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The children of some of America's wealthiest, most powerful families are taken hostage by armed terrorists, and none of the government agencies seem to be able to catch up. [=FBI=] Agent Susie Dunn gets involved as the agent in charge of the hostage rescue operation. During the operation she finds out that her niece is among the children who have been kidnapped. What should be a simple open-and-shut case of the federal offense of kidnapping turns out to have far deeper undercurrents than anyone suspects.
to:
The children of some of America's wealthiest, most powerful families are taken hostage by armed terrorists, and none of the government agencies seem to be able to catch up. [=FBI=] Agent Susie Dunn gets involved as the agent in charge of the hostage rescue operation. During the operation she finds out that her niece is among the children who have been kidnapped. What should be a simple open-and-shut case OpenAndShutCase of the federal offense of kidnapping turns out to have far deeper undercurrents than anyone suspects.
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CIA Evil FBI Good is specifically about the juxtaposition of a morally good FBI organization and morally bad CIA organization. Example that don't fit the trope will be deleted or moved to existing tropes when applicable
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* CIAEvilFBIGood: The FBI discovers that the CIA chief [[spoiler:has his own personal death squad and he's not about to let anybody find out he spent $200 million on getting it up and running.]]
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Dewicked trope
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* AdultFear: The series runs on it. A whole bunch of parents find out that their kids have been kidnapped.
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This is not to be confused with the [[Series/Crisis2017 Japanese TV show broadcasted in 2017]] or the [[{{Crisis}} couple fanfics]] of the same name.
to:
This is not to be confused with the [[Series/Crisis2017 Japanese TV show broadcasted in 2017]] or the [[{{Crisis}} [[Fanfic/{{Crisis}} couple fanfics]] of the same name.
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Moving to disambiguated title.
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[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/crisiscast_3149.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''How far would you go?'']]
->''"Who's in control?"''
''Crisis'' is a dramatic series which aired on Creator/{{NBC}} as part of the 2013-14 [=TV=] season in the United States, starring Creator/RachaelTaylor and Creator/GillianAnderson. The show is created by Rand Ravich.
The children of some of America's wealthiest, most powerful families are taken hostage by armed terrorists, and none of the government agencies seem to be able to catch up. [=FBI=] Agent Susie Dunn gets involved as the agent in charge of the hostage rescue operation. During the operation she finds out that her niece is among the children who have been kidnapped. What should be a simple open-and-shut case of the federal offense of kidnapping turns out to have far deeper undercurrents than anyone suspects.
NBC has announced that Crisis will not be renewed after the season ends.
This is not to be confused with the [[Series/Crisis2017 Japanese TV show broadcasted in 2017]] or the [[{{Crisis}} couple fanfics]] of the same name.
'''Note:''' This tropes page, due to the format of the TV series, will spoil [[TheReveal plot twists]] that are revealed [[FirstEpisodeTwist in the pilot]], so exercise caution if you have not seen the show.
----
!!''Crisis'' provides examples of:
* AdoptedToTheHouse: Megan Fitch insists on taking in Sharlene Wirth after [[spoiler:the poor girl's mother is arrested in a phony bomb scare while her father is killed by a sniper.]]
* AdultFear: The series runs on it. A whole bunch of parents find out that their kids have been kidnapped.
* AmoralAfrikaner: Jakob Vries is a relatively mild example. He's the head of a South African mercenary company, and he's prepared to attack a Secret Service agent, but only to rescue his daughter. He would clearly rather be going after the kidnappers.
-->Jakob Vries: ''(in Afrikaans, after getting off the phone with Gibson)'' Watter soort man gebruik kinders?[[note]]Creator/ArnoldVosloo is actually an Afrikaner South African, and really speaks Afrikaans[[/note]] ([[EvenEvilHasStandards What kind of man uses children?]])
* AntiVillain: [[spoiler:Francis was screwed over by the CIA and [[FallGuy made to take the blame]] for an operation gone wrong, under threat of his daughter being killed.]] Revenge for this appears to be his motivation for being involved in the kidnapping.
** On the SlidingScaleOfAntiVillains he's between a Type II and Type III. He's got a huge [[ItsPersonal bone to pick]] with [[spoiler:Widener]] and is willing to do just about anything to settle that score. He does have one iron rule: a parent who completes a mission for him gets their child back.
* AvengingTheVillain: One of the kidnappers, Koz, wants to kill Finley in revenge for the latter killing his brother, who was involved in the hostage-taking. Of course, this becomes an aborted arc later on and [[spoiler: Koz eventually manipulates Finley and Dunn into killing him after he is mortally wounded]]
* BadassAndChildDuo: Finley and Anton, in the first episode.
* BadassBoast: Agent Finley gives one to the kidnappers, calling their leader "a bug" for kidnapping children and adding "You're my problem and now I'm yours" (in response to one of them asking what his problem was.)
** Francis Gibson gives him one back in kind:
-->'''Francis''': Yes, I am a bug. I've always known that about myself. But today, the bug is king.
* BigBad: Francis Gibson. [[spoiler:The CIA chief Widener and his EvilMinions are running a close second, though.]]
* BitchInSheepsClothing: Beth Ann's father Francis is first shown as a somewhat nervous man who just wants his daughter's love. Until he is shown to be the one who kidnapped the children and is using them to leverage their parents into doing whatever he wants them to.
** He later [[spoiler:just becomes an asshole when the kids are rescued and he's manipulated everything so that by taking a bullet to save the President's son, that no one will listen to Dunn's and Finley's accusations of him being the mastermind behind the plot]]
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Gibson is foiled and arrested but not for the kidnapping plot but for killing Meg's bodyguard (although his hostage-taking of Beth Ann and his VillainousBreakdown could, if she's found competent to testify, get the kidnapping charges added on), his daughter now hates him even moreso than before, Widener is about to face trial for his crimes with no hope of getting a presidential pardon to avoid culpability for his crimes, but one of the hostages is dead, the First Lady is dead, Amber is a traumatized wreck, the cyber attack has brought America to the brink of war with China and Russia, and Meg's been shot, plus will have to face kidnapping charges of her own.]]
* BlackDudeDiesFirst: {{Subverted}}. Finley gets shot about five minutes in, but survives and becomes a main character.
* BreakTheCutie: Amber, who by the end [[spoiler:has completely lost her mind due to the traumatic experiences of the kidnapping]]
* CaliforniaDoubling: The filming of the show was done in Chicago.
* ChekhovsGun: Anton Roth's photographic memory and knowledge in certain areas like science was mentioned by his father, which allowed the FBI to find evidence of the kidnapper's involvement in conducting surveillance before the mass abductions.
* CIAEvilFBIGood: The FBI discovers that the CIA chief [[spoiler:has his own personal death squad and he's not about to let anybody find out he spent $200 million on getting it up and running.]]
* ContrastMontage: Gibson starts talking about [[spoiler:all the names and pictures he sees on the BigBoard in the self-storage room that Koz took pictures of.]] Then, Dunn and Finley come across the same thing and start talking about it. The scenes flip back and forth as both the kidnapper and his pursuers arrive at essentially the same conclusion: [[spoiler:The CIA chief has suborned a program intended to create super-soldiers to create his own domestic hit squad.]]
* ConvenientlyPlacedSharpThing: In the aftermath of stacking the money, [[spoiler:Beth Ann just happens to find a sharp metal object she can use to [[EmoTeen cut herself]] in the bathroom.]]
* CrazyPrepared: Gibson. [[spoiler:He has plots within plots that ensure that no matter how things go, he'll end up coming out smelling like roses. It works until he realizes Beth Ann has discovered his true involvement in the kidnapping.]]
* TheDeterminator: Agent Finley, in the pilot. Anton even evokes the trope when the two are running for their lives in the woods.
* DisappearedDad: Amber's biological father was not mentioned [[spoiler:until "Here He Comes" with his name revealed to be Joel Schearing.]]
* TheDragon: Koz, the leader of the mercenaries, to Gibson.
* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:After getting what he wanted from General Osborn, Francis goads the poor bastard into suicide.]]
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Francis is NOT happy when one of the goons smacks a boy in the chest with his rifle, causing the kid an injury that puts him in a coma. Also, as noted above, he has one rule he has not yet broken: If a mission is completed, parents get their child back, provided he doesn't need them to do another one.
** Koz didn't like how Operation Lennox was being conducted, saying that there was a clear lack of oversight from the military. He also doesn't like backstabbing on promises on revealing a hostage's location.
** One of the parents, Jakob Vries, runs a South African mercenary organization, and is willing to use force and violence, but even he says that the kidnapper's usage of children to blackmail parents is despicably low.
* EvenTheGirlsWantHer: When discussing Amber Fitch with a friend, Beth Ann confides that even she finds Amber kind of hot.
* FamilyRelationshipSwitcheroo: Variant. Instead of TheReveal that a character is being led to believe that their mother is their older sister, the mother of [[spoiler:Amber]] gives the child to her sister, and there is no evidence that [[spoiler:Amber]] even knows of her biological mother's existence.
* FightingFingerprint: The mercenaries were revealed to be ex-commandos after Finley fought one of them, making the said comment.
* FirstEpisodeTwist: Francis is TheMole from the perspective of the kidnapped group, and the BigBad from the perspective of the kidnappers, as he masterminded the whole thing.
* HiddenAgendaVillain:
** Aside from Francis, the motives of the kidnappers are largely unknown, with the exception of Koz: he's in it for the money (he mentions a Swiss bank account he doesn't have full access to yet), but [[ItsPersonal it does become personal]] as well since Finley killed his brother. As it turns out Koz's girlfriend is the [[spoiler:police officer Alicia Dutton]] who is the tech expert among the kidnappers. So both of them are known to be in it for the money.
** [[spoiler:In the second episode, it's revealed that Hurst is working with the kidnappers because they have his daughter.]]
* HoldingHands: Amber holds Beth Ann's hand to comfort her after [[spoiler:the latter watches her dad get his finger cut off]].
* HyperAwareness: Francis exhibits at least traces of this when [[spoiler:he notes that one of the box cutters used for unpacking and repacking the money is missing a blade.]]
* JerkJock: Luke. He nearly beats Beth Ann up over a shirt and calls her "food stamps". He's also stealing meds from his classmates, either for his own use or to sell them to the classmates.
* JurisdictionFriction:
** The FBI is understandably not too keen on letting the Secret Service near the investigation, given that it appears the Secret Service agents guarding the President's son may have been suborned by the kidnappers.
** [[spoiler:A more sinister one comes up as the FBI and Secret Service start to realize the kidnappers are specifically taking aim at the CIA, to which the CIA would take quite a bit of exception.]]
* NeverMyFault: When Congressman Wirth dies from a fatal gunshot wound, Francis send outs a comminique to the public to tell them his death was the fault of CIA Security Protective Service officers. Francis in general has a huge case of this. When he kills [[spoiler: Jin Liao]] he tells the poor kid that his parents "made him[me] do it!" refusing to admit any responsibility in the act. The only one who can call him on his bullshit when he uses this line is [[spoiler: his daughter]].
* NiceGal: Amber Fitch is from a wealthy family and certainly ''looks'' the part of a classic AlphaBitch, but is actually nice, as shown when she comforts Beth Ann after [[spoiler: Francis has his finger cut off in front of the group.]]
* OhCrap: The look on Beth Ann's and Ian's faces when they realize [[spoiler:the "drone" was a trap concocted by the kidnappers to see who would disobey orders.]]
** When Special Agents Dunn & Finley realize that the kidnappings may have something to do with the CIA, the FBI orders them not to openly communicate about it since doing so can get people killed or be forced to retire.
* OutGambitted: [[spoiler:In the end, its Meg who brings Gibson's plot crashing down.]]
* SadisticChoice:
** In order to get their kids back, Frank Beckwith and Clark Froy are forced to tie up and torture a general. It's especially traumatic for Froy, who was himself a survivor of the same torture methods that they use on the general.
** In order to free their daughter, the Wirths are forced to enter the CIA headquarters. One of them is supposed to don a suicide vest and threaten to blow themselves up, while the other makes use of the ensuing distraction to slip out of the building and send a confidential file to the kidnappers. They both know that their actions could result in their deaths, but they also know that if they fail to act, their daughter will die.
** The President was forced to decide on giving up a [=CIA=] mole working in the Chinese government in return for Chinese assistance in locating a [=MSS=] network in Washington D.C. or just prepare for a shooting war alongside the Russians. The former was eventually done and it paid off to seize the cyberattack.
* SequelHook: The very last scene in the series finale is [[spoiler:a screen that says "SENDING TEXT".]] Given that Gibson's been taken into custody for good, what one last thing has he caused to happen that might yet prove a XanatosGambit?
* SofterAndSlowerCover: Listen closely to the song that plays at the end of the Pilot. Does it sound familiar? It's "Nothing Else Matters" by Music/{{Metallica}}, as sung by a choir. Granted, that song is already pretty soft and slow to begin with, but this version is barely recognizable at first listen.
* TheMole: Agent Hurst is a Secret Service agent who also happens to be working for the bad guys. Which is why the [=FBI=] doesn't want to cooperate with the Secret Service for fear that the terrorists could have more moles embedded within the service. [[spoiler:Also, Agent Dunn's sister, Meg Fitch, has been coerced into becoming one at Francis's behest. We also learn that one of Francis's mooks is a D.C. cop and has finagled her way into the FBI command post.]]
* TeacherStudentRomance: [[spoiler:There seems to be something going on between Amber and her teacher Mr. Nash.]]
* TeenPregnancy: [[spoiler:Suzie Dunn, the FBI agent on the case]], is [[spoiler:Amber]]'s real mother, who would have given birth to her at the same age that [[spoiler:Amber]] is now.
* TheNeedsOfTheMany: The President is willing to let his only son die if it means to protect the country from terrorist threats. It's subverted when he tells Special Agents Dunn and Finley that they need to rescue the kids before he's forced to do it.
* TheScapegoat: Francis wants to use Hurst to frame him as the mastermind behind the kidnapping to protect his identity from being revealed as the real mastermind.
* UndercoverAsLovers: [[spoiler:Xia Liao is a Chinese spy who has been posing as the housewife of a consulate attache for the past 20 years.]]
* UnwittingPawn: Anton's father is blackmailed into jamming the rescue drone trying to locate the villains' location, ensuring that the conflict would not be over in the first episode, with the promise of seeing his son again. In a cruel irony, Anton was the only one of the students to escape the kidnapping.
* VillainousBreakdown: [[spoiler:After spending the entire series as a calm MagnificentBastard, Gibson finally loses it when his daughter discovers he was the mastermind of the kidnapping and subsequently turns on him.]]
* WesternTerrorists: The kidnappers, who are joined by [[spoiler:at least one man from the CIA]]. They even dress like the paramilitary {{Right Wing Militia Fanatic}}s from TheNineties.
* WhamEpisode: "Best Laid Plans". [[spoiler:Gibson finally achieves his goal of destroying Widener in front of the entire world, by forcing Widener to implicitly acknowledge the death squad he created (even as he tried to deny it to the very end), ''and'' in a BatmanGambit regarding threatening to kill the President's son, manages to make himself look like a hero to the media and even half-convinces Finley that he had a last-minute change of heart.]]
* WhiteMaskOfDoom: The kidnappers wear white masks that cover their whole faces whenever they deal with the kids. [[spoiler:Ian and Amber go into the store that very likely supplied Gibson's kidnap squad and accidentally spot the masks, and a traumatized Amber uses the mask to prepare herself mentally to kill the store owner.]]
* WithUsOrAgainstUs: Francis tells this to Jonas when the latter protests him [[spoiler:poisoning the President's son.]]
-->You're either with me, or you're ''dead''.
* WorthyOpponent: Francis [[spoiler:acknowledges that Kyle's gambit of setting a fire to attract attention would have worked if he'd thought it through.]]
* WouldHurtAChild: The terrorists are willing to do this, such as smacking them on their faces or rendering one unconscious by using the [=SMG=]'s buttstock to whack their chest.
* WoundedGazelleGambit: [[spoiler:Francis allows one of the bad guys to cut off one of his fingers in front of the hostages so that his daughter won't suspect that he's actually in on the kidnapping.]]
* YouHaveFailedMe: Gibson kills a hostage when [[spoiler: his mother fails]].
----
[[caption-width-right:300:''How far would you go?'']]
->''"Who's in control?"''
''Crisis'' is a dramatic series which aired on Creator/{{NBC}} as part of the 2013-14 [=TV=] season in the United States, starring Creator/RachaelTaylor and Creator/GillianAnderson. The show is created by Rand Ravich.
The children of some of America's wealthiest, most powerful families are taken hostage by armed terrorists, and none of the government agencies seem to be able to catch up. [=FBI=] Agent Susie Dunn gets involved as the agent in charge of the hostage rescue operation. During the operation she finds out that her niece is among the children who have been kidnapped. What should be a simple open-and-shut case of the federal offense of kidnapping turns out to have far deeper undercurrents than anyone suspects.
NBC has announced that Crisis will not be renewed after the season ends.
This is not to be confused with the [[Series/Crisis2017 Japanese TV show broadcasted in 2017]] or the [[{{Crisis}} couple fanfics]] of the same name.
'''Note:''' This tropes page, due to the format of the TV series, will spoil [[TheReveal plot twists]] that are revealed [[FirstEpisodeTwist in the pilot]], so exercise caution if you have not seen the show.
----
!!''Crisis'' provides examples of:
* AdoptedToTheHouse: Megan Fitch insists on taking in Sharlene Wirth after [[spoiler:the poor girl's mother is arrested in a phony bomb scare while her father is killed by a sniper.]]
* AdultFear: The series runs on it. A whole bunch of parents find out that their kids have been kidnapped.
* AmoralAfrikaner: Jakob Vries is a relatively mild example. He's the head of a South African mercenary company, and he's prepared to attack a Secret Service agent, but only to rescue his daughter. He would clearly rather be going after the kidnappers.
-->Jakob Vries: ''(in Afrikaans, after getting off the phone with Gibson)'' Watter soort man gebruik kinders?[[note]]Creator/ArnoldVosloo is actually an Afrikaner South African, and really speaks Afrikaans[[/note]] ([[EvenEvilHasStandards What kind of man uses children?]])
* AntiVillain: [[spoiler:Francis was screwed over by the CIA and [[FallGuy made to take the blame]] for an operation gone wrong, under threat of his daughter being killed.]] Revenge for this appears to be his motivation for being involved in the kidnapping.
** On the SlidingScaleOfAntiVillains he's between a Type II and Type III. He's got a huge [[ItsPersonal bone to pick]] with [[spoiler:Widener]] and is willing to do just about anything to settle that score. He does have one iron rule: a parent who completes a mission for him gets their child back.
* AvengingTheVillain: One of the kidnappers, Koz, wants to kill Finley in revenge for the latter killing his brother, who was involved in the hostage-taking. Of course, this becomes an aborted arc later on and [[spoiler: Koz eventually manipulates Finley and Dunn into killing him after he is mortally wounded]]
* BadassAndChildDuo: Finley and Anton, in the first episode.
* BadassBoast: Agent Finley gives one to the kidnappers, calling their leader "a bug" for kidnapping children and adding "You're my problem and now I'm yours" (in response to one of them asking what his problem was.)
** Francis Gibson gives him one back in kind:
-->'''Francis''': Yes, I am a bug. I've always known that about myself. But today, the bug is king.
* BigBad: Francis Gibson. [[spoiler:The CIA chief Widener and his EvilMinions are running a close second, though.]]
* BitchInSheepsClothing: Beth Ann's father Francis is first shown as a somewhat nervous man who just wants his daughter's love. Until he is shown to be the one who kidnapped the children and is using them to leverage their parents into doing whatever he wants them to.
** He later [[spoiler:just becomes an asshole when the kids are rescued and he's manipulated everything so that by taking a bullet to save the President's son, that no one will listen to Dunn's and Finley's accusations of him being the mastermind behind the plot]]
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Gibson is foiled and arrested but not for the kidnapping plot but for killing Meg's bodyguard (although his hostage-taking of Beth Ann and his VillainousBreakdown could, if she's found competent to testify, get the kidnapping charges added on), his daughter now hates him even moreso than before, Widener is about to face trial for his crimes with no hope of getting a presidential pardon to avoid culpability for his crimes, but one of the hostages is dead, the First Lady is dead, Amber is a traumatized wreck, the cyber attack has brought America to the brink of war with China and Russia, and Meg's been shot, plus will have to face kidnapping charges of her own.]]
* BlackDudeDiesFirst: {{Subverted}}. Finley gets shot about five minutes in, but survives and becomes a main character.
* BreakTheCutie: Amber, who by the end [[spoiler:has completely lost her mind due to the traumatic experiences of the kidnapping]]
* CaliforniaDoubling: The filming of the show was done in Chicago.
* ChekhovsGun: Anton Roth's photographic memory and knowledge in certain areas like science was mentioned by his father, which allowed the FBI to find evidence of the kidnapper's involvement in conducting surveillance before the mass abductions.
* CIAEvilFBIGood: The FBI discovers that the CIA chief [[spoiler:has his own personal death squad and he's not about to let anybody find out he spent $200 million on getting it up and running.]]
* ContrastMontage: Gibson starts talking about [[spoiler:all the names and pictures he sees on the BigBoard in the self-storage room that Koz took pictures of.]] Then, Dunn and Finley come across the same thing and start talking about it. The scenes flip back and forth as both the kidnapper and his pursuers arrive at essentially the same conclusion: [[spoiler:The CIA chief has suborned a program intended to create super-soldiers to create his own domestic hit squad.]]
* ConvenientlyPlacedSharpThing: In the aftermath of stacking the money, [[spoiler:Beth Ann just happens to find a sharp metal object she can use to [[EmoTeen cut herself]] in the bathroom.]]
* CrazyPrepared: Gibson. [[spoiler:He has plots within plots that ensure that no matter how things go, he'll end up coming out smelling like roses. It works until he realizes Beth Ann has discovered his true involvement in the kidnapping.]]
* TheDeterminator: Agent Finley, in the pilot. Anton even evokes the trope when the two are running for their lives in the woods.
* DisappearedDad: Amber's biological father was not mentioned [[spoiler:until "Here He Comes" with his name revealed to be Joel Schearing.]]
* TheDragon: Koz, the leader of the mercenaries, to Gibson.
* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:After getting what he wanted from General Osborn, Francis goads the poor bastard into suicide.]]
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Francis is NOT happy when one of the goons smacks a boy in the chest with his rifle, causing the kid an injury that puts him in a coma. Also, as noted above, he has one rule he has not yet broken: If a mission is completed, parents get their child back, provided he doesn't need them to do another one.
** Koz didn't like how Operation Lennox was being conducted, saying that there was a clear lack of oversight from the military. He also doesn't like backstabbing on promises on revealing a hostage's location.
** One of the parents, Jakob Vries, runs a South African mercenary organization, and is willing to use force and violence, but even he says that the kidnapper's usage of children to blackmail parents is despicably low.
* EvenTheGirlsWantHer: When discussing Amber Fitch with a friend, Beth Ann confides that even she finds Amber kind of hot.
* FamilyRelationshipSwitcheroo: Variant. Instead of TheReveal that a character is being led to believe that their mother is their older sister, the mother of [[spoiler:Amber]] gives the child to her sister, and there is no evidence that [[spoiler:Amber]] even knows of her biological mother's existence.
* FightingFingerprint: The mercenaries were revealed to be ex-commandos after Finley fought one of them, making the said comment.
* FirstEpisodeTwist: Francis is TheMole from the perspective of the kidnapped group, and the BigBad from the perspective of the kidnappers, as he masterminded the whole thing.
* HiddenAgendaVillain:
** Aside from Francis, the motives of the kidnappers are largely unknown, with the exception of Koz: he's in it for the money (he mentions a Swiss bank account he doesn't have full access to yet), but [[ItsPersonal it does become personal]] as well since Finley killed his brother. As it turns out Koz's girlfriend is the [[spoiler:police officer Alicia Dutton]] who is the tech expert among the kidnappers. So both of them are known to be in it for the money.
** [[spoiler:In the second episode, it's revealed that Hurst is working with the kidnappers because they have his daughter.]]
* HoldingHands: Amber holds Beth Ann's hand to comfort her after [[spoiler:the latter watches her dad get his finger cut off]].
* HyperAwareness: Francis exhibits at least traces of this when [[spoiler:he notes that one of the box cutters used for unpacking and repacking the money is missing a blade.]]
* JerkJock: Luke. He nearly beats Beth Ann up over a shirt and calls her "food stamps". He's also stealing meds from his classmates, either for his own use or to sell them to the classmates.
* JurisdictionFriction:
** The FBI is understandably not too keen on letting the Secret Service near the investigation, given that it appears the Secret Service agents guarding the President's son may have been suborned by the kidnappers.
** [[spoiler:A more sinister one comes up as the FBI and Secret Service start to realize the kidnappers are specifically taking aim at the CIA, to which the CIA would take quite a bit of exception.]]
* NeverMyFault: When Congressman Wirth dies from a fatal gunshot wound, Francis send outs a comminique to the public to tell them his death was the fault of CIA Security Protective Service officers. Francis in general has a huge case of this. When he kills [[spoiler: Jin Liao]] he tells the poor kid that his parents "made him[me] do it!" refusing to admit any responsibility in the act. The only one who can call him on his bullshit when he uses this line is [[spoiler: his daughter]].
* NiceGal: Amber Fitch is from a wealthy family and certainly ''looks'' the part of a classic AlphaBitch, but is actually nice, as shown when she comforts Beth Ann after [[spoiler: Francis has his finger cut off in front of the group.]]
* OhCrap: The look on Beth Ann's and Ian's faces when they realize [[spoiler:the "drone" was a trap concocted by the kidnappers to see who would disobey orders.]]
** When Special Agents Dunn & Finley realize that the kidnappings may have something to do with the CIA, the FBI orders them not to openly communicate about it since doing so can get people killed or be forced to retire.
* OutGambitted: [[spoiler:In the end, its Meg who brings Gibson's plot crashing down.]]
* SadisticChoice:
** In order to get their kids back, Frank Beckwith and Clark Froy are forced to tie up and torture a general. It's especially traumatic for Froy, who was himself a survivor of the same torture methods that they use on the general.
** In order to free their daughter, the Wirths are forced to enter the CIA headquarters. One of them is supposed to don a suicide vest and threaten to blow themselves up, while the other makes use of the ensuing distraction to slip out of the building and send a confidential file to the kidnappers. They both know that their actions could result in their deaths, but they also know that if they fail to act, their daughter will die.
** The President was forced to decide on giving up a [=CIA=] mole working in the Chinese government in return for Chinese assistance in locating a [=MSS=] network in Washington D.C. or just prepare for a shooting war alongside the Russians. The former was eventually done and it paid off to seize the cyberattack.
* SequelHook: The very last scene in the series finale is [[spoiler:a screen that says "SENDING TEXT".]] Given that Gibson's been taken into custody for good, what one last thing has he caused to happen that might yet prove a XanatosGambit?
* SofterAndSlowerCover: Listen closely to the song that plays at the end of the Pilot. Does it sound familiar? It's "Nothing Else Matters" by Music/{{Metallica}}, as sung by a choir. Granted, that song is already pretty soft and slow to begin with, but this version is barely recognizable at first listen.
* TheMole: Agent Hurst is a Secret Service agent who also happens to be working for the bad guys. Which is why the [=FBI=] doesn't want to cooperate with the Secret Service for fear that the terrorists could have more moles embedded within the service. [[spoiler:Also, Agent Dunn's sister, Meg Fitch, has been coerced into becoming one at Francis's behest. We also learn that one of Francis's mooks is a D.C. cop and has finagled her way into the FBI command post.]]
* TeacherStudentRomance: [[spoiler:There seems to be something going on between Amber and her teacher Mr. Nash.]]
* TeenPregnancy: [[spoiler:Suzie Dunn, the FBI agent on the case]], is [[spoiler:Amber]]'s real mother, who would have given birth to her at the same age that [[spoiler:Amber]] is now.
* TheNeedsOfTheMany: The President is willing to let his only son die if it means to protect the country from terrorist threats. It's subverted when he tells Special Agents Dunn and Finley that they need to rescue the kids before he's forced to do it.
* TheScapegoat: Francis wants to use Hurst to frame him as the mastermind behind the kidnapping to protect his identity from being revealed as the real mastermind.
* UndercoverAsLovers: [[spoiler:Xia Liao is a Chinese spy who has been posing as the housewife of a consulate attache for the past 20 years.]]
* UnwittingPawn: Anton's father is blackmailed into jamming the rescue drone trying to locate the villains' location, ensuring that the conflict would not be over in the first episode, with the promise of seeing his son again. In a cruel irony, Anton was the only one of the students to escape the kidnapping.
* VillainousBreakdown: [[spoiler:After spending the entire series as a calm MagnificentBastard, Gibson finally loses it when his daughter discovers he was the mastermind of the kidnapping and subsequently turns on him.]]
* WesternTerrorists: The kidnappers, who are joined by [[spoiler:at least one man from the CIA]]. They even dress like the paramilitary {{Right Wing Militia Fanatic}}s from TheNineties.
* WhamEpisode: "Best Laid Plans". [[spoiler:Gibson finally achieves his goal of destroying Widener in front of the entire world, by forcing Widener to implicitly acknowledge the death squad he created (even as he tried to deny it to the very end), ''and'' in a BatmanGambit regarding threatening to kill the President's son, manages to make himself look like a hero to the media and even half-convinces Finley that he had a last-minute change of heart.]]
* WhiteMaskOfDoom: The kidnappers wear white masks that cover their whole faces whenever they deal with the kids. [[spoiler:Ian and Amber go into the store that very likely supplied Gibson's kidnap squad and accidentally spot the masks, and a traumatized Amber uses the mask to prepare herself mentally to kill the store owner.]]
* WithUsOrAgainstUs: Francis tells this to Jonas when the latter protests him [[spoiler:poisoning the President's son.]]
-->You're either with me, or you're ''dead''.
* WorthyOpponent: Francis [[spoiler:acknowledges that Kyle's gambit of setting a fire to attract attention would have worked if he'd thought it through.]]
* WouldHurtAChild: The terrorists are willing to do this, such as smacking them on their faces or rendering one unconscious by using the [=SMG=]'s buttstock to whack their chest.
* WoundedGazelleGambit: [[spoiler:Francis allows one of the bad guys to cut off one of his fingers in front of the hostages so that his daughter won't suspect that he's actually in on the kidnapping.]]
* YouHaveFailedMe: Gibson kills a hostage when [[spoiler: his mother fails]].
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