History Series / Rake

* ShowWithinTheShow: The film ''Judgemental'', starring several of the main cast's actors, produced by many of the actual crew, and a hit of the [[BlandNameProduct Raindance]] [[UsefulNotes/{{Sundance}} Film Festival]], seen on posters in the fifth season.

* TriangRelations:
** Cleaver<- Missy ->David "Harry" Potter. It's sort of resolved in the Season 1 finale.
** Season 2 and 3 develops Cleaver<- Wendy -> Richard.
** In Season 3, Scarlet<- Barney -> Nicole is more or less explicitly called this.
** Season 4 has Cleaver<- Wendy ->Jack (who runs Cleave's campaign for Senate just to get rid of him).
** The US remake has Keegan in a second one with his ex-wife Maddie and her [[GirlOnGirlIsHot ex-lesbian lover Glenn Shepard.]]

An Australian comedy series beginning in 2010 about the antics of an irascible, hedonistic, self-destructive lawyer operating in central Sydney - Mr. Cleaver Greene, portrayed by Richard Roxburgh.

* ShowWithinTheShow: The film ''Judgemental'', starring several of the main cast's actors, produced by many of the actual crew, and a hit of the [[BlandNameProduct Raindance]] [[Sandbox/{{Sundance}} Film Festival]], seen on posters in the fifth season.

* DisproportionateRetribution: Lawrence Fenton, a retired English teacher and associate of Cleaver, breaks into an ASIO-MI5 symposium to protest about the dilution of modern language, with the detection of his infiltration majorly humiliating Cal [=McGregor=]. The Attorney General's response to a simple non-malicious trespass? Seven years in maximum security on trumped up anti-terrorism charges.

--->'''Cleaver''': Oh, well it's sort of like a school teacher talking to a ten year old, you know? You're not actually agreeing, you're ''approving''. It's as if the statement is invalid until you deem it so.

''Rake'' is a slow-burning comedy set within the justice system of New South Wales, and each episode revolves around peculiar or well-publicized court cases that grab Cleaver's attention. In addition to his rebellion against the justice system, there are ongoing subplots about his relationship with ex-prostitute "Missy", his ongoing battle against the Australian Tax Office, his gambling debts to dubious underworld gangsters, and the dissolving relationship between Barney and Scarlet - his fellow lawyers and best friends from university.

* AmoralAttorney: Cleaver Greene - being an extremely proficient lawyer, Cleaver will twist the rules, consult outside sources and even ''sleep'' with his clients if he thinks it'll help. It’s played with, though; while Cleave does some pretty amoral things, he's shown to have a genuine moral compass that makes him reluctant to defend people who don't deserve his help like [[WellIntentionedExtremist Eddie Langhorn]], [[MorallyBankruptBanker Damien Trengrove]] or [[TheDon Mick Corella]]. He's also shown to be legitimately furious when he finds out too late that Denny Lorton really was guilty of killing a teenager.
* AmusingInjuries: Cleaver casually attempting to play backgammon with Barney, right after having his nose broken by Col.

--->'''Cleaver''': Australians, as a nation... have always rooted for the underdog!

--->'''Wendy''': You are the chaos. You're not the end result of some butterfly effect. You are ''the'' butterfly... You are the original fucking polka-dotted butterfly that causes every bit of chaos on this planet!

--->'''Cleaver''': When somebody says something that you agree with, you don't say 'yes' or 'uh-huh', or even, 'you go, girl!', you say 'correct'.
--->'''Leanne''': ...I'm sorry, you've lost me Cleaver.

--->'''Leanne''': Your point being?
--->'''Cleaver''': Well, it's like you're an arbiter of the truth. It's a way of being smug and superior, Leanne, which is why so many fuckwits in the city use it. And now it's spread into the mouths of the spouses like some sort of contagion. Your kids'll be saying it soon from the backseat of the four wheel drive Porsche, feeling safe and smug and superior! Buying a Porsche SUV, for the sake of the kids' safety, I don't think I've heard such transparently banal bullshit in my entire life! You go girl!
--->''[Leanne's friend slings her glass of red wine into Cleaver's face]''

* LaserGuidedKarma: Nicole openly admits to embezzling $90,000 from Cleaver over the course of her employment, and minutes later is knocked straight into hospital by a falling gargoyle head.

** It's worth noting that Cleave isn't happy with this development, and does everything in his power to stop his son from becoming like him. It doesn't work.

* BestialityIsDepraved: In a case [[RippedFromTheHeadlines ripped from the headlines]] Cleaver defends a respected doctor charged with having ThreeWaySex with the family dog and his wife.

* DiscOneFinalBoss: Mick Corella becomes this in Season 3 following his imprisonment at the end of Season 1, getting [[spoiler: killed off in prison by his brother George before the season starts. George fares no better, achieving this trope when Col kills him off on Kirsty's orders.]]

* TheDreaded: Edgar Allen Thompson has this effect when he makes a return to public life in Season 4. Cops and crooks alike are terrified of him - even the rather imposing Cal [=McGregor=] has a [[OhCrap noticeable reaction]] when he sees Thompson's face on the front page of the newspaper.

** Judge Beeson is an elderly, demented, iron-willed neo-fascist brought in to oversee Lawrence Fenton's trial. He's said to be in favour of the practice of having guilty thieves' hands cut off like in the days of yore, and Cal [=McGregor=] selects him for the trial with the nigh-certainty of a guilty verdict and a harsh sentence.

* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: Melissa "Missy" Partridge used to be one of these and much of her plot is about covering this fact up.
%%* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming
* ImAHumanitarian: Professor Graham Murray in the pilot. Unlike most examples of the trope, Murray is not villainous nor murderous, instead being rather curious and ultimately regretful of his culinary choices. His "dish" was also a suicidal man who agreed to have his body eaten after killing himself.
* InsistentTerminology: Cleaver wasn't acquitted from jail, he was 'exonerated'.
* InterplayOfSexAndViolence: A common theme, with Missy's fiance Joshua being killed off shortly after he returns to Australia, but the clearest example is Cleaver's "relationship" with Kirsty: violent, aggressive, and only continuing because of Kirsty's constant threat of violence. It actually gets more like this when Cleaver persuades Kirsty to hook up with her lackey Col, although they are MakeOutKids and frequently shown doing it before brutally beating or threatening Cleave.

* KarmaHoudiniWarranty: Right after being acquitted of all charges against him, [[spoiler:Edgar's]] shot to death by his girlfriend, who walks in on him [[WomanScorned having sex with another woman]].

** It's worth noting that Cleave does everything in his power to stop his son from becoming like him. It doesn't work.

* MistakenForPedophile: Due to some cases of {{not what it looks like}} Cleaver gets taken as a pedophile. He's blackmailed over it by Cal.

** Practiced, of all people, by mob boss Mick Corella and his wife Kirsty.

* RefugeInAudacity: Cleaver's campaign for Senate runs entirely on this, for instance proposing that people be fined if they use air quotes or "correct", plus cutting the healthcare budget so people die earlier as it's less of a burden on the taxpayer. It's eaten up by enough people that he's elected.

* TheSociopath: Cleaver defends two teenage girls charged with manslaughter who he eventually realizes both have this disorder, and actually committed premeditated cold-blooded murder. They're explicitly compared to Leopold and Loeb, two similar (though male) "thrill killers" in Chicago during the 1920s.

* StealthHiBye: Comically subverted in "R vs Turner" when Cleaver meets a mysterious informant in an underground garage. After the conversation, Cleaver turns away at the sound of squealing tires, and is startled when he turns back and the informant is still there.

* TeacherStudentRomance: Finn, Cleaver's son, has a relationship with his English teacher, which lasts until she drops him for a younger boy.

* BolivianArmyEnding: The common ending for all of Rake's season is that Cleaver will face somehow insurmountable odds. Special mentions goes to Season 2, which ends with [[spoiler:Cleaver going to prison for twenty years]], and Season 3, which ends with [[spoiler:Barney's cancer coming back and Cleaver dangling from a hot air balloon.]]

* ClingyJealousGirl: Kirsty Corella is this for Cleaver.

* HangingJudge: Judge Cowper is introduced openly talking to himself on the toilet about how he'd give a man life or a death sentence assuming this was possible for being ''[[DisproportionateRetribution drunk and disorderly]]''. He later gives the guy four years in prison, although it's suspended by saner judges. He finds it offensive that the defendant pled guilty at all, with Cleaver ranting that this behavior from Cowper is typical.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rake.jpg]]

* DeceptiveLegacy: In Season 5, [[spoiler:Kate]] is told by her mother and sister she was actually conceived from a tryst with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Plimpton George Plimpton]], to her shock. They had kept this from her for many years.

* TomboyishName: Wendy's girlfriend goes by Jack (presumably it's a nickname for Jacqueline). Oddly enough, aside from this she's not at all tomboyish.

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Cleaver delivers one to a rich socialite wife at a dinner party in S01E02, which ends with him receiving a glass of wine to the face.

* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Cleave meets lots of people with bizarre or extreme beliefs during his campaign for Senate, and agrees with them no matter what to get votes.

* HangingJudge: Judge Cowper is introduced openly talking to himself on the toilet about how he'd give a man life or a death sentence assuming this was possible for being ''[[DisproportionateRetribution drunk and disorderly]]''. He later gives the guy four years in prison, although it's suspended by saner judges.

* AllStarCast: While the main cast are all fairly well known, Richard Roxburgh particularly, a lot of Australian Hollywood A-listers appear in guest roles:
** Creator/SamNeill as a doctor accused of bestiality.
** Creator/HugoWeaving as a professor accused of cannibalism.
** Creator/RachelGriffiths as an old flame of Cleaver's and a ShockJock.
** Creator/NoahTaylor as a homeless artist accused of murder.
** Creator/DamonHerriman plays Cleaver's loan shark in Season 1.
** Creator/ToniCollette as CorruptPolitician Claudia [[SmallRoleBigImpact in the Season 2 premiere]].
** Creator/CateBlanchett [[TheCameo camoes]] as Cleaver in the film adaptation of Missy's book.

** One young woman during Cleave's Senate campaign also proposes he push for legalizing polygamy, adding that she's got four sisters and he could then marry them all.

* TomboyishName: Windy's girlfriend goes by Jack (presumably it's a nickname for Jacqueline). Oddly enough, aside from this she's not at all tomboyish.

** Season 4 has Cleaver<- Windy ->Jack (who runs Cleave's campaign for Senate just to get rid of him).

** After his and Scarlet's marriage breaks down, Barney cheats on Scarlett with [[spoiler:Nicole]]. [[spoiler:They eventually get together after his divorce.]]

* {{Polyamory}}: Practiced, of all people, by mob boss Mick Corella and his wife Kirsty.

* RunningGag: After his release from prison, Cleave insists to everyone around him that he was 'exonerated' of all charges, but practically the entire city knows he was actually 'acquitted'. He doesn't succeed in fooling anybody.
* SettingUpdate: The US remake transplants it to UsefulNotes/LosAngeles.
* ShowWithinTheShow: The film ''Judgemental'', starring several of the main cast's actors, produced by many of the actual crew, and a hit of the [[BlandNameProduct Raindance]] [[Sandbox/{{Sundance}} Film Festival]], seen on posters in the fifth season.
* SpottingTheThread: Barney discovers Cleave and Scarlett's tryst in Season 1 through their separate but successive references to the uncommonly named 'John Bartrop' - a name Cleave specifically admits to using as an alias.
* StealthHiBye: Comically subverted in "R vs Turner" when Cleaver meets a mysterious informant in an underground garage. After the conversation, Cleaver turns away at the sound of squealing tires, and is startled when he turns back and the informant is still there.
* TheNicknamer: Cleaver Greene, especially where Harry-Sorry-David Potter, the Shadow Minister for Toasters, Lobotomies and Nasal Hair is concerned. Ironically, he is hurt when he learns that Wendy and Fuzz call him "El Fucko" occasionally behind their back.

** In Season 3, Scarlett<- Barney -> Nicole is more or less explicitly called this.

* XanatosSpeedChess: Lots of examples of this, mainly concerning Cleave and his use/abuse of the mainstream media. However, his best example is managing to get out of prison, 11 months into his term, simply by uttering a controversial, career-damaging-yet-innocuous word in front of a corrupt judge at his appeal.
* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: A lot of season one's legal proceedings are based on interesting aspects from cases in the casebook of one of the Executive Producers (who is a practicing barrister).
** Missy's book is this in-universe, as many of the characters in it are based on her former clients.