|He didn't do it, the leak was a [[Viral Marketing]] ploy orchestrated by him.}}
** "Second Chances" had 2 straight, 1 subversion, 1 aversion - It looked like Pat Monaghan from Train was the killer - it was his car that ran over the vic. {{spoiler|It was his girlfriend and the vic's girlfriend (Kim Kardashian and Vanessa Minnillo) taking drug users off the street and insuring them for 2 years, then killing them for the life insurance, Pat was due to be the next vic}} they also interviewed La La Vazquez as a suspect, wasn't her.
* ''[[Numb3rs]]'' often did this.
** One episode featured two well-known actors. Of course, they had ''both'' done it.
** Exception: an episode with Wil Wheaton (again) and Christopher Lloyd. Neither did it.
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** There were [[Homicide: Life On the Street|Reed Diamond]] {{spoiler|he did it}} in the season 7 episode ''Forensics'', [[JAG|Steven]] [[Desperate Housewives|Culp]] {{spoiler|who also did it}} in the episode ''Jurisprudence'', and [[Eli Stone|Loretta Devine]] in ''Soul'', {{spoiler|and yes, she did it too}}, among others.
** Another episode had {{spoiler|Barry Bostwick}} as the killer. Also doubles as [[Stunt Casting]], as {{spoiler|the original murder took place after a midnight showing of ''[[The Rocky Horror Picture Show]]'' in the late 70s.}}
** As soon as Daniel Baldwin showed up, you just ''knew'' he was the perp. He was so effective in this role, he stayed on for 7 episodes.
* Dylan Baker was accused of his wife's murder in an episode of ''[[The Good Wife]]'' but he was acquitted. {{spoiler|At the end, he reveals he ''did'' do it.}}
* ''[[Medium]]'':
** Ironically, an episode of it ''seems'' like [[Homicide: Life On the Street|Reed Diamond]] did it, but in the end Allison finds out that the 'victim' is still alive and a few years younger than in her dreams, so she understands he ''might'' do it, despite being anything but a killer to this point, and warns him so hopefully he won't do it.
** [[Di RT|Will McCormack]] raped Devalos' daughter and others.
** [[That '70s Show|Donna]] was a serial killer of sex offenders who ended up killing an undercover cop.
* ''[[Monk]]'':
** "Mr. Monk and the Girl who Cried Wolf" featured Emma Caufield (the former vengeance demon Anya from ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'') as Sharona's creative writing teacher. She hadn't "done it" yet, but she was about to.
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* Even ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]'' is guilty of this, in a roundabout way. {{spoiler|Lucy Lawless and Dean Stockwell both appeared as supposedly one-shot characters before being outed as Cylons.}}
** In the case of the 1st mentioned character, the reveal was at the end of the initial appearance. The 2nd wasn't actually revealed until a subsequent appearance.
* ''[[The West Wing]]'' had Glenn Close show up during a search for a Supreme Court Justice.
** Semi-subversion in that Close's character was up against Bill Fichtner for the job. The twist was that the White House staff found a way to {{spoiler|hire both of them}}.
* One episode of ''[[Burn Notice]]'' had Lucy Lawless play a grieving woman looking for her husband. {{spoiler|...until about halfway through the episode when she's revealed to be a spy looking to kill the man Michael unwittingly guided her to.}}
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** In another episode, the team got a lead on their case from a bartender played by Claudia Black. Guess who did it?
* ''[[Life On Mars]]'' did this a ''lot''; then again, the week's crime case was usually the episode's least important plot.
* ''[[Lie to Me (TV series)|Lie to Me]]'' had [[Oz|Beecher]] as the perp in the second season finale.
* Averted in ''[[The Closer]]'', [[Star Trek: Enterprise|Connor Trinneer]] plays one of the suspects but is quickly cleared within the first scene he appears in.
* ''[[The Inside]]'' was pretty bad about this for its short run. [[Lost|William Mapother]], [[Kill Bill|Michael Bowen]] [[Aliens|Jenette Goldstein]], [[Die Hard|Hart Boecher]] and [[Buffy the Vampire Slayer|Amber Benson]].... {{spoiler|Averted in one episode, where master of scary characters [[Damages|Zeljko]] [[24|Mother]] [[Oz|Frakking]] [[Heroes (TV series)|Ivanek]] is an innocent nice guy who just doesn't know how to defend himself properly. The killer? [[iCarly|Jeanette McCurdy]].}}
* ''[[Castle]]'' did this once or twice, with [[Scrubs|Carla]] starring as the perp in one episode, and another person playing a... suspect (but not the killer) in another. (Names and ep. titles would be appreciated)
** Also been subverted quite a bit as [[Star Trek: Voyager|Robert Picardo]], Debi Mazar, [[The Simpsons|Dan Castellaneta]] and [[Pulp Fiction|Phil LaMarr]] have all popped up as being allies rather than killers.
** Robert Picardo was also in an episode of ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'' as a detective. He hadn't committed any crimes there either. Though [[Star Trek: Voyager|Ethan Phillips]] also appeared and WAS the guilty party.
** "One Man's Treasure": You got [[Entourage|Mrs. Ari]] and [[Mad Men|Miss Farrell]] over the corpse of a two-timer. So one of them did it, right? Nope, turns out to be [[Buffy the Vampire Slayer|Principal Wood]], only slightly unrelated to his two-timingness.
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* ''[[Homicide: Life On the Street]]'' was usually pretty good at averting this trope... whenever a famous guest star appeared, he/she was either a relative of the victim (like [[Robin Williams]], [[Mystic River|Marcia Gay Harden]] or [[Lost|Terry O'Quinn]]), or his identity as the killer was made intentionally clear from the beginning and the episode actually focused on the detectives' attempt to ''prove'' that he was guilty (like [[The Lord of the Rings (film)|Elijah Wood]], [[Reservoir Dogs|Steve Buscemi]] or [[Lethal Weapon 4|Chris Rock]]).
* The episode "Requiem" of the [[So OK Its Average|not so overwhelming]] British series [[Anna Lee]] featured [[Whose Line Is It Anyway?|Greg Proops, who was just gaining fame in GB]], as a slimy music journalist. Guess who was the bad guy. {{spoiler|He didn't kill the victim, but drove her to suicide}}
* ''[[Lost]]'' loves to play around with this. One good example is the actor [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0006535/ Doug Hutchison], most famous for his role as the sadistic guard in ''[[The Green Mile]]''. He briefly appears in a season 3 episode. Then he briefly appears in a season 4 episode. Then he plays a central role in five episodes in season 5.
* Every single god damn episode of the ''[[The Mentalist]]''. If the actor is familiar but playing a bit role, automatically expect them to be the murderer or the mastermind of the murder no matter how unlikely. 9 times out of 10, you'll be right.
* In the ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' episode "Clap Your Hands If You Believe...", a red flag went up as soon as Robert Picardo came on screen, acting all lame and insignificant. Obviously, he was the villain.
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* In ''[[Hot in Cleveland]],'' [[Betty White]] is told of a murder, and when she says "Why are you telling me that?" the person telling her says that she always figures out who the killer is in ''[[CSI]]'' in the first three minutes. Betty White says that it's due to knowing who the guest stars were - you don't hire [[Tony Danza]] to play "a hotel concierge with three lines."
* [[William Atherton]] guest stars in a 1985 episode of ''[[Murder, She Wrote]]''. {{spoiler|[[Typecasting|Unsurprisingly]], he did it.}}
* The [[Nero Wolfe]] series played with, or possibly completely inverted, this trope: The supporting cast stayed mostly the same from episode to episode, but the actors played different roles in different stories - so while you can nearly always recognise "the guy" (or "the gal"), it's of no use to you in jumping to the solution of the case.
* ''[[Carnivale]]'': The plot in Babylon city involved the murder of one Carnie and the others looking for the murderer among the Babylonians. They eventually decided to exact their justice in John Hannah's character (''The Mummy; Sliding Doors''). {{spoiler|Hannah then confesses.}}
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== Western Animation ==
* Lampshaded on ''[[The Simpsons]]'':
{{quote|Grampa: I say we call Matlock. He'll find the culprit. It's probably that evil Gavin MacLeod or George "Goober" Lindsay.}}
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