Morality Chain / Live-Action TV

Morality Chains in Live-Action TV series.

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• Angel:
  • Team Angel, as a whole, is Angel's Morality Chain. Notably, during Season 2, he abandons them, believing they are making him "weak", and getting in the way of his fight against evil. Without them, he begins to lose more and more of his humanity, until he sleeps with Darla in an attempt to lose his soul and become Angelus.
• On As the World Turns: Many characters believe that Luke is the reason that Reid is becoming nicer and more human... and they're right.
• Babylon 5: Lady Adira and Vir Cotto to Londo Mollari. It doesn't end well.
  • Well, Not for him. Or for Adira. But by all accounts, Emperor Cotto leaves the Centauri Republic far better than he found it, or indeed better than Cartagia had found it years earlier — and he wouldn't have become Emperor were it not for Londo's Thanatos Gambit. Babylon 5: reminding you that you have to take the good with the bad since 1994.
• In Being Human, Mitchell describes this trope — when asked by another vampire how he lives with his Horror Hunger without succumbing, he says: "you surround yourself with good people, that's what you do. You find someone better than you. Cause then when you fail, you have to deal with their disappointment."
  • In the fourth season, Hal goes out to kill a man, like, ten minutes after losing his family. He stops because Annie told him how much they would be disappointed.
• Better Call Saul: The Protagonist Journey to Villain Jimmy McGill goes through to become the Amoral Attorney Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad is based largely on being betrayed by his Morality Chain Chuck. While Jimmy was always crooked, his desire to become a legitimate attorney was based on his admiration for his older brother, as was his more altruistic qualities. When Jimmy finds out that Chuck will never see him as anything more than "Slippin' Jimmy" the con artist, doesn't view him as a real lawyer because he got his degree online from an obvious diploma mill (even though Jimmy did put in the work and legitimately pass the bar), and has been secretly sabotaging his law career every step of the way because he thinks letting someone like that loose in the courtroom is a disaster waiting to happen, it's enough to make Jimmy decide Then Let Me Be Evil.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • In Seasons 5 and 6, Buffy and Dawn act as Spike's Morality Chains. Dawn also fits the role of Morality Pet (Buffy doesn't).
  • Faith serves as one for Angel during the Angel & Faith comics, which is exactly what Angel wants: a friend he trusts to make sure he doesn't Jump Off The Slippery Slope again like he did as Twilight.
• Burn Notice has all of the main cast acting as this for the protagonist, Michael Westen. They all, especially Fiona, keep him from Slowly Slipping Into Evil.
• On Charmed, many characters have explicitly stated that Phoebe plays this role in making sure that Cole remains good. In fact, Cole's well-known tendency for being a Heel–Face Revolving Door is pretty much a function of his relationship with Phoebe — that is, Phoebe and Cole are constantly breaking up and reestablishing their relationship, and every time this happens, it has a major effect on Cole's status as evil or good. Although Phoebe is very much aware of her power to be Cole's Morality Chain, she usually seems to be merely yanking his chain based on her own emotions, rather than consistently using her influence to make sure Cole becomes and remains a redeemed demon.
  • Chris is also one for his fiancee Bianca.
• Chuck: "Chuck Versus Phase Three" establishes Chuck as this for Sarah. When he is kidnapped by the Belgian, Sarah goes through extreme lengths to get him back, from abducting and torturing a Thai Ambassador to practically tearing all of Thailand apart on a rogue mission. Casey even states that before Sarah met Chuck, she was much more unhinged and ruthless.
• Used in some episodes of Criminal Minds. In fact, one of the killers outright stated that as long as his morality chain was with him, he would do no harm. Another episode has a close examination of the strange, symbiotic relationship between the killer and his chain that ends in a truly heartbreaking fashion.
• Defiance has a complicated example in Nolan and Irisa's relationship. Nolan was a ruthless trigger-happy solider before adopting Irisa. Meanwhile Irisa is a damaged, violence-prone wild child with serious trust issues. They serve as Morality Chains for each other: taking care of Irisa made Nolan more compassionate, and being cared for by Nolan made Irisa more emotionally stable.
• Dexter: Harry once again, though his family (Rita, the kids, his sister,) are like reinforcing links on the chain.
• Doctor Who: The Doctor's companions sometimes fill this role, though how much this is needed varies across his incarnations.
  • This trait goes back to the very first serial, with the very first companions of the very first Doctor. In "An Unearthly Child", a much more morally ambiguous Doctor is prepared to kill an injured caveman because he is slowing down their escape while companions Barbara and Ian are insistent on helping him. Ian doesn't let him do it.
  • Steven is fairly good at telling the First Doctor when he's crossed the line — reminding him about all the lives wasted when the Doctor is quite willing to celebrate a genocide of the Daleks in "The Daleks' Master Plan", and giving him an ultimatum upon carelessly abandoning him and refusing to rescue even one person from a historical atrocity in "The Massacre".
  • Donna says outright in "The Runaway Bride" that the Tenth Doctor needs to find someone who can serve this purpose for him. Later, after losing her, he rejects the notion of companionship altogether, and ends up arrogantly deciding that the rules of time are his to command, not obey. Needless to say, this backfires immediately when a woman that he rescues from a vital point in history commits suicide upon realizing the consequences. In "The End of Time", he has a tearful breakdown as he remembers why he needs a companion.
  • This resurfaces with the Eleventh Doctor, as he tries shifting to a part-time companion model, dropping in on them from time to time. Turns out, well-intentioned as the idea might be, going without companions for long periods still has an erosive effect on his morality.
  • The Twelfth Doctor is fully aware Clara Oswald acts as this for him, calling him out on his morally dubious actions and suggesting alternatives, and appreciates it.
    The Doctor: This is Clara. Not my assistant, she's ah, some other word …
    Clara: I'm his carer.
    The Doctor: Yeah, my carer: she cares so I don't have to.
    • She's an interesting example because she can be every bit as bossy, smartass-ish, and manipulative as the Doctor when sufficiently pushed, and has a strong need to feel in-control and being a Consummate Liar as her major character flaws, although she usually hides this and tries her best to be mature, level-headed and moral, leading to a dynamic where both she and Twelve are this, in equal parts for each other. They take frequent jabs at each other's closeted vanity, and there are notable scenes where he calls her out or keeps her grounded when she screws up, most notably the scene where she has a major short-circuit moment after her boyfriend's death and attempts to blackmail the Doctor into bringing him back. Series 8 finale "Death in Heaven" has a pair of closely mirrored scenes where they're willing to kill to spare the other the experience, explicitly referred to in the episode as "saving [the other person's] soul". As a further interesting twist, as part of said scenes Clara stops the Doctor not from going ballistic on a villain, but from sparing them because of his previous personal attachment to them the villain in question was so dangerous, insane and notoriously hard to contain that, for a change, ''shooting the dog'' is the more moral choice. ("If you've ever let this creature live, all of this is on you!")
      The Doctor: Why do I even keep you around?
      Clara: Because the alternative would be developing a conscience of your own?
    • In Series 9, Clara becomes the Doctor's Distaff Counterpart and they're a Chastity Couple. Though she still encourages him to stand up for those in need, she's more pragmatic, and he is increasingly willing to put her safety above that of himself and others (each now seeing the other as their Living Emotional Crutch). In the three-part Season Finale, they are separated by her being Killed Off for Real, leaving him completely on his own and immediately subjected to Cold-Blooded Torture by his enemies. The result is that he temporarily becomes a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds who risks the universe to bring her back from the grave. Although she brings him back to his senses, he forces himself to accept not only her death but also that she can no longer be relied upon as his chain, and ends the story alone.
  • The Master takes companions, but not out of a desire for friendship as much as for domination. The Doctor attempts to be a morality chain for him on several occasions, but is rebuffed until "The End of Time", when the Master chooses to sacrifice himself rather than see the Doctor killed.
  • More rarely, the dynamic is reversed and the Doctor prevents the companions from doing questionable things:
    • In "The Aztecs", the First Doctor has to pull an increasingly megalomaniac Barbara out of trying to change history.
    • The Third Doctor spends almost all of his tenure trying to keep the Brigadier from calling in the army to shoot at the Monster of the Week or blow up the Negative Space Wedgie and instead trust his own science and diplomacy methods. Not only does this show a lack of imagination, it's not uncommon that the aliens aren't even hostile until the Brigadier starts trying to kill them, and it never helps regardless.
    • "Genesis of the Daleks", where Sarah Jane and Harry are quite ready to commit genocide, but the Doctor persuades them it would be wrong to do it.
    • Leela's companionship was mostly based around the Doctor teaching her to use her mind and diplomacy to achieve her goals, as she was raised as a warrior in a primitive culture and knew little else besides killing. The Doctor was therefore relegated to talking her out of trying to knife people.
    • Interestingly, the roles were flipped behind the scenes. Tom Baker despised the character of Leela (he thought she was too violent for Doctor Who), and kept acting like an ass on set, repeatedly upstaging her scenes by coming in too early. The only reason he stopped was Louise Jameson's insistence on doing the scenes over and over until he knocked it off.
  • In "Dalek", Rose acts as something of a morality chain to the Dalek, when it absorbs her DNA and begins changing, "corrupting" it so it is unable to kill her. She persuades it not to kill the Doctor and van Statten, the man who had it tortured.
• In Elementary, while Sherlock Holmes and Joan Watson wouldn’t be ‘villains’ without Detective Marcus Bell, Captain Gregson notes at one point that he appointed Bell their regular police contact because he knew that Bell would basically "keep them in line". In this context, Gregson refers to the fact that he know Holmes and Watson will occasionally use their position as consultants to bend the rules in order to catch criminals, such as acquiring certain evidence without waiting for a warrant or breaking into a house without declaring their identities, but he trusts Bell to ensure they would never go too far in a manner that might compromise the current case.
• In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, John Walker/Captain America II's morality chain is his best friend Lemar Hoskins/Battlestar. Whenever Walker is angry or about to make a morally dubious choice, Hoskins is the one to calm him down. Within minutes of Hoskins's death, Walker beats a defenceless man to death with his shield.
• In Firefly, Mal is Jayne's Morality Chain, though it's not that Mal makes Jayne good so much as Mal is willing to toss him out the airlock if Jayne betrays any of the crew.
  • One could argue that the entire crew (sans Simon and River until later) is something of a more classic morality chain to Jayne, probably due to them being a strong sense of family, he hasn't had as a mercenary (although there's hints he had one as a child). This is shown most in the same scene where he's more concerned about how the crew will think of him after he's dead than actually being dead.
• While Barry on the The Flash is undeniably a good person, with a kind and noble heart, he is prone to making the wrong decisions from time to time, for his own selfish goals. Thank heavens for Iris West, his Best Friend, later Girlfriend, later Wife, to keep him on the right path of a hero. Made the most clear, in the Bad Future where Savitar has successfully killed her, and Barry, without Iris to guide him, has locked himself in S.T.A.R Labs out of grief and remorse for her, while his Family, Friends and Central City begin to decay without The Flash to protect them. It takes Present Day Barry, reminding Future Barry of the promise they made Iris to get him to finally step back up and fight for good.
• The second season of The Following gave us Ryan Hardy's niece Max,who tries her very best to keep her uncle on the right side of the law in his pursuit of serial killer Joe Carroll, and to get him to share what he knows with the FBI (not that he pays attention to her in that regard).
• Friends: Implied "The One Where No-One Proposes": When Jack Geller tells Ross there's a couple having sex in a closet, and suggests they could peek, Ross tells him "You know what? I don't like you without Mom."
• An episode of Fringe involved a man and his counterpart from the other dimension both of whom struggled with an inner "darkness" as a child (resulting in things like mutilating animals), one ended up a memory stealing serial killer, the other was a well adjusted criminal psychologist because he encountered and developed a relationship with a loving mother figure in his youth. Eventually the two cross paths and the killer steals his memories of the mother figure then kills himself out of remorse when those memories take root and make capable of understanding how monstrous his actions have been. The FBI is worried that the surviving psychologist (now suffering from partial amnesia regarding the woman who saved him) will become a killer himself, but it's implied that he still retains things she taught him and her influence persists even without being able to remember her specifically.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Davos to Stannis, and both are very well aware of it. Davos even says to Stannis that the reason Stannis freed him from prison was because Stannis knew Davos would talk sense into him.
  • Joanna Lannister seemed to serve as this for Tywin and Cersei, who both loved her dearly. In the books, Tywin's youngest brother Gerion once told Tyrion that Tywin was never the same after Joanna's death and that the best parts of Tywin died with her.
• Lilly Truscott of Hannah Montana is quite often the only thing reining in Miley's diva-ness.
• In Healer Myung Hee manages to be both this and Love Makes You Evil for Moon-Shik, who accepted a Deal with the Devil to save her life from the Elder.
• Alternate Future Sylar from Volume 3 of Heroes has his son Noah as his Morality Chain, one strong enough to subvert Do Not Call Me Gabriel. With Noah around, Sylar was able to curb his hunger and become a good man. But then it all goes horribly, horribly wrong when it turns out that Knox doesn't know the meaning of Improbable Infant Survival.
• Homeland has Dana Brody, whose last minute phone conversation with her father in the Season 1 finale convinces him against blowing himself up to assassinate the Vice President and the other national security personnel
• House explicitly asks Martha Masters to become one for him. Without someone acting as an ethical compass, he stands to lose Cuddy.
  • Wilson acts as this for House sometimes, too.
• Ted is something of this to Barney in How I Met Your Mother, and Barney has been shown to forgo his more despicable actions if he's afraid of pushing Ted too far. Notably, when he has a one-night stand with a recently-dumped Robin, Ted's ex-girlfriend (and very close friend), Ted does temporarily break off their friendship, which sends Barney into a spiral of depression, desperation, and revenge plots. Ironically, this may have been the first time in Barney's life when he was actually being kind and comforting instead of just using a girl for sex, but given Barney's history, it's hard to blame Ted for not believing him.
  You know, I always thought there was a limit. I always thought I was the limit!
• In I, Claudius, Drusus Germanicus to Tiberius.
• Discussed in Jessica Jones (2015) after Kilgrave uses his Compelling Voice to resolve a hostage situation. While his powers were solely responsible for saving the hostages, it was Jessica's idea to go in the first place, and it was she who stopped him from making the hostage-taker kill himself. As Kilgrave is convinced he is in love with Jessica, he suggests they join forces with Jessica serving as his moral compass. Jessica, however, is naturally reluctant to form a superhero team with her rapist, and it soon becomes clear that the idea of a Sociopathic Hero is unworkable when that person only regards other people as tools to fulfill his needs.
• Leverage is interesting in that there are sort of two characters fitting this role. Nate is this to the rest of the team, causing them to do good. On the other hand, he is willing to often go too far in cons unless Sophie stops him. Sophie's importance is especially seen during Season 2 when she temporarily leaves and he begins to go too far.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Galadriel and Halbrand appear to share this role for one another, with Halbrand stopping her from executing Adar when she flies into a rage while interrogating him, drawing her back from She Who Fights Monsters territory. Galadriel also stops him from executing Adar in his rage after they capture him, as well as convincing him to lose his apathy and fulfill his duties and attempt to save the Southlands from the Orcs in the first place. After The Reveal about his true identity, he suggests that she could "bind him to light" as his queen, rather than return to his previous dark ways. She rejects this, partly because she can't forgive his crimes but also because what he's suggesting is still evil and he doesn't understand that.
• MacGyver (1985): Murdoch's sister is this to Murdoch in "Halloween Knights". Learning he had a sister causes Murdoch to attempt to go straight and quit the Murder, Inc. organisation he worked for. They respond by kidnapping the sister, forcing Murdoch into an Enemy Mine situation with MacGyver to rescue her. However, she dies before Murdoch's next appearance, causing him to revert to his villainous ways.
• Howard Moon is this to Vince Noir of The Mighty Boosh. Vince has a definite heart of gold under all his selfishness, but Howard seems to be the only person who keeps him from forgetting that it's there. In the episode Strange Tale of the Crack Fox, the drug addicted and homoicidal Club Kid Crack Fox is basically what Vince would be if Howard wasn't there to keep him grounded.
• In Once Upon a Time, Belle is this for Gold/Rumplestiltskin. He tries to be good for her, even though he is still pretty bad. Without her there is nothing holding him back from being downright evil and killing whoever he wants. Belle can also be seen as a Morality Pet, since she is the living embodiment of Pet the Dog. She is the only one that Rumple is nice and sweet to, his only weakness. If anyone messes with her they are toast. He even says in Season 2 Episode 12 that if any harm comes to Belle while he is gone, he will kill everyone! Due to her, we see that Rumple does have a heart after all. His lost son will also probably serve as a morality chain for him once he finds him.
  • Also, in Season 2, Henry serves as such for his adoptive mother, Regina/The Evil Queen. He is almost literally the only reason she ever tries to be good in the present time. At times, when she feels she is on the verge of losing him to others' affections, she turns to evil again, only to turn back when pressured by him.
• Outlander: Jamie tells Claire that he's spent so much of his life living in exile as an outlaw rebel that he's really good at it. He'd be comfortable remaining an outlaw except he has now has Claire, Young Ian, Fergus, and Marsali all depending on him as a provider and protector, giving him incentive to be respectable and law-abiding.
• Pennyworth: Katie Browning (Jessye Romeo) as this for Bet Sykes (Paloma Faith) following their escape from the Raven Union in Season 2, reining in Bet's temper and more violent proclivities with varying results. After the pair fall in love, Katie's status as a morality chain becomes firmly apparent, as evidenced in "The Hangman's Noose" where she threatens to leave Bet if she harmed their captive.
• Person of Interest:
  • Finch is this to Reese. Before Finch hired him (and became his Only Friend), he was a CIA agent who was a merciless killer (Ok, he never killed an innocent, but he didn't go out of his way to save them either) and then a bum on the street, beating up jerks who opposed him. Once he was hired he became a Big Good Bad Ass In A Nice Suit. Finch's effect on Reese is so profound that by the start of the second season, when Reese is on a Roaring Rampage of Rescue for his Only Friend, Dectective Fusco is seriously concerned about what John is capable of without Harold's influence.
  • The Machine also has this role for Root, causing her to actually become one of the good guys and preventing her from killing anyone.
  • Finch seems to also serve this role for Shaw, though nowhere near to the degree that he is for Reese, and he joins The Machine in serving this role for Root once she starts really working with the team. An interesting thing to note is that while Finch is perfectly capable of stopping all three of them from killing people during normal day-to-day missions, he's show to have a lot of trouble bringing any of them to heel when Roaring Rampage of Revenge is in effect. See post-"The Crossing" and post-"If-Then-Else" for examples.
    (Reese has left three criminals to burn to death in a car in his search for Carter's murderer.)
    Fusco: Witnesses put our pal the psychopathic vigilante at the scene.
    Finch: Which one?
    Fusco: You mean both your stray dogs are off the leash?
  • Root also says that Finch is this to The Machine, stating that he is what keeps The Machine from turning out like their evil rival, Samaritan.
• Sherlock: John is this for Sherlock, since he's the only person who can reign in Sherlock's weirdness and get him to question his "high-functioning sociopath" theory. Oh, and he's the only person Sherlock sees as a friend. He can also be seen as a Morality Pet since, in "The Great Game" when his life is threatened, Sherlock asks if he's alright.
• Davis Bloome from Smallville transforms into killing machine Doomsday with enough agitation; however, Chloe Sullivan's physical presence is the only thing that could calm him enough to stop the transformations. When he finds out Chloe truly loves Jimmy Olsen instead of him and that she ran away with him just to protect Clark, though, Davis (the human) goes apeshit and murderous.
• Discussed in Stargate Universe. In one episode, Dr Rush uses alien technology to relive his memories of the days leading up to the death of his wife. As she's dying, he tells her that she is his Morality Chain. However she responds that he can't make her into this and must continue to be a good man even though she's gone. From this point on, Rush is noticeably, albeit slighty, nicer.
• In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the Changeling Founders (Odo's people) lead the tyrannical Dominion and wage war against the Alpha Quadrant powers. Laas argues that Kira is the only reason why Odo hasn't left Deep Space Nine and joined the Dominion.
  Odo: I won't have anything to do with the Founders and their war.
  Laas: Odo, we linked. I know the truth. You stayed here because of Kira. If it weren't for her, you would be with our people. War or no war, you would be a Founder!
  • Also has another example of one that ends very badly with Gul Dukat's daughter, Ziyal. While she's around, Dukat begins to turn over a new leaf but after his second banana Damar shoots her dead, Dukat goes completely off the deep end and tries to sacrifice the entire universe to a bunch of alien demons.
• Doing nothing to stop the accusations of Ho Yay, Supernatural did this in "Mystery Spot". Dean is really gone this time and while Sam isn't exactly 'evil', he's a more unhinged, colder mix of John and Gordon. While it didn't last (although there was pretty crappy after-effects on Sam's mental state), it still showcased their Sibling Yin-Yang awesomely: If it weren't for Sam then Dean would commit suicide and if it weren't for Dean then Sam would lose his innate humanity.
  • In Season 1 and early Season 2, there are suggestions in Sam's moralizing that he's going to be the morality chain for Dean. As the troper above indicated, this gets turned around hard in later seasons.
  • Sam didn't get addicted to demon blood until Dean was no longer there to stop him. Sam has generally good intentions, but he went from a deontological moralizer in Season 1 and parts of Season 2 (won't kill humans, doesn't like moral ambiguity, wants Dean to kill him if he goes darkside) to a fervent consequentialist by the beginning of Season 4 ("It's totally cool to bang a demon chick as long as she's in a (mostly) dead body and also to guzzle down demon blood because it lets me save people.") Sam's motives don't fundamentally change, but failing to stop Dean's descent into Hell drives him all the way off the slippery slope on the sliding scale of means vs. ends.
  • At the end of Season 4, Sam brutalizes Dean and nearly chokes him to death before relenting, to which Dean responds with an extremely ill-advised ultimatum mirroring their father's when Sam left for college, and EVEN THEN, Sam's trust in and love for Dean very nearly prevent him from engaging in the final orgy of demon blood and violence that freed Satan from hell just as he's about to do it. It's only because Zachariah edited the reconciliatory phone message Dean left on Sam's voice mail that Sam finally comes to believe that Dean has abandoned him, and that he has to go through with his plan.
  • In Season 6 when Sam is missing his soul, Dean takes on the role of his conscience. How much he succeeds varies, though it is acknowledged that before Dean joined Sam, Sam was extremely ruthless, killing and sacrificing innocents in order to finish a hunt. With Dean around, this happens much less.
  • Likewise, in a Season 5 episode The End, Dean is sent to a future where he and Sam never reunite and Sam ends up becoming Lucifer's vessel. Even Dean has to admit that his future self is a callous dick and by the end of the episode, has come to the conclusion that they "keep each other human."
  • Sam seems to at least try to be a Morality Chain for Dean during the 'Mark of Cain' arc (Season 9-10). How well he succeeds is up to debate, but considering some of the things he's willing to do himself in order to purge Dean of the Mark, nobody really comes out smelling like roses.
• The entire Torchwood team fills this role for Captain Jack Harkness. Word of God has it that if Ianto hadn't died, Jack would not have been able to kill his grandson later on.
• True Blood:
  • Russell Edgington, Big Bad of Season 3, had one in his lover Talbot. While he was always clearly the bad guy, he spent the first two thirds of the season being a Faux Affably Evil Magnificent Bastard who spent most of his time monologing, trying to seduce the main characters to his side. However, once Talbot was murdered, shit got real.
  Eric: "Russell Edgington was maybe the oldest and strongest vampire on the planet. Now he is also the craziest."
  • Bill Compton considers his progeny Jessica to be one for most of the time after he decides to take his duties as her maker more seriously.
• Victorious: Beck seems to be this to Jade. Her attitude gets noticeably worse when he leaves for Canada. When he is around, he's able to talk her down when she gets angry.
• In The Walking Dead, Michonne became one for Rick towards the end of Season 5 as he veered dangerously close to becoming a Villain Protagonist. She openly accepts the role.
• In the Xena: Warrior Princess episode "Dirty Half Dozen", Xena says that Gabrielle is something of a morality chain and confirmed in Seasons 5 and 6; Gabrielle throws away her staff, Xena and her minions commit genocide versus gods, centaurs, Amazons, Japanese, etc.

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