History Series / Hustle

* PositiveDiscrimination: Straight examples abound in the early seasons (you have to wait until season 4 for a non-white mark), but eventually the series begins to avert it:
** Almost everyone they con is white. They con an Indian guy in "Picture Perfect", but then realize that he's not that bad and that they've put his entire factory out of work, so they give him money from another con. In "The Lesson", they're conning an African dictator (and obvious Robert Mugabe [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed parallel]]) but then [[spoiler: it turns out that he was Mickey in disguise, and they're actually conning somebody else]]. The episode "A Bollywood Dream" has them conning an Indian sweatshop owner, but [[spoiler: he completely [[HeelRealization reforms himself]], so they can't finish the con]].
** They do con a Japanese businessman at the start of "Conning the Artists". Shortly after pulling this con though the team themselves get [[spoiler: conned by one of his (poorly treated) workers and his little sister.]]
** At the beginning of series 6 episode 1, they con a rich Arab.
** In series 7 they've conned a woman of mixed race (episode 2), an Iranian man [[spoiler: although it turns out the crew themselves were the marks in this scheme]](episode 4), and a black man (episode 5).
** In season 8 episode 1 they con a black man again. In season 8 episode 3, their mark is a mixed-race woman [[spoiler: but it turns out that she was in fact working alongside the crew and was a fellow grifter: the actual mark was the corrupt (white) police officer DI Fisk]]

* HairTriggerTemper: A few of the marks, but Carlton Wood takes it UpToEleven in season 5 - he routinely flips out on his staff and even his own partner at the drop of a hat. [[spoiler: Mickey even claims that the only reason he kept going with the con in "The Road Less Traveled" even though he'd already got Carlton's £1 million the previous day was so he could see Carlton's VillainousBreakdown at the end.]]

* SerialEscalation: In Season 1, £500k is a significant sum of money, worthy of a season-ending 'big con'. By the time Seasons 6-7 come around, half a million is just an average score from a standard episode. And then of course, in the series finale in Season 8 it gets turned [[UpToEleven Up To Eleven]] as the team go for a truly monstrous score - £10 million, enough to walk away for good.

* FramingTheGuiltyParty: Has been both used by and used against the team, most commonly by corrupt cops who attempted to frame the team for other crimes, such as possessing drugs, to force them to help with another scam, but in those cases the team have always managed to turn the tables and have the cops accused of whatever crime they intended to frame the team for.

** ** [[spoiler:Trevor from "The Lesson". He has a bad habit of conning poor and confused widows and tries to double-cross the team, who proceed to con him into paying a small fortune of his own money into their fake con. The only thing is that in order to embolden Trevor, they also conned a banker Stacie had a grudge against into buying his "worthless" land to give him more money to spend and lose along with whatever the bank gave him. The thing is though, [[FreezeFrameBonus pausing right when Trevor is getting the bank's check]] shows that the amount of money the bank paid him was ''more'' than the team ended up conning him out of, meaning that he didn't lose any of the money he had stashed up and still got to keep a large proportion of what the bank paid him. The bank paid Trevor £450,000 for his plot of land, and Danny's crew then take £150,000 off him. At the end of the episode, Trevor is therefore £300,000 up on where he started: in fact he makes more money than the Hustle crew! The gang actually set him up to profit without realizing it, although they did at least humiliate the guy, make him realize that he was pissing off the big con men with his grift and take his trailer.]]

Not to be confused with the 1975 neo-noir film starring Creator/BurtReynolds, the Creator/{{ESPN}} original miniseries about Pete "Charlie Hustle" Rose, [[Wrestling/FightingOperaHUSTLE the Japanese comedy-oriented wrestling promotion]], or [[Film/{{Hustle}} the 2022 movie starring Adam Sandler]].

Not to be confused with the 1975 neo-noir film starring Creator/BurtReynolds, the Creator/{{ESPN}} original miniseries about Pete "Charlie Hustle" Rose, or [[Wrestling/FightingOperaHUSTLE the Japanese comedy-oriented wrestling promotion]].

* CelebrityResemblance: Emma bears a striking resemblance to ''Music/KylieMinogue''. This comes in handy for when a mark wants to meet her. It's possible this was a respnse to these [[https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/hustle-season-5-episode-1-review/ two]] [[https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/hustle-season-5-episode-2-review/ reviews]], which actually noted Kelly Adams' physical and vocal resemblance to Kylie a full year before that particular episode aired!

* TheDogWasTheMastermind: In the episode "Conning the Artists" [[spoiler: the honour killing was all an elaborate cover for a con a 10 year old girl came up with so her and her brother could escape their landlord/boss who the team had conned that very week. With the money the team took from him and their new mark's money]]

* HangingJudge: Mr Justice Kent, the mark in "Lest Ye Be Judged" is infamous for harsh sentences and a sense of callousness towards the defendants on his dock afterwards. Judge Stanley Meade (a micro season 7 mark) is also mentioned as saying grifters should be drawn and quartered, although he's not a criminal court judge. Both men are also willing to bend the law to fatten their own checkbooks and (in Meade's case) see prostitutes.

* INeedAFreakingDrink: Ash and Sean separately in "Picasso Fingerpainting" - Sean after it's implied he has sex with the elderly forger they needed information from, Ash after he realises the real Picasso they need to secure Mickey's freedom is long gone and they're all probably going to get killed as a result.

* ItsASmallNetAfterAll: Ash is able to set up professional-looking websites for fake companies in a matter of hours. Possibly justified as this is his job as the team's fixer, and he probably keeps a few dummy sites operating at all times that he can quickly customize. However, in "Gold Mine", he is seemingly able to get a site up and running in the time it takes Danny to spin the tale to the mark. And he always manages to get the sites to show up near the top of any search the mark does. Also, most of their professional marks (bankers, businesspeople and so on) would likely also read/double-check in reputable news websites, not just go on the word of some random website they had never heard of before.

* KansasCityShuffle: Done in "Clearence From a Deal". The gang have been challenged by a supposedly unconable casino owner, Marcus Wendell (whose ancestors had ruined Albie's ancestor), to play a game of roulette on his family's wheel (which unbeknownest to Wendell was rigged and could be manipulated using a key which Albie's ancestor had pickpocketed from Wendell's). However, knowing that Wendell was expecting the gang to try and con him, they set up a plan where they sold him a rigged copy of the wheel and let him find out so that he would think he'd beaten them.
* KarmaHoudini: Though the series thrives on seeing bad people get what's comg to them, in a strange way some marks do actually end up being both conned and simultaneously end up better off due to not realizing they've been conned.

** ** [[spoiler:Trevor from "The Lesson". He has a bad habit of conning poor and confused widows and tries to double-cross the team, who proceed to con him into paying a small fortune of his own money into their fake con. The only thing is that in order to embolden Trevor, they also conned a banker Stacie had a grudge against into buying his "worthless" land to give him more money to spend and loose along with whatever the bank gave him. The thing is though, [[FreezeFrameBonus pausing right when Trevor is getting the bank's check]] shows that the amount of money the bank paid him was ''more'' than the team ended up conning him out of, meaning that he didn't lose any of the money he had stashed up and still got to keep a large proportion of what the bank paid him. The bank paid Trevor £450,000 for his plot of land, and Danny's crew then take £150,000 off him. At the end of the episode, Trevor is therefore £300,000 up on where he started: in fact he makes more money than the Hustle crew! The gang actually set him up to profit without realizing it, although they did at least humiliate the guy, make him realize that he was pissing off the big con men with his grift and take his trailer.]]

** Pinky Byrne from "The Diamond Seeker". A tracer hired to find diamonds, he's a ruthless, determined, nasty piece of work. He beats a man and his son into hospital and in his backstory is renowned for cuttting off a grass's wedding tackle and making him eat it. According to Mickey, he persuaded a man to work for him by kidnapping his son, pouring petrol on him and making him speak to his father on the phone while smoking a cigarette. In a light-hearted series, he stands out as the most sinister character - a fence describes him [[{{Determinator}} as making the Terminator look like a quitter]].

* MeaningfulBackgroundEvent: Oftentimes we'll see Ash working on a gizmo or Albert making a phonecall that seemingly bears no relation to the plot. Until the end, when it turns out it was vital to the Hustlers' latest success.

* NewOldFlame: Emma encounters a never-previously mentioned childhood swwetheart named Joe Ryan, who is everything the grifters are not, in "Old Sparks Come New".

* ParentalAbandonment: Sean and Emma - their father walked out when they were little, then their mother died and they went into care.

* PasswordSlotMachine: Ash uses a gadget that does to crack the four digit security code to the employee entrance at a bank in "The Hush Heist".

*** It's arguable that she willingly does this though - she does actually state/threaten that she could go back on her word and arrest the team for the original scam anyway, but Mickey points out that if she did this, then she would have to reveal to her superior officers that she cut an unauthorised deal with con artists in order to clean up the department: exactly the sort of thing she was brought in to end.

* ScoundrelCode: Often referred to as the 'Grifter's Code' - though there's a lot of hints Mickey, Albert and Ash are making it up as they go along, especially to shut Danny up.

** [[spoiler:Trevor from "The Lesson". He has a bad habit of conning poor and confused widows and tries to double-cross the team, who proceed to con him into paying a small fortune of his own money into their fake con. The only thing is that in order to embolden Trevor, they also conned a banker Stacie had a grudge against into buying his "worthless" land to give him more money to spend and loose along with whatever the bank gave him. The thing is though, [[FreezeFrameBonus pausing right when Trevor is getting the bank's check]] shows that the amount of money the bank paid him was ''more'' than the team ended up conning him out of, meaning that he didn't lose any of the money he had stashed up and still got to keep a large proportion of what the bank paid him. The bank paid Trevor £450,000 for his plot of land, and Danny's crew then take £150,000 off him. At the end of the episode, Trevor is therefore £300,000 up on where he started: in fact he makes more money than the Hustle crew! The gang actually set him up to profit without realizing it, although they did at least humiliate the guy, make him realize that he was pissing off the big con men with his grift and take his trailer.]].

** Of course, it could just be that the mark didn't have access to a very good genetics lab.
*** Unlikely though given the mark explicitly states he has to be absolutely certain before publishing the story, so it is unlikely he would have scrimped on lab tests.

* AbsenteeActor: Mickey is absent for season four and Albert doesn't appear in "New Recruits". The only character to appear in every episode is Ash.

** There's also the events of "The Hush Heist" and "Curiosity Caught the Kat", both of which show that if the team have no advance warning the police are gunning for them it's fairly easy for them to be caught red-handed - both result in the crew being forced into essentially working for the cops/[=MI6=] with the threat of being jailed if they don't.

** In a season eight episode, Jodie Prenger plays a friend of the gang who winds up in hospital after using a dodgy diet product sold by that episode's marks. Before her acting career took off, Prenger won the UK version of ''Series/TheBiggestLoser'' and subsequently worked as a writer on diet issues.

* ArtisticLicenceBiology: In one episode the gang has to prove Albert is the son of Queen Mother. To do that they switch a sample of her DNA for his. Not only does no one notice that the DNA is identical, they fail to notice it's the wrong sex. Not to mention the fact that you cannot examine DNA with a basic light microscope, which is what the lab is shown to be using.

* AsideGlance: Every main character, on a fairly regular basis, except for Billy (in fact, it happens very rarely in Series 4 at all). One of the marks manages it in a season 3 episode whe he slyly reveals in the middle of a musical sequence that his LaserGuidedAmnesia has lifted and he remembers who the team are.

* AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther: While Mickey and Danny fight like cat and dog a lot of the time, "The Henderson Challenge" shows both men's persepctives; Mickey feels Danny will eventually succeed him the way he did Albert and wants him to be ready when he does, with his frustration coming from Danny's constantly pushing the boundaries before he's ready. For his part, Danny desperately wants Mickey to respect him and rushes into things to impress his leader. This trope comes into play at episode's end; while their motives never come out, the two share a genuine moment of affection and mutual respect when the grifting challenge is over.

** One guy mentions the TV show ''Series/DrKildare''. Another episode has Creator/RichardChamberlain as a SpecialGuest.

* GracefulLoser: This is the main thing that separates our heroes from the marks, especially Mickey. On the rare occasions our heroes completely lose, they tend to take it quite calmly, and in one episode where they were completely and utterly owned [[spoiler:by a little girl, though they didn't know that]], they actually showed approval, with Albert saying they had witnessed a master at work. By contrast, whenever a mark loses, they tend to scream, yell and throw tantrums. Mickey often says his motivation for taking down a mark is to see if they can dish it out as well as take it, and he apparently holds himself to that.

* GrammarCorrectionGag: Played for laughs by an undercover Ash and Danny in one episode.

** One season 7 episode sees the team going after an illicit loan interest, which offers "strings-free" loans with insanely high interest rates [[ReadTheFinePrint hidden in tiny disclaimers in the fine print]]. So, naturally, the contract the disguised Mickey and Ash sign with the firm's boss, selling her a castle (which isn't actually theirs), does essentially the same thing, with [[UnreadableDisclaimer tiny subtexts]] hiding the fact the contract was only for £1, not the £500,000 she'd verbally agreed to.

* InvincibleHero: The crew. It's practically guaranteed, especially in later seasons, that they will overcome any complications in their plans - and if it appears they haven't, the flashbacks at the end will show that [[CrazyPrepared it was all]] [[TheChessmaster a part]] [[UnspokenPlanGuarantee of their plan]]. The amount of danger they have of actually failing or even stumbling in most episodes is zero - there are only three episodes in all 8 series where the gang outright lose, and even in one of those ("A Touch of Class") they still got the money. Administrivia/TropesAreNotBad however, as the fun comes from wondering not ''if'' they will succeed, but ''how.''

** Subverted (possibly doubly) in one episode: they're conning a woman who had her husband's dog put to sleep. [[spoiler: Then she reveals that it had been hit by a car and was in a lot of pain. However, as most things she "reveals" are in fact lies, this could be one as well.]]

** The two episodes featuring the Mafia (Big Daddy Calling, The Delivery)stand out in this regard, as the stakes become much higher given that failure won't mean arrest/imprisonment, but a bullet in the head - if they're lucky.

* PositiveDiscrimination: Straight examples abound in the early seasons, but eventually the series begins to avert it:

* RealAfterAll: In one episode, the team takes down a corrupt newspaper publisher by making him believe in an old urban myth: That the Queen Mother was killed in a bombing in World War II and the Royal Family had an actress take on the role to maintain public morale. They're a bit thrown when MI-5 agents question them, figuring it's just because they're doing something with the Royals and later laugh at how the publisher was ready to buy this. But at the end of the episode, we see what is quite clearly Queen Elizabeth II at a small cemetery, placing flowers on the grave of the "actress..."

** DI Fisk's boss has the team dead to rights on one of their scams, but cuts them a deal to let them go if they make Fisk incriminate himself. Unlike every other CorruptCop and dodgy authority figure in the series, she keeps her word as well, even if she makes it clear that from that point on they'll receive no favours.

* SecretTestOfCharacter: In the episode with Sean and Emma's dad, they force him to choose between walking away with his money, or having his current wife find out about the children he abandoned, essentially once more forcing him to choose between himself and his family. In the end he decides to choose family over money and apologize to Sean and Emma, who walk off, but leave the money around the corner for him to take.

* ShoutOut: To a number of movies in the Hollywood episode. ''Film/TheSting'' gets the biggest in {{homage}} form, to the point it can be considered a SpiritualPredecessor.

* TheCaper:

** Season 4 has the team stealing the special casino prize draw of the douchebag mafia kingpin who had Albert beaten up, getting it out from its special (visible) position behind a fish tank then escaping the inevitable retribution.

** The two episodes featuring the Mafia stand out in this regard, as the stakes become much higher given that failure won't mean arrest/imprisonment, but a bullet in the head - if they're lucky.

* LaserGuidedAmnesia: A very interesting variant, in that the mark gets this after working out their con, making him forget he knew them. This leads Mickey to try again, leaving out the things that tipped him off before - except now the mark is realising what a terrible person he'd been and is actively trying to change for the better. Near the end of the episode Samar reveals to the audience he actually remembers everything now, but doesn't care about the con, as it's inspired him to donate his wealth to charity and pursue his own dreams of acting.

* LittleMissConArtist: One episode features the crew being OutGambitted. By, it turns out, a little girl none of them noticed who calls herself a "criminal mastermind".

* OnceASeason: Episodes featuring {{Corrupt Cop}}s trying to manipulate the team, {{Broke Episode}}s where the team somehow had no cash and urgently needed a big score, and stories where the team took {{Revenge}} on people hurting their loved ones all tended to recur in later seasons.

** Season 2 has a Harry Holmes being a fellow conman who was sent to prison
** Season 6 has the crew using the office of an investment manager named Harold Holmes for one of their cons
** Season 8 has Harry Holmes being a homicidal gangster that is one of the two main villains of the episode

* ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish: In a series 7 episode, where the password to the mark's computer is the name of his dog. [[spoiler: It then turns out that this was part of the mark's plan.]]

* PetTheDog: While Eddie is often the butt of the gang's small cons, two of their most complicated cons were pulled purely on Eddie's request, leading to Eddie's father being moved into a better retirement home than his current residence and Eddie's niece receiving a modelling contract to work in the Canary Islands. Also, when the gang spent most of an episode thinking that Eddie was in trouble, Stacie hugged him in relief when he came back unharmed (although Eddie assumed the hug was just an attempt to deflect attention from the damage done to his bar, unaware that he'd ever been assumed to be in danger).

** Almost everyone they con is white. They con an Indian guy, but then realize that he's not that bad and that they've put his entire factory out of work, so they give him money from another con. In another episode, they're conning an African dictator (and obvious Robert Mugabe [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed parallel]]) but then [[spoiler: it turns out that he was Mickey in disguise, and they're actually conning somebody else]]. Another episode has them conning an Indian sweatshop owner, but [[spoiler: he completely [[HeelRealization reforms himself]], so they can't finish the con]].
** They do con a Japanese businessman at the start of one episode, but while he is certainly unlikable (as made clear from the little girl's narration) he's not an outright monster. Shortly after pulling this con though the team themselves get [[spoiler: conned by one of his (poorly treated) workers and his little sister.]]
** At the beginning of series 6 they con a rich Arab.
** In series 7 they've conned a woman of mixed race, an Iranian man [[spoiler: although it turns out the crew themselves were the marks in this scheme]], and a black man.

* YouMakeMeSic: Played for laughs by an undercover Ash and Danny in one episode.
-->'''Danny:''' ... I'll be using three of my favourite words. "Unsubstantiated", "Libelous" and "Court Case".\\
'''Ash:''' "Court Case" is two words.\\
'''Danny:''' Oh yeah? Well I used a '''bloody hyphen!'''

* GratuitousRap: Joey, at every point, in "Price for Fame"
** "The pigs came down, stormed in my drum, arrested me with my dad and my mum".

** Danny: "My gran could rap better than him"

* FashionDissonance: Although the later seasons have aged slightly better, the earlier seasons have a very, very early 2000s feel to them. Danny has designer stubble, fawn leather clothing, and platinum tip-dyed, gelled hair.

* StagedShooting: Happens on several occasions in order to scare the mark into taking off and not coming back for his money (it's an old con trick, but something of a FridgeLogic moment these days, as even if the mark left the country they would undoubtedly look up on the internet to find out what the police were saying about the non-existent shooting). Subverted on one occasion when the mark gets caught up in the emotions of the moment, draws his own firearm and fires a couple of real bullets into the "victim" as well! Fortunately, he survives.

** DI Fisk's boss has the team dead to rights on one of their scams, but cuts them a deal to let them go if they make Fisk incriminate himself. Unlike every other CorruptCop and dodgy authority figure in the series, she keeps her word as well, even if she makes it clear that from that point on they'll receive no favours. It's arguable that she willingly does this though - she does actually state that she could go back on her word, but Mickey points out that if she did this, then she would have to reveal to her superior officers that she cut an unauthorised deal with con artists in order to clean up the department: exactly the sort of thing she was brought in to end.

** [[spoiler:Trevor from "The Lesson". He has a bad habit of conning poor and confused widows and tries to double-cross the team, who proceed to con him into paying a small fortune of his own money into their fake con. The only thing is that in order to embolden Trevor, they also conned a banker Stacie had a grudge against into buying his "worthless" land to give him more money to spend and loose along with whatever the bank gave him. The thing is though, [[FreezeFrameBonus pausing right when Trevor is getting the bank's check]] shows that the amount of money the bank paid him was ''more'' than the team ended up conning him out of, meaning that he didn't lose any of the money he had stashed up and still got to keep a large proportion of what the bank paid him. The bank paid Trevor £450,000 for his plot of land, and Danny's crew then take £150,000 off him. At the end of the episode, Trevor is therefore £300,000 up on where he started: in fact he makes more money than the Hustle crew! The gang actually set him up to profit without realizing it, although they did at least humiliate the guy, make him realize that he was pissing off the big con men with his grift and take his trailer (and replacing it would cost him some or all of that profit)]].

** [[spoiler:Trevor from "The Lesson". He has a bad habit of conning poor and confused widows and tries to double-cross the team, who proceed to con him into paying a small fortune of his own money into their fake con. The only thing is that in order to embolden Trevor, they also conned a banker Stacie had a grudge against into buying his "worthless" land to give him more money to spend and loose along with whatever the bank gave him. The thing is though, [[FreezeFrameBonus pausing right when Trevor is getting the bank's check]] shows that the amount of money the bank paid him was ''more'' than the team ended up conning him out of, meaning that he didn't lose any of the money he had stashed up and still got to keep some of what the bank paid him. The gang actually set him up to profit without realizing it, although they did at least humiliate the guy, make him realize that he was pissing off the big con men with his grift and take his trailer (and replacing it would cost him some or all of that profit)]].

* IndulgentFantasySegue: A spectacularly crazy one in "Conning the Artists" where Danny suddenly enters into a Franchise/TheMatrix style kung-fu battle with their mysterious captor, [[CurbStompBattle curb stomps him]] then graciously accepts Stacie's kisses as TheHero... and then it cuts back to reality, with Danny still clearly still imagining snogging Stacie, puckering up to thin air as their bemused captor looks on.

* TheStoolPigeon: Creator/BillBailey appeared in three episodes as Cyclops (named for his large glasses), an informant whom the group meets in a cafe to get information.

* LargeHam: As the series attracted more big-name guests, some of the overacting by guests clearly enjoying the chance to not take things very seriously is absolutely hysterical. Daniel Mays in "Conned Out of Luck" and David Harewood in "The Fall of Railton FC" are the standouts - the former playing his scumbag entrepeneur like a nightmare fusion of Richard Branson and [[Series/DadsArmy Private Walker]], the latter an outrageously manipulative MotorMouth. And then there's John Barrowman and Raquel Cassidy in "Eat Yourself Slender" as sham health doctors so outrageous the Hustlers end up having them perpetrate part of the con themselves.

* LetsYouAndHimFight: The first episode of the fifth series sees [[spoiler: Mickey and Ash attempting to con a mark who, unknown to them, is actually a fellow conwoman (and her brother) attempting to con ''them''.]] This is due to [[spoiler: Albert's machinations; he claims that he wanted them to team up, and this way they know what the others are capable of.]]

* MuggingTheMonster: The group, while looking for marks that are often corrupt in their business practices, are generally careful to avert this by avoiding ones that could be truly dangerous to them should they realise they have been conned. "Return of the Prodigal", "Diamond Seeker" and "Picasso Fingerpainting" all show what happens when the crew (or members of it) get caught out by violent gangsters, with Emma and Sean only surviving the former due to Mickey and Ash showing up in the nick of time and pretending to be [[AlwaysABiggerFish even more dangerous criminals]]. Usually if they do deliberately go after marks like this, it's for {{Revenge}} against people that hurt Albert - like the gangster in "Faking It" (who ends up shooting Danny), or the Mafia boss in "Big Daddy Calling", where they have to [[FakingTheDead fake their own deaths]] to stop him coming after them later.

** The first scene of the first episode of season 7 centres around the team's allegedly being appointed by "David and Nick" (Cameron & Clegg, the PM & deputy PM) to sell off British landmarks in order to deal with the huge deficit the coalition government in real life had inherited.

* ScaryBlackMan: Mickey, normally more of a [[GentlemanThief Gentleman Thief]], resorts to this to frighten a bank manager in the first episode of series six. There is also the time Mickey beat a man to a bloody pulp with a baseball bat for sleeping with his wife. That was probably quite scary for the other guy.

* ShoutOut: to a number of movies in the Hollywood episode. ''Film/TheSting'' gets the biggest in {{homage}} form, to the point it can be considered a SpiritualPredecessor.

* SmithOfTheYard: ''Hustle'' plays this one relatively straight in the 3rd season finale, with a detective famous for making big busts as the villain. He's not a nice man...

* StagedShooting:
** Used to scare the mark into taking off and not coming back for his money (it's an old con trick, but something of a FridgeLogic moment now days, as even if the mark left the country they would undoubtedly look up on the internet to find out what the police were saying about the non-existent shooting). Subverted on one occasion when the mark got caught up in the emotions of the moment, drew his own firearm and fired a couple of ''real'' bullets into the 'victim' as well! [[spoiler:Fortunately, he survives.]]
** [[spoiler:The final episode.]]

** Viscount Mansley (in ''As Good as it Gets'') is a preening {{Manchild}} who likes to gloat about his wealth to waiters and such.

--> DCI York: Yes, well it will say that but they're not [in custody] because I let them go.

--> DCI York: It's complicated.

* CelebrityParadox: One guy mentions the TV show ''Series/DrKildare''. Another episode has Creator/RichardChamberlain as a SpecialGuest.
** In season 1 episode 3, Mickey asks Danny if he has heard of "Icarus", referencing the Greek myth about overconfidence. Danny thinks Icarus is a "Bond villain", which is a reference to the James Bond film 'Die Another Day', and the name of the villain's project. In season 4 episode 5, Will Yun Lee - the main villain of Die Another Day - appears as the man conning the crew.