History Series / TheCape

* CopKiller: In the pilot Chess murders Palm City's police chief and frames Vince, a police detective, for it. All this is part of his plan to control the city.

* DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou: Vince, because he was framed and forced to fake his death. Unusually, this trope is portrayed from the perspective of the father.

* ClearMyName: This is Vince's quest, after he gets framed for being supervillain Chess, in particular for his wife and son.

* BigBad: Chess, the main villain of the series..

* BeingEvilSucks: Voyt decides this, by the finale, after he's been sold out the moment Fleming [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness no longer needs him]].

* SiblingTeam: [[spoiler: Goggles and Hicks are brothers who work as assassins.]]

* PrivatelyOwnedSociety: Pretty much everything is privatized in Palm City.

* MissingMom: Orwell doesn't know where her mother went at the start. Eventually, she learns her father did ''something'' to her (though the audience never does).
* MissionControl: Orwell acts as the Cape's eyes, ears, and money.

* BadassInDistress: Orwell in "The Lich Part 2". She's drugged by the Lich and held captive, with him intending to marry her.

* MindRape: The Lich's neurotoxin causes this on some of his victims. [[spoiler:After her ordeal with the Lich, Jamie/Orwell is clearly affected]]
* MobBossSuitFitting: It had a scene with Peter Fleming and Scales meeting at a tailor to discuss buisness. Although Scales is just there to talk, Fleming insists on buying him a suit as well.

* MurderInc: The Tarot society.

* ParentalAbandonment: Appears to be at the center of The Lich's motives.

* PintsizedPowerhouse: Rollo,

* PrivatelyOwnedSociety : Pretty much everything is privatized in this town.

* {{Reconstruction}}: Whether it will be successful or not remains to be seen, but the series seems to be an attempt at a throwback to more traditional superhero stories (secret identities! costumes! clear-cut standards of good and evil!) after the {{deconstruction}} seen in ''Series/{{Heroes}}''. It also bears similarity to old serials like ''Radio/TheShadow'' and ''ComicStrip/DickTracy''.

* SiblingTeam: [[spoiler: Goggles and Hicks]]

* StringTheory: The walls in Dice's RoomFullOfCrazy

* ThoseTwoBadGuys: Goggles and Hicks

** Max promises this, but it's fairly light-hearted and some of it is even played for laughs, like a knock down, drag out bare knuckle brawl with a MadeOfIron dwarf.

* TricksterMentor: Max

* WaistcoatOfStyle: Scales.

* WigDressAccent: Orwell's preferred M.O.

* AntiVillain: Marty Voyt

* ArchEnemy: Chess.

** In Episode 4, Portman dresses up as the Cape for a costume party. He laters runs into the Cape and they share an awkward moment. When Vince finds the unconscious guard, he asks Portman to act as a lookout.

* BadassInDistress: Orwell in "The Lich Part 2"

* BeingEvilSucks: Voyt, by the finale.

* BigBad: Chess.

* BrainyBrunette: Orwell.

** No one believes Vince was framed.

* ClearMyName: In particular, to his wife and son.

* DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou: Because he was framed and forced to fake his death. Unusually, this trope is portrayed from the perspective of the father.

* DirtyOldMan: Fleming, as of "Dice."

* {{EMP}}: Used by [[spoiler: Goggles and Hicks]] To prevent Orwell from tracking them.

* EvilBrit: Chess

* FakingTheDead: Sets everything in motion and allows Vince to take on his new identity.

* FanserviceWithASmile: Raia has her moments.

* [[TheGoodTheBadAndTheEvil The Good, the Bad , the Evil and the Complete Monster]]: The Cape, the Carnival of Crime, Scales, and Fleming.

* GoldenAge: It can be argued to be a modernization of this era; it is not quite as ludicrous as some of the things UsefulNotes/{{the Silver Age|of Comic Books}} was (in)famous for.

* HiddenAgendaVillain: hinted at with Fleming’s therapist who once want to talk to Chess instead of Fleming, and is remarkably non-judgmental about his criminal actions as both Chess and Fleming.

* HypnoFool

* JustifiedCriminal - The entire Carnival of Crime. Criminals because they rob banks (in circus attire and with carnival music playing in the background), and sympathetic because they don't actually seem to hurt anybody directly, and because they are willing to help a former cop become a superhero. Though to be fair, while they're not fairly loyal to Vince, their initial bargain was that Vince provide them with police access to various things.

* LawEnforcementInc: ARK Corporation's MO in Palm City.

* LukeIAmYourFather: "The Lich Part 2" confirmed the suspicions of many GenreSavvy fans by revealing that [[spoiler: Fleming is Orwell's father]]. [[note]] Then again, this tidbit was revealed in several interviews, so it wasn't exactly a surprise to people who have been paying attention.[[/note]]

** Rollo, the pugilistic dwarf of the circus folk.

* PintsizedPowerhouse: Rollo

* DroppedABridgeOnHer: In the first scene of the pilot, one of Vince’s police colleagues follows Orwell’s blog and has some brief camadery with him, as if setting her up to be a SympatheticInspecotrAntagonist later on, but she's murdered by Chess in the first two minutes of the episode.

* CHuckCunningham: In the pilot, the carnival of crime has a stilt walker, trapeze artist, fire tater and two or three more acrobats but afterwards Max, Rollo, Raia and RUvi are the only ones to appear.

** Also Dice, who is just trying to kill Fleming and stop a project which could have let Fleming mathematically predict the future, which isn't exactly a bad thing, and despite her ruthlessness, probably wouldn't have posed a threat to anyone else if Vince had just let her do it.

* ConspicuousCG: In "Dice," there's a couple shots of The Cape jumping over rooftops and balancing on top of a high wire that obviously couldn't have been done with live stuntmen.

* HighAltitudeInterrogation: In episode 3, Vince dangles a corrupt cop by dangling him over a bridge with his cape. It doesn't work.

* APupilOfMineUntilHeTurnedToEvil: Gregor Molotov.

* IntrepidReporter: In a nod to the modern mediascape, she's a blogger, rather than an Old Media type. Since she's played by Creator/SummerGlau, we get the HotScoop trope thrown in.

[[caption-width-right:300: [[Series/{{Community}} Six Seasons and a Movie!]]]]

* BlackBestFriend: Averted with Marty, in that Marty is a fully-developed character in his own right. While he is Vince's best friend, he is also a traitor. It's implied that this is under duress. Played semi-straight with his mentor Max, except for having to tolerate his side job as an armed robber.

* AntiVillain: Marty Hoyt

* BlackBestFriend: While he is his best friend, he is also a traitor. It's implied that this is under duress. Played semi-straight with his mentor Max, except for having to tolerate his side job as an armed robber.

* XMeetsY: ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' meets Golden-Age comics. Given that the show is on NBC and uses some of the same visual motifs (like the way the title cards fade into the scene, and the comparability of the in-universe's comic panels to 8th Wonders) comparisons to ''Heroes'' are inevitable.

** During the robbery montage in the pilot, one of the costume sets the gang wears strongly resembles a cross between the nun costumes worn in TheTown, mixed with clown attire.

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! Tropes:

* TheCastShowoff: Only took two episodes to get Summer Glau into a dance leotard, even if it was only for a few seconds of an aerial silk stance.

With the world believing Vince dead, he takes on the persona of his son's favorite superhero, a Franchise/{{Batman}}-esque figure known as [[TitleDrop The Cape]]. The circus troupe trains him in a combination of martial-arts, stage magic, and [[BadassCape using a specially designed cape as a weapon]]. Teaming up with the Carnival and an [[IntrepidReporter investigative blogger]] called [[SummerGlau Orwell]] who has an interest in bringing Fleming down, Vince sets out to expose ARK, save the city and [[ClearMyName clear his name]].

* IntrepidReporter: In a nod to the modern mediascape, she's a blogger, rather than an Old Media type. Since she's played by SummerGlau, we get the HotScoop trope thrown in.

* GoldenAge: It can be argued to be a modernization of this era; it is not quite as ludicrous as some of the things the SilverAge was (in)famous for.

* SilverAge: The show wears its heart on its sleeve when it comes to its content.

** In "Tarot", Orwell uses a fake name: Diane [[GailSimone Simone]].
** "Scales on a Train" is a not-so-subtle nod to ''SnakesOnAPlane''.

* XMeetsY: ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' meets Silver-Age comics. Given that the show is on NBC and uses some of the same visual motifs (like the way the title cards fade into the scene, and the comparability of the in-universe's comic panels to 8th Wonders) comparisons to ''Heroes'' are inevitable.

* BatmanGambit: Run by a villain of all people. [[spoiler: Chess kills the new chief of police in a city with a history of organized criminal activity in order to have the city's police force privatized and turned over to his company. He then frames Vince Faraday and makes it look like he was Chess, and makes it look like Chess was killed on live television in broad daylight. End result: Chess controls the city's police and is believed to be dead while his alter ego operates with impunity and is believed to be an upstanding, well meaning corporate executive.]]