Basic Trope: The in-house investigator of possible police misconduct, usually portrayed as an Obstructive Bureaucrat.
- Straight: Edward, the Internal Affairs officer at Alice's police department, is a humourless, strict Jerkass with a stick up his ass who constantly tries to stop Alice from doing her job effectively. Alice shoots a criminal who fired on her first, but Edward tries to get her thrown off the force regardless.
- Exaggerated:
- Edward tries to kick Alice off the force for swearing during said battle.
- The internal affairs have their own internal affairs, and they have their internal affairs, repeat ad infinitum.
- Downplayed: Alice is given a temporary suspension after the shooting so Edward can rule if it was justified or not.
- Justified: Alice has been allowed to get away with a lot previously, so Edward decides to get rid of her permanently.
- Inverted: Alice is a Dirty Cop Edward needs to investigate and expose.
- Subverted: Alice's Cowboy Cop antics result in the deaths of innocent people, and Edward's retribution is revealed to have been justified the entire time.
- Double Subverted: But he's still doing it because he hates Alice as opposed to any actual affinity for justice.
- Parodied: Edward calmly lists the violations Alice is committing as she beats a suspect to death.
- Zig-Zagged: Alice is kicked off the force for the shooting ... only for Edward to reveal she lied about the circumstances and that she shot an unarmed man. But Edward lied too, and he was armed — but Alice opened fire first, and Edward wanted to clear the innocent man's name. But it turns out that they were partners in crime ... but they were conducting illegal activity only to entrap corrupt cops.
- Averted: No Internal Affairs officer shows up, despite Alice's constant gunfights.
- Enforced: The producers think cops could be far more effective if they had free reign to just shoot anyone they liked, therefore portraying anyone against this as a weak, emasculated moron who doesn't know what they're doing.
- Lampshaded: "Why is the Internal Affairs officer always such a prick?"
- Invoked: Edward purposely puts on an act so he feels no attachment or bias towards the people he's overseeing.
- Exploited: The Big Bad Kyle frames Alice, so Edward arrests her.
- Defied:
- Edward orders Alice into her office, but it turns out he just wants to ask her a few questions about the shooting.
- Da Chief Charles has Edward replaced when he threatens to obstruct Alice's progress in closing the case.
- Discussed: "Yeah, he's harsh, but if we didn't have him then we'd be a lot worse off."
- Conversed: "Alice could just kill all the baddies in seconds if it wasn't for Edward."
- Deconstructed: An ineffective IA division lets the rot in the entire police department spread to become no better than thugs with a badge. For Alice personally, even though she may be a well-meaning Cowboy Cop she no longer has a morally reliable system backing her up — social work pressures means she either becomes just as corrupt as the others or she gets into a "workplace accident" that shuts her up permanently.
- Reconstructed: Though they clash frequently about policies, Alice understands that ultimately Internal Affairs is there for a good reason. Edward also has reason to lay off a bit on pursuing policies upon Alice when he sees that it is being an active detriment to the overall purpose of making sure the department is above board, and will go to the policymakers to petition changes and reforms alongside Alice so that the supervisors can see that the Rivals Team Up to show that this clamoring is serious.
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