Mind Games is a 2014 TV series starring Christian Slater and Steve Zahn. It centers on the Edwards brothers, Clark, a bipolar ex-psychology professor, and Ross, an ex-con, who start a business where they use Clark's knowledge of behavior to help people achieve what they want.
Tropes:
- Becoming the Mask: Beth actually falls for Clark.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Clark comes off this way. Ross finds himself often apologizing for the brother’s behavior during interviews with prospective clients.
- Distracted by the Sexy: The skill Samantha brings to the team.
- Gone Horribly Right: A reporter's attempted hatchet job on the team in episode 4 leads to them getting a lot more work.
- Lampshade Hanging: In the 2nd episode, the team realizes they need a sexy woman to seduce a man to further one of their ploys. They ask, "What about Claire (Wynn Everette)?" Clark responds, "No, we need someone older." The character brought in is Samantha Gordon, who is played by Jaime Ray Newman, a veteran TV actor who brings slightly more name recognition to the show than Everette. Claire leaves after this episode.
- Manipulative Bastard: Ross. To wit, we learn at the end of the pilot that he hired the college student Beth to seduce his brother just so his brother would get fired for having an affair with the student, so his brother could come to work for him in the business world. Then he pays Beth to disappear.
- The raison d'etre of the team as a whole is to use Manipulative Bastard techniques.
- Second Episode Introduction: Samantha Gordon
- Status Quo Is God: Despite the fact that 50+ people called them to arrange appointments at the end of episode 4 and they are shown to avert Keep the Reward (they were handsomely paid by a businesswoman in episode 2), at the beginning of episode 5, they are apparently just as broke as they always were, to the point of having to withhold paychecks (Ross's included). Granted, it would take more than an episode's time to handle all those clients, but still...
