Series / Angie Tribeca

Tribeca, Geils, Tanner, Hoffman.
They fight crime.

"Well, that went nowhere fast."

— Angie Tribeca, "Pilot"

Angie Tribeca is a TBS comedy series created by Nancy Walls Carell and Steve Carell, made to parody police procedural series.

Rashida Jones stars as the eponymous detective, a tough cop working to clean up the streets of Los Angeles with her partner, Jay Geils. Helping them are Detectives Tanner and Hoffman (the latter being a dog) while the whole squad is commanded by the constantly-exasperated Lieutenant Atkins.

Hilarity Ensues.

Notably, the first season, in its entirety, premiered as a twenty-five hour marathon lasting from January 17 to January 18, 2016. The same was done for the fourth season, from December 29 to December 30, 2018. The show was cancelled in May 2019.

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Tropes:

• Action Girl: The first time we see Angie, she's working out in her room from a punching bag to smashing her furniture and balloons, chin-ups in the shower and more. It continues as we see her doing "sparring" that leaves Geils a beaten mess and the show pushes her in more outrageous situations.
• Always Second Best: Laurie Partridge, Angie's old academy roommate.
  Laurie: I was always the best at everything, and then I met you in the Academy and suddenly, I was "Most Likely to be Overshadowed by Angie Tribeca."
• Ambiguously Bi: Some of the ladies appear to be attracted to Angie, but the signs aren't as blatant as when Laurie Partridge hit on her.
  • During "Murder in the First Class", Angie wonders how Vivian is able to manipulate men with her obvious flirting. After she mockingly imitates Vivian's behavior in Scholls' presence, Scholls asks Angie out for coffee. Apparently the technique is so effective it works on Scholls even when Angie isn't actually trying to use it.
  • At the end of "License to Drill", Luikin admits to spying on Tribeca, including through her webcam:
    Luikin: You have a really nice body.
    Tribeca: Thanks!

• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  • "Germs of Endearment":
    Geils: Someone made off with multiple viral samples, a T. Rex embryo, and $40 in petty cash.
    Atkins: Well, that cash is as good as gone!
• Art Shift: Season 2 features a significantly desaturated color palette, a slightly less slapstick sense of humor, and an overarching plot because the showrunners wanted to parody overly serious police dramas and the damaged detective trope even further. Season 3 brings back the broader slapstick humor and a more saturated color palette along with a new screaming opening theme.
• Badass Driver: Hoffman (the dog), who ditches Geils and Tanner so he can do donuts in the parking lot.
• Bag of Holding:
  • On her day off, Angie comes home with a bag of groceries containing way too many items to plausibly fit in there, including a package of about 20 rolls of toilet paper and a ladder.
  • "You've Got Blackmail" starts with a hooded figure entering a coffee shop wearing an ordinary backpack. Said person sits down and takes out a laptop, headphones, wireless router, photo in a frame, poster, floor lamp, and a cat^note ...a real housecat. A fairly large one.
  • "If You See Something, Solve Something": a woman crawls out of a child's backpack.
  • "Hey, I'm Solvin' Here!": Geils travels inside a suitcase.
• Bat Deduction: Parodied (naturally) in "Ferret Royale": Geils goes from "apple" to "orchard" to "farm" to "granny smith" to "Grandma" to "nursing home" to "soft food" to "applesauce"...and then back to apples, starting the loop over again and repeating it two or three more times.
• Bazaar of the Bizarre: In "The Organ Trail", Tanner literally visits the Black Market, which is laid out like a Farmer's Market, with things like a stall selling blood diamonds and a woman handing out "grenade samples".
• Becoming the Mask: Either played with or deconstructed with Geils in "Beach Blanket Sting-O". He eagerly volunteers to go undercover as a fat-shaming lifeguard to find out who is dealing drugs, and stays for a long period of time. He does this and admits it is due to not wanting to deal with the stress from being a new father, being in a relationship with Scholls while still having feelings for Tribeca, guilt from leaving Tribeca while she was in a coma, and lying about his baby with Tribeca to Scholls. What snaps him out of it is when Tribeca makes him realize that he was inadvertently bodyshaming his baby to the point where he had come to the beach fully dressed with a jacket and pants—on what was apparently the hottest day of the year.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: One of the killers offs himself with a shrimp allergy rather than reveal the conspiracy connected to Mayhem Global.
• Bilingual Dialogue: Hoffman speaks in unsubtitled barks and growls. Everyone else addresses him in English.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: While pretending to be a proud Mexican father Geils, for some reason, decides to translate "Tribeca" as "Tresbeca".
• Broken Pedestal: Eddie has this with the law, of all things. He became disillusioned once he learned that Mayor Joe Perry was getting away with all kinds of crimes. Angie reaches this as well once the perp they arrested got off on an insanity plea for killing his bandmate. The final straw comes when the Coast Guard is revealed to be part of a conspiracy to bring in Canadians to help vote for Dreyfuss in the upcoming election, and all her fellow officers care about is that they caught the killer. So, she throws in with Eddie.
• Buddy Cop Show: Multiple episodes focus on the relationship between police partners Angie and Geils.
• The Cameo: Every episode has at least one major guest star popping up somewhere during the case. Among them: Lisa Kudrow, James Franco, Adam Scott, Amy Smart, David Koechner, Slash, Keegan-Michael Key and Bill Murray.
  • Alfred Molina has a recurring role as Dr. Edelweiss.
  • Most notably, Rashida Jones' real-life mother, Peggy Lipton, play Angie's mother.
  • Nancy Walls Carell, who co-created the show with her husband Steve Carell, has a cameo in several episodes as the mayor's wife.
  • Jon Hamm pops up in the first episode of the second season as Geils' partner, called the best cop around but immediately transferred with "bye" his only line.
  • Joe Jonas appears as a police officer in an episode around the suspicious death of a boy band member.
  • Danny Trejo and Gene Simmons play themselves in "Inside Man".
    Angie: (to guard) There's been a mistake. You need to let us go. We're LAPD.
    Group of inmates: We're LAPD!
    Danny Trejo: *gestures dramatically* I'm an actor!
    Gene Simmons: And I'm a rock star! *jumps around and strikes a pose*
    • Even funnier when one knows that Danny Trejo is an ex-convict in real life.
• Captain Obvious: Anyone can (and will) take this role for the sake of a gag.
  Tanner: How'd he die?
  Scholls: His brain and heart stopped. After that, he had no chance.
• Catapult Nightmare: Angie suffers from one of these repeatedly in "The Organ Trail", waking up time and time again to discover that she has hooks for hands and feet. By the time it becomes an Overly Long Gag, her scream shows a distinct lack of enthusiasm.
• Chase Scene: A regular target of parody.
  • One episode has Geils and Tanner chasing a murderer through a golf course, but are repeatedly stymied because they need to wait for the foursome ahead of them to finish playing the current hole.
  • Another episode has Geils chasing a suspect on foot, then stops a passing car to grab a bicycle off the trunk rack. The suspect then jumps on a garbage truck, and Geils gives up in frustration even as the truck stops to pick up more garbage.
  • The pilot comes out strong with this trope - when Geils is chasing after a suspect, he makes sure to insert as many stunts as possible while in pursuit, including somersaults, parkour, backflips - the works. (All with an Obvious Stunt Double, of course.) These stunts take up so much time that the suspect, who is doing nothing more than a light jog throughout the entire chase, manages to make it almost off the campus until Angie finally catches him (who was well behind the suspect after having to create new clothes for herself out of scattered papers).
• Chekhov M.I.A.: In the episode "The Wedding Planner Did It", Angie tells Geils the story of her former partner and lover Sgt. Eddie Pepper, who ran through a dark tunnel on a case once and was never seen again. In the second season, Sgt. Pepper turns out to be well alive and part of a huge conspiracy.
• Cliffhanger:
  • The first season finale "The One With the Bomb" ends with a Wire Dilemma as Angie tries to save Geils from a bomb vest. She cuts a wire as the timer counts down to zero — and the episode ends.
  • Season three ends with Angie being arrested as an imposter and for killing the real Angie Tribeca.
• Colorblind Casting: Played with; in this case, species-blind casting. Det. Hoffman is played by a dog, but the rest of the precinct treats the character as though he were human.
• Convenient Coma: It is revealed that Angie was in a coma for a year between the first and second seasons.
• The Conspiracy: Eddie Pepper creates Mayhem Global, an organization that is dedicated to bringing down Mayor Perry. Things escalate over time, and they go from trying to get him out of office to just killing him. Angie ends up involved in this.
• Corrupt Politician: Eddie Pepper tells Tribeca that Mayor Perry is the head of a city-wide crime syndicate, and is responsible for crimes including money laundering, racketeering, voter fraud, racketeering fraud, and voter laundering.
• Covers Always Lie: The info guide synopses for the first season contain a running thread of the Lieutenant being sick (apparently suffering from bacterial meningitis), with the finale's synopsis claiming that he's "inches away from death". None of this is true.
• Creator Cameo:
  • Nancy Walls Carell, one of the creators of the show, appears in the pilot and the second season finale as the mayor's wife.
  • You can occasionally hear Steve Carell in voice-over cameos. For example in one episode where Angie visits a prison, Carell is heard yelling from off-camera commenting on her hair.
• Darker and Edgier: Season 2, while still retaining much of the humor from Season 1, has several (often recurring) plot points that are taken fairly seriously, in addition to the relatively darker and more desaturated color scheme compared to Season 1.
• Dawson Casting: In-Universe. While on the trail of some diamond smugglers, Angie is forced to go undercover as a teenager at her quinceanera.
• Dies Wide Open: Happens to a ventriloquist and his dummy in "The Famous Ventriloquist Did It". Geils tries to close the dummy's eyes, and they pop back open. Then he tries the same thing on the human victim, with the same result.
• Disappeared Dad: Angie's father. He does this again once she finally finds him.
• Dramatic Unmask: Parodied in the season 2 finale, where nearly EVERYONE is revealed to be disguised with a latex mask, even when the person they're impersonating is the wrong height, race, or gender.
• Dumbass Has a Point: One of their suspects in "Miso Dead" pointed out that they should care just as much about animals as they do people, because animals don't have people solving their murders.
• Elevator Failure: Happens to Geils at the end of the pilot episode, in a likely homage to L.A. Law.
• Epic Fail: Geils goes all in during a high-stakes poker game. Turns out his hole cards are a three, and the card with the instructions on it.
• Evil Brit: "The Inside Man" features a British gang that robs banks by pretending to be chimney sweepers, each with a heavy Cockney accent and wealth of British slang. One of them speaks so indistinctly that DJ Tanner puts a handful of gumballs in his mouth in order to emulate his accent. Tanner proceeds to make a number of mumbled threats that are so terrifying that the thug then spits out a mouthful of marbles in order to comprehensibly spill his guts.
• Evil Counterpart: The FBI agent Diane Duran is this to Angie in "You've Got Blackmail", as well as Angie's Foil. She was so impressive in...well, everything that Angie wanted to be her and genuinely liked her. Heck, the entire department liked her. Like Angie, she was a female in law enforcement; unlike Angie, however, she played more to her feminine strengths, giving her something in common with Scholls. Sadly, she was working with Mayhem Global to hack websites and the LAPD, and she almost bested Angie in a fight complete with costume changes...until Angie tapped into her own femininity and defeated her.
• Fanservice:
  • The opening of the pilot has Angie doing chin-ups in the shower; later she poses as a nude model for an art class.
  • Geils will also go shirtless from time to time.
  • We see Angie's nude back and a hint of Side Boob during the dream sequence in the second season premiere.
  • Played with when Monica calls up to the squad room that she's reading in a bubble bath in her lab. The place is soon filled with cops who are eager to peek under the bubbles. Monica then rises up to reveal she's completely dressed in the water, disappointing them all.
• Femme Fatale: Parodied in "License to Drill", with Geils being set up by one.
• Flock of Wolves: In one episode, Geils goes undercover with a pack of lifeguards to track a drug dealer. Angie tries to arrest the head lifeguard only for him to reveal he's also LAPD, under deep cover. One by one, the other "crooked" lifeguards flash badges from DEA, ATF, CIA, Immigration and other agencies.
  Angie: Is not one person here an actual drug-dealing lifeguard?!
• Foil:
  • Eddie Pepper is this to Geils. Both of them are tall, dark and handsome. Both have relationships with Tribeca that ended badly (Eddie faked his death for ten years, while Geils dumped her for Scholls when she fell into a coma and raised their baby without her.) However, Eddie sent Angie into such a deep depression that she turned into a loner for a decade, and then followed that by dragging her into a conspiracy that resulted in her going to jail and almost killing Mayor Perry. Meanwhile, Geils managed to get her to open up more and connect with people, and he was able to stop her from going through with the assassination by reminding her of their child together and of who she really was.
  • Angie gets one in Detective Goldstein, a NYPD cop who is just just as stubborn and competitive as she. Goldstein, however, tries to run Angie out of town and refuses to believe that the Hunter killed someone in her city, clinging to her theory of a mob hit. She also tries to hijack Angie's case when she is proven wrong, making her even less of a team player than Angie.
  • In general, any female suspect or villain is this to Angie and other female cops, based usually on how they are more feminine than the cops are. A big clue for Diane Duran being a villain could be that she was the first female cop that wasn't masculine in any way.
• Frame-Up:
  • Played with in the second season. Angie is framed for the murder of a graphic designer, but this is done on purpose to help with Mayhem Global's conspiracy to kill the mayor.
  • Geils is framed by a femme fatale who was trying to stop a ban on oil drilling.
• Friendly Scheming: Nearly the entirety of the third season, as revealed in the season finale, was part of a test for Geils. "The Hunter" was just an actor, as were most of his victims, to see if Geils was capable of taking command and earning a promotion.
• Funny Background Event:
  • While Angie and Geils question an unhelpful witness, Tanner is shown to be using various and increasingly dramatic methods to get a frozen corpse out a fridge.
  • In "Boyz II Men", while Angie and Sgt. Pepper take a stroll through the woods, we see a skeleton chained to a tree with a sign that says "Save the trees"; a man with a cleaver chasing two young women; and a leprechaun hiding behind a tree.
• Fun with Subtitles: Going into a Japanese restaurant, Angie and Geils talk to the chef, who speaks perfect English. Despite that, subtitles run for the entire conversation, including Angie and Geils and even the sound effect of a slap. When the chef finishes in a perfectly understandable voice, the subtitles say "Garbled."
• Gag Censor:
  • In the first episode when Angie goes undercover as a nude model, one of the art students is seen working on a pixellated pencil sketch of her - meaning he actually went to the trouble of drawing the pixels.
  • A later episode has Angie and other women walking around topless or nude in a change room, with any "sensitive areas" pixellated.
• Gambit Pileup: The second season finale is a mess of plot twists and call backs that has multiple characters dropping one bomb after another on each other.
• Gilligan Cut: Numerous but one of the best is in the opening of season 4 as Atkins vows that "on my mother's life", Angie will not go to jail. Cut to Angie in a cell.
  Atkins: I am so sorry, Tribeca.
  Angie: No, I'm sorry about your mom.
• Gender-Blender Name: The baby boy conceived by Tribeca and Geils is named Angela Jay "Angie" Geils. As an adult in Season Four, he prefers to go by "A.J."
• Glasses Pull: Spoofed when Angie puts her sunglasses on to deliver a snappy one-liner, then whips them off again.
• Go Mad from the Isolation: Happens to Angie in "Inside Man" after she's placed in solitary confinement — even though (a) Geils was with her the whole time, and (b) it was only for two hours.
• Good Cop/Bad Cop: In episode The Organ Trail Tribeca and Geils get a new partner - Jackie Wilder, a romance novelist. They interrogate a nurse.
  Wilder: (slaps nurse) You're a lying whore!
  Nurse: Who's she?
  Geils: She's a romance novelist. She's working the case with us.
  Nurse: Oh, OK. So you're dong Good Cop, Bad Cop, Romance Novelist?
  Tribeca: Believe me, not by choice.
• Hairy Girl: When Angie gets out of her hospital bed after a year-long coma, she reveals a pair of ridiculously hairy legs.
• Heroic BSoD: Angie spends most of season two in this mode, due to being in a coma and Geils dating Scholls. This is a big part of how Eddie was able to enlist her in his schemes.
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep":
  • "Fleas Don't Kill Me": He's a John Doe until we find some ID. His real name? John Dough^note pronounced DOE-zh, of course. And his wife's name is Jane.
  • The guard's name is "Guard" in "If You See Something, Solve Something".
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Eddie Pepper recruits Angie to his cause against Mayor Perry. Guess who betrays him in the end?
• Homage: Many episodes appear to pull part or all their plots from specific television series or movies, not just the genre as a whole. Watching this show can cause some serious déjà vu.
  • Sledge Hammer!. Either that or they're recycling some of the gags and hoping nobody remembers.
  • A spoof of cop shows set in an absurd world with a bunch of deadpan dialogue? Police Squad!, anybody?
  • "Ferret Royale" lifts its entire poker game sequence from Casino Royale (2006), including the part where Felix bankrolls Bond.
  • "If You See Something, Solve Something": Blindspot. The first scene in particular is eerily similar.
  • Every episode of Season Four is a parody of a specific movie or TV show; for example, "Freezing Cold Prestige Drama" is one of Fargo.
• Hurricane of Puns: These can pile up so quickly in certain scenes that you're likely to miss one because you're still laughing (or groaning) at the previous one.
• Ikea Weaponry: As literal an example as possible. An assassin attempts to kill a target with a sniper rifle purchased from Okea but has trouble understanding the instructions and putting it together, even forgetting the entire trigger assembly. The assassin settles for using the rifle as a club instead.
• I Never Said It Was Poison: In season 1 episode Ferret Royale:
  Tribeca: Any idea how your cufflink was found inside an illegal ferret?
  Fröntbüt: Well, I travel all over the world. It may have fallen when I was in the mountains. You know, these Himalayan soft bellies, they'll eat anything.
  Tribeca: I didn't say it was a Himalayan soft belly.
  Fröntbüt: You didn't say it wasn't.
  Geils: Damn it, he's good.
• Inexplicably Identical Individuals: Atkins' identical cousins are running police departments all over the country, apparently.
• Ironic Echo Cut:
  • While driving, Tribeca tells Geils not to get attached to her because she's bad luck to partners. Cut to Geils holding a photo of the two of them in a "BFF" picture frame, then casually tossing it out the window.
  • And then again in Season 2, when Angie tells Geils that he shouldn't want anything to do with her. Cut to him quickly tossing away the engagement ring he's suddenly holding.
  • Also, Geils begs Tanner not to leave him alone with Scholls after they had broken up. Cut to Scholls and Tanner making out.
• Irony: Angie is finally fed up and chooses to help Eddie and Mayhem Global take down corruption and Mayor Joe Perry. The thing that pushes her into doing so was a crime that Mayhem Global got away with.
• I Work Alone: Angie, who constantly asserts that she doesn't need help or a partner. Not even when moving a sofa.^note To be fair, she tucks the sofa under one arm and casually walks off with it.
• Just Plane Wrong: Played for laughs. A Boeing 767 seen at an airport terminal suddenly turns into a badly animated two-seater biplane when in the air. Interior shots show a wide-body jet, but cockpit scenes include the loud buzzing of an old prop engine. And it's so long that it takes Angie several minutes to run the length of the plane...
• Karma Houdini: Skyler, the Pretty Boy bandmate in "Boyz II Dead". He murdered his bandmate because he wanted to be the Bad Boy. Yet, after he is arrested, he gets out three months later due to an insanity plea.
• Knight of Cerebus:
  • Diane Duran. Her episode leads to the ongoing arc with Mayhem Global.
  • Also, Eddie Pepper, the leader of Mayhem Global itself.
  • There is the Hunter in season three.
• Kung-Shui: Parodied in the pilot; Angie's morning workout culminates with her trashing her apartment, including tearing down a bookshelf and punching the refrigerator hard enough to leave dents in the door. When she finally leaves for work, she passes by a line of repairmen ready to fix everything she just destroyed.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Eddie thought that he could use Angie to help him take down the Mayor. Not only does she end up betraying him, but she shoots him in the end.
• Latex Perfection: All of the Dramatic Unmasking in the Season 2 finale is with latex masks that look and move exactly like actual faces.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • In "Electoral Dysfunction," Angie's mom (played by Rashida Jones' mother Peggy Lipton) cameos with the comment "I thought it'd be fun to do something together."
  • Natalie Portman's guest appearance in a Season 3 episode, has her saying this as an aside:
    "Right, and some day they'll be able to say 'shit' on network television."
  • In the second season finale, James Franco, in character as Sergeant Pepper, lampshades how confusing the Gambit Pileup is while saying that he's only making a cameo as a favor to one of his friends.
  • In "Boyz II Dead" a witness strips to the waist so the police can examine an autograph on her left breast. When they're finished Geils says, "Thanks so much, ma'am. You can remove the pixellation and put your shirt back on."
  • During the second season premier, Angie snaps at Monica for no good reason. Jay takes her aside and says, "Hey, if you're going to lose your mind every time you fall into a coma and I abandon you for another woman, who then raises your baby thinking it's my Canadian love child, it's gonna be a long second season."
• Left the Background Music On:
  • An example with background noise instead of music. Apparently there's a guy at the precinct whose only job is to sit behind a sound board and provide enough "hubbub" so that the place sounds really busy.
  • In another scene, when bass music plays as Tribeca and Geils have a conversation in their car, it's revealed that there is a bassist playing in the back seat.
  • When Tribeca and Geils start to question a bar full of sailors, Geils clicks a remote to turn off the ambient rock music playing in the background.
• Literal-Minded: A lot of the show's puns come from a character taking cop slang or even figures of everyday speech literally. A perp bargaining for immunity, and being given a vaccination followed by a lollipop, is one such gag.
  Mrs. Parsons: I just really hope you catch the animal that did this.
  Angie: Thank you, ma'am, but we think it was a human who did it.
• Loafing in Full Costume: Commandant Van Zandt wears his medals to bed in "The Coast is Fear", though at least he's wearing pajamas.
• The Lopsided Arm of the Law: Geils and Tanner raid a home and ignore a drug lab, a counterfeit operation, and a man who's been held against his will for six months. They, instead, arrest the homeowner for owning a ferret (actually illegal in California) and the man is later told he could face up to 50 years in prison.
• Loud of War: Parodied; a man complains about his neighbor (a graphic designer) keeping him up all night with noises of clicking the mouse, typing on the keyboard, and making printouts.
• Low-Speed Chase: Geils and Tanner are chasing a perp on a golf course. Naturally they have to play an entire round of golf in the process, which includes waiting for some old ladies who take forever at every single hole.
• Ludicrous Gibs: So far no actual blood and guts have made an appearance on the show, but when Dr. Scholls performs an autopsy on a ventriloquist dummy, there's an improbable amount of sawdust sprayed all over everyone in the room. In another instance, a character violently commits suicide (by eating a piece of shrimp to trigger a shellfish allergy) and he explodes into a shower of confetti that covers Geils and Tribeca.
• Magic Countdown: Parodied in "The One With the Bomb". Geils is wearing a bomb vest and Angie has to solve the Wire Dilemma to free him. It's about to explode in five seconds, so Geils grabs her face in his hands and gives her a long, passionate kiss... that's much longer than five seconds. He then pulls away and tells her they have four seconds left.
• Modesty Towel: To enter a locker room, Geils and Tanner cover themselves up with bath towels... over their street clothes. Later, the villain whips the towels off them and runs off while the two cover themselves in embarrassment (while still dressed).
• Mugged for Disguise:
  • Angie mugs a model for her outfit in the pilot episode.
  • In another episode, Angie and Geils knock out a wealthy couple and take their clothes in order to infiltrate a political event. What makes it funny is that the victims had already volunteered to give up their outfits before Geils cracked them over the head.
  Angie: Works every time.
• Mundane Made Awesome:
  • Not only is Geils a longtime admirer of ventriloquism, but apparently ventriloquists are world-famous celebrities who collect trophy wives and go on sold-out world tours.
  • In one episode, Dr. Edelweiss slowly descends downstairs on a powered stairlift seat all while dramatic rock music plays.
  • A woman screams in shock and awe when she opens her new refrigerator and discovers the voluminous storage space inside. She does it again when the installer reveals the lettuce crisper.
  • When Angie goes after a badminton players for a hit-and-run, she faces huge pressure as the man is considered the top star of a billion-dollar sport.
    Atkins: There are two seasons in L.A. — Summer and badminton.
• Naked People Are Funny: When Angie shows up at the hospital to visit Geils after his unfortunate elevator incident, he turns away from the camera and is shown to be wearing the typical backless hospital gown, giving the audience a pixellated butt shot. Then Angie turns to follow him, and for no apparent reason, her clothes are backless as well.
• New Job as the Plot Demands: Dr. Edelweiss after he quits the LAPD.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Eddie's attacks against Mayor Perry only served to strengthen his position, for people rallied behind him and voted to keep him in office.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
  • Towards the end of Season 3, before the truth comes out, Geils learns the hard way why police don't negotiate with terrorists. Siglet promises to release Scholls and stop the animal attacks if all of the zoos close and the animals are freed. Against the advice of Angie and Pritkins, Geils decides to do what Siglet asked. This results in more people dying and Scholls still not being freed (she escapes on her own). Mayor Perry basically suspends him for his actions.
  • In the last few minutes of Season 3, some people come by to arrest Angie for murder of the real Angie Tribeca. Angie, being a cop, doesn't bother to protest her innocence, goes quietly, and knows the very best thing she can do is keep her mouth shut until her lawyer arrives, despite all of the good that she had done during the previous three seasons.
• No Indoor Voice: Lt. Atkins has a bit of a hair-trigger temper. Especially when he's yelling at his officers to get them to stop yelling at each other.
• Noodle Incident: How did Slash end up in a British Chimney sweep/bank robbing gang? We'll never know.
• Not Quite Dead: The first crime scene shown on the series is Angie arriving for a woman in "late '90's/early 100's" dead on the ground. The woman smiles as she wakes up, asking for help. The cops answer by putting a sheet over her, still acting like she's dead.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome:
  • Revealing that the chef of a Japanese diner is the killer, Geils talks of how he did the crime with flashbacks showing it. As Geils says "one thing I don't understand..." he's interrupted by Angie as the camera shows that the resturant is now a mess with several dead bodies around, indicating a massive fight broke out during Geils' monologue.
  • After a standoff with a house full of Satanic cultists, Geils tells Angie that Hoffman (the dog) kicked the door down, burst in, and took out a dozen members by himself.
  • In "Boyz II Dead", Tanner auditions as a boy band member and has to show his dance moves. For almost the entirety of his act, we only see Geils and the manager looking absolutely amazed at what he can do, apparently.
• Obvious Stunt Double:
  • Played for laughs in the pilot, with Hayes MacArthur being doubled by a much smaller man in a bad wig during Le Parkour sequences, with the actor and stuntman even appearing together in the same frame. Rashida Jones is also briefly doubled by a man with incredibly burly and hairy forearms.
  • When Mayor Perry is targeted for assassination, the heroes send his wife out to a photo op with a mannequin in tow. The public laps it up.
• Percussive Pickpocket: Dr. Scholls gets a ferret out of a cage simply by bumping into the Fish & Game officer holding it. Exaggerated in the slow-motion flashback, which reveals that during the bump she took the cage, swapped the ferret for a box of Pop Tarts, applied lipstick, gave a passionate kiss to a nearby policeman, returned the cage to the officer, and then apologized for the bump.
• Perp Sweating: It's a cop show spoof, so of course they're going to have some fun with this trope. Tanner barraging a suspect with a hurricane of board game puns (you're looking at Life, you're in a lot of Trouble, you'll be Sorry, etc.) is an excellent example of how this usually goes. Angie and Geils also quite literally sweat a perp by turning the interview room into a steam room.
• Played for Laughs: Not surprisingly, the show lives and thrives on this.
• Pocket Protector: In the Season 4 finale, Angie shoots at AJ when Perry holds him hostage, but the bullet is blocked by his father's badge, which he was gifted at the episode's start.
• Police Are Useless: Played with as the cops will quite often overlook or ignore crimes while investigating smaller ones.
  • "Ferret Royale" opens with a police raid on a house, ignoring major crimes including an obvious kidnap victim, intoning "Nothing here." It then turns out their target has been... a ferret.
  • There's also "Tribeca's Day Off", in which she willfully ignores an ongoing robbery at the grocery store because she's off duty.

• Previously on…: "Inside Man" ends with a montage recapping the episode that just finished.
• Prisons Are Gymnasiums: Geils convinces a disgruntled ex-gym teacher to surrender by noting that he can teach gym in prison.
  Geils: "Every great gym teacher has spent time in prison."
• Product Placement: Oh, yes. And the show drops all pretenses of subtlety with it:
  • The pilot has a running gag in which a giant "www.(Ford logo).com" shows up in the bottom of the screen every time Angie and Geils get into or out of their car (which is a different Ford each time). When they're out of car scenes, it just randomly shows up while they're in the office.
  • In "The Famous Ventriloquist Did It," Tanner and Geils spend a good minute talking about how a Snickers candy bar really satisfies.
  • And there's the gag with the Hasbro Board Games mentioned with Perp Sweating, above.
  • "Contains Graphic Designer Violence" briefly takes a moment to have Geils, Tanner, and Atkins take part in a Little Caesars advertisement, with a uniform cop performing the jingle.
• Protagonist Title: The series is named after Angie Tribeca, its main protagonist.
• Punny Name: Many characters have goofy names just so the writers can shoehorn in a joke or a Shout-Out. Examples include forensic scientist Dr. Monica Scholls or wedding planner Jean Naté.
  Laurie Partridge: Go on, get happy.
  • Many characters are named after musicians, but it's sometimes obfuscated by spelling them differently or not stating the full name at once, such as the deuteragonist Jay Geils and Mayor Joe Perry's wife Katy.
• Running Gag: The first season had several:
  • Almost every episode features a cop (played by Dillon Paigen) who vomits at the sight of every crime scene, even when it's something non-graphic like a missing painting.
  • In the first season the opening credits have a loud scream over them as part of the theme tune, which often cuts to the same cop having injured himself in some way. Because they Replaced the Theme Tune in season 2, this gag stops appearing.
  • When they get out of their car, either Angie or Geils rants about no longer wanting to hear about a personal aspect of the other's life with the other replying that they just asked about the time or weather.
  • Angie will begin a line with "let's just say..." and everyone around will repeat the sentence with her.
  • Dr. Edelweiss will enter acting as if he has a handicap (in a wheelchair or blind) but then turns out to be perfectly fine. No one will comment on his "disability" or why he fakes it.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: One suspect's lawyer tries to do the talking during the interrogation. Once Tribeca presents solid evidence against the suspect, the lawyer just slides away out of frame.
• Serious Business: The show exploits this trope to its logical conclusion by making sure every single damn silly joke it manages to slip in is taken with an absurd amount of Serious Business.
• Shower Scene: The pilot has one 42 seconds in, during Angie's workout.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: Several of Season 1's recurring gag characters, such as the vomiting cop and the guy who screams during the opening credits, were removed for Season 2 to accentuate the season's more focused and downplayed sense of humor.
• Shout-Out: Lots, often through Punny Names or throwaway lines:

  Laurie Partridge: Once again, Tribeca, you see that there's nothing you can possess that the Fish and Game cannot take away.

  • "Murder in the First Class" features a Boeing 767 that mysteriously transforms into an old propeller-driven plane in the air and loud propeller noises being dubbed in over scenes set in the 767's cockpit. This is in reference to Airplane!, which Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker originally wanted to be set on an old propeller plane^note the film was originally inspired by Zero Hour!, a B-movie set on a propeller plane but ended up being set on a contemporary jetliner. ZAZ showed their displeasure at this change by having the jetliner's engine noises being dubbed over with propeller sounds.
  • "Freezing Cold Prestige Drama" from season 4 is one giant homage not only to Fargo, but other The Coen Brothers works like No Country for Old Men. Complete with everyone adopting the accents and Minnesota Nice attitudes.
• Small Role, Big Impact:
  • The gym teacher who kidnapped Geils and trapped him in a bomb vest in the first season finale. His actions led to Angie's coma in season two, which led to Geils dating Scholls and raising their child with her, which led to Angie's Heroic BSoD, which led to her teaming up with Eddie to kill Mayor Perry.
  • Victoria the robot. She only appeared in one episode, but it was enough for her to not only murder her boss, but also sleep with Geils, effectively helping him end his already crumbling relationship with Angie.
• Southern Belle: Vivian Tribeca, from "Murder In the First Class", complete with Dixie accent and a propensity for Fainting.
  Vivian: "Who is this extra-large helping of banana man pie?"
• Spoiler Title: Episodes two and three are named "The Wedding Planner Did It" and "The Famous Ventriloquist Did It". No bonus points for guessing who did it.
• Sue Donym: Parodied when Mayor Perry reveals that he was a user on an adult website.
  Mayor Perry: "My name is on that user list. Mayor Joe Perry. Username, 'MayorJoePerry1. Password, 'YesThatMayorJoePerry'."
• Swear Jar: The captain reveals that he has one of these when the squad needs to come up with a large sum of money to buy into a high-stakes poker game. They count the money and realize they're a few dollars short. Angie says "Shit!" in frustration and then they have enough. Tanner and Hoffman later exploit this by swearing up a storm to raise more money. (Where it magically comes from before they put it in the jar is, of course, not explained.)
• Swiss-Cheese Security:
  • Parodied in "The Thumb Affair", when a velvet rope and a "Do Not Touch" sign are revered by art gallery visitors as though they were a high-tech security system. The thief is considered brilliant for unhooking the rope and crossing out the word "Not" to change the meaning of the sign.
  • The super-max prison housing Dr. Thomas Hornbein in Season 3 has fairly lax rules about security. Hornbein, a convicted serial killer, can simply open his cell door to help Angie find her way out and assist in validating parking.
• Tempting Fate: In "Inside Man," the prison warden reassures Angie and Geils that they're safe as long as he's in charge. He then rolls his chair backwards and falls out of a second-story window.
• Theme Naming:
  • It's common for characters to be named after rock musicians - for example, Jay Geils, Chet Atkins, and Alan Parsons.
  • Two characters in 'Tribeca's Day Off' have the same names as John Travolta and Christian Slater's characters in the movie Broken Arrow, though it is never referenced.
• Time Skip:
  • The second season begins one year after the end of the first, with Angie waking up out of a Convenient Coma.
  • Season Four has a twenty year (!) time skip, though naturally no one (except Tribeca's son) appears any older.
• Toxic Friend Influence:
  • Eddie Pepper turns out to be this for Angie, encouraging her to break the law and go after Mayor Joe Perry.
  • The drug-dealing lifeguards are this for Geils, as they motivate him to be ashamed of his own child's physical appearance even when he's not acting as an undercover mentor of their group. Even worse once they turn out to be cops.
• Transatlantic Equivalent: As a Police Squad!-esque parody of cop dramas, packed with Visual Gags and Comically Missing the Point dialogue and running on pure Rule of Funny, the show's comedic style is extremely reminiscent of A Touch of Cloth.
• Tunnel King: Angie and Geils break out of prison by digging a tunnel (using tools made out of their blankets) out of their cell and through the ceiling of the police department several miles away.
• Undercover When Alone: Many of the scenes in Season 3 are shown to have been this in the finale, with The Reveal that "the Hunter" was actually an actor helping the precinct test if Geils was worthy of a promotion, even during episodes where Geils was not directly involved in trying to stop him.
• Unfortunate Names: The head of an animal conservation group is Helmut FröntBüt — which everyone pronounces as "front-butt". It doesn't help that he has a very large bump protruding from the front of his hip.
• Unnecessary Combat Roll: Geils turns this into an entire gymnastics routine in the pilot episode. Strangely enough, he manages to remain right on the perp's tail the entire time.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight:
  • Nobody notices that Detective Hoffman is a German Shepherd.
  • Or that Angie is a woman, for that matter... except for Geils; when he brings this up, Angie treats this like a dark secret that he's using as a blackmail threat.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: Played for laughs and dialed up to eleven for the flimsiest of reasons and at the most random of moments between Angie and Geils.
• Villain Has a Point: Vivian Tribeca states that she flipped out and killed a man because he, like everyone else sitting in first class, is so rude and unappreciative of the efforts made to make them comfortable.
• Visual Pun: The show is wrought with such gags, usually paired with the Literal-Minded situations.
  Geils: Good police work, Tanner.
  Tanner: Hey, hey! I'm just building off your footprint thing.
  Scholls: As soon as the sausage-fest is over, we can get back to some police work.

  (cut to a shot of a German sausage festival happening across from the trio)
• Vomiting Cop: A Running Gag for the first season.
• Walking Armory: The pilot shows that Angie carries at least three guns and a compound bow (in her trousers at the small of her back) while on duty.
  • This appears again in "Boyz II Dead", where she removes a ton of weapons in order to get past Security on her way to speak with a prisoner.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Geils finds himself shirtless quite often. Sometimes deliberately; sometimes without even being aware of it.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Mayhem Global, led by Sergeant Pepper. For a light-hearted parody, he ends up being a Deconstruction of the trope. His efforts to ruin Mayor Perry's campaign become more violent and illegal, resulting in more support for the Mayor. This leads to him resorting to murder and manipulating Angie into taking the fall for him in order to further his goals. In the end, he not only fails at what he was trying to achieve, but his actions basically lead to Mayor Perry's victory. Not to mention that Diane Duran disappears, allowing Geils to take her place. Also, Angie betrays him after being reminded that she has a child and therefore something to fight for. In the end, he is left all alone.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Angie and Geils' baby disappears halfway through the second season, and it's even lampshaded. He returns in the season finale as Angie's motivation to end her vigilante war against the mayor. Eventually he is promoted to series regular in season 4.
• White Bread and Black Brotha: In "Tribeca's Day Off," the straight-edge white Geils gets partnered up with the streetwise and intimidating Tanner. Lampshaded by Atkins, who says that a white man and black man figuring out how to be partners has never happened in the history of police work.
• Whole-Plot Reference: "Irrational Treasures" is an episode-long spoof of National Treasure.
• Wilhelm Scream: Used quite often, usually when not even merited (a guy simply tripping).
• Wire Dilemma: Done in the ending of "The One With the Bomb".
• With Due Respect: An entire volley of these erupts between Tribeca, Geils, and Lt. Atkins when Tribeca objects to being given another partner in the pilot episode. The comments following "With all due respect..." quickly degrade to straight-up childish insults after a few rounds.
  Tribeca: With all due respect, sir, this is stupid. I don't want a partner. I don't need a partner.
  Atkins: All due respect, Tribeca, but you've got your head up your ass. You're getting a partner.
  Geils: All due respect, Lieutenant, but I feel very disrespected right now.
  Atkins: All due respect, Detective, but I'm in charge here!
  Tribeca: All due respect, no one cares about your feelings.
  Geils: All due respect, you make a horrible first impression!
• Wrong Genre Savvy: The crux of the entire show. The characters all think they're in a dead-serious CBS-style crime procedural with no understanding of the insane situations going on around them.