Armor Piercing Question / Live-Action TV

Armor-Piercing Question in Live-Action TV.

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• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.:
  • Coulson to Ward in the Season 1 finale:
    "You devoted your entire life to a deranged narcissist who never gave a damn about anyone, and now he's dead. You've got the rest of your life to wrestle with the question: who are you without him?"
  • In the Season 1 finale, Fitz attempts a Heroic Sacrifice to save Simmons, leaving him with brain damage. While he spends most of Season 2 recovering, Simmons takes an assignment undercover at HYDRA instead of helping his recovery in the interim between Seasons 1 and 2, feeling that she can't help him. This comes to a head between the two after Skye, unknown to everyone but Fitz, goes through Terrigenesis halfway into Season 2, around the same time that Simmons starts developing Fantastic Racism towards powered people. When the team finds out about Skye's new powers, Simmons quickly figures out that Fitz knew about them and tries to call him out on keeping secrets, only for Fitz to fire back:
    Fitz: Can you blame me, with the way you were going on about Raina, that she's a-a-a plague to be eradicated? I mean, I—
    Simmons: Skye is my friend, she's different!
    Fitz: Oh, yeah, like I was your friend, and then I changed, how did you handle that?
  • Season 5 sees Fitz forced to perform invasive surgery on Daisy to restore her quake powers to close a potentially-world-ending dimensional rift. Daisy (formerly Skye) is understandably furious at him, and has him locked up. The next time the two come face-to-face, Fitz tells her that he's not happy about it, but there was no other alternative, leading to this exchange:
    Daisy: [...] we don't turn on our own here.
    Fitz: Do you want me to recount all the times that you did?
• Angel: In "Dear Boy", while Kate is confronting the rest of Angel Investigations over Angel's supposed murder of Mr. Kramer, Gunn pulls this, asking how Angel got into the house and if he was invited in. Kate responds that no, he wasn't, and immediately realizes what he's getting at: Angel's a vampire, so he couldn't possibly have just stormed in and killed someone in their own home unless he was explicitly invited in or the real owners were already dead.
• Babylon 5:
  • "Who are you?" by the Vorlons, "What do you want?" by the Shadows; both of them are asked until the subject stops giving superficial answers and starts revealing things about themselves. J. Michael Straczynski has a degree in psychology and cited Synanon as an inspiration.
  • Sinclair shouts "Who are you?" and "Why are you doing this?" at the Grey Council. Imagine how chilling that must have been coming from their savior.
  • Kosh loses his cool only two times when Sherridan gets fed up with his obfuscating elusivness. The first time is when he demands to know "What do you want?!"
  • In "Into the Fire", Sheridan and Delenn point out that the Shadows and Vorlons don't have answers to their own questions anymore. This is part of what convinces them to leave the galaxy once and for all.
  • Later, more get added. Lorien asks "Why are you here?", and the Spin-Off series Crusade adds "Who do you serve, and who do you trust?" for the humans, and "Where are you going?" for the Technomages.
    • Actually, "Where are you going?" and "Why are you here?" are very subtly laid in all through the original five seasons of Babylon 5. JMS himself states that those four questions (Who are you? What do you want? Where are you going? Why are you here?) are critically important to the whole show. "Who do you serve and who do you trust?" is pretty unique to Crusade, though, but it may have just been a cunning way to introduce the supporting cast.
  • In "Comes the Inquisitor", the titular Inquisitor (Sebastien) comes specifically to ask these of Delenn and later Sheridan. The big one is, of course, "Who are you?", as he works for the Vorlons, but one notable failed attempt at an Armor-Piercing Question comes when he asks Delenn whether she'd ever considered that she could be wrong. It fails because she has an answer: "Yes, sometimes." It's one of the few times Sebastien quiets down during the performance of his task. Delenn also attempts a few times to pierce his armor with questions of her own, but he's very good at his job, and (mostly) manages to keep his composure.
  • In "Signs and Portents", when Morden asks "What do you want?" to G'kar to see if he can be manipulated to serve the Shadows, G'kar gives an answer fueled by his anger towards the Centauri for what they did to him and his people. This answer doesn't give Morden true insight into G'kar's character, so he follows up the question with And Then What?. G'kar is caught off-guard — having spent so long hungering for revenge that he didn't give much thought to what he would want after killing off the Centauri — and answers that "as long as my homeworld is safe, I don't see how it matters." Morden realizes that G'kar is ultimately a humble man who just wants his people to be safe, meaning he is of no use to the Shadows.
    • And then there's Vir, who comes up with his own Armor-Piercing Response to the same query from Morden in "In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum": that he'd like to live long enough to see Morden, himself, killed for his own despicable manipulations and "bargains". Vir, unlike G'kar, gets exactly what he asks for.
  • In "The War Prayer", Londo and the Minbari Mayan are at odds over whether a young Centauri couple who are in love should be allowed to marry in spite of the cultural expectation that marriages should be arranged for the benefit of the family.
    Mayan: Ambassador, I have traveled far and seen much. And what I have seen tells me that all sentient beings are defined by their capacity and need for love.
    Londo: And she will learn to live without it!
    Mayan: As you did?
• The Barrier: Luis, one of the more sympathetic members of the government, gets warnings that his life is in danger that he has trouble taking seriously, in no small part because he feels protected by his status. During a conversation with his former girlfriend Emilia, he justifies her husband being taken away by government agents more than a couple decades ago by her husband having been an enemy to the government. Emilia has the following question for him:
  Emilia: And what was [person who died after trying to warn Luis he was in danger] becoming? What can you become?
• Battlestar Galactica (2003): In the episode The Son Also Rises, the lawyer Romo Lampkin's interview with Caprica Six is a very careful buildup to a single question. She's a hostile witness against his client, and her former lover, Gaius Baltar. Rather than meeting her hostility head on, he instead tells her the story of his own heartbreak, lies to her that Gaius is still thinking about her, and then asks:
  "Does your love hurt as much as mine?"
• The Big Bang Theory: Sheldon gets hit with one at the end of "The Robotic Manipulation". After his date with Amy, he considers having a child with Amy through artificial insemination throughout the episode, much to Penny's chagrin. Having enough, she threatens to tell his mother, but Sheldon doesn't see the issue, believing his mother would be happy to have grandchildren. This only sets up Penny to strike:
  Penny: Really? Your deeply religious born-again Christian mother wants a test-tube grandbaby born out of wedlock?
  Sheldon: (realizes her point) Curses.
  • Sheldon set himself up for one earlier at the end of "The Hawking Excitation", upon meeting Stephen Hawking who wanted to discuss his most recent thesis.
  Stephen Hawking: "You made an arithmetic mistake on page two. It was quite the boner."
  Sheldon: "...no. No, th-th-that can't be right, I-I don't make arithmetic errors!"
  Hawking: "Are you saying I do?"
• The final episode of Blackadder Goes Forth, already bleaker than the other episodes, had Baldrick ask one of these, specifically why World War I happened and why couldn't they all just stop fighting. Even Blackadder had no real response. Not long after, they all go over the top.
• Used very emotionally in the season three finale of Bones, Brennan to Gormogon's apprentice. Not quite a question so much as a series of logical statements, as Brennan explains to Booth as he keeps asking Zack to give up the Gormogon without getting a response, "Zack responds to logic." Brennan proceeds to give a series of arguments that seem to justify Zack and the Gormogon's motives, and then delivers the armor-piercing line: "Yet you risked it all so you wouldn't hurt Hodgins."
  "There was a flaw in my logic..."
  • Season one episode "The Man in the Fallout Shelter", Angela insists they need to find the fiancé of a man murdered decades ago.
    Bones: To say what? 'Merry Chistmas, Ivy Gillespie. Your fiance was murdered and your life was ruined, but hey, at least you get to know what happened to him.'
    Angela: Don't you wish somebody had said that to you?
    Bones: ...Yes.
• Breaking Bad: From "Ozymandias", "Where is Hank?".
  • When Walter refuses to quit the drug trade, even for a generous buyout, because "he's into empire business" and wants to leave a legacy behind, Jesse wearily asks if a meth empire is really something to be proud of.
  • After a few months of lucrative drug trade, Walter's belagueared wife Skyler brings him to a warehouse and shows him the fruits of his labors: a huge slab of money, just lying there as a deadweight, impossible to count, let alone launder or invest. Skyler then asks: "How much more is enough, Walt? How much higher does this pyle need to be?" Walter realises it's pointless to carry on and finally quits the trade.
  • After Gale's murder (and Walter dissuading Hank from the conclusion that Gale was Heisenberg), Hank reexamines the crime scene photos. He notices that Gale appeared to have been a vegan yet ...
    Hank: [holds up a picture of a Los Pollos Hermanos bag] Since when do vegans eat fried chicken?
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • An accidental example in "Gingerbread". The corpses of two children are found and a literal witch hunt ensues. When Buffy finally meets up with Angel, she fills him in on the situation. When she mentions the dead children, he asks "What were their names?" Suddenly, Buffy realizes that the children were never claimed and something is very wrong.
  • In "Pangs", Sunnydale is being menaced by Hus, a Native American vengeance spirit, but Willow, suffering from White Guilt over what her ancestors did to his people, is reluctant to fight back and suggests they try to reason with him. Spike of all people gives her one of these, pointing out that Hus simply doesn't care about their guilt; he's angry and vengeful and just wants them all dead. And even if Hus was willing to talk, there's very little the Scoobies could actually say that would make up for said atrocities, their inaction isn't helping the situation, and if they want to survive they've got no choice but to fight Hus and destroy him no matter how bad they feel about it.
    Spike: You exterminated his race. What could you possibly say that would make him feel better? It's kill or be killed here. Take your bloody pick!
• Charité at War: Having found out that her baby Karin is permanently disabled, Anni has to face the truth of the Nazis' eugenics programme which she has passively supported for long — with particular regards to her husband, who's testing medicaments on disabled children because they're deemed "unworthy lives".
  Anni: And if it were Karin?
• Cheers: In "Simon Says", Diane is ranting about Dr. Finch-Royce's blunt assessment of her and Sam, namely that they're utterly toxic and have nothing in common, declaring he's wrong. Norm then asks her what she and Sam do have in common. Diane, for once, is unable to give an answer (but she still insists Dr. Finch-Royce is wrong).
• Chernobyl: Bryukhanov and Fomin, the power plant's manager and chief engineer, have been trying to downplay the extent of the disaster and have dismissed high dosimeter readings, reports of graphite on the ground, and visual confirmation of an explosion from a man they doomed to Acute Radiation Syndrom when they forced him to look at the core. When Director Shcherbina arrives with Professor Legasov in tow, Bryukhanov and Fomin immediately begin their routine on Legasov by accusing him of "spreading disinformation" and challenging him to explain how an RBMK reactor explodes. Shcherbina deploys the information Legasov gave him on the trip over by asking "Why did I see graphite on the roof?" This throws an instant spoke into Bryukhanov and Fomin's excuses because they can't summarily contradict someone who outranks them, and their fumbling reaction tells Shcherbina that their rosy reports are a cover-up of something much more serious.
• Control Z:
  • After Javier is expelled for supposedly being the hacker, Quintanilla enters his office to find Raúl, the real hacker, waiting for him as he had blackmailed him into letting him off the hook by threatening to expose his affair with Susana, at which point Raúl asks Quintanilla why was he fucking her, to which he only demands that he leave.
  Raúl [to Quintanilla]: Why did you fuck Susana?
  • A major plot point of the first season is María, a.k.a. the Honey Bunny, entering an affair with Pablo behind her best friend Isabela's back even before she was outed as transgender and he publicly dumped her in front of everyone, but despite clearly feeling guilty about it, María can't bring herself to tell Isabela, fearing that this would affect their friendship. In the final episode, after Pablo attempts to rape Isabela and María comes to her defense, however, Pablo gains the upper hand by yelling out the question about said piece of information.
  Pablo [to María]: Did you tell her you're the Honey Bunny?!
• Criminal Minds has Constantly Curious Ellie Spicer ask Tim Curry's character (a serial killer) why he kills people. Subverted when he replies that the best question would not be why he kills people, but why he doesn't kill all of them.
  • There's also this exchange during "A Beautiful Disaster":
    Derek: How can you, of all people, tell me to back off?! You didn't back off with Foyet!
    Hotch: And how did that turn out?
• In Criminologist Himura and Mystery Writer Arisugawa, one of the culprits goes on a disturbing Motive Rant about the pleasure he gained from controlling both the victim and the police like they were his puppets. His unhinged glee comes to an abrupt stop when Himura asks him a single, simple question:
  Himura: Are you still having fun?
• Doctor Who:
  • "The Pirate Planet": The Fourth Doctor is confronted with a room filled with entire planets compressed into football-sized spheres and held in place by technobabble. The Doctor has questioned the Captain several times already about his motives, but here is where he truly loses his composure in the face of such destruction:
    The Doctor: The concept is simply staggering! Pointless, but staggering!
    The Captain: I'm gratified that you appreciate it.
    The Doctor: Appreciate it? Appreciate it? You commit mass destruction and murder on a scale that's almost inconceivable, and you ask me to appreciate it?? Just because you happen to have made a brilliantly conceived toy out of the mummified remains of planets?
    The Captain: Devil storms, Doctor! It is not a toy!
    The Doctor: THEN WHAT'S IT FOR?! What are you doing? What could possibly be worth all this?!
  • "Dalek":
    • As the titular creature is about to kill Henry van Statten:
      Rose: You don't have to do this anymore. There must be something else — not just killing. What else is there? What do you want?
      Dalek: [Silence. Turns back to van Statten, and then back to Rose] I want... freedom.
    • Rose gets another one when the Ninth Doctor, filled with rage, comes running in to shoot the Dalek. Rose's question stops the enraged Gallifreyan in his tracks.
      Rose: It couldn't kill van Statten, it couldn't kill me. It's changing. What about you, Doctor? What the hell are you changing into?
  • "The Christmas Invasion": The Doctor's question to all of Britain about one Harriet Jones, Prime Minister. "Don't you think she looks tired?"
    • Which was not actually intended to be an APQ about that particular person, but rather to make them so paranoid that they would fulfill the requirements. The Doctor at his finest... or not.
  • "The Satan Pit": The Doctor refuses to accept the Beast as some divine being, so when it claims to be older than the universe, he points out that nothing could exist that far back. The Beast's response?
    Is that your religion?
  • "Doomsday": Rose has a question for the Cult of Skaro on learning they survived the Time War by hiding in the Void Between the Worlds: "Don't you want to know what happened? What happened to the Emperor?" Dalek Sec is completely shocked. "The-Emperor-SURVIVED?!"
  • In "Daleks in Manhattan", Dalek Sec asks his fellow Daleks:
    Sec: There are millions of humans, and only four of us! If we are supreme, why are we not victorious?
  • "The Family of Blood": At the end, Joan Redfern calls the Doctor out on his recklessness. His facial expression in response says it all, really.
    "If the Doctor had never visited us, never chosen this place — on a whim — would anyone here have died?"
  • "Utopia": Martha asks Professor Yana how he knows his watch is broken if he's never used it, getting him to admit he doesn't know... and shattering the perception filter keeping Yana from becoming the Master, the Doctor's nemesis.
  • "The Doctor's Daughter":
    • Played for Laughs with the Doctor's insistence that he's not a soldier:
      The Doctor: I'm trying to stop the fighting.
      Jenny: Isn't every soldier?
      The Doctor: Well, that's... that's... technically– I haven't got time for this.
    • ...and then played much more seriously with their discussion about what happened to the Time Lords:
      The Doctor: There was a war.
      Jenny: Like this one?
      The Doctor: Bigger. Much bigger.
      Jenny: And you fought? And killed?
      The Doctor: Yes.
      Jenny: Then how are we different?
  • "Journey's End": One with massive emotional impact, courtesy of Davros:
    Davros: How many more, Doctor? How many have died in your name?

  The answer: a lot, as we are told, via a brief flashblack to all their faces from just the past three out of 45 years alone. Especially River Song and Astrid break both his hearts, again. The Doctor's face practically vibrates with contained sadness.

  • "Amy's Choice":
    • Amy gets one aimed at her by "The Dream Lord", aka the Doctor's Enemy Within. He mocks her belief that the Doctor trusts her, and when she stands up to him, he simply asks "So what's his name?"
    • Amy also gets an armor piercing statement from the Dream Lord. It's effective nonetheless.
      Dream Lord: Poor Amy. He always leaves you, doesn't he? Alone in the dark. Never apologises.
      Amy: He doesn't have to.
      Dream Lord: That's good. Because he never will.
    • The Dream Lord gets a hefty bag of armour-piercing questions to throw at the Doctor:
      The Doctor: I have to find my friends.
      Dream Lord: "Friends"? Is that the right word for the people you acquire? Friends are people you stay in touch with. Your friends never see you again once they've grown up. The old man prefers the company of the young, does he not?
  • "Asylum of the Daleks": When Oswin says she has been making soufflés while holding off Daleks for a year the Doctor asks her where she gets the milk. This slips by as a quip in the beginning of the episode, but hammers home the nature of the situation at the end of it.
  • "The Name of the Doctor": Clara, like Amy to the Dream Lord before her, tells Madame Vastra that the Doctor can trust her with anything, and Vastra refutes this, saying the Doctor doesn't share his secrets with anyone, before asking her, if she really is the exception to that, what his name is.
  • "The Day of the Doctor": "Did you ever count?" How many children there were on Gallifrey that day. Cause both Ten and Eleven to freeze up, and their answers say a lot about them. Ten says "Two point four seven billion", and Eleven forgot, asking "What would be the point?"
  • "The Doctor Falls": The Doctor is trying to convince Nardole to lead some refugees to safety and start a new life with them, while he pulls a Last Stand and destroys as many cybermen and he can in order to buy the refugees time to flee. He ends his argument with the question "Which of us is stronger?" The conversation between Nardole and the Doctor immediately afterwards implies that helping the refugees is the more difficult option, and that both of them accept Nardole as the stronger of the pair.
  • "Twice Upon a Time": Bill gets in a good question when she asks the First Doctor why he left Gallifrey. It's good enough to give the Doctor pause:
    Bill: I don't mean what you ran away from. What were you running to?
    First Doctor: That's rather a good question.
    Bill: Questions are kinda my thing. How are you with answers?
  • "The Timeless Children": The Doctor gives one of the more damning ones in the entire series to the Master as he proudly shows her the ruins of Galifrey from his rampage:
    The Doctor: All this death finally made you happy?
    The Master: Ecstatic!
    The Doctor: [sneering] And has it calmed all the rage?
• Based on the Theranos scandal, The Dropout: Elizabeth yells at Sunny, her mentor and boyfriend, for dropping by her company's engineering lab, claiming to be a consultant and asking questions. Sunny responds calmly. "Do you want to talk about that, or the fact you're 10 years away from the promises you've made to the board?"
• The Expanse: In "Nemesis Games", the incumbend Secretary General Paster, urged by the hawkish General Delgado, starts discussing more purely punitive measures against Belter civilians in retaliation for Marco Inaros' attacks on Earth. When Delgado justifies them by the millions of deaths Inaros caused, Avesarala completely shuts him and Paster down by asking: "And so he [Marco] is our role model now?" While they don't have a good answer for this, they continue to insist on their agenda, until Avesarala resigns, followed by half of Paster's cabinet, who then organize a vote of no confidence and replace him with Avesarala herself.
• Fawlty Towers: In "Communication Problems", Basil thinks he has got away with betting on the horses behind Sybil's back, when Polly covers for him, claiming that the large wad of cash is hers, that she won on the horse. However, Sybil then asks her extremely casually "What was the name of the horse?". Polly cannot answer this, which brings on a hilarious scene of Basil trying to mime the name to Polly, from behind Sybil's back.
• In Fortitude, after DCI Morton first arrives at the titular town, one of its officers takes exception to his presence and tells him to "fuck right off". Morton calmly shoots back, "Does Anderssen^note the town's sheriff know that you're fucking Trish^note the murder victim's wife?" Realising the position he's in, the man quickly changes his mind.
• Two examples from Frasier:
  • The episode "Ask Me No Questions" combines this trope with a Driving Question; the story begins with Niles asking Frasier if he thinks he and Maris are meant to be together. Frasier then spends the rest of the episode wondering what his answer will be.
  • In "Dark Side of the Moon", Daphne is in anger management therapy as part of her court sentence for inadvertently causing a four-car pileup. As Daphne recounts the events that led up to the traffic accident, she reveals that she had been invited to Niles's apartment for the evening for a bridal shower; she didn't know about the party, and spent the whole day leading up to it suffering from numerous mishaps. While she tells the story, she repeatedly mentions that she planned to wear her favorite dress to see Niles. As the session closes, her therapist asks her a seemingly small question: if the bridal shower was supposed to be a surprise, why was Daphne so intent on wearing that particular dress for what she believed to be a casual get-together? This forces Daphne to admit that she actually wanted to spend a romantic evening with Niles, making her realize that she loves him as he does her—which is highly problematic, considering that she is about to marry Donny.
• The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: During "Fresh Prince: The Movie," Will is an eyewitness to his boss Duke's murder, so they move him into witness protection in Alabama, along with the Banks family much to their anger. Will confronts Phil about being mad at him:
  Will: What was I supposed to do? Just let Duke's killer get away?
• From the Earth to the Moon: After the Apollo 1 fire, Deke Slayton is in a bar with Frank Borman, expressing his concern that Joe Shea, NASA's Program Manager, isn't handling it well. Borman replies by asking "How are you handling it?"
  Deke: I'm drunk.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Varys tells a riddle to Tyrion about a king, a priest, a rich man who each command a sellsword to kill the other two. Varys asks Tyrion who lives and who dies. Tyrion immediately says the sellsword is the one who decides, since he has the sword. Varys then asks why people still believe in nobility, religion and wealth if the sword is the only real power in the world. Tyrion's only response is "I've decided I don't like riddles".
  • Later in the series, Tyrion, having had enough of Varys' secrecy, bluntly asks him what he wants. Varys turns it around and asks Tyrion the same question. Tyrion admits that, after being marginalized his whole life, he likes being the acting Hand of the King and is happy about being able to make a real difference in the world. Which is something that actually has an effect on Varys (among other things), as he later refers to Tyrion as "the only person capable of saving the realm".
  • Arya asks her father how she can let Sansa marry someone like Joffrey. Ned Stark can't think of an answer.
  • Throughout the series, whenever someone asks Sansa of Joffrey, she gives her careful answer of a declaration of love. When someone asks her to be honest about it, however, she virtually collapses. "He's a monster."
  • When Renly asks Ned, "Tell me something: do you still believe good soldiers make good kings?" the older man remains silent.
  • Theon delivers an epic one to his father.
    Balon: We do not sow. We are Ironborn! We are not subjects, we are not slaves. We do not plow the fields, nor toil in the mine. We take what is ours! Your time with the wolves has made you weak!
    Theon: You act as if I volunteered! You gave me away, if you remember?! The day you bent the knee to Robert Baratheon! After he crushed you! Did you take what was yours then?
  • Theon is on the receiving end later, from Bran: "Did you hate us the whole time?" He didn't, but he's torn between loyalty to his birth family and birth culture (which he succeeded in holding onto, despite what Balon Greyjoy thinks) and the adoptive family he loves and probably loved him (at least Robb did) but always kept him feeling like an outsider.
  • Shireen asks Stannis if he's ashamed of her, implying that the cause is her greyscale. Stannis is actually proud of her, but since he's taciturn, distant and cold, it takes him a direct question to spit out the answer. He answers with the most heartfelt, reassuring speech he likely ever disclosed, which ends with father and daughter embracing.
  • Varys strikes absolute terror into Ned in Season 1 by asking, "And what of your daughter's life, Lord Stark? Is that a precious thing to you?"
  • Talisa rattles Robb by asking, "And Then What?" of his plan to depose and execute Joffrey.
  • When Davos insists on being humble about his mistreatment by Blue Blood lordlings, Stannis asks, "And where were those lords when Storm's End starved?"
  • Quaithe's query to Jorah concerning Daenerys. "Will you betray her again?" is unsettling for coming from someone who had no way of knowing he had.
  • When Jon angrily points out he and his family are of the same blood as the wildlings and have just as much claim to the North, Ygritte asks, "Then why are you fightin' us?" for which Jon has no answer. Apparently the wildlings' frequent Rape, Pillage, and Burn and overall intent to overrun his homeland with primitive anarchists doesn't occur to Jon.
  • Jaime devastates Brienne with one in "Kissed By Fire":
    Jaime: Tell me, if your precious Renly commanded you to kill your own father and stand by while thousands of men, women, and children burned alive, would you have done it? Would you have kept your oath then?!
  • Brienne looks like a deer in the headlights when Cersei asks her directly if she loves Jaime in "The Lion and the Rose". While she doesn't answer in the affirmative, this sputtering reaction tells Cersei all she wanted to know.
  • When Jaime is balking at seeing Tyrion, Bronn says, "He named you as his champion because he knew you'd ride night and day to come fight for him. Are you going to fight for him now?"
  • Hizdahr zo Loraq confronts Daenerys about her execution of the masters with the question, "Is it justice to answer one crime with another?"
  • When Tyrion tries appealing to The Power of Friendship to talk Bronn into fighting for him, Bronn replies, "Aye, I'm your friend. And when have you ever risked your life for me?"
  • Jorah cannot bring himself to answer when Daenerys demands to know, "Did you tell them I was carrying Drogo's child?"
  • Ralf Kenning unintentionally hits the nail on the head when he demands of Reek, "Are you a woman, boy?"
  • Jaime has no answer when Bronn asks if his lover shares his desire to die in each other's arms.
  • In "The Dance of Dragons", Dany has no answer when Hizdahr asks whether she thinks the pit fighters (who are ostensibly free men) have no ability to know their own minds and make their own judgements about what they're willing to die for. Tyrion interjects with a Shut Up, Hannibal!, but doesn't actually say he disagrees.
  • When Lady Olenna confronts the High Sparrow in the Sept of Baelor, she threatens to call his bluff by starving out the entire capital by stopping trade of crops from the Reach. However, the High Sparrow, a man of the common people, makes the very valid point that as a high-born lady, she has no idea how difficult and complex a seemingly simple thing like that will be and the many are no longer afraid thanks to him. While she doesn't give up her efforts, this Rule of Three rhetoric leaves her utterly stumped; notable as this verbal spar is the only time in the entire series (aside from her negotiations with Tywin) that she's unable to come up with a witty retort or cunning answer.
  High Sparrow: Have you ever sowed the fields, Lady Olenna? Have you ever reaped the grain? Has anyone in House Tyrell?
  • When Davos accuses Melisandre of stringing Stannis along with the Chosen One line, Melisandre protests she didn't lie, she was just wrong. Davos sadly replies "Aye, you were wrong. How many died because you were wrong?", and Melisandre can't answer.
  • In Season 6, when Kevan initially is reluctant to go along with Cersei's plan to seize control from the Faith Militant, Cersei asks him, "Do you want Lancel back? Or have you given him up for good?"
  • Jaime delivers one to Walder Frey in "The Winds of Winter".
    Jaime: We gave you the Riverlands to hold the Riverlands. If we have to ride North and take them back every time you lose them... why do we need you?
  • In "Eastwatch", Jaime tells Cersei about Olenna Tyrell confessing her part in Joffrey's death. Cersei, who had been so adamant about charging Tyrion with the crime and seeing him die over it, initially dismisses Jaime's information with disgust. However, one set of questions from Jaime immediately forces Cersei to process the truth.
    Jaime: If you were Olenna, would you rather have seen your granddaughter marry King Joffrey or Tommen? Which one would have made Olenna the true ruler of the Seven Kingdoms?
  • During the last conversation Sandor and Arya ever have, he manages to finally, finally dissuade her from self-destructive vengeance with one of these at the end of a small speech. Specifically, "Do you want to be like me?". Arya, knowing just where a life of looking for revenge has taken Sandor, has the realization that helps take her off the same path.
• House of the Dragon: After Harwin Strong says goodbye to Jacaerys and Rhaenyra, Jacaerys directly asks Rhaenyra Targaryen if Harwin is his father, which she awkwardly avoids answering (he is).
• On Gilmore Girls, Jess asks a lot of these, hand in hand with his defining character trait of Brutal Honesty. He's observant and lacks tact, though seemingly by design rather than by accident—until he grows up and gains Character Development, the Armor-Piercing Question is mostly to piss other characters off. He gets in some good ones, though, like when Lorelai accuses him of stealing Rory's bracelet. He didn't, he found it, unaware of its significance (it was made for her by her boyfriend), and subtly returned it when he saw she was upset. Lorelai asks him why he would take "the most precious thing in the world" to Rory, and Jess turns right around and wonders why, if the bracelet was so important, did it take Rory two weeks to notice it was missing?
  • Lorelai has quite a few APQs for Rory, all in a sad, disappointed conversation, when she learnes Rory lost her virginity to Dean, who was married at the time.
• Girl Meets World: Maya has had a long, painful discussion with her father, who abandoned her and her mother when she was a child, for her teacher Cory's school project. After telling Cory she failed his assignment because she couldn't forgive him, Cory gives her the real reason why he gave her the assignment:
  Maya: I'm sorry. I failed. I know you wanted me to forgive him, but I didn't. I couldn't do it. You were wrong about this one, Mr. Matthews.
  Cory: I never expected that, Maya. That kind of forgiveness, it doesn't come so easy. But life is a long time, and I hope you get there someday. But that's never what I was looking for right now.
  Maya: What did you want from me?
  Cory: Maya...did you forgive yourself?
  (Maya breaks down into Cory's arms)
• Glee: After Karofsky's suicide attempt, Figgins, Will, Emma, Sue, and Shannon are all processing it and discussing how to handle breaking the news to the students. Sue blames herself for not doing enough when she was principal.
  Will: Guys, we were all hard on Dave. We thought he was going to hurt Kurt. I just never thought he'd hurt himself.
  Figgins: It wasn't our job to know.
  Emma: Then whose job was it? [no one answers]
  • In an earlier episode, we finally get to see Quinn's motivation for all the Prom Queen insanity when Rachel asks, "What are you so scared of?" "The future, when all of this is gone." Rachel assures her she has nothing to be afraid of.
    "You're a very pretty girl, Quinn, prettiest girl I've ever met, but... you're a lot more than that."
• Hap and Leonard: Hap manages to stop KKK leader Truman Brown's Evil Gloating with one that leaves Brown speechless.
  Hap: I know you can tear shit down, but what is it you intend to build?
• Heroes: Season 3, shortly after Claire is finally caught and victimized by Sylar, her biological mother Meredith (a pyrokineticist) accedes to her wishes to train her in combat inside a trailer so that she can fight villains like Sylar. Instead, Meredith repeatedly asks her "why do you want to fight bad guys?!" while superheating the air inside the trailer, causing Claire to admit the true reason behind her vigilante urges - revenge on Sylar for what he did to her (tantamount to rape.)
• Homicide: Life on the Street: While investigating the shooting of a boy who had been left brain dead, Bayliss talks with the boy's mother who vents about how conflicted she is about whether or not to take him off of life support. When she presses Bayliss, he admits that he has written it in his will to do so to him if he is left brain dead. Then she asks him something he is unable to answer.
  Joan Garbarek: But if he were your son, what would you do?
• On House:
  • Dr. House frequently does this to enlighten or enrage. It can be hard to tell at first why he's so persistent. He may think it relevant to a diagnosis, he may be trying to manipulate, he may simply be "trying to solve a puzzle", or all of these.
  • In the first part of the Season 4 finale, "House's Head", the mysterious female bus passenger repeatedly asks House "Who am I?" and "What is my necklace made of?" until House realizes the mysterious woman is a subconscious substitute for Wilson's girlfriend Amber.
  • In "The C-Word" from Season 8, while undergoing a massive dose of chemotherapy, Wilson hallucinates an 8-year-old deceased former patient, who asks why he died if he did nothing wrong. The question is even more devastating to him than the pain of chemo.
• How I Met Your Mother:
  • In "Legendaddy", Barney confronts his long-lost father Jerry, who was once an irresponsible party animal but is now a dedicated family man, and demands to know why he only got his life together after walking out on Barney's childhood. Jerry has no response.
  Jerry: Just come down and talk to me.
  Barney: Why? Why should I? You're lame. You're just some lame suburban dad.
  Jerry: Why does that make you so mad?
  Barney: Because if you were going to be some lame suburban dad, why couldn't you have been that for me?!
  • In the episode "Platonish" is a flashback episode where Barney continually bothered Lily and Robin to get more challenges. Their latest challenge led him to meet the Mother, chronologically the first one out of the core group, who then realized Barney was only accepting challenges to cope with him being heartbroken over Robin and asked him, "Do you want to keep playing or do you want to win?" This inspired Barney to come up with "The Robin".
  • In the episode "Unpause", during an argument with Lily about moving to Rome or staying home, she calls him selfish for taking a job without consulting her, especially before moving to Rome. For this, Marshall retorts by referencing the San Fransico incident, where Lily broke up with him so she can be an artist in San Fransico. Lily tries to defend herself by saying that she apologised repeatedly for her actions but Marshall eventually breaks her heart by asking two questions.
    Lily: Marshall, I apologized over and over again. Now you're saying you never have forgiven me? There is nothing more important to me than our family. You know that.
    Marshall: Well, let me ask. What if you had found success in San Francisco? How do I know that you even would've come back to me?
    Lily: Stop it.
    Marshall: Are Marvin and I and any other future children we may have just some consolation prize?
    Lily: (upset) I have to get out of here.
• In the episode of iCarly where Carly's friend Missy returns to her life and secretively tries to remove Sam from Carly's life, Sam gives a good one to Freddie when she asks for his help and for him to believe her about Missy's manipulative ways.
  Freddie: Tell me one reason why I should believe you.
  Sam: Because I came here. Have I ever come to you for help before?
• JAG: In "Ice Queen", the NCIS Backdoor Pilot, Harm is arrested as the prime suspect for the murder of Lieutenant Singer and as he’s being handcuffed Gibbs asks a question he wasn’t prepared for:
  Commander Rabb: Can you tell if someone's guilty by their eyes?
  Special Agent Gibbs: I can.
  Commander Rabb: Yeah? Well, look in mine. Ask me. Ask me.
  Special Agent Gibbs: Would you kill for your brother?
• Jeremiah: In the first part of the finale, Sims initially disbelieves Markus's claim that his leader, Daniel, is an Invented Individual until Markus says that if that's true, then how is it that he, a man who has never been within several states of Daniel's territory, knows that Sims has never met the man who gave him command of the army?
• Jonathan Creek: In "Jack in the Box", Maddie proposes an elaborate solution for the Locked Room Mystery they are facing, only for Jonathan to bring her to a screeching halt with a single word: "Why?".
  "Why would anyone undertake this extraordinary series of actions you have just described?"
• In the fourth season of Judging Amy, we get a particularly good example. After Kyle goes behind the other doctors' backs to make sure a patient gets the treatment she needs, the head doctor at the hospital calls him out on his maverick behavior and her disappointment in him:
  Lily: Every time I think I'm getting closer to you, you do something stupid, or foolish, and I catch just a glimpse of what you must have been like before you got kicked out of med school.
  Kyle: I was an addict back then, I was using!
  Lily: "Back then?" ...what's your excuse now?
  Kyle: (Stunned Silence, mouth agape)
• Mirabelle puts one to Devin in The Kicks episode "Choosing Sides", which focuses on Devin's reluctance to replace her friend Zoey as the team's goalie. Despite Zoey's well-established unsuitability for the position, Devin is afraid of hurting her feelings. During a game of Truth or Dare, Mirabelle asks her this in front of the whole team:
  Mirabelle: Do you think Zoey is a good goalie?
• Kingdom (2019): Seo-bi brings up a point to Mu-yeong after their rescue from zombies by Lord Ahn Hyeon, "How is it that Lord Hyeon and his men knew how to fight the zombies?". Mu-yeong has no answer but is shown to be discomforted at the idea. It's revealed that in Ahn himself once instigated a zombie outbreak and unleashed it on the Japanese army surrounding Sangju.
• Law & Order has tons of examples of these on the witness stand. Some include:
  • Ben Stone's cross-examination of an anti-abortion activist who had tricked a woman wanting an abortion into carrying a bomb to the clinic. After the woman self-righteously declared what she had done was just, and that the victim, a former follower of hers who had become pregnant, deserved what had happened, the question came that left her speechless.
    "If abortion is murder, then no matter how you feel about Mary Donovan, aren't you guilty of the murder of her unborn child?"
  • Another episode involving the killing of an abortion clinic doctor had Jack McCoy questioning the man who had arranged the murder. The defendant was trying to use justifiable homicide as a defense (that he had to protect all those unborn children by having this woman killed). McCoy pierces his armor by asking why then, if he was so sure it was right and justified and necessary, he hadn't done the deed himself instead of just arranging the murder? The man is forced to admit that he believes any killing is morally wrong and thus couldn't go through with it himself, destroying his own defense completely.
• During season 2 of Legend of the Seeker, Richard became affected by a magic-induced rage, and to help him control it, the wizard Zedd kept asking Richard "What are you angry at?", knocking down each of Richard's answers until they got to the real answer: Richard was angry at Zedd for lying to him about heritage and bringing him into the conflict in the first place.
• At the climax of the Leverage: Redemption episode "The Card Game Job", Breanna of Team Leverage is playing a collectible card game with Corrupt Corporate Executive Jim Cordozar, who owns a drug that cures a deadly disease but has been Withholding the Cure to increase his profits. When Cordozar expounds on his sociopathic worldview, Breanna responds with a combination of this trope and Shut Up, Hannibal!.
  Cordozar: That's why you're gonna lose this tournament. You're so worried about being "nice". You want to be a winner in this world? You take, and take, and take, and you don't look back. You don't worry about who gets hurt or who likes you. You have to be willing to be a killer.
  Breanna: Like killing kids who can't afford your drugs?
• Cal Lightman of Lie to Me uses this all the time to get a reaction he can read off of someone.
• Lost:
  • In Season 1, Locke leaves Boone and Shannon tied up in the jungle, allowing the monster to kill Shannon. After Boone gets free, he comes after Locke with knife, screaming accusations. As soon as he says the words "she died in my arms," Locke delivers his first APQ: "Then why is there no blood on you?" This forces Boone to realize that the whole thing was a hallucination. But then Locke drops his second APQ, asking Boone how he felt when he thought Shannon was dead. Despite his rage, Boone says "relieved," effectively concluding his arc as he sheds his emotional dependence on her.
  • Season 3.
    Sayid: [to Juliet] You said earlier that if you told me everything you knew, I'd kill you. I'm going to test the validity of that statement.
    Sawyer: He means "talk".
    Juliet: We don't have time for this.
    Sawyer: We cleared our schedules. We got all the time in the world.
    Juliet: You know it's interesting... that you two are now the camp's moral police. I'm curious Sayid, how long was it before you told everyone on that beach exactly how many people you've tortured in your life? Do they know about Basra? And I'm sure the first thing you did when you got here, James, was to gather everyone in a circle and tell them about the man you shot in cold blood the night before you got on the plane. So why don't we just skip the part where you two pretend to be righteous? I'm taking that medicine back to Claire, and you're going to let me. Because if she doesn't get it, she's going to die. And the last thing either of you need right now... is more blood on your hands.
  • Jacob to Ben in the season 5 finale: "What about you?"
• In Low Winter Sun, in the dying seconds of the last episode, Frank is completely taken aback when asked to confirm Katia's name while identifying her body. It throws in to question how well he actually knew a woman he supposedly loved when he couldn't even be sure Katia was her real name.
• In Mad Men, there's a particularly effective one where Peggy is upset at the way the mother of a child actress acts towards her, which makes Stan think that she was upset that she never had children, which is obviously not true. After a flippant joke from Stan about the possibility of having illegitimate children, Peggy talked about the unfair double standard of women having to pay for a mistake while men can just walk away. This leads to Peggy revealing one of her deepest secrets.
  Peggy: Maybe she was very young and followed her heart and got in trouble. And no one should have to make a mistake and not be able to move on. She should be able to live the rest of her life, just like a man does!
  Stan: You're right...
  Peggy: I know (pauses) Maybe you'd do what you thought was the best thing.
  Stan: What did you do?
  • And then, of course, from "Seven Twenty Three"
    Bert Cooper: After all, when it comes down to it, who’s really signing this contract anyway?
• Malcolm in the Middle:
  • In one prominent instance, Commandant Spangler asks Francis "Can you name one thing wrong with your life that you don't blame on your mother?". Having blamed his mother for every problem he's ever had, regardless of how much Insane Troll Logic it took, Francis is stumped.
  • Malcolm is trying to burst Reese's charade of wanting Cynthia's help with homework, so that he can get close enough to her to grope her. When flat-out telling her what his plan was doesn't work, Malcolm asks Reese one question, to show that he doesn't care a single bit about Cynthia.
    Malcolm: What's her name?
• In the final episode of M*A*S*H, Hawkeye is committed after an incident on a bus. Sidney Freeman has him relive the scene, where they pulled off the road to hide from an enemy patrol and needed to keep completely quiet, but a woman's chicken wouldn't stop making noise. He says she killed the chicken to keep quiet...but Sidney then asks "She killed the chicken?" This sparks Hawkeye's real memory, that she'd actually smothered her own baby to keep it quiet.
  Hawkeye: You son of a bitch. Why did you make me remember that?
  Sidney: You had to get it out in the open. Now we're halfway home.
• In an early episode of Modern Family, Luke asks his father "Are you, Dad? Are you?" Phil is deeply affected by the question and spends some time in thought. Subverted in that Luke didn't actually mean anything by it - he just realised asking "are you?" in the right tone of voice got people off his back.
• Tony on NCIS manages to turn his interrogation around while being question by Eli David, the Director of Mossad. He's being interrogated about killing a Mossad officer, who was romantically involved with Ziva but whom Tony thought had nefarious ulterior motives for being the US.
  Tony: You send all your rogue agents to D.C., make it our mess? Guess I shouldn't be surprised, since you did the same thing with Ari, and he was your son. Speaking of family, what kind of a father would throw an out-of-control assassin at his own daughter? What kind of business are you running here, huh? Everyone just runs around, doing whatever the hell they want?
  Eli David: (grabs Tony by the throat) They do as I say.
  Tony: Rivkin?
  Eli David: Always.
  (Tony looks up at the security camera, knowing Ziva is on the other side and heard the whole thing.)
• Odd Squad:
  • Two occur within seconds of each other in "Training Day" following Olive telling Otto about Todd's Start of Darkness.
  Otto: Why do you keep calling that guy your partner?
  Olive: Huh?
  Otto: We solve problems differently, but we still do it together. That's what partners are for: helping each other. But Todd only helped himself.
  Olive: [after a short pause] You're right.

  Otto: If Todd is the best agent there ever was...then how are we gonna beat him?
  [short pause]
  Olive: I don't know, partner. [sighs] I don't know.
  • Speaking of the season finale, Odd Todd reminds Otto why he seemingly performed a Face–Heel Turn and teamed up with the former in the first place when he doubts coming to the former's lair.
  Odd Todd: Oho, Otto Otto Otto. This is the only way to get Olive back. If we unleash something really odd from Headquarters, Ms. O will realize she can't lose her best agent, and you'll have your partner back. That's what you've always wanted...isn't it?
  [short pause]
  Otto: [solemnly nodding] Yeah.
  • In the Season 3 episode "Music of Sound", Orla, who is unfamiliar with Soundcheck and what they do, asks the members of the band an innocent question that makes them think and eventually drives them to break up.
  Orla: Tell me, what is this organization you call..."Sound Check"?
  Danny T: You don't know who we are?
  Orla: I do not. But you must enjoy many activities together. What are your favorites?
  [the band members exchange looks]
• Oz: Self-righteous Christian fundamentalist Cudney boasts about having shot the son of a doctor who had performed an abortion on his wife, viewing it as paying evil unto evil. Cyril, disgusted by this, asks what Cudney will tell the boy when he gets into Heaven, adding that he already knows what he'll tell his own murder victim. A stunned Cudney is unable to reply, clearly having never thought about it before.
• In the second season of Peaky Blinders, Tommy's burgeoning crime empire is on the brink of collapse, Arthur and Michael have both been arrested, Polly isn't speaking to him because of said arrest and a close ally has betrayed him. Esme suggests that instead of continuing to fight, the family pack up and run away to France. Tommy, who has rather traumatic memories of his time there, grabs her face and tells her if she ever mentions getting lost again, he'll cut her out of the family. Esme's response:

  Esme: What family?

• The Prisoner (1967):
  • "The General" shows Number Six defeating a highly advanced computer by Logic Bombing it with a question which he is certain its predictive and logic circuits will not be equipped to answer: "Why?"
    Prisoner: It's insoluble, for man or machine.
  • And in "Hammer into Anvil", after exploiting Number Two's paranoia all episode:
    Two: Sent here by our masters to spy on me.
    Six: ... Just supposing for argument's sake that I was planted here? ... What would have been your first duty as a loyal citizen?
    Two: (Oh, Crap! face)
    Six: Not to interfere.
  • Shattered Visage, the comic follow-up to the series, has this one: "Does the presence of Number Two require the existence of Number One?"
• Power Rangers Jungle Fury: A while after failing his master test, Casey goes on to confront Jarrod in order to save him from Dai Shi's evil possession. During his trip to the lair, Casey encounters the ghost of Master Mao and the following conversation between them reveals that Casey feels responsible for Jarrod's current situation due to the fight that broke out between the two, resulting in the events of the series. When Casey goes forward in spite of the warnings, Master Mao leaves him with this to mull over before the confrontation with Dai Shi and Jarrod:

  Master Mao: Casey! Are you trying to save Jarrod or redeem yourself?!

• Radio Enfer:
  • In the Halloween Episode, Jocelyne and Mr. Giroux debate over which one between the radio crew and the newspaper crew should win a trip to France that they organized. Giroux is convinced it should be the former, while Jocelyne thinks it should be the latter. He then asks her if she realized that she will be spending two weeks with the big mouth that is Vincent Gélinas. Jocelyne then admits he has a good point and agrees that the radio crew members should be the winners.
  • Vincent comments that Jean-Lou is pitiful and would have difficulties finding a place in society due to how slow-witted he is, leading to this exchange with Carl:
    Carl: No, no, no, don't worry. Jean-Lou is perfectly adapted to society because society is built BY slow-witted FOR slow-witted.
    Vincent: Well. You're exaggerating a little, Charest, don't you think?
    Carl: Okay, I exaggerate?
    Vincent: Yeah.
    Carl: Okay, who's the Prime Minister of Canada?^note The answer being Jean Chrétien at the time.
    [Beat]
    Vincent: Yeah, you're right.
• In Red Band Society, Kara incessantly acts like an Alpha Bitch, whether at her school or in the hospital where she's currently confined. When she throws yet another inane insult at Leo, he simply responds, "Can you ever just give it a rest?" Kara actually stops for a second, gives a bitter smile, and somberly replies, "If I could, don't you think I would?"
• In Red Dwarf, Kryten delivers one to the Inquisitor when making his case for existence.
  Inquisitor: In a human, this behaviour might be considered stubborn.
  Kryten: But I am not human. And neither are you. And it is not our place to judge them... I wonder why you do?
  Inquisitor: ENOUGH!
• Al Rawabi School For Girls: When Miss Abeer shames Ruqayah for taking a photo of herself without a hijab (which a boy proceeded to distribute to the school) and states "she has forgotten her values!", this is Layan's response.
  Layan: "What about the guy who did this to her? Is no one concerned about his values?"
• The Rise of Phoenixes: Ning Yi says the Crown Prince is only interested in the throne. Chief Gu agrees, then reminds Ning Yi of events eighteen years ago. He finishes by asking, "How are you any different from the Crown Prince?" Ning Yi stares at him and doesn't answer.
• At the end of one of Rory Bremner's satirical shows broadcast in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, he plays Tony Blair attending his weekly audience with the Queen (also played by Bremner). The Queen asks him how determined he is on the invasion: Would he do it without additional evidence from weapons inspectors? Without getting a new resolution from the UN? Finally, she silences him with the question: "Without the Americans?"
• Sadakatsiz: Derin demands from her mother Gönül whether she will help her with her schemes to keep Volkan by her side. Subverted because while Gönül doesn't answer, it's not because she ought to reconsider and come to her daughter's aid but because she's at her wits' end. Derin has gone too far in trying to secure a man too fickle to love anyone, so Gönül can't, in good conscience, keep helping her with that. In fact, her silence is implied to be an Armor-Piercing Response to Derin—who, of course, ignores it.
• The Sandman (2022): In "The Sound of Her Wings", when Dream expresses his distaste for slavery and suggests Hob find a different line of work, Hob gets defensive, as Dream said he could live his life however he chose. Dream's response is thus:
  Dream: The choice is yours. But would you take that choice away from others?
• Saturday Night Live: Parodied. Guest starring Christoph Woltz with a game show sketch called "What Have I Become?". He asks the contestants the titular question and they all Freak Out in different ways. Finally one contestant asks him the same and he guess crazy.
• Schmigadoon!: In a quiet moment in the middle of "Lover's Spat" Melissa asks Josh if he believes they aren't true love. His attempt at dodging the question convinces her that he doesn't.
• Scrubs:
  • In one of the most emotional episodes, Dr. Cox is headed to his son's birthday party and is talking to his best friend, Ben. In the middle of the conversation, the camera switches so that Cox's face is in the foreground, and J.D. walks up to him and asks him what he's talking about. When Cox gives him the expected answer (the topic of the conversation), J.D. waits a Beat and asks "Where do you think we are?" The camera then switches back to where Ben was, except he is no longer there. They were headed to Ben's funeral the entire time; he, not the elderly Patient of the Week, had died earlier in the episode.
  • In "My Fifteen Seconds", Jill Tracy is back at the hospital for unexplained poisoning. Every time Cox and J.D. talk with her, she behaves in her typical over-the-top and frivolous way. It's only later that the two doctors understand she had tried to kill herself. They rush back to the hospital and the question "How have things been going recently?" finally prompts her to tell the truth.
  • Happened during Season 5 when J.D. saw a dead Jill Tracy wheeled in to the hospital and her mom asks : "Could someone have done anything?". This hits J.D. hard due to him having seen signs that Jill was a Stepford Smiler with suicidal tendencies but kept avoiding her because she's a Motor Mouth. He answers with no but thinks "Unless you mean me."
• In Sex and the City, after catching Carrie with her married ex-boyfriend in the middle of a hotel, Charlotte shuts up Carrie trying to justify her excuses and pity party for her affair by finally forcing Carrie to think about how this will affect Big's wife Natasha if/when she finds out.
  Charlotte: This isn't a joke, Carrie. They took vows, vows he broke. I'm getting married in three weeks, what if somebody did this to me!?
  Carrie: ...I would kill them.
  Charlotte: How could you do this?
• In Speer Und Er, there's a scene where Nazi Germany's chief architect Albert Speer is questioned after the war by a group of Allied officers. After Speer basically casts himself as an Anti-Villain and Only Sane Employee, he gets reminded that this possibly makes him worse than the outright fanatics. An officer points out that Speer fully understood that the people he worked for were murderers and thugs, yet knowingly applied his skills to prolong the war. He then asks Speer: "How can you explain that to me? How can you justify it? How can you bear to live with yourself?"
• Sports Night has a relatively trivial example. The coach at Casey's alma mater calls a disastrous play, and Casey spends the next week making fun of him on air for it... until someone asks him "What play would you have called?" and he realizes he has no idea.
• Squid Game:
  • Towards the end of Game 4, Player 001 offers to play one more game with Gi-hun with it being All or Nothing. Gi-hun is initially outraged over betting all 19 of his marbles for Player 001's only marble and says that makes no sense. Player 001 responds, "Does tricking your friend like that make sense to you?", revealing he was faking his dementia and knew Gi-hun was lying to him several times through the game.
  • After Game 5, Gi-hun confronts his old friend Sang-woo over how the latter pushed another player to his death in order to find the right path to safety and asks if Sang-woo would have done the same if Gi-hun had been in the latter's position. Sang-woo goes off on an angry rant about how Gi-hun's poor decisions and inability to keep his mouth shut when necessary has gotten him into this mess. Gi-hun calmly admits that his life is a mess, since he's a divorcee who lives with his mother and is deep in debt, but then asks why Sang-woo, a businessman who graduated from SNU, ended up in the game with him. Sang-woo is left at a loss for words.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
  • In the pilot episode "Emissary", the Prophets have one for Sisko: "Why do you exist here?"^{Further explanation}In other words, if time is linear, then why is Sisko stuck on a moment in his past — the death of his wife Jennifer? It jolts Sisko into realizing that he's never moved on from the grief of her loss.
  • In "The Maquis Part 2", Quark schools Sakonna, a Vulcan Maquis officer, in logic, pointing out that their attacks on the Cardassian settlers in the demilitarized zone would make it harder to achieve peace in that area.
    Quark: Don't you get it? Attacking the Cardassians now will only escalate the conflict, and make peace more expensive in the long run. Now, I ask you... is that logical?
  • In "The Assignment", O'Brien is coerced into making modifications to the station by a demonic entity who has taken possession of his wife Keiko and is using her as a hostage. At one point O'Brien recruits Rom to assist with the modifications, but Odo promptly arrests Rom for sabotage. When O'Brien visits Rom in holding, Rom asks him the questions that end up giving O'Brien the knowledge he needs to save his wife; "Why are we focusing a chronoton beam at the wormhole?...Why are we trying to kill the wormhole aliens?"
  • The show clearly channeled a bit of TNG's "The Measure of a Man" when they had Captain Sisko dismantle a Kangaroo Court that tried to frame Worf in "Rules of Engagement".
    Sisko: No. You are an expert on the Klingon Empire. So, tell me, Advocate. Isn't it possible that there were no civilians on the transport Worf destroyed? Isn't it possible that the ship he saw was sending out false sensor images and that this whole affair was staged so that the only Klingon officer in Starfleet would be accused of a massacre and the Federation would be forced to stop escorting the convoys? Tell me, Advocate, isn't. It. Possible?
  • In "Tacking into the Wind", Worf discovers that Gowron is setting Martok up to fail in battle to either get him killed or disgraced, making the war with the Dominion even tougher. Worf's attempts to resolve the problem fail, and he seeks advice from Ezri. She points out that Gowron is "a symptom of a larger problem": the Klingon Empire itself being corrupt. Worf initially disagrees, but Ezri asks him to name the last Chancellor he respected or one who wasn't involved in some corruption. Her conclusion is what really gives Worf something to think about.
    Ezri: Worf, you are the most honorable and decent man I have ever met. And if you're willing to accept men like Gowron, then what hope is there for the Empire?
    • The same episode sees Kira trying to help Damar's new resistance movement against the Dominion. Damar is dealt a nasty blow, though, when he learns the Dominion hunted down and killed his wife and son.
      Damar: What kind of state tolerates the murder of innocent women and children? What kind of people give those orders?
      Kira: Yeah, Damar, what kind of people give those orders?^note For those unfamiliar with the backstory of the series, the Cardassians — of which Damar is one and was a high ranking one at that — had occupied Bajor, Kira's homeworld, committing the exact sorts of atrocities that Damar is complaining about here. And Damar had personally killed Tora Ziyal, a half-Cardassian girl who was almost like a sister to Kira, because Ziyal had sided with the Federation over the Cardassians.
    • This particular question shakes up Damar so much that Kira considers apologizing, but Garak^note Another Cardassian talks her down, saying that Damar's romanticized view of the old Cardassia desperately needed a reality check. Later, Damar rescues Kira and Odo from an old-guard Cardassian, killing the latter, completing an important bit of Character Development in the process. To quote Damar: "He was my friend. But his Cardassia's dead... and it won't be coming back."
• Star Trek: Picard:
  • In "Remembrance", a reporter at one point presses Picard with this question:
    "What was it that you lost faith in, Admiral? You've never spoken about your departure from Starfleet. Didn't you, in fact, resign your commission in protest? Tell us, Admiral, why did you really quit Starfleet?"
  • In "Broken Pieces":
    • When Raffi challenges Picard on how well he really knows Soji, he's unable to respond.
      Raffi: What is Soji really like? Hmm? Do you know? Does she?
      [Picard is silent]
      Raffi: Yeah, that's what I thought.
    • When Seven of Nine as a Borg Queen is done leading the xBs to overpower the Romulans, Elnor asks her if she plans to assimilate him. She replies that "Annika" still has work to do and disbands the Collective.
    • Soji demands to know if Jurati considers her to be a real person. We don't get to see Jurati's answer.
  • In "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1", a captive Narek complains about how he's being treated because he's thirsty and has no access to water. Saga inquires, "How do Romulans treat their prisoners?" He scoffs, "Let's change the subject."
• Star Trek: The Next Generation:
  • In the classic James Newcomer episode "The Measure of a Man", Picard is forced to defend Data's rights when Commander Bruce Maddox claims that he is not sentient and is Starfleet's property, giving Maddox the right to disassemble Data against his will to study and replicate him. Picard questions the real implications of Maddox's work that eventually leaves Maddox shaken and silent.
    Picard: A single Data, and forgive me, Commander, is a curiosity: a wonder, even. But thousands of Datas, isn't that becoming a race? And won't we be judged by how we treat that race? Now tell me, Commander, what is Data?
    Maddox: I don't understand.
    Picard: What is he?
    Maddox: A machine!
    Picard: Is he? Are you sure?
    Maddox: Yes!
    Picard: You see he's met two of your three criteria for sentience [intelligence and self-awareness], so what if he meets the third, consciousness, in even the smallest degree? What is he then? I don't know, do you? [to Riker, who'd been forced to argue for Maddox's side] Do you? [to the judge] Do you? Are you prepared to condemn him and all who come after him to servitude and slavery?
  • Picard himself is taken aback by Data's question earlier in the same episode, after he suggests to Data to agree to Maddox's procedure for the sake of Starfleet.
    Data: Sir, Lt. La Forge's eyes are far superior to human biological eyes, true? Then why are not all human officers required to have their eyes replaced with cybernetic implants?
    [Picard is at a loss for words and turns away]
    Data: I see. It is precisely because I am not human.
    Picard: [shaken] That will be all, Mr. Data.
  • In "Future Imperfect", Riker realizes he's gotten put through a Faked Rip Van Winkle scenario, so he starts asking rapid fire questions to his "crewmates":
    Riker: Worf, where did you get that scar?
    "Worf": In combat.
    Riker: What battle? When? Which sector? Which unit? Mister Data, if we left immediately, when would we arrive at Outpost 23?
    "Data": At warp 1, in three days, four hours.
    Riker: What about at warp 7? [pause] At warp 8? At warp 9? What's the matter, Data? What happened to those millions of calculations per second?
  • In "Rightful Heir", Gowron disputes whether the Klingon claiming to be Kahless returned is the real thing. The apparent Kahless recounts an age-old anecdote about a man who, out of foolish pride, defied a storm and died for it. Gorwon, rather than conceding the point, promptly asks "Kahless" — whose historical counterpart supposedly saw the man die — what the defiant Klingon's name was. As he's actually a clone programmed with knowledge of the anecdote, not a true witness, "Kahless" doesn't know.
  • In "Sarek", Picard has the unfortunate task of confronting Sarek with the fact that he has Bendii Syndrome (Vulcan Alzheimer's) and is no longer up to the job of being a mediator. As proof of this, he points out the fact that Sarek was crying during a concert. Sarek argues that it was only one tear, but as Picard points out...
    Picard: You still haven't answered my question, Sarek. Is it logical for a Vulcan to cry?
    • Earlier than that, Data confronts Sarek's personal assistant, Sakkath, and asks him "You must decide which is your greater obligation: Your loyalty to Sarek or your duty to the Federation? Can you accept the logic of continuing this mission?", which leads him to admit that Sarek is not well.
• Star Trek: The Original Series:
  • "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" has the Enterprise sent back to the 60's and accidentally cause an Air Force jet to crash. They beam the pilot on board, then debate whether or not to return him to his time. McCoy argues for taking him back to their time while Kirk argues for returning him to his time. Kirk's argument is mostly about how he doesn't fit in with their time and technology. McCoy counters that he can be trained. Kirk's response: "Can he be trained to forget his family?"
  • In "Errand of Mercy", an impending Federation-Klingon war is interrupted when the Organians run out of patience with their visitors' violence and reveal their true nature. Both Kirk and Kor protest, until Ayelborne cuts to the heart of the issue:
    Kirk: You have no right to dictate to our Federation...
    Kor: ...or our Empire!
    Kirk: ...how to handle their interstellar relations! We have the right...
    Ayelborne: To wage war, Captain? To kill millions of innocent people? To destroy life on a planetary scale? Is that what you're defending?
• Taken: In "Dropping the Dishes", Allie Keys says to Mary Crawford, "Your grandfather wasn't a very happy man. Why are trying so hard to be like him?" Mary is very disturbed by the question and is left atypically speechless.
• In Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, the words "Will you join us?" pierce through Cameron's literal armor, which is saying something. This prompts, amongst other things, an Oh, Crap! moment for her, with John even bewilderedly pointing out she's upset, not him. Funnily enough, the same question actually gives her the same reaction twice. First in the future hearing it from Jesse, then again in the present from Ellison.
• In the first season finale of Transparent Maura asks Ally, "I have a question, now that you're not on the payroll anymore. Do you like me? If I didn't give you any money, would you even talk to me?"
• The Thundermans: In "A Hero is Born", Cherry ends up discovering the Thundermans' newborn baby sister which Phoebe tried to hide from her due to her single-day birth. Cherry realizes Phoebe has been hiding things from her and always lying to her, and when Phoebe admits she did have a lot of secrets but she can't tell her any of them, Cherry utters the following line which results in the near-end of their friendship.
  Cherry: What kind of best friends don't tell each other everything?
  (Phoebe does not respond)
  Cherry: Guess that's my answer. (walks out)
• In the episode of The Twilight Zone (2002) "Shades of Guilt", a man who allowed an African-American professor named John to be beaten to death, when he could have saved him, is forced to transform into said black man. With nowhere else to go, he turns to John's family, leading to the man's wife telling him he first has to answer a question:
  Wife: If my husband was white, would you have saved him?
• The Untamed:
  • When Jiang Cheng first realized that Wei Wuxian had returned and was prepared to use Zidian on "Mo Xuanyu" again, he is confronted by Lan Jingyi who argued that Zidian already proved that "Mo Xuanyu" isn't possessed and thus Wei Wuxian is still dead; after all, Jiang Cheng was the one who killed him years ago. It's later revealed that this was not the case, hence Jiang Cheng's distressed reaction.
    Jiang Cheng: How do you know that Wei Wuxian's really dead?!
    Lan Jingyi: But wasn't it you who killed him?
  • Jiang Cheng offered a comb to Wen Qing as a gift earlier and told her she could use it and come to him if she ever needed help. However, after she and her family fled to the Burial Mountains and Jiang Cheng confronted Wei Wuxian after sheltering the Wen clan, Wen Qing returned the comb to Jiang Cheng. He asked why she did not come to him and she calmly asked him if he truly would have helped her without question as Wei Wuxian had. To which Jiang Cheng did not have an answer for.
• In the Voyagers! episode "Voyagers of the Titanic", Pasteur is about to give up on the rabies vaccine, saying he couldn't deal with the mockery that would likely result from his continuing. Bogg snaps him out of it by questioning how he's going to deal with it if Jeff dies because he was too afraid to remake the vaccine.
• WandaVision
  • Mrs. Hart does this to Wanda and Vision simultaneously in the first episode with three simple questions: "Where did you move here from? How long have you been married? Why did you move here?" ^note She also asks why they don't have kids yet, but that one's treated like a joke and swiftly brushed aside. Both begin to answer, only to realise that they don't know, and trail off into horrified silence. This infuriates Mr. Hart, who starts repeating the questions more and more insistently only to be met with more silence. This is the first sign to Wanda and Vision that something is seriously wrong, and the episode's Fifties Dom Com vibe completely falls apart for a moment before snapping back as though nothing happened.
  • "Breaking the Fourth Wall" has another question towards Wanda during an interview scene, in regards to the Hex slowly depilating: "Do you think maybe this is what you deserve?". Wanda is caught off guard because, as she points out, the interviewer is never supposed to directly talk in this show format. The interviewer is later revealed to be Agatha Harkness in disguise.
• Several examples of this occur in The West Wing, since it's a show about career politicians with rhetorical training. Sometimes it's the White House staff trying to cut through political facades, like when Oliver Babish interviews Bartlet over his MS, and sometimes it's a reporter, such as Danny Concannon investigating the assassination of a foreign national by US intelligence.
  • Central to the second-season episode "Noel" is a psychologist asking Josh "How did you hurt your hand?" over and over until he tells the truth.
  • An amusing sequence occurs in the introduction to the re-election arc, where a potential candidate for President completely flubs the question "Why do you want to be President?". Bartlet's staff giggle incessantly over the completely unorganized and unconvincing response, until one of them asks the other "What would Bartlet say to that question?" and they realize they don't have an answer either.
  • Abbey Bartlet helped her husband conceal his MS by secretly prescribing him medication. When his medical condition is revealed, Abbey is forced to submit to a hearing which might result in a year's suspension of her practitioner's license, a prospect that greatly upsets her. This comes to a head in "Dead Irish Writers," when Abbey, C.J., Amy, and Donna all sneak off to drink during a White House party. Amy and C.J. can't figure out why the suspension is such a problem: Abbey's done great work for health care (and will continue to do such work after her license is restored) and has a family. She repeatedly replies "I'm a doctor"—to which Donna remarks, "Oh, Mrs. Bartlet, for crying out loud, you were also a doctor when your husband said 'Give me the drugs and don't tell anybody' and you said 'OK.'" This stuns Abbey into silence, and prompts her to voluntarily give up her license for the remainder of her husband's time in office.
  • The MS subplot brings out a bunch of these, including:
    • Leo asking Abbey, "This has happened before. This is me. What does he have that he can't tell people?"
    • Abbey shouting at Jed, "Do you get that you have MS? Do you get that your immune system is shredding your brain and I can't tell you why? Do you have any idea of how good a doctor I am and I can't tell you why?"
  • Abbey has one when she confronts Jed about his State of the Union speech that had had multiple changes made to it, including removing a section about fighting domestic violence.
    "When did you decide you were going to run for a second term?"
  • It's the nature of the office that even the President's playful banter can bring about one of these, such as when he attempts to resist being administered a flu shot by his Navy physician:
    Bartlet: I don't need a flu shot.
    Doctor: You do need a flu shot.
    Bartlet: How do I know this isn't the start of a military coup? I want the Secret Service in here right away.
    Doctor: In the event of a military coup, sir, what makes you think the Secret Service is gonna be on your side?
    Bartlet: [subdued] Now that's a thought that's gonna fester.
• The Wire:
  • In "Cleaning Up", D'Angelo Barksdale decides to quit the Game:
    "Where's Wallace? Where the fuck is Wallace? Huh? Huh? String? String? Look at me! Where the fuck is Wallace?"
  • And a possible callback in "Final Grades", when the System fails Randy:
    "You gon' help, huh? You gonna look out for me? You gonna look out for me, Sergeant Carver? You mean it? You gonna look out for me? You promise?! You got my back, huh?!"
  • In "Slapstick", after her meeting with McNulty over the circumstances of D'Angelo's death, Brianna, his mother, confronts her brother Avon on what really happened to her son:
  Avon: What? What you tryin' to say?
  Brianna: If something happened-
  Avon: The fuck are you even thinking? That I had something to do with it? I could do that to my own kin!? Is that what you fucking think? The fuck is in your head!? I ain't do nothin' to D. I ain't had shit to do with it.
  Brianna: ...To do with what? To do with what!?
• In the fourth episode of Wolf Hall, Thomas More is imprisoned for not signing the Oath that confirms Henry VIII as head of the Church in England. He makes his defense silence, saying that he doesn't speak against it, and that he thinks none harm and does none harm. Thomas Cromwell says "What about Bilney? What about Bainham?" Both men were Protestants (and friends of Cromwell's) who were tortured and executed under More's authority—Bainham just at the end of episode three. It's one of the only times that Cromwell makes an open display of anger in the series.
• Word of Honor: Zhou Zishu is horrified to discover Wen Kexing has gotten innocent people killed. Wen Kexing retorts with, "Do you dare to say that you've only ever killed bad people?"
• Yellowjackets: Shauna and Adam are having an affair. The two are caught in a club by her daughter. Shauna takes Callie home and they have a Pet the Dog moment where they talk sincerely and without disrespecting each other.
  Callie: When did you fall out of love with dad?
• Young Sheldon:
  • In "A Solo Peanut, a Social Butterfly and the Truth", Georgie doesn't understand what is the big deal that he didn't tell Mandy he was seventeen until Connie asks him "How would you feel if someone did this to your sister?"
  • In "White Trash, Holy Rollers and Punching People", when Mary complains about being shunned by the congregation, Pastor Rob asks how she would act if someone else was in the same situation. Mary just shuts up and eats from Rob's bag of donut holes (which she had rejected earlier).

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