Cycles of Revenge in Live-Action TV series.
- On The Americans, the Soviet and American intelligence agencies end up in one after a rogue faction of the KGB hire an assassin to kill some American rocket scientists. Philip and Elizabet are able to stop the assassin, but not before three FBI agents are killed in a bombing. A group within the FBI decides to retaliate by kidnapping the Soviet KGB Rezident, but end up kidnapping a low-level flunky instead. It seems like the feud might end right there, but then Philip kills an FBI agent that is about to expose his cover. The FBI kills the kidnapped Russian and the CIA retaliates by killing a number of ranking KGB officials. The Soviet government declines to retaliate in the hope to end the pointless feud. However, Elizabeth and Claudia were very close to one of the killed KGB officers and disobey orders when they target a CIA deputy director who was involved in planning the assassinations.
- Babylon 5 has this between the Narn and the Centauri. While some individuals manage to overcome it (e.g. Londo and G'Kar), it plays a major role from the first season to the last. Londo at one point compares it to Newton's Third Law of Motion:Londo: They hate us, we hate them, they hate us back. And so, here we are...victims of mathematics.
- The cycle of revenge has emerged as the driving force in the overarching mythology of Battlestar Galactica (2003). "All this has happened before and all this will happen again."
- Bones: A Victim of the Week was the head of a Feuding Family not unlike the Hatfields and the McCoys. It all started when a man from one of the families and a woman from the other one were romantically involved and the two of them were poisoned. Each family blamed the other one. When the Victim of the Week figured out neither half of the couple was at fault, he tried to put an end to the feud, but his attorney/daughter-in-law killed him to continue making money off the lawsuits. (In modern times, the families resorted to suing instead of murdering.)
- The Brady Bunch: "My Sister, Benedict Arnold" saw Greg and Marcia exercise this trope by bringing home dates deliberately picked out to annoy the other sibling. Mike and Carol make sure that neither Greg nor Marcia come out the winner, very bluntly pointing out that such behavior is unacceptable and making them apologize not only to each other but to their "dates" as well.
- The classic Doctor Who serial The Caves of Androzani. The psychotic Sharaz Jek plunges the Androzani system into a costly war for the sole purpose of getting revenge on the business partner who betrayed and permanently disfigured him. General Chellak, on the other hand, is willing to sacrifice virtually his entire force in a suicidal frontal assault against Jek's killer androids in order to kill Jek.
- Game of Thrones: A major factor in the series because whole families are often held accountable for the actions of any member. Lord Tywin is renowned for breaking one such cycle by massacring all the Reynes of Castamere. Tyrion and Cersei even discuss the trope briefly in "Mhysa", during which Tyrion declares that they create two enemies for every one they defeat.
- Grimm: One episode's Villain of the Week, a Bauerschwein, kills two Blutbaden because their sister Angelina killed his two brothers. It turns out that the two species have had a feud lasting for ages. In another episode, a Bauerschwein chef is found to be putting a toxin into his meals that is fatal to Blutbaden but harmless to humans and other Wesen. He is completely indiscriminate in this and does not care that many Blutbaden have now forsaken the old ways and never killed anyone. In both cases, Nick is able to use his position as a Grimm and a police officer to arrest the killers and prevent further retaliation.
- In one episode of Growing Pains the dad uses this trope as an example as to why it is best to forgive rather than seek revenge when you feel wronged.
- Hatfields & McCoys dramatizes the famous American feud that perpetuated itself on reactionary acts of vengeance.
- Discussed a few times in the Highlander TV series.
- The episode "Forgive Us Our Trespasses" featured a generally decent immortal named Stephen Keane with legitimate grudges against Duncan. Duncan's friend Amanda pleads with Keane to reconsider and call off his grudge, in part because both Duncan and Keane are truly good men with lots of friends and allies, and so she says this trope is likely to be the outcome if either one kills the other in a duel. Whoever dies, their friends will try to avenge them, and then friends of those friends get involved, and the whole thing spirals completely out of control.
- The episode "One Minute To Midnight" involved an immortal Crusading Widow who was targeting the Watcher organization after his wife was murdered by immortal-hating renegade Watchers. The Watchers, in turn, wanted to kill him to defend themselves and avenge those of their members whom he'd killed. The possibility that this would lead to further revenge attempts against the Watchers by other immortals was also discussed on both sides.
- In one episode of Hustle, the gang were hired by a guy's ex-wife to ruin his life because she painted a very unsympathetic picture of him, but as the episode progresses, it is really blurred as to which of them is more at fault.
- The Judge: An episode of this 1980s courtroom TV series had a cycle of revenge story, where three college-aged students –- two women and a man –- raped each other in retribution for a previous rape one of them had committed against the other. Judge Franklin was so angry by the series of events he scolded them instead and refused to use his cheery "Be good to each other!" CatchPhrase, instead telling them to get out of his courtroom and warning that if he ever saw them again in his courtroom, they would go to jail.
- On Justified, the Givens and the Bennetts have been Feuding Families since Prohibition when a Bennett killed a Givens who supposedly turned him in for bootlegging. Half a century later, there is only a handful of people left in each family and the women of the families agree to a peace. However, there is still a lot of hostility between the families, and a teenage Dickie Bennett attacks Raylan Givens during a high school baseball game. Raylan fights back and cripples Dickie's leg. Dickie is too afraid of his mother Mags to further retaliate, but holds onto the grudge. In Season 2, Raylan is forced to kill Coover Bennett to save the life of a young girl and Dickie and Doyle Bennett swear out revenge. Mags once again orders them to keep peace, but then Arlo Givens robs Dickie during a drug buy. Dickie retaliates and Raylan's step-mother is killed when he cannot find Arlo. Raylan arrests Dickie, but Mags decides that she cannot abandon her son and takes his side. In the final bloody confrontation, Mags and Doyle die and Dickie ends up in prison.
- An episode of Kung Fu (1972), appropriately titled "An Eye for an Eye", focuses on this situation.
- The closing episodes of the Filipino soap opera Kung Tayo'y Magkakalayo (English: "If We Were To Be Apart") deal with this, which involves Robbie Castillo, as he is engaged in a Mexican Standoff with Ringo Quijano, who's also Robbie's brother-in-law through his marriage with Gwen.
- Kamen Rider Drive: Roidmudes were the toy creation of a Mad Scientist, who abused them and corrupted their programming. All for funzies. It's no wonder that they killed him and went to wipe out humanity. That led to the protagonists' crusade against them and more violence on both sides. The appearance of a good, sane Roidmude didn't make the protagonists question the situation in the slightest. An all out extermination war ensued and persisted long after the Roidmudes abandoned their homicidal efforts and just wanted to survive somewhere away from humans.
- Malcolm in the Middle: When Francis reveals to Dewey that, despite the Big Brother Worship Malcolm and Reese have for him, Francis was a Big Brother Bully when they were kids. Then they converse about this trope:Francis: You know, you have a real opportunity here. You can break the cycle. You can be a good brother to Jamie. You can be the one kid in this family who takes care of the younger one and looks out for him.
Dewey: How is that fair?
Francis: (Beat.) You're right. - This is a central theme on Merlin (2008). King Uther is a Knight Templar who has genocided all the magic users he can find. In retribution, quite a few magicians go overboard in their attack on him, attacking innocent civilians. Thus, Prince Arthur grows up being told that magic is evil and having it constantly proven to him. The eponymous Merlin, Arthur's manservant, best friend, and secretly a warlock, spends most of the series trying to convince Arthur to accept magic and therefore break the cycle, but his success has been limited.
- One of these becomes a plot point late in the seventh season of NCIS. A Mexican drug lord killed Gibbs' wife and daughter. Gibbs, being a scout sniper, killed the drug lord. Almost two decades later, the drug lord's son and daughter have taken over their dad's business and start taking revenge against Gibbs, threatening his team, his dad, and his mother-in-law, shooting off a finger from his mentor and killing another NCIS agent. Gibbs settles it (at least temporarily) by tricking the son into killing the daughter.
- One case on New Tricks had the murder victim go to great lengths to break the cycle. A long-running blood feud caused him to kill the patriarch of the other family, so he fled to Britain, changed his name, and went so far as to have his sister (his only remaining relative) be adopted by a British couple so she knows nothing of her heritage. He is killed, but this finally ends the cycle.
- One of the themes of Power Rangers Time Force. Ransik, the Big Bad, is a mutant driven to madness and violence by human hatred (supposedly; it's never shown and other characters claim that he was offered help), and he himself is responsible for causing both Time Force leader Jen and his own Dragon Frax to hate him with a passion. The cycle ends when Ransik's daughter realizes that it's happening, and puts herself in mortal danger by going into the crossfire to convince him to let go of the vendetta. Ransik turns himself in, Jen accepts it, and Frax... well, Ransik already did him in by then, but he at least had time to reflect that his thirst for vengeance ruined him.
- Power Rangers Wild Force has it at one point when Master Org is revealed to be Dr. Adler, a human scientist who became bitter because Cole's father married his mother before he could. He became so consumed by hate, he ate the remains of the original Master Org and brutally murdered them. When Cole finally defeats Master Org, reducing him to a helpless mortal man, he refuses to finish him off because he can see how Adler's hatred consumed him.
- Unsurprisingly, Revenge (2011) fits this trope to a T, and it constitutes the bulk of the 4-season narrative. Conrad frames David as revenge for his affair with Victoria, prompting the abandoned Amanda to initiate a decade-long revenge plot against the Graysons. Her revenge in turn provokes a revenge arc from Victoria in Season 4, which finally ends with David killing her himself.
- A major theme of Temptation of an Angel. Ah Ran seduces and marries Shin Hyun Woo in order to enter his family and avenge the death of her parents. When he discovers both her lover and her lies, she tries to kill him. Twice. He survives both attempts and, gets Magic Plastic Surgery, and decides to dish out his own drawn out plan of revenge. When the dust finally settles, no one comes out unscathed.
- The German series Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter, set in World War II, contains an aversion. Charlotte sells out Lilija to protect herself. A couple of years later the tables are turned, but Lilija saves Charlotte. Charlotte asks "Why are you helping me?" and gets the reply "Because otherwise it will never stop."
- A recurring theme in Xena: Warrior Princess, especially in any episode where Callisto is the principal villain. In Callisto's first episode, Gabrielle attempts to avert this trope, by extracting a promise from Xena not to seek vengeance if Callisto kills her. In a later episode, when Callisto kills Gabrielle's newlywed husband Perdicus, Gabrielle nearly loses herself to grief and wants vengeance against Callisto herself. Of course, the bitter irony is that Callisto thinks that Xena is the one, who started it all by killing her parents during Xena's pillaging days. In fact, it was Callisto's older self, who accidentally kills her father and then kills her mother in self-defense, turning her feud with Xena into a Stable Time Loop.
