Red Herring / Live-Action TV

Red Herrings in live-action TV.

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• Councilman Kane from The 100 is at first heavily implied to be the man behind Chancelor Jaha's attempted assassination. He is after all one of the harshest councilmen and rigidly enforces the law, proclaimed himself new Chancellor the minute Jaha was supposed dead, tried to have the other council member who saved Jaha's life executed, and his name is Kane. But he turns out to be innocent, and ultimately only wants what's best for his people.
• In the Andi Mack episode "Crime Scene: AndiShack!", Andi misplaces a craft project she made and accuses Miranda Patrick's daughter Morgan of stealing it. Morgan repeatedly insists she didn't, leading to a feud. In the end however, it turns out Morgan didn't take it in the first place; Bowie miraculously finds it somewhere in the messy shack where Andi already looked. She is then forced to apologize to Morgan for accusing her.
• The Beast in Angel arose from the spot Connor was born, and when he shouted at it to leave Cordelia alone, it laughed and did so, suggesting the two are linked. It turns out that it works for the entity possessing Cordelia, and the spot of its arrival was presumably an in-universe Red Herring to divide and distract the team.
  • Double subverted in the season 1 episode "Bachelor Party". Doyle's estranged wife's demon fiancé appears to be planning to murder her, but when he reaches for a knife, it turns out he just needs to cut open a box. However, it turns out he's planning to sacrifice Doyle and eat his brain to bless the wedding.
• The first season of Arrow introduced a Canon Foreigner named Tommy Merlyn as Ollie's best friend. Comic fans who realized that "Merlyn" is the name of Green Arrow's Evil Counterpart from the comics anticipated an inevitable Face–Heel Turn for Tommy, only for the show's version of Merlyn to turn out to be his dad, Malcolm Merlyn.
  • Season Five introduces Vigilante as a secondary antagonist. In the comics, many men have used the Vigilante identity, but the most famous is Adrian Chase, a New York prosecutor turned Punisher Expy. The season also introduces Adrian Chase, the weirdly intense DA of Star City. Obviously, most viewers assumed Chase would be revealed to be Vigilante, but he was in fact revealed to be the season Big Bad Prometheus, and Vigilante was Canon Foreigner Vince Sobel.
• Starbuck's resurrection makes her a big red herring for the identity of the Final Cylon in Battlestar Galactica.
• Better Call Saul: When the members of the construction team hired to build Gus' secret underground meth lab are assembled, Mike notes one of the members, named Kai, is an abrasive troublemaker and orders the guards to keep a particular eye on him. While Kai does cause some minor incidents, like harassing a pole dancer during a supervised strip club visit that nearly results in a police call, almost starting a fight between the workers after an accident causes significant construction delays, and insulting Mike in German, the real problem ends up being caused by the team's leader, Werner (who Mike had befriended over the months), when he snaps from homesickness after several months away from his wife and tries to make a break for it, severely jeopardizing the secrecy of the operation, forcing Mike to kill Werner before Gus subjects him and his wife to a much worse fate as punishment.
• In the second season of The Boys, a mysterious assassin is causing people's heads to spontaneously combust. Shown to possess this ability is the unstable Cindy, who escapes from a mental hospital shortly before the assassin kills a number of people at a Congressional hearing. The actual culprit is Congresswoman Victoria Neuman, the hearing's organizer.
• Breaking Bad has a series of Cold Opens in its second season showing, in Deliberate Monochrome, depicting investigators at the White residence, at points including shots of two corpses covered in body bags. Without context, one would assume this is Foreshadowing to someone getting killed as a result of Walter's drug business — perhaps even Walt, himself, along with Jesse. The season finale, however, reveals what truly happened: there was a midair collision between two airplanes that occurred over Walt's neighborhood.
• FX's The Bridge (US) spends much of its first season following the antics of Stephen Linder, a creepy trailer-dwelling loner who appeared to be kidnapping young women. It looked pretty strongly like he was the Bridge Killer. Later, it's revealed that Linder has a side job rescuing women from pimps and/or abusive boyfriends. He made these rescues look like kidnappings to make it harder for the abusers to find the women.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • "Earshot" has not one but two red herrings. An unidentified person is planning a mass murder. The two obvious suspects are Jonathan, a lonely nerd and Ascended Extra who comes to school with a large gun but turns out to be Bait-and-Switch suicidal; and a pessimistic school newspaper writer who disappears suspiciously (it turns out he was under the impression they were looking for him to beat him up). The real culprit was found in a funny moment (foreshadowed by an offhand joke Xander fired earlier): Xander walked in on a cafeteria worker pouring rat poison into the food, was spotted, and then ran.
  • In "Phases", the Scoobies are all looking for a werewolf. The obvious suspect would be Larry, as they figure out right away. Turns out he's not a werewolf, he's just gay.
  • The Season 6 episode "All The Way" spends the first half building up the creep factor of an old man, watching kids menacingly through his window. When Dawn, her friend, and two guys try to pull a trick on them, he invites them inside for some "treats" and then goes into the kitchen with one of the boys, and reaches for a knife. Then, it's revealed that he really is a harmless man making brownies, and the two guys are vampires.
  • In Season 8, the "Black Hope"'s other alias, "The Madwoman", and her manner of dressing seem to openly imply that the Black Hope is Drusilla; its actually Willow.
• The second season premiere of Burn Notice painfully telegraphs The Reveal that Carla is Jimmy's wife, to catch the audience off-guard with her even more obvious appearance later in the episode.
• Used from time to time in Cases of the 1st Department. For instance, in episode "Lab Rat", they find a suspect and everything fits together perfectly — he works in a morgue lab, he seems obsessed with dead bodies, he's a relative of the woman who works in a photo lab which developed the lead photographic evidence, his girlfriend got lost and nobody reported that she was missing, he rents a secluded cottage... They follow him, but it turns out he's just a wierdo. The episode subverts all viewers' expectations because it turns out that there was no murder at all. It was just a very realistic film prop. It was so good that it tricked all forensic experts and criminal investigators.
• In one episode of Castle, the eponymous mystery writer is desperate to find proof against the first suspect in a man's death, because Castle dislikes him. He's vindicated when they find out the rug the victim had been wrapped in came from the suspect's hotel. Once Beckett starts wrapping up the case, Castle waves her off and announces the suspect is just a red herring. Beckett is flabbergasted and tells him real life doesn't have red herrings. Castle is once again vindicated, and the killer is revealed to be the victim's friend, acting on behalf of his wife. Though if you know phrase the episode's title comes from is "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", you were probably on the right track from the start.
• Channel Zero: The first half of Season 1 makes it look like Frances Booth is the mastermind behind Candle Cove. Then it's revealed that the true culprit is the ghost of Eddie Painter, which in turn reveals another herring — it had been assumed that Eddie got his Mind Control powers from being corrupted by Candle Cove and was he just another victim. In truth, his powers were stronger than appeared at first glance, and he created Candle Cove in the first place — Booth is just his Dragon.
• CHiPs had an episode ("M.A.I.T. Team") where the officers investigated a terrible car accident with multiple fatalities. During the investigation, they find a letter from the manufacturer's logo from a pickup truck and seek out the owner for possible involvement. They find the owner and the letter was from his truck, but it turns out he was parked there a different day than the accident and wasn't involved. Although he didn't do a lot to establish his innocence when he ran.
• Cold Case:
  • In "Offender", one of the suspects is a now-grown man who frequently bullied the victim and his friend when he was a teenager. When the boy's bicycle, which he was riding when he went missing, is found buried in his backyard, his status as the killer seems all but certain. Only for his lame excuses—he stole the bike from the boy in yet another bullying incident and buried it when he heard the boy was dead, knowing that everyone would assume he was responsible—to be true.
  • This was averted in at least two episodes where the person with the most evidence against them was in fact the murderer, and subverted in others where all suspects were presented with motive, means, and opportunity before it was determined who was the guilty one.
  • In cases that involve the team reopening a case because of newly-discovered evidence, it's not uncommon for said evidence to end up being completely irrelevant to the murder case, serving the sole purpose of giving the detectives a reason to reexamine that particular case.
• Control Z: Potential suspects behind the hacker and the avenger.
  • Season 1. Sofía suspected Javier to be the hacker after learning that he was responsible for the death of a football teammate. Rosita was also a suspect because of her gossipy habits. However, Raúl is the real hacker and had planted false evidence to frame Javier and turn Sofía against him.
  • Also, and to a lesser extent, the Honey Bunny, the nickname of a girl whom Pablo has been secretly sleeping with behind Isabela's back. Isabela suspected Natalia to be the Honey Bunny because she had earlier sold her out to the hacker who texted Isabela "The Honey Bunny is really close to you". Subverted in both 1.04 and 1.06. We find out that María is the Honey Bunny and Natalia denies Isabela's accusation, stating that she isn't a 'slut'. María can't bring herself to tell Isabela beforehand.
  • Season 2. The audience, even Raúl himself, suspected Pablo to be the avenger because of his violent outbursts and finding out that Raúl has been harboring Gerry from the police for Luis's murder, although Pablo was technically seeking justice for himself. Alex turns out to be the avenger as she had stolen Raúl's money to start a new life with Gaby. Foreshadowed in 2.07 when Pablo denied committing said theft and Gaby left for Spain without Alex. Surprisingly enough, none of the other main characters, including Sofía, ever suspected Pablo to be the avenger despite witnessing his fights with Raúl and being one of the few students who wasn't a victim of the anonymous perpetrator.
• Frequently in Criminal Minds, the BAU will find someone who seems suspicious and fits the profile, only for them to be shown to be innocent, and requiring the profile to be revised.
  • There are also a couple of minor examples that play on the audience's expectations, for instance: a young woman gets followed into a dark alley by a creepy looking man... who returns a bag she left on the bus. When it seems like the Zodiac killer may have returned, the narrative immediately switches to a scary old man wearing sixties era clothing... who is totally innocent, and the real killer is the twenty-something he's playing chess with.
• An early CSI episode has Grissom investigate the murder of several Buddhist monks in their temple. He notes that their bodies are positioned in a circle and that they were shot in their sixth chakra (between the eyes). He immediately assumes that the murders had spiritual significance. The actual murderer was their cook, who was caught stealing money from their donation box by the head monk and panicked, assuming the head monk went to the cops (he didn't). The positioning of the bodies and the location of the bullet wounds is accidental.
• In both episodes of CSI: NY where an in-universe Neo-Nazi named Michael Elgers appears, he is not the killer. In "Green Piece" he is framed, while in "Yahrzeit" his alibi is confirmed.
• Dancing on the Edge paints Jessie as The Ingenue, receiving lots of male attention and being completely oblivious about it. Near the end of the first episode, the Prince of Wales becomes very interested in her and his brother implies that she "might be a very busy young lady" as a result. A later episode has a minor character note that any woman the Prince of Wales shows interest in is expected to sleep with him. All of these clues make it seem like Jessie is going to end up in some sort of trouble as a result of the Prince's feelings for her, instead sweet, immature Julian is the one who tries to rape and ultimately kills her.
• Day Break (2006): Jared seems to be part of the solution to the looping problem but he is not seen again after episode 7. He comes back though as the Mysterious Watcher at the very end.
• Diablero: Lupe's scars and the mark on the back of her neck, which matches Mayaken's birthmark. She's not actually an angel—her Abusive Parents knew about a prophecy that an angel would return to earth, and deliberately scarred her to try and force it to happen. Mayaken, however, is the genuine deal, which is why he was kidnapped.
• Doctor Who:
  • "The Parting of the Ways" introduces something called a Delta Wave, which is capable of frying the brainstems of any lifeform within its transmission range. Given the Doctor's guilt over ending the Time War by wiping out both the Daleks and the Time Lords, it seems like this is what he might have used, right? Nope.
  • In one of the first scenes in "The Idiot's Lantern", the camera angle places a licence plate in the center of the shot. Given the show's propensity for Call Backs and Continuity Nods, this has to mean something, right? Nope.
  • "Utopia": It's said that the humans in the bunker fear the Futurekind because they believe they will become them. When Professor Yana has moments where he stops, overwhelmed by a drumming sound inside his head, it looks like maybe that's happening to him. It's actually because he's the Master in human form, and the Doctor and companions' presence is subconsciously reminding him of the truth.
  • In "Planet of the Dead", a low-level psychic named Carmen tells the Doctor that "your song is ending, sir", and that "He will knock four times", thus providing a clue as to how the Tenth Doctor will die. In the season ending two-parter, "The End of Time", the Master is resurrected, and he summons the Doctor by banging out a four-beat rhythm on an oil drum — making it obvious that the clue was a reference to the drumbeat in the Master's head. But after the episode's climax, when the Doctor appears to have triumphed over his old enemy unscathed, his friend Wilfred Mott turns out to have locked himself in a radiation containment chamber. He knocks to be let out... in a familiar four-beat rhythm. The Doctor must enter the chamber to save Wilfred, suffering a lethal dose of radiation poisoning in the process.
  • "The Waters of Mars": Most of the infected crewmembers' eyes turn a blank white afterwards... except for Maggie Cain. As a result, the Doctor theorizes that she may have retained some of her humanity. Ultimately, the opposite ends up being true, as she instead becomes the closest the story has to an individual Big Bad.
  • Most of Season 5 heavily foreshadows a universe-collapsing event at the hands of some evil cosmic being, with the Arc Words "The Pandorica Will Open, Silence Will Fall" apparently hinting at said being's release. But in the Twist Ending of "The Pandorica Opens", when the title prison chamber is finally opened... it's empty. It turns out that the "evil cosmic being" is actually the Doctor, and that the Pandorica was built by his enemies as a prison for him. The prophecy turns out to be a reference to the Doctor's imprisonment (which prevents him from saving the day), not to another being's release.
  • "Amy's Choice":
    • The Dream Lord's parting words about "fictions" might make some people think he's the Master of the Land of Fiction.
    • More casual fans might suspect the Dream Lord to be the Master, what with the Doctor saying that only one person in the universe hates him as much as the Dream Lord does.
  • In Series 6, the Doctor is again fated to die. The companions and the audience see this death happen first-hand, while the Doctor himself (a past version) is blissfully unaware for half the season. When the gang discover a factory utilizing easy to make not-quite-clones known as "Gangers", the audience, and the characters, jump to the hypothesis that the Doctor who dies was/will be a Ganger as opposed to the real thing. In actuality, the Gangers have nothing to do with the resolution; the Doctor had been shrunk down and piloting a shapeshifting robot (established in another earlier episode) the whole time.
  • "Time Heist": The introduction to the heist establishes various facts: the walls have flamethrowers, the air is regulated, and the safes are atomically sealed. The first never comes up again, while the second is only marginally related to the fact that the private vault has its own life support system.
  • "Kerblam!":
    • Jarva Slade, one of the titular MegaCorp's executives, is established as a jerkass and Bad Boss in his first scene, and when the Doctor and company find suspicious records in his office, it seems like he's prime suspect number one for the mysterious employee disappearances, right? No, actually, he's innocent, and is just as concerned by the disappearances as the other executive seen.
    • It then seems as if Kerblam!'s automated system itself is responsible for the disappearances by projecting itself through the robots, a fairly typical sci-fi plot. However, the system is actually fighting back against the true saboteur, and itself sent the "HELP ME" message to the Doctor.
  • "It Takes You Away": While searching around the cabin, Ryan and Yaz find several bear traps in the shed, which they suspect Hanne's father of having to deal with the mysterious monster in the woods that abducted him. In actuality, the monster is a "Scooby-Doo" Hoax, and the traps are there to deal with actual bears.
  • "Fugitive of the Judoon": Lee Clayton is quickly set up as being mysterious and dangerous, when actually it's his wife Ruth who turns out to be the fugitive.
• If an Elementary episode starts "The Victim of the Week was into something unusual (an obscure subculture, a cutting-edge science, a strange job or hobby), maybe the murder has something to do with that", you can be absolutely sure that, whatever the motive or identity of the murderer, it will turn out not to be directly connected to that.
• Firefly: in "Serenity", Simon Tam is introduced with the strong hint that he's working with the Alliance. He's reserved, a bit standoffish, he asks lots of prying questions, he's occasionally spotted wandering around restricted areas of the Serenity, and he comes aboard the ship with a mysterious, ominous-looking metal crate. So when it turns out that there's a mole on the ship, all eyes naturally turn to him. The Alliance mole is actually another passenger, a bumbling young man named "Dobson"—Simon is a fugitive from the Alliance trying to smuggle his captive sister to freedom.
• The first season of The Flash introduced an important Canon Foreigner named Edward "Eddie" Thawne. Fans quickly noted that his name was similar to Eobard Thawne, the Flash's Arch-Nemesis from the comics, and assumed Eddie was Eobard with an Adaptation Name Change. This turned out to be a swerve, with Eddie being a genuinely good guy, and the real Eobard Thawne being his evil descendant from the future.
• Forever: In "The Frustrating Thing About Psychopaths," a series of copycat murders is linked to a graphic novel series Soul Slasher. Investigation of the fan page leads to a teenager who is clearly sociopathic, and they spend most of the rest of the episode looking at him. However, it's not him, it's his father.
• For Life: Hector, Aaron's best friend, is dating his wife and the show seems to pose him as having something to do with the crime that put Aaron in prison. He doesn't.
• Game of Thrones universe:
  • Game of Thrones:
    • In "The Dance of Dragons", Hizdahr arrives late to the great games with a weak excuse and avoids Daenery's suspicious gaze. Later, when the Sons of the Harpy attack, he is killed by the rebels rather than be revealed as their leader, as the earlier scene suggested. This is doubly sneaky for book readers, because Hizdahr's involvement in the rebellion was an ongoing mystery in the books at the time the episode aired.
    • Stannis Baratheon. Despite all of the buildup, in the end it turns out that Jon Snow was the true Prince That Was Promised.
    • And all that buildup on Jon being the Prince That Was Promised and possibly the one who kills the Night King fell apart when it turns out that Arya Stark is the one who kills the Night King. Apparently, the writers thought about that since Season 6.
    • Renly is marketed in previews and behind-the-scenes videos as a major player in the War of the Five Kings so that his death makes for a stronger shock.
  • House of the Dragon:
    • Ser Criston Cole is introduced as a brave knight from humble origins who contrasts the wealthy and cheating Daemon at The Tourney and Rhaenyra Targaryen seems smitten by him, one would think he'd end up a Knight in Shining Armor. Then Rhaenyra decides not to keep him as Paramour, he doesn't take it well, murders Ser Joffrey Lonmouth over mere talk about his relationship with Rhaenyra, becomes a bully to her children and ends up siding with Alicent Hightower and supporting The Coup against Rhaenyra's right to the throne.
    • Early on, Rhaenys "The Queen Who Never Was" Targaryen warns Rhaenyra about Westeros not wanting a woman on the Iron Throne on what seems to be a defiant tone implying enmity. Comes the end of Season 1, Rhaenys sides with Rhaenyra in her claim to the Iron Throne (Rhaenyra having since reinforced the family ties between her side of the Targaryens and Rhaenys having witnessed what the Hightowers are up to as soon as her cousin died helped).
• The character of Sam Evans in Glee was obviously built up to be Kurt's alleged boyfriend that he would be getting this season, especially in "Duets". However, in the end of the episode, he asks out Quinn and blames his awkwardness on having from an all-boys school.
• During the first season of Gotham, the creators mentioned that they would be introducing several characters who could each potentially go on to become The Joker. The most prominent and popular of these was a violent, disturbed young man named Jerome, who was pretty much everyone's front runner to be the Joker, especially since he had the villain's trademark Slasher Smile and Evil Laugh. However, the show's version of the Joker ultimately turns out to be Jeremiah, Jerome's (apparent) Good Twin.
• FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman, At the end of "Season Four is Canceled", It's revealed that Harriet never sent Ruff a fax that told he's fired, which made him realize he still has his job as a game show host. When Grandma Ruffman told Ruff that Spotnik bought his pants (due to Scruff stealing and selling them for lugging lessons) Ruff realizes that Spotnik send him the fax to distract him.
• In the Grimm episode "Breakfast in Bed", we are constantly shown a creepy-looking old man in a wheelchair, who says nothing and just stares at people. Nick (and the audience) assume he's the bad guy. He turns out to have nothing to do with it. In fact, he's actually a Wesen... who looks like a red fish... and his middle name is Herring.
• Several episodes of Haven have the heroes suspect the wrong people of being the Monster of the Week, often because they were Jerkasses and/or had a grudge against the victims.
• Henry Danger: The Season 2 finale "I Know Your Secret" revolves around Henry learning Jasper knows a secret of his. At first it was believed he found out Henry is Kid Danger, but Charlotte learns from Piper the real secret is Jasper found out Henry saw the premiere of Galaxy Wars X without him and took his mother instead. Unfortunately, Henry has revealed his identity to Jasper before Charlotte could contact him.
• The Hercules: The Legendary Journeys episode "For Those of You Just Joining Us", which is set in the modern day, features a character named Norma Bates. She is creepy and Hera's Leitmotif plays whenever she appears. The writers admitted this was a deliberate attempt to mislead the viewers on who the episode's real villain was.
• In Heroes, Ted Sprague was one for the identity of Sylar, or at least was hyped as such by a few in show characters. It soon became obvious that he wasn't Sylar, because the MOs of the real Sylar and Ted were different.
• House uses red herrings in many of its teasers, to help avoid the formulaic "guy has cough, guy collapses, start Title Sequence". Instead it has the equally formulaic "guy has cough, other guy collapses".
• JAG:
  • In "Pilot Error", A growing body of evidence suggests that Pendry and McKee had an affair, including the two going to visit a doctor for what appeared to be an abortion. McKee had actually suffered a miscarriage, and the child was their commanding officer's, rather than Pendry's. Pendry was simply there for emotional support.
  • In "Brig Break", the Aryan Nation folks pretty much stop being relevant one scene after being introduced.
  • In "Boot", Private Johnson isn't the villain. She's just a Jerkass.
• Janda Kembang: Episode 19 tries to make the audience (and Wulan) suspicious of Robert since he is wearing black clothes just like the thief who steals from Malik and apparently doesn't see any thief even though he comes from the direction the thief fled. As it turns out, he really is innocent and in fact becomes the one who caught the thief.
• K-9 and Company: It is strongly implied that Howard and Juno Baker are members of the Cult of Hecate, but it turns out that they are the only named residents of Moreton Harwood (bar Sarah Jane's aunt Lavinia) who don't belong to it.
• Kamen Rider sometimes throws the viewers and even the Riders for a loop.
  • Kamen Rider Fourze: There are some Amanogawa High School students and teachers that are suspected of being a Zodiart, they have motive and even behave in shady ways... Then turns out they aren't. Rumi to Dragon, Misa to Cygnus, Chuta to Scorpio, Haruka to Pegasus...
  • Kamen Rider Zi-O: Ora being revealed to be Another Drive. Turns out it was the Paradox Roidmude who took Ora's appearance.
  • Kamen Rider Saber: As early as possible it sets up Kamen Rider Calibur to be an evil rider: Dark armor, dark-themed sword, scanning a Legend WonderRide has Ankokuken Kurayami call out the monster of the Legend Rider's series, and on top of it all he is a branded traitor of the Sword of Logos. Then the double Red Herring happens: It was never Kento's father, as they initially suspected, but rather Daichi, the previous Saber. And none of the Caliburs ever betrayed the Sword of Logos, they were just trying to save the world from destruction in their own way or expose the real traitor, in truth all three Calibur were the most loyal to the ideals of the Sword of Logos.
    • Also happens with Reika Shindai: she's serious, cold, manipulative, and forced everyone to abandon Touma. It sets her up to be the Traitor with capital T, but turns out she was working on orders of the Master Logos, who is the real traitor that manipulated everything and everyone.
  • Kamen Rider Revice: Some Vistamps were stolen, and all the viewer knows is that the person is likely Hiromi Kadota. And he has plenty of motive to do that, given he was demoted for the incident involving the Rex Deadman in the first episode and that Ikki became the Kamen Rider instead. The whole of episode 5 sets him up to be the culprit, with the card reader showing Hiromi Kadota, George excitedly pantomiming how he'd break the culprit's neck while eyeing Kadota, him being particularly too tense during their ambush to catch the culprit, and even turning his Gunphone on fellow Fenix Tribe agents. Comes the next episode and it is all revealed Kadota turned his Gunphone at someone who tripped on a can and alerted him, but didn't shoot anyone and was actually knocked out by Kamen Rider Evil, who is then revealed to be Daiji who had stolen Kadota's ID Card. And George knew it all along, having witnessed the demon in Daiji manifesting through a single evil smirk.
• In a sketch on The Kids in the Hall, Kevin McDonald plays The Waiter With Stumps for Hands. He flashes back to the day he lost his hands, the same day he is cutting noodles on the restaurant's newly installed, very dangerous-looking "spaghetti grinder". Then a disgruntled customer barges into the kitchen and bites off his hands.
• On Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Detectives Goren is adept at recognizing red herrings. One notable exception: A Person of Interest, in which Dr. Daniel Croyden is accused of killing an ex-U.S. Air Force nurse and for being involved in an anthrax terrorist plot. When Croyden commits suicide, Goren is vilified in the press. However, the detectives soon learn that the real culprit is Goren's arch-nemesis Nicole Wallace. She killed the nurse, planted evidence to incriminate Croyden, killed him, staged his suicide, then planted more evidence to exculpate him, all in a ploy to discredit Det. Goren. Nicole chose Dr. Croyden as a target because she knew that he'd left his wife while she was battling cancer, and that he had been delinquent in his child support payments. Wallace had previously discovered that Goren's father was a philanderer who had abandoned him and his schizophrenic mother.
  • In another episode, it appears that the Trophy Wife of a disabled scientist is both physically abusive to him and the killer of his rival. It turns out that despite being a Gold Digger and Social Climber, she's completely innocent on both counts—he's actually an Evil Cripple trying to frame her.
  • During almost every opening scene before the title, a number of people are shown with one of them being the murder victim, and a hint at who the murderer might be. Only for the real murderer to be somebody different, sometimes introduced later in the episode.
• Law & Order: SVU does this as much as of the other Series. One notable example is a case where an old famous author is married to a young redhead who is actively having sex with him, despite the author seemly having heart problems. The author's two daughters go to the police thinking that the woman is intentionally trying to kill him so she can collect on the will money, and because the woman won't let them see their father during his final moments. The episode goes out of its way the make the woman look suspicious. The author does ends up dying and the woman ends up getting charged with his murder... only for a last-minute bombshell to reveal that they had it all wrong. During the trial, a video message by the author surfaces making it clear that he gave his wife the command to keep one of his daughters away, because she would always come around causing trouble and he was sick of dealing with it, and that daughter falsely told the other that it was both of them, rather than just her, who had been barred from seeing him. That daughter then reveals she hated him because of his sexist ways and how he never supported her when she tried to go into writing herself. The other sister turns on her, admitting that their father was right and claims to have been deceived because much of the information she was getting was being filtered through her sister. The wife is vindicated, not only in the murder trial, but she also gets pregnant before the author dies, giving her a stake in the will, even though she was never after his money to begin with.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: For most of Season 1, the viewers were led to believe the Stranger could be one of Sauron's forms, for being associated with fire and Eye Motifs. The Dweller and her sisters believe The Stranger is Sauron returned. Having no memory of his own, The Stranger believes them at first. Turns out the sisters mistook one of the Istari for Sauron.
• Lost:
  • Jacob's introductory scene involves him gutting an actual red herring, more than likely addressing this trope and as it headed into the final season, probably marked the end of the series' many uses of red herrings.
  • However, the Season Finale of Season Five shows the Losties attempting to detonate a bomb in an electro-magnetic well in order to prevent any of the incidents on the island from ever happening. In Season Six, it's unclear whether it worked as they are still there. However, it appears there is an alternate timeline where the characters haven't visited the island and many lead different lives, suggesting that they did prevent many of the events from the show from happening. Nope, turns out that the "alternate timeline" is just a type of purgatory where all of the dead characters have been living their lives until they are "woken up" and realize it's time to move on with their after-life.
  • "The Adventures of Hurley and Frogurt": Neil "Frogurt" —a secondary character often mentioned by the producers as far back as the second season— who was said to play an important role in the plot. His debut kept being "postponed" until he shows up in Season Five... and is riddled with flaming arrows for being such a whiny little bastard.
• In episode 3 of Lost Girl, Bo and Kenzi investigate the disappearances of girls from a college. The dean is very uptight, resembles Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter in looks and personality, refuses to report the disappearances to the police, and encourages everyone not to talk about them. The local sorority is creepy and resembles a cult, and Bo finds tunnels under their mansion that could potentially be where the missing girls are. The dean was just a jerk who was more concerned about the college's reputation than about the safety of the students. The creepy sorority was just that, and apparently unaware of the tunnels. The real culprit was an unassuming janitor who was kidnapping girls and imprisoning them in the tunnels until he could feed them to his pet kappa.
• Lampshaded in an episode of Maverick. The episode "The Goose-Drownder" centers around a number of mysteries surrounding a range of characters trapped in a ghost town hotel during a rainstorm. One of the characters is a cheerful salesman named Thomas Jefferson Herring, who cordially invites the others to call him by his nickname, "Red".
• The Mentalist:
  • In the episode "Bleeding Heart", Lisbon told her team to look into someone, but Jane said not to bother because it was a red herring. Van Pelt asked what this meant, to which Lisbon responded, "A red herring is what you look into regardless of what Jane tells you." There was also a second season episode titled "Red Herring," as part of the series' Idiosyncratic Episode Naming in which the title of each episode featured the word "red" or some version of it in reference to the serial killer Red John, up to the point in the series when he was caught and killed.
  • Subverted with Bertram. About midway through the third season, in the episode where Hightower is framed and Jane helps her escape, Director Bertram quotes a William Blake poem. Savvy viewers will recognize this as a hallmark of Red John and his followers. Fast-forward to the season finale, and it turns out that Bertram isn't Red John's inside man after all. However, we find out in "Fire and Brimstone" that Bertram is part of Red John's criminal syndicate called the Blake Association, so this ends up foreshadowing how the Red John arc finally ends.
• Midsomer Murders had a red herring that featured in almost every episode: shortly after the first murder, Barnaby will discover that someone close to the victim stood to inherit land or wealth upon their death and will seize upon this as if he's cracked the case. Often the victim will have recently changed their will to benefit the suspect, making it even more suspicious. The amount of episodes where inheritance was the motive can be counted on one hand; the true motives are always something highly emotionally charged or completely insane.
• Million Yen Women eventually establishes that the person who invited the women to live with Shin is someone Shin knows. Shin's publicist Seiji really needs Shin's next novel to become a best-seller (he belives in Shin, but the publishing house is going to drop him if his next novel is yet another flop), is friendly towards the women and has used the identity of one of them to try attracting attention on Shin by that point of the series. While drunk, he also tells Shin he will do "whatever it takes" to have his next novel become a best seller (the mere presence of the women worked wonders on Shin's Writer's Block). The invitation sender ultimately turns out to be someone else.
• Subverted in an episode of Monk where the killer actually waits for there to be witnesses before she shoots her partner with a shotgun, leading Monk to dismiss another suspect with no alibi and investigate someone who had a (faked) air-tight alibi.
  • The episode "Mr. Monk and the Red Herring" is named for this trope. We think that the intruders at Natalie's house want the Replacement Goldfish in her tank. They wanted something from the fish tank, but it was not the fish: it was an expensive moon rock smuggled out of its museum as part of an aquarium kit.
• Mouse (2021): Everything suggests Yo-han is the killer... until he dies and the murders continue. Then it's revealed Yo-han was Good All Along and Ba-reum is the real killer.
• The Murder, She Wrote episode "Film Flam" has one that plays specifically with the audience's understanding of how the show itself works. When we see Jessica announcing that she's solved a thirty-five year old murder but just needs to prove it, we expect the next scene to be setting up the Engineered Public Confession. Sure enough, one character insists another was there 35 years ago, and the second character gets upset and calls her delusional, then goes to meet Jessica. It's the other character in that scene who was the killer, and her belief the second character was there apparently really was mistaken.
• MythBusters: The literal version was tested on a police bloodhound in the "Hair of the Dog" episode. This was the episode's most effective distraction for the bloodhound, as it first tried to stop and eat the herring, and then it temporarily lost the trail. However, after the handler led the dog back to Jamie's scent trail (near the herring), the dog picked the trail back up and managed to track Jamie down. Because it didn't completely throw off the bloodhound, the myth was considered Busted.
• In NCIS, Ducky explains what the Red Herring is to Palmer saying something about the murderer the style of "I don't know why the murderer didn't use the Red Herring technique". Palmer asks what a Red Herring is and then Ducky proceeds to give a correct explanation.
• Referred to on NCIS: Los Angeles when The Squad is investigating an explosion at a fish market. Deeks finds an actual red herring and can't resist joking about it.
• On Night and Day, plenty during the entire ‘where is Jane Harper?’ arc that lasted for most of the show’s run. Francoise Jardin’s disappearance after meeting Alex Wells in the graveyard is later proven to be a red herring, when we learn she’s safe and well back in France. Creepy Malcolm Burns is thought to have killed Jane and is even caught digging a grave, but it turns out to be just for his dead dog. Likewise, Josh Alexander’s blackouts prove to have had no involvement in Jane’s disappearance.
• In Perry Mason (2020), there are indications throughout that E.B. Jonathan is in the early stages of dementia, potentially setting up a huge blunder in court. This becomes a moot point when Jonathan commits suicide.
• Power Rangers:
  • Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers had a big one in season 2. Around the time Tommy had lost his Green Ranger powers, a new guy had came into Angel Grove and started working in Ernie's bar. Come the White Light story, many were wondering who the new White Ranger was. However, once the helmet came off, the new guy would never appear again...
  • And in Power Rangers Zeo, we're introduced to the Gold Ranger, just as Tommy's brother (temporarily) joins the cast. Not only is there a heavy indication that this brother is the Gold Ranger, but there's also the strong possibility of former ranger Billy (who is constantly disappearing without explanation) and a few other characters (up to and including Skull!) But the Gold Ranger's actual identity? A wholly new alien character, who almost immediately is forced to give up his powers to the original Red Ranger, Jason, who hadn't appeared in about two seasons. Even moreso, the Gold Ranger was originally going to be Ryan Steele Canon Immigrating from VR Troopers, but plans fell through and the entire plot had to be rewritten.
• Pretty Little Liars could easily be called Red Herring: The Series. Each season has the girls suspecting a new person of being the mysterious "A", and the person doing things that look suspicious, only for that person to be proven innocent or to be proven guilty of something else.
• Probe's
  • "Metamorphic Anthropoidic Prototype Over You": Because the first person accused of murder is always found innocent on television shows, Josephine frames herself so that she will be exonerated by the investigation.
  • "Quit-It": The "Quit-It" pills, despite being The Namesake and the second thing Austin assumes is responsible for the adults getting Brainwashed, have nothing to do with the resolution, but trying to investigate them does get him in plenty of trouble with the adults.
• Psych: Every episode has at least one Red Herring and that person almost always ends up dead before the police get a chance to confront them.
  • Before interrogating a potential suspect, Shawn greets him with "Hello, Red Herring". He doesn't even bother with the first potential suspect because he seems "too obvious" (he admitted he hated the victim and made a joke about killing him).
  • The episode "Dead Air" had a suspect named "Redd Herring". He didn't do it.
• Russian Doll: The beginning of the series heavily hint that there are a few things that can be the cause of the time loop the main character is stuck on. She first believes it to be an israeli cigarette with an unknown drug, then the fact that the house where she was used to be a Yeshiva and, most notably, which is even done by the direction of the show itself, is that the bathroom where Nadia keeps coming back to has a strange vortex-like shape in the door.
• The Sarah Jane Adventures:
  • One episode has a sinister alien ship claiming it needs "the darkness" it saw in Sarah Jane's mind, and using several other Arc Words from Doctor Who indicating a sinister connection to the death of the Doctor. As it turns out, the darkness it referred to was the black hole Sarah Jane was keeping contained, and they just wanted it to fuel their ship, thus removing the danger it posed.
  • Another episode had Sarah Jane set back in time, when things start looking bad she comes across a police box, a very familiar motif plays and then it's made apparent it's a real police box, not the TARDIS.
  • A Paratext red herring: In the first three seasons, Gareth Roberts wrote stories with Sarah Jane's name in the title, in which the Trickster tried to manipulate her into abandoning her role. In the fourth season, he wrote a story with her name in the title, in which events lead to her considering giving up her role ... and the Trickster isn't involved even tangentially.
• Scream: The TV Series is filled with these, but the most notable happens in the season 1 finale, where, after the death of Ghostface/Piper, Noah notices an inconsistency in what he knows about the murders, causing him to realize Piper most likely had an accomplice who is still running. Meanwhile, it's revealed to the viewers that Audrey had been exchanging letters with Piper, and burns them after the events, suggesting she is the accomplice trying to get rid of evidences. As it turns out, she did have a part of responsibility in the murder spree... in that she was the one who invited Piper to the town for completely unrelated reasons. She was completely innocent in helping her for the murders, and in fact destroyed the letters precisely because she feared people would accuse her should they find out. Piper's real accomplice turns out to be Emma's boyfriend Kieran.
• The Sherlock episode "A Scandal In Belgravia" starts out looking like a fairly faithful update of Doyle's classic story "A Scandal in Bohemia", with the only real changes being that Irene Adler is a lesbian dominatrix, and that the MacGuffin is a cell phone filled with compromising photos of a member of the Royal Family. Then it turns out that the case has nothing to do with compromising photos, and Adler's BDSM hobby is just a cover for her other job—international espionage. The phone actually contains evidence of a secret Ministry of Defence ploy to save a group of plane passengers from a terrorist attack.
• In Smallville, there is a series of red herrings involving Chloe that spans seven seasons. In "Scare", she reveals that her mother is in a mental institution for a hereditary illness - but it turns out to be a lie. In "Tomb", she seems to go crazy and sliced her own wrists but it turns out there is a ghost involved. In "Labyrinth", Chloe in Clark's hallucination may or may not be insane, which serves as some ambiguous "foreshadowing". She is infected with Brainiac in season eight for a significant period and a previous victim in "Persona" is reduced to a blubbering vegetable. In "Legion", the Legion mentions they have never heard of Chloe sparking more speculation that she ended up in an asylum. Season eight in general put such incredible stress to her that it is a miracle that she didn't snap. When she becomes Watchtower full time, fans may remember Superman's line from STAS — "I need to be Clark. I'd go crazy if I had to be Superman all the time!" Season nine sees her losing touch with life, locked up in the Watchtower. And finally Kent Nelson is a stuttering wreck without the helmet of Nabu, and the helmet asks her to sacrifice her sanity... While she seems to have a Happily Ever After, there was never a resolution.
• Stranger Things:
  • Near the end of Season 2 Dustin takes hold of one of the dead Demo-dogs (the Demogorgon's juvenile forms) and shoves it into a fridge as a trophy and in order to perform experiments on it and learn more about the enemy, since he has a scientific attitude. However, not only it is completely forgotten about, no Demo-dogs appear or are discussed again in subsequent seasons.
  • A lot of attention in Season 2 is given over to teasing Max and Billy's Mysterious Past and their reasons for leaving California. Could it be linked to he conspiracy, and is Max another super-powered child? No, it doesn't seem so. Both Max and Billy's pasts seem to have been mundanely abusive rather than supernaturally so.
• Supergirl (2015) had David Harewood playing Hank Henshaw, a character from the comics known as the villainous Cyborg Superman. There were various hints throughout the first half of Season 1 that Henshaw might secretly have superpowers, leading many to believe that he was going to turn out to be a supervillain just like his comic counterpart. It then turned out that Hank Henshaw was merely an alias, and that Harewood was ACTUALLY playing Martian Manhunter.
• The first two episodes of Superman & Lois Season 2 contain a subplot about a hulking creature clad in some kind of containment suit that is trapped beneath the mines of Smallville. Visions of the creature violently punching its way to the surface through tons of rock are shown, which comic fans will remember is almost exactly how Doomsday was famously introduced in The Death of Superman. However, when the containment suit finally comes off at the end of episode 3, it's revealed that the monster isn't Doomsday, but is, in fact, Bizarro.
• Supernatural:
  • In the episode "Sex and Violence", the Monster of the Week is a Siren, a creature that preys on men by disguising itself as an irresistible woman. While investigating, Sam meets an attractive doctor who he rather suddenly ends up having sex with. She's not the monster.
  • The season five premiere, "Sympathy for the Devil", has Sam and Dean searching for the Michael Sword, which is said to be the weapon Archangel Michael used to defeat Lucifer with. Turns out there's no actual sword; the Michael Sword is the one true vessel of Michael, and that vessel is Dean himself, whom Michael can only use if Dean gives his consent to do so. However, Heaven being what it is in Supernatural, there's nothing saying they can't force him to consent.
• Practically a plot necessity for Teen Wolf, several people were heavily hinted at as the Alpha in Season 1 and later the Kanima and it's master in Season 2, only to turn out as Red Herrings. Most notably the veterinarian Deaton as the Alpha and the chemistry teacher as the master of the Kanima.
• In the second version of the Bonus Round on Nickelodeon's Think Fast, teams must find seven matches of costumed people in fifteen lockers. The odd one out is dubbed the Red Herring and, if the kids are asked to find his match, they must pull the "Herring Handle" at home base to reset the lockers.
• On Timeless, time-travelling crook Flynn is a master of this as the trio who follow him through history constantly mistake what his real plan is:
  • In 1962 Las Vegas, they think Flynn is planning to kill JFK or one of the other power players of the time. Flynn is really blackmailing JFK's mistress to help him steal a nuclear core.
  • When Flynn heads to 1944 Germany, the natural assumption is he's going to give a nuke to the Nazis. Flynn is actually planning to hand Werner Van Braun over to the Soviets to allow them to win the race to the moon.
  • The trio follows Flynn to the French and Indian War, assuming he's going to mess with it somehow. They never expect Flynn to have simply lured them into a trap to blow up their time ship and strand them in the past.
• Tru Calling normally had a bunch of red herrings in each episode, to the extent that it was often clear the killer was a character who was named but never actually did anything before the last five minutes. Special mention goes to "In the Dark" - the victim is anonymous, but all the evidence points to either Avery killing Jensen's fiancée, or Carrie being killed by her late husband's sister. Plus Jack is harassing both possible victims. In the end, it turns out the real victim was a janitor at the morgue, who was electrocuted while trying to fix some bad wiring.
• In "Diamonds are Furever" from Turner & Hooch (2021), the dog Hooch becomes obsessed with a squeaky toy that is a literal red herring. This is a less-than-subtle reference to the fact that the episode's main antagonist, a notorious jewel thief, is a master of distraction who ends up getting most of Turner's team to chase someone else.
• Throughout the first half of season one of Ugly Betty, Wilhelmina has occasional conversations with a mysterious lady who is covered in white from head to toe, except for her eyes. Some context clues would have you believe that the lady is actually Fey Sommers, who is supposed to be dead. It is later revealed that she is actually the also supposedly dead Alex Meade, who had a gender transition to become Alexis Meade.
• The Vampire Diaries: Those who have not read the books would get the impression that Alaric Saltzman is a vampire.
• WandaVision: As usual with MCU productions, both the fandom and dedicated websites analyzed every episode, trailer, line, production detail, interview, etc to the utmost detail seeking clues for future plots. This was aggravated in Wandavision because it was a mystery told in a episodic structure at fixed intervals and the creators embedded intentional red herrings that they knew would receive overinflated importance.
  • Mephisto, who had not appeared in the MCU so far, was the villain of one the comic book stories that served as inspiration for the show, and thus a likely character for fans to expect to appear. The frequent discussions about characters being "Mephisto in disguise" were fueled by several casual mentions of words related to hell or the devil. Paul Bettany even said in an interview during the show's run that he was not allowed to discuss Mephisto (as there was nothing to discuss). As it turns out, he did not appear in the series in any capacity.
  • As the story deals with Wanda's grief, the story utilizes Pietro by having him appear in Westview as a person, but the character was not played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson as in Age of Ultron, but rather by Evan Peters from the X-Men series. As Disney had recently purchased Fox and acquired the rights to the X-Men Film Series, the internet exploded in theories that the series might foreshadow the introduction of the team and/or mutants into the MCU. However, it turns out that Evan Peters was an intentional Casting Gag and his actual character just a random nobody, enchanted by Agatha Harkness to play the role of Pietro and mess with Wanda.
  • At one point, Monica texts a contact of hers, a male aerospace engineer and keeps referencing this aerospace engineer several times, while building up the meeting. As the Fantastic Four were also acquired in the recent Fox purchase, speculation ran hight that he could possibly be shown or, at least name-dropped, to be Reed Richards. But it turns out to be nothing more than an unnamed and unseen aerospace engineer
  • The show includes a number of hints that Dottie might be another witch like Agatha and Wanda, including a shot that focuses on the yellow flowers in her garden, after showing that Agatha and Wanda both have flowers that match the color of their magic. It turns out that Dottie is just another Westview resident pulled into Wanda's sitcom like everyone else. The character's real last name, Proctor, lampshades this as a Shout-Out to the name of the protagonist of The Crucible, a play about people falsely accused of witchcraft.
• Discussed in Warehouse 13: while perusing the canned food section of the Warehouse, Pete discovers a can marked "Red Herrings". He remarks. "It must have taken forever to find this one."
• Warrior Nun does this very well with Cardinal Duretti. He spends all of Season 1 being overly hostile towards the Nuns, taking over the Order and stocking it with his loyalists while reassigning the protagonists, manipulating Lilith into trying to kill Ava and taking the Halo from her, and rather blatantly trying to position himself to become Pope. As all this occurs just as the heroes realize that there's a traitor in the Order who killed Sister Shannon for discovering something dangerous hidden in the Vatican's catacombs, so of course it looks like Duretti fits the bill... but as the season finale reveals, all he ever cared about gathering enough power to ensure he could win the papal election, and had nothing to with Shannon's death. It turns out that the true traitor was Father Vincent, who was the one most loudly accusing Duretti.
• In Westworld Season 1, Dr. Robert Ford is assumed to be the Big Bad given the way he treated the Hosts as objects, wants absolute control of them and doing a lot of shady actions such as building Bernard, who turns out to be a Host and he puts traumazing fake memories of his dead son. Turns out that he really cares about the Hosts and wants them to be free as he refuses to let Delos take over them after he becomes disappointed with the guests' treatment on the Hosts. It's also revealed that Bernard is the host version of his late partner, Arnold, who engineered his suicide so that the park would shut up, knowing that the humans would abuse the Hosts. The "fake" memories are actually Arnold's and Ford wants Bernard to feel suffering so that he and the rest of the Hosts can fight back and gain consciousness.
• The Wheel of Time: Throughout season one, several hints appear that seem to indicate that one of the five Two Rivers protagonists is the Dragon Reborn. Only one of them can actually be it, though.
• In The Whispers, the protagonists are given a clue that Drill is looking for "Orion". Since the clue is only ever spoken, they do their due diligence and consider that it could be the surname "O'Ryan". While it's not mentioned by the characters, a scene of two characters talking before the reveal of who or what Orion refers to shows a flyer for an "Orion Golf Tournament" In the background. Later in the same episode that the Fleet appears in, it's revealed that the Secret Service codenames for the First Family follow both a Stellar Name theme and an Alphabetical Theme Naming on the letter O. Orion refers to the President's daughter, who has been possessed by Drill; the seemingly Meaningful Background Event is in fact a Red Herring. Of course, anyone who had stuck around for the next episode preview the previous week already knew that last part; only the meaning of Orion was a surprise.
• Without a Trace: The agents will frequently find something or someone that appears to be relevant to the Victim of the Week's disappearance, only for it to have nothing to do with it. For example, in the episode "Revelations", a priest vanishes after discovering another priest's affair with a parishioner and while trying to convince another parishioner to leave a street gang. Neither of which was the reason he went missing.
• The X-Files: Red Herrings were used in quite a few episodes, and more importantly, they were employed on the Myth Arc level as well. Several clues that appeared to be important to the mysteries the agents Mulder and Scully were supposed to unravel ultimately lead nowhere, or were not simply addressed at all, very likely due to The Chris Carter Effect or Kudzu Plot.
  • The fate of Samantha Mulder, Agent Fox Mulder's sister, was probably the biggest Red Herring of the series. Her abduction was a defining moment of Mulder's life as it triggered his belief in the paranormal and motivated his career at the FBI. Throughout the series, Mulder was tormented by her clones and doubles ("End Game"/"Colony", "Redux II"), statements that she's still alive ("End Game", "Blessing Way", "Two Fathers"), and one lead confirmed that a recent tissue sample had been taken from her ("Paper Clip"). However, the show also suggested alternative explanations for her disappearance ("Paper Hearts": Perhaps a child molester took her?). In the two parter "Sein und Zeit"/"Closure", it was revealed that she had been abducted by the conspiracy who had collaborated with the aliens. Horrible tests had been performed on her and then she had lived with the Cancer Man and his family (the Spenders). When she was 14, she was saved by some strange kind of fairies or angels which made her body disappear, meaning that her corpse will never be found, but Mulder did see her ghost.
  • "Red Museum" is one big Red Herring. Viewers are teased with teenagers' weird kidnappings, vegetarian cultists wearing red turbans, a plane crash in which a local doctor dies, cattle inoculation, hallucinogenic sequences in the woods, or a creepy peeper, but none bear significance for resolution of the case. The episode even appears to be a Monster of the Week story, but it turns out to be connected to the Myth Arc. However, those motifs did not resurface in the later mythology episodes.
  • "Grotesque": Mulder and Scully are asked to investigate a case of a nasty Serial Killer who claims to be possessed by a demon. There is a copy-cat killer and it must be somebody from the FBI team as the information about he mutilation was not released to the public. The killer bit Agent Nemhauser when they were arresting him and his wound was addressed and shown several times. However, the copy-cat was the team leader Agent Patterson, a sad case of a trope called He Who Fights Monsters.
  • "Demons": Mulder wakes up in a motel room, covered in blood and suffering from amnesia. Evidence leads Mulder and Scully to a dead old couple who were killed by Mulder's gun. Did he shoot them? Also, a disturbed guy who obsessively cuts his heads out of all photographs keeps appearing. Perhaps he did it? No, he shoots himself in the middle of the episode. The old couple were alien abductees, and they and Mulder both underwent some radical and dangerous treatment. Their death was ruled out to be a case of Murder-Suicide.

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