Special Unit 2
Television series that aired on UPN and followed Nick O'Malley (Michael Landes) and Kate Benson (Alexondra Lee), two Chicago detectives who work for the titular agency, which is charged with dealing with supernatural monsters called "Links."
Lasted only 2 seasons. Running from April, 2001 to February, 2002. A total of 19 episodes.
Tropes used in Special Unit 2 include:
- Abnormal Ammo: Nick (after blowing up a building with one shot from his service-issue pistol): "Red Bullets kick ass!"
- Agent Mulder: Kate, who insisted she saw monsters as a kid well into adulthood.
- It's implied that everyone at SU2 was this in their respective lives/careers before joining up.
- Aliens and Monsters
- All Myths Are True: Except vampires.
- Anti-Hero: Nick is a type 4; he enjoys killing/tormenting links and even likes intimidating humans on occasion, but still has some baseline heroism.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: See above for a traditional example. In-universe, everyone who doesn't work at SU2 displays this.
- Badass Normal: Nick, Kate. They have guns and guts, that's it.
- Big Bad: The unnamed, former king of the Links was shaping up to be this before the series was cancelled.
- Boxed Crook: Carl works for SU2 because he is a thief and a bad one.
- By-The-Book Cop: Kate was this in Muggle police and contrasts Nick, who has more experience in SU2. In a inversion of the usual, she's Ensign Newbie and gradually becomes more like as time passed.
- Camp
- City of Adventure: Chicago
- The Corpse Stops Here
- Cowboy Cop: Nick who has little regard for rules. Not that there are that many regarding links but still...
- Da Chief: Captain Page
- The Danza: Richard Gant as Captain Richard Page, Sean Whalen as Sean, Jonathan Togo as Sean's replacement Jonathan.
- Deadpan Snarker
- The Face: Carl is the SU2 liason to the link underworld. He's not personable or friendly to say the least but he does have useful connections and considering other links want nothing to do with SU2 he's a step up.
- Fantasy Kitchen Sink
- Dead Little Sister: Nick's former partner/lover.
- Death by Sex: Subverted in "The Depths."
- Hey, It's That Guy!:
- Before he was Superman, Tom Welling had a small guest appearance in "The Depths."
- John de Lancie played the all-powerful, unnamed Link that once ruled them all.
- Hot Scientist
- The Hunter: The Bogeyman in "The Invisible."
- I Know Your True Name: According to Jonathan's research, knowing the name of the former king of the Links will give one power over him. Needless to say, the unnamed Link kept it underwraps.
- If Jesus, Then Aliens
- Immune to Bullets
- Interspecies Romance
- Jack the Ripper: "The Beast"
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Nick and Carl in spades, though the latter veers into Jerkass fairly often.
- Literal Genie
- Master of Illusion: One featured Link, the Chameleon, has the ability to read a person's mind and disguise itself as a familiar face. This allows it to kill its prey and elude capture with far more ease than others.
- Mister Exposition: Captain Page, Sean, Jonathan.
- Monster of the Week
- No One Could Survive That: At the end of "The Eve," Nick and Kate fire on the unnamed Link, seemingly vaporizing him. However, since no one knows his biology, they have no idea what his remains would be, assuming he left any. After Kate suggests it would be impossible for this Link to have survived, Captain Page points out the grim reality of SU2 that anything is possible.
- Noodle Incident
- Our Dragons Are Different
- Our Monsters Are Different
- Our Gnomes Are Weirder
- Pointy Ears
- Precision F-Strike: In "The Eve," Carl sarcastically tells the officers "Maybe you should re-named yourselves FU2."
- Psychic-Assisted Suicide
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Captain Page
- Screwed by the Network: During Season 2, the series was initially given a pick-up for a full season. However, when a change in leadership occurred, UPN rescinded the order.
- The Smart Guy: Sean in Season 1, Jonathan in Season 2.
- Snarky Non-Human Sidekick: Carl
- Spy From Weights and Measures
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Jonathan in Season 2.
- They Walk Among Us
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Nick and Carl
- Weirdness Censor
- Who You Gonna Call?
- X Meets Y: The X-Files meets Ghostbusters.
- Your Vampires Suck: Da Chief dismisses their existence entirely as "the silliest thing I ever heard." See also Take That to guess what.