Series / Nikita

"...and the last word they'll breathe before the end will be my name."

A secretive United States government agency known as "Division" has for years been recruiting young adult convicts by faking their deaths and forcing them to train as spies and assassins. The recruits are brainwashed and threatened with a violent death should they fail in their assigned duties. Answering to no higher authority in the U.S. Government, Division has in recent years begun to go rogue, hiring out their particular services to the highest bidder.

Nikita was once one of Division's best operatives, but she escaped prior to the start of the series and went rogue after the agency had her fiancé killed. After three years spent planning her revenge, Nikita declares war against the agency by thwarting a crucial assassination. Unwilling to remain hidden in the shadows any longer, Nikita delivers a message directly to Division's director... she is going to bring the agency down, one mission at a time if she has to, and she vows to ensure that no one else will have their lives stolen in the way that Division took hers.

Nikita is an action-drama TV Series based on the 1990 French film of the same name. Premiering in 2010 on The CW Network, the series stars Maggie Q, and is produced by Warner Bros.. The series ran for four seasons, with its fourth season comprising six episodes. The final episode aired on December 27, 2013.

Not in continuity with the previous series, La Femme Nikita, on which it is also based.

As of February 2020, there are reports that another attempt to revive Nikita is in the works. According to some entertainment news sites, it could be planned to be a soft reboot-type continuation of the show.

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This series contains examples of:

• Abusive Parents: Nikita's foster parents, Gary and Caroline Mears. Amanda and Helen's father, Matthew Collins. Amanda herself, symbollically, along with Percy.
• Action Girl:
  • Nikita, who was trained by Division to take out her targets by using guns, knives, or even her bare hands, is now using those skills against her former boss.
  • Any current female recruits of Division also qualify, as do any of the female operatives the main characters encounter throughout the series. This show loves badass women.
• Adapted Out: The series adapts most of the original TV's series long-term regular cast, with one exception—Walter, Section One's quartermaster, is nowhere to be seen in this version. Additionally, several iconic sequences from the films and the TV series, such as Nikita's final exam or the impromptu sniper mission, do not appear in this version.
• Agent Provocateur: Critical to Division's eventual downfall.
• Air-Vent Passageway: Used in "Innocence" to place a bomb beneath its target. Realistically, it's incredibly hard to get in, and claustrophobically small once you are, and that's for a brainwashed 12-year old ex-gymnast Child Soldier. Nikita doesn't even consider following.
  • They are also present at Division so Alex can sneak around and snoop. Although their presence is actually justified, as a huge facility deep underground would need large capacity air handling systems, the idea that Division didn't know about them or failed to secure the vents is, at the very least, surprising.
• All Love Is Unrequited: In season one Thom loves Alex, Jaden loves Thom.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Nikita's safehouse/base gets compromised and blown up a lot. Season two probably contains the most examples.
• All Women Love Shoes: During a brief pause during a fight, Nikita complements her opponent on her footwear. It seems like a throwaway line to distract her opponent...until Nikita kills her and steals the shoes!
• And I Must Scream: Nikita after being injected with a muscle relaxant by Roan in the first season finale.
• And Starring: With Melinda Clark. And Xander Berkley.
• Anti-Villain: Michael The Dragon during Season One until his Heel–Face Turn.
• Anyone Can Die: Alex induces this in her fellow recruits.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Or in this case video, showing that Division was spying on Nikita and her boyfriend.
• A Storm Is Coming: Not said, but invoked in imagery; the last scene of the first season is of Nikita and Michael discussing the potential future as they drive away, towards a gathering storm.
  • She actually says it in "Crossbow" when realizing that Percy is on the verge of completing his plans.
• The Atoner: A big theme of the show. Nikita herself embodies the concept, Michael slowly becomes one over the course of the season, and Owen somewhat deconstructs it in his second appearance, due to the influence of a Fantastic Drug.
• Bad Boss: Averted, actually, with Percy. He takes the time to explain his decisions to his subordinates, and tries to keep them happy. Doesn't make him a good person.
  Percy: You don't kill someone just because they made a mistake.
  • Amanda plays this far straighter, a fact that Percy uses to take Division back.
• Badass Boast: Ryan delivers one in High-Value Target, summing up his own character development to boot.
  Vasquez: Fletcher, I read your file. You're just a low-level analyst.
  Ryan: Low-level analyst. Right. A low-level analyst who was killed, resurrected in a hole filled with criminals and murderers. A low-level analyst who's gone up against the MSS, FBI, CIA, ordered heads of state executed, even kidnapped the President of Uzbekistan from inside the White House... All while living under the threat that someone like you would come in here and put a bullet in my head. So believe me when I tell you, Vazquez: that file you read is in desperate need of a revision.
  • Alex later delivers her own after being captured by the CIA in Season 4.
  CIA agent: Everything is a conspiracy to you, isn't it? Should I have my DNA tested too? You are the only fake in this room, princess. I'm going to ask you one more time: Who are you?
  Alex: My father was gunned down in front of me when I was 13 years old. I was sold into slavery, but I lived. I came out a drug addict, but I got clean. I've killed dangerous men, and I've watched people I love die in my arms. You want to know what I am? I'm a survivor. So do me a favor and turn up the music on the way out.
• Badass Longcoat: Less than in the original series, but after all, this is Nikita we're talking about.
  • Roan often wears one, being quite badass in his own right (to the point where the main characters prefer to run away from him than fight, and if they do fight it's usually a running battle... with them on the retreat).
• Battle Couple: Michael and Nikita.
  • Alex and Sean. Amanda and Ari counts as well. The whole series is actually quite rife with them.
• Batman Gambit
• Becoming the Mask: An occupational hazard for deep cover agents, as Nikita and Owen found out. Also Kasim, who used to work for Division but switched teams for terrorists.
• Berserk Button: Don't insult Nikita around Michael. Also don't tell Nikita her parents didn't want her, don't threaten innocents, and for the love of God don't harm Michael or Alex. She will destroy you.
• Big Bad: Percy is the straight up Big Bad in season 1, with Oversight as the Greater-Scope Villain/The Man Behind the Man. Season 2 moves to more of a Big Bad Ensemble, with the plot being driven by the various power struggles between Percy, Amanda, Oversight, Semak and Ari, all of whom have their own agendas.
  • Amanda takes on the role in Season 3, running a campaign of revenge against Nikita and trying to turn the Division against her again. She continues this role into season 4 with help from The Shop and The Group.
• Big Damn Kiss: Nikita and Michael share one in "Covenants", made even more awesome by the overlay of Florence and the Machines' "Cosmic Love".
  • A quieter one is shared by Alex and Sean in "Dead Drop."
  • "Homecoming" has one between Birkhoff and Sonya.
  • There's another kiss in "3.0", after Nikita accepts Michael's proposal.
• Black Site: We see a C.I.A. Black Site in "Wrath," which holds weapons dealer Brandt prisoner, among others.
• Bodyguard Betrayal: At the end of "2.0", Davitch is shot by Michael as part of a clean-up operation.
• Book Ends: Percy starts Season 2 in a cell at the bottom of Division's missile silo. In the finale, he ends up back there, as Nikita drops him down the silo and he crashes directly into the cell.
• Boxed Crook: The standard Division operative is this. How much freedom they are actually said to obtain, however, is debatable.
• Broken Pedestal: Alex after finding out her mother was alive.
• Bullethole Door: Niktia creates one in "Consequences" while trying to save Owen. Realistically, she borrows a dead Mook's RPD belt-fed machine gun and uses the entire belt, allowing her to kick part of the wall down.
• Bulletproof Vest: Nikita shoots Sean in "Fair Trade" after she asks him if he's wearing one. Earlier, Alex took a bullet for Sean because she had a vest and he didn't.
  • Michael takes a few rounds of rifle gun fire to his chest in a (second) last bid attempt to kill Kasim Tariq
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: In Season 3's episode High-Value target, Nikita is confronted by the brother of a drug cartel that she killed in her days in Division. She dispatches him quickly.
  Michael Who was that guy? And who was his brother?
  Nikita: No idea. But I'm sure his brother deserved it.
• Call-Back: In "Dead Drop", Division finds Nikita's safehouse and sends a strike team, who fast rope in and get blown up by the explosives planted there, a callback to Season One. Alex was deliberately invoking this, which is lampshaded by Nikita.
  • In "Shadow Walker", disguised as an FBI agent, Nikita warns the local police not to let Birkhoff near anything electronic, and recalls a time when he managed to hack a blu-ray player to call for help - which happened in Season One.
  • In "Homecoming", Nikita storms Percy's office as he's preparing to bail. Remembering what happened the last time this happened (Michael kicked his ass and stole a black box), he grabs a pistol and starts shooting. It still doesn't do him much good.
• The Cameo: Stan Lee in episode 5 as Hank Excelsior, a bystander to a bank robbery.
• Calling the Cops on the FBI: A standard tactic of Nikita and her people—as she says, Division controls narratives, but not trigger fingers.
• Chairman of the Brawl: In "Pilot", Nikita uses a chair a shield to block the bullets fired by the bodyguard of her targets, and then to knock the man down.
• Chekhov's Gun: In a flashback to Nikita's "first kill", her target mentions to her (posing as a prospective nanny for his newborn) that he worries his daughter will inherit his peanut allergy. This comes into play later when it turns out her victim faked his death and is now the head of a gang specializing in human slavery. When Nikita is captured, he proves his dominance by forcing a kiss on her, unaware that she was wearing lipstick laced with peanut oil.
  • The print pad Alex made to access Percy's office is later found by Jaden and finally, after falling into Thom's hands, is used as evidence that he was Nikita's spy in the Division.
    • In the same episode, we finally see Alex's earlier shown escape tunnel get used by Nikita, who uses it to escape from Division following her breakout, after which Percy discovers it and has it sealed.
  • Every few episodes after "All The Way" some small event causes Micheal to get suspicious about Alex's behavior. These include a phone call with strange background noise and surveillance camera footage of a failed mission. In "Echoes" he revisits all of these incidents which leads to the big Cliffhanger where he figures out Alex is the Mole and where Nikita is living.
  • We find out that Percy deduced Nikita and Michael's partnership when Kasim was killed.
  • In "Pandora", we find out that the nerve agent Jaden stole for Percy in "Girl's Best Friend" was implanted in the fake Black Box he let Nikita steal, set to activate and kill the head of the CIA so that Percy can replace him.
  • Near the end of "Betrayals", Alex grabs an unseen object that in "Pandora" is revealed to be a paralytic to help fake Nikita's death.
  • Nikolai Udinov's watch, which Alex gave to Irina to pawn. Amanda recovers it, and Sean later gives it to her as a Pet the Dog moment. It's implanted with a GPS tracker, which allows him to find Nikita.
  • In "Glass Houses", Roan explains to Alex how he disposes of bodies. In "Pandora", Alex uses that information to help fake Nikita's death and help her escape from Roan.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Nikita's old mentor Carla is mentioned several episodes before she shows up and is revealed to be the founder of Division.
• The Chessmaster: Percy, as of the penultimate first season finale turns out to be this. He reveals to Alex that he knows her true identity, her and Michael's alliance with Nikita, and shows her that Nikita was the one to kill her father, turns her kill chip back on and instructs her to kill Nikita, letting her know she's being monitored the entire time.
  • Season 2 reveals that it's pretty much part of the job description.
  Amanda: Sometimes you have to sacrifice a pawn to motivate your knights.
  Percy: Amazing how easily the chess metaphors come to mind when you're running Division, isn't it?
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Division, Oversight and their various agents and allies regularly look for ways to backstab each other. Nikita, as the heroine, will generally avoid backstabbing people but will do so if she sees no other way.
• Cleanup Crew: Division has "Cleaners" who kill and dispose of bodies. In episode 6, we find out that Owen, the guardian of one of Percy's seven black boxes, used to not only be a Cleaner, but a "Reaper", someone who killed/cleaned-up Division personnel. He's the one who killed Nikita's fiance.
• Cliffhanger: This show loves ending on cliffhangers. There's too many to list all of them, so here's a couple examples from just the first two seasons.
  • "Echoes" (1x16) ends with a doozy of a cliffhanger - while Percy and Amanda are discussing whether or not to "cancel" Alex, and Alex is thinking that it may be time to escape Division, the last scene shows Michael awaiting Nikita in her loft. With a shotgun.
  • As does "Glass Houses" (1x20). Nathan kills Jaden, Alex sells the lie to Division and thinks she's gotten away with it... until Amanda reveals that Jaden's cochlear implant had recorded Alex calling Nikita for help afterward and knocks Alex out cold.
  • Which is topped by the end of "Betrayals" (1x21). See Wham Episode below.
  • "Pandora" (1x22) ends the season with Nikita and Michael on the run with a decrypted Black Box, and Alex being recruited by Oversight to act against both Nikita and Percy.
  • "Sanctuary" (2x12) While Nikita's team and a captive Sean are negotiating with Oversight via phone, the Guardians take Oversight hostage and threaten to gas Division if Amanda doesn't release Percy.
  • "Crossbow" (2x22): Percy's attempt to blackmail the President ends with Nikita and Micheal stuck in Division, Alex and Sean outside, and the Marines may be on their way.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Amanda's specialty.
• Come with Me If You Want to Live: Nikita uses this a fair bit when foiling assassinations. Her mole in Division is not able to find out about these operations until the last minute so Nikita gets there just barely ahead of the assassins (and sometimes she's late).
• Coming and Going: The scene where Ryan dies in 'Bubble' is bookended by scenes of Alex and Owen/Sam having sex for the first time and Nikita and Michael coming back together as a couple and finally getting to enjoy the freedom that comes from no longer being on the run.
• Concealment Equals Cover: The cover used on all sides can be of questionable effectiveness at that goal, including canvas laundry baskets.
• Continuity Nod: Quite a few in "All the Way", for example, Birkhoff naming the Engineer as the one who helped him to find a leak in Division's network and Thom mentioning the Russian spy he had to kill to be promoted to field agent.
  • And in "Alexandra", Michael and Nikita have a discussion about the last time they teamed up in "One Way".
  • In both "Dark Matter" and "The Next Seduction", Nikita uses the knife Michael gave her in "One Way". She appears to carry it with her all the time which is both sweet and sad at the same time.
  • In "Pandora", Nikita brings up how Alex once tried to kill herself when Nikita brought her off of the street.
  • In "Fair Trade", Birkhoff warns his replacement at Division that "when they're done with you, they'll snap your neck and melt you in acid", a reference to the Engineer's fate (though we only saw the former on screen).
  • At the close of "Dead Drop", Nikita and Michael discuss how they are now compared to how they were: in a safehouse, hiding from division, with no money, tech or weapons, and how their safehouses keep getting lost.
  • The continuity overall for the show is pretty top notch and the numerous nods reflect that.
• Corporate Conspiracy: The Shop.
• Corrupt Cop: Several throughout the series, most notably the cops whose attempt to extort Carla results in the sequence of events that leads to Nikita being taken by Division.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Several of the people Division takes as clients. Also, to a certain extent, Percy.
  • Also one of the members of Oversight, who manipulates the stock market in order to gather funding for Division.
  • Sergei Semak, the head of Zetrov (the power behind Division's rival Gogol).
• Covert Group: The fact that a secretive United States government agency known as "Division" has been recruiting young adult convicts by faking their deaths and forcing them to train as spies and assassins is a main plot point.
• Creepy Monotone: Roan, one of the Cleaners, and Percy's replacement Dragon.
  • Amanda often comes close.
• Cutting the Knot: In Pay-Off, the team needs to find out where MDK's holding cells are in a building.
  Birkhoff: I've got to access the mainframe, pull up a floorplan.
  Nikita (to a guard): Where are you not allowed to go?
  Guard: Floor five.
• Dances and Balls: Generally ends in violence.
• Dark Action Girl: Jaden.
  • Also Anya.
• Dark Lord: In "Dark Matter", the Engineer pretty much compares Percy with Sauron himself.
• Dating Catwoman: Michael and Nikita's relationship borders on this - and everyone realizes it. Lampshaded in "Echoes", when Alex imagines the two kissing in her drug-induced state, even imitating Michael in a voice like his own.
  Alex: I knew there was something between those two. Michael's all "Nikita's like a cancer". That's personal baggage.
  Amanda: (listening to Alex in her delirious state) I've always thought so.
• Deadly Euphemism: When Division kills their own agents/trainees/prisoners, they refer to it as having "cancelled" them.
• Deadpan Snarker: Michael, Nikita, Alex, Birkhoff, even Percy sometimes... it's very nearly a World of Snark.
• Deal with the Devil: Owen is working with Ari to take down the remaining Black Boxes.
  • Nikita actually refers to it as such when she finds out about it.
• Death by Origin Story: Nikita's fiancee.
• Death Faked for You: Division's standard recruitment policy — take death row inmates and create "official" documentation of their deaths, thus giving them no choice but to stay at Division and be trained.
  • Amanda does this for Ryan in Season 2, convincing even Nikita that he's dead, so she can kidnap him and force him to work for her.
• Death Is the Only Option:
  • Alex is exposed as a mole to Amanda, who then does the requisite cancellation (read: execution) by lethal injection. After her vital signs cease she steps away, checks her nails, then injects Alex with adrenaline to restart her heart, kill chip disabled.
  • Later happens to Sean. Framed for murder and in FBI custody, the only way to save him is to poison and kill him, then snatch the body in the morgue and inject him with an antidote.
  • Ryan takes this option permanently via a hotel window to avoid becoming Amanda's slave and ensure Nikita knows that the fight isn't over.
• Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit: Alex frames Thom as Nikita's mole after being forced to kill him.
  • Alex also frames Jaden for her own death; she tells Division that Jaden attacked her and Alex was only defending herself. The truth is that Nathan shot Jaden.
• Deep Cover Agent: Multiple characters, most notably the trio of Gogol agents in "Phoenix", The Shop's doubles, and Division's Guardians.
• "Die Hard" on an X: In Coup de Grace, when Division is sent to kill a Georgian prince and it turns into a hostage situation.
• Dirty Bomb: An episode from the first season has a Mêlée à Trois develop between Division, its Russian counterpart Gogol, and Nikita and her ally CIA analyst Ryan Fletcher, over a dirty bomb. Nikita ultimately tricks Gogol into taking a Fakin' MacGuffin away from her, letting Fletcher hand over the bomb to the CIA.
• Dirty Cop: The prison guard in Clawback.
  • The corrupt ICE agent Alex killed in "Fair Trade".
  • The cops who tried to shakedown Carla's halfway house and killed Nikita's friend when he was going to call 911.
• Disney Villain Death: Technically occurs to Percy, although its instance that sidesteps most of the trope's hallmarks, since the character is intentionally dropped, and their body is actually seen after its hit bottom.
• The Determinator: Michael, when it comes to hunting down the man that killed his wife and daughter.
  • Nikita, oh so much. There's literally nothing that will stop her from completing a mission once she's decided it needs to be done.
• The Dragon: Michael to Percy until his Heel–Face Turn.
  • Roan seems to have taken on the role in season 2, handling things for Percy while he's locked up.
  • Sean to Oversight (specifically his mother).
  • Ari to Semak.
  • Anne to Amanda in Season 3.
• Dragon with an Agenda: Michael would be happy to shoot Percy in the face himself...unfortunately, Percy has things set up so that if he dies, so does the entire US government.
  • Ari Tasarov becomes this to Sergei Semak over the course of Season Two and eventually evolves into a full-blown Starscream.
• Dramatic Unmask: Alex in the first episode and Nikita looking at the other mask at the end.
• Drugs Are Bad
• Dysfunction Junction: Nikita was a drug addict and delinquent, abused by her foster father, then got recruited into Division which made her a killer and resulted in the murder of her fiance. Alex's parents were killed by Division, she was sold into sex slavery and kept there for several years, finally emerging as a drug addict and living on the streets until Nikita found her. Michael's family was killed by an Arab terrorist. And that's just the three main characters.
  • Jaden was apparently raped at one point, followed by her killing the rapist in his sleep. She stuck a knife in his neck; Division thought she showed "initiative".
  • This show runs on this trope, and it's justified due to the fact that Division recruits convicts and criminals to work for them. If there's not something seriously wrong with you, you don't belong there.
• Elaborate Underground Base: Division headquarters.
• Elite Agents Above the Law: Division began life as a No Such Agency of the United States government, "recruiting" young people imprisoned for various offenses and faking their deaths before training them as operatives to operate entirely outside US and international law, with standing orders to kill anyone who figures out they exist. However, agency chief Percy began using his records of Division's dirty deeds to blackmail his superiors into allowing him to turn the agency into an operation profiting him personally on the side.
• Elite Mooks: Several levels in Division.
  • The Cleaners, described by Owen as being stronger and faster than regular Division agents, are the ones who "clean up" murders that Division commits.
  • The Reapers - like Owen himself - are Cleaners who kill/clean Division personnel.
  • The best of all are chosen to act as Guardians, the ones who protect Percy's black boxes.
• Enemy Mine:
  • Gogol keeps trying to carry out this trope with Nikita, but she knows that that would be a bad idea:
    Tasarov: The enemy of my enemy—
    Nikita: Is just another man standing in my way.
  • Owen attempts to do this with Gogol in season 2, but Ari wised up and doublecrossed him first.
  • Nikita and Michael try to pull this off a few times in season one (before his Heel–Face Turn, but it usually falls apart before the episode's even over.
  • In "Girl's Best Friend", Alex and Jaden truly put aside their differences for the first time, with intriguing results.
  • In "Guardians", Nikita and a Guardian briefly work together to keep Gogol from stealing one of the Black Boxes.
  • It's pretty much a weekly event in Season 2, with all the different factions.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Sean, although rather decent for an Oversight member, is determined to go to any lengths to protect his mother, one of the head members of Oversight, even if that includes killing Nikita.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Oversight, the group Percy nominally reports to, doesn't approve of Percy selling Division's services to the highest bidder, as it was meant to be a necessary evil, not a mercenary outfit.
• Evil Counterpart: Anya to Nikita. Jaden to Alex.
  • In Season 2, Michael and Birkhoff gain counterparts in Sean and Sonya.
• Evil Plan: Operation Sparrow from season 1.
• Evil Versus Evil: Gogol is basically the Russian Division and just as evil.
  • There's the power struggles between Amanda, Percy, and Oversight.
• Extreme Graphical Representation: Greatly subverted, lampshaded and even justified. When the recruits are told to hack a system, all you see is some 3D-magic on the screens. Alex fails and after saying that the hacker stuff is complicated, Birkhoff loses it and shouts, "Actually, it’s not, it’s simple. Because, you see, I do all the hacker stuff. I write the exploit. I even make it look like a video game so your tween minds can understand it!", earning this a Funny Moment.
• Failed a Spot Check: In Season 2, no one in Division realizes that they've gone rogue. Apparently, they honestly believe that legitimate government agencies change control by coup d'etat, rather than presidential appointment. They're actually shocked when a company of Marines show up to storm the compound.
• Fake Defector: Alex attempts to pull this on her captors in "Resistance". They don't believe it's true, but an act - which is lucky for her, because they're actually Division agents.
• Faking the Dead: Nikita in "Pandora".
• False Flag Operation: Used by several of the groups in the series. Division, in particular, uses it in "Resistance" (Division trainers are disguised as kidnappers as part of a routine test), "The Recruit" (Division is hired to impersonate an environmentalist group and stage an attack in order to discredit it) and "Coup de Grace" (Division is hired to impersonate an anti-monarchist group in order to assassinate the prince of Georgia and increase support for the restoration of said monarchy).
• False Reassurance: In "Into the Dark", Alex uses this to beat an FMRI Lie Detector.
• Fatal Flaw: For Michael, at least, it's his obvious affection for Nikita...which everyone knows about.
• Felony Misdemeanor: Birkoff starts complaining to Alex after she uses his computer. His complaint: She changed the font.
• Feminist Fantasy: The show is about how Nikita and Alex, in addition to kicking ass, empower other victims of abuse and help them heal.
• Femme Fatale Spy: Nikita, while unquestionably an Action Girl, can sometimes double as this.
  • Jaden shows us in "Girl's Best Friend" that she's pretty good at this, too.
  • Michael once had to do a male version of this, as shown in "Looking Glass".
• Fever Dream Episode: "Echoes"
• Fighting Fingerprint: In the second season episode "Doublecross", Nikita recognizes her hooded opponent as a guardian after their fight.
• Find the Cure!: Nikita is poisoned by Gogol in "Phoenix". Fortunately for her, the poison was copied from Division, which means Alex has access to an antidote.
• Forced Addiction: Alex was trafficked to the US as a child prostitute, and her pimp got her hooked on heroin. He recaptures her midway through season 1 when a Division op goes south and starts dosing her again, hoping to get her to go along with his plan to get reward money from her oligarch relatives.
• Foreshadowing: The Engineer tells Birkhoff that to be in Division one requires killer instinct. Minutes later Percy kills him.
  • In 1x16, Alex kills Jaden in a fight in her dream state. In 1x20, Jaden is killed by Nathan for attacking Alex.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Roan, Division's "Cleaner," appears to completely lack a moral conscience and rarely expresses himself. His glasses, which are often illuminated and obscured, serve as an emotional barrier between himself and the viewer, making him seem more mechanical and ruthless as a result.
• Freudian Trio: The founders of Division.
  • Percy is Ego. Amanda and Carla don't get along the moment they meet.
  • Amanda has a sadistic streak and a hunger for power beneath her calm exterior (ID).
  • Carla is idealistic but hopelessly deluded. Not as morally pliable as the other two (Superego).
• From a Certain Point of View: After being caught lying when interrogated by Amanda and monitored by an FMRI, Alex tells the truth, in a manner of speaking, omitting what would reveal her as the mole but not denying her actions.
• Future Me Scares Me: A drugged Alex is horrified to see a vision of what she could become if she reclaims her birthright by the means she's currently using.
• Gambit Pileup: In 2x16, aptly named "Doublecross", Team Nikita, Percy, Amanda/Division, and Carla all try to out-gambit each other, with several allegiances briefly forming. The resulting mess costs Percy his sole remaining Guardian (though Roan might have Guardian augmentation), Division several agents, Carla her life, and ends with Team Nikita manages comes out on top, rescuing Ryan from Division.
  • Season 2 is this trope in a nutshell. Percy, Amanda, Oversight, Nikita's group, everyone has their own agenda. Over on Television Without Pity, a forum user found eight possible matchups^note Team Nikita vs. Division, Alex vs. Gogol/Zetrov, Amanda vs. Oversight vs. Nikita, Oversight vs. Nikita, Division vs. Gogol, Sean vs. Team Nikita, Alex vs. Division (sort of), Percy vs. everybody...and the list was outdated in under a month.
• Genre Blindness: In "Into the Dark", Owen tells Nikita to keep her head down to prevent her face being caught by traffic cameras. However, he doesn't bother to wear a cap or hood to keep his face concealed.
  • And in "Glass House", when Dana Winters reveals herself as a trained assassin to her boyfriend, no one bothers to make sure the boyfriend's son isn't listening.
  • Carla, Nikita's mentor and founder of Division, somehow gets the idea that Percy should have Division back and is a good guy. And then tried to pull a gun on Birkhoff, who proved that he was not as harmless as she assumed.
• Get a Room!: Said by Birkhoff to Michael and Nikita when Michael asks Nikita if she is alright whilst being in the CIA HQ, to which she replies "Oh, babe, I will be as soon as you get me out of here."
• Girls with Guns: Nikita herself, Alex, Jaden, at least half of the female recruits at Division, and really basically just about any female who's ever been on the show.
• The Good, the Bad, and the Evil: What Season 2 becomes, with Nikita and company as the Good, Division/Oversight as the Bad, and Gogol/Zetrov as the Evil. The latter two are pretty interchangeable especially after Percy recaptures Division from Amanda, and as of the latter end of Season 2 Zetrov ceases to be antagonistic, with Amanda and Ari on the run, making them the Bad, and Percy the Evil, due to him being the bigger threat now.
• Government Agency of Fiction: Division started as this, though by the time the series begins it's more of a mercenary outfit than anything else.
• Government Conspiracy: Oversight, a group of various high-power government officials who use Division to carry out illegal activities.
• Guile Hero: While most certainly an Action Girl in nearly every respect, Nikita also employs her wits, mind-games, and counter-espionage to track Division's movements in an attempt to thwart them at every turn.
• Gun Porn: Loads and loads of guns.
• The Handler: Michael to Nikita, once upon a time. Michael to Alex, later.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: In "Glass Houses", Jaden comes over to Alex's place after honestly changing her (mutually) antagonistic attitude towards her after the mutual life risking they did for each other the previous episode, only to inadvertently learn of her double agent status and die in the ensuing fight.
• Heel–Face Turn: So many. Nikita herself, pre-series, but following that Owen was the first the turn his back on Division and join her crusade. As of "Covenant" Michael becomes the second. Birkhoff pulls one in "Pandora". Sean joins the fully fleshed out Team Nikita in mid-season 2.
• Hidden Wire: Nikita in "Phoenix".
  • And Alex is forced to wear one in "Betrayals" by Percy to spy on Nikita.
• Hired to Hunt Yourself: Michael wanted a team to keep an eye on Ryan Fletcher. The mission ended up being scrubbed before it started, but one of the people Michael chose for this team was Alex, who works with Nikita, who is working with Ryan.
• Hollywood Hacking: Justified. Division's resident genius hacker wrote some kind of super program that looks like a video game for the benefit of everyone else. Judging by how frustrated he gets when they can't use it, he is well aware of how impressive this all is.
• Honey Trap: A flashback in "Covenants" shows that Nikita was supposed to be this to a male Division target, until she realized he was paying more attention to Michael. Michael claims that he does make an "excellent honey trap."
• Hunting the Rogue: The series opened with Nikita being hunted by Division after having left them. Once Percy and Amanda are removed, the government allows Division to continue operating for the sole purpose of hunting down the holdout agents who refused to return when ordered.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Division may employ highly-trained killers, but none of them can hit Nikita with a single bullet.
  • All the regulars fall victim to this when the plot calls for it, but it's generally averted with Cleaners like Roan, who calmly takes down attacking soldiers with precisely one bullet each. Except when shooting at Nikita or her associates, of course.
• In the Blood: Alex's father told her she would be like him because it's "in her blood", and her Journey to the Center of the Mind shows that the thing she fears most is this coming true.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Alex.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: The confrontation between Nikita and Alex in Falling Ash.
• The Infiltration: Alex's season 1 mission.
• I Owe You My Life: Michael to Percy, due to Percy talking Michael out of suicide after his family's murder by promising to help find the murderer.
• I Regret Nothing: Percy says this very sincerely over the intercom to everyone at Division. They don't take it well, which is exactly what he intended.
• It's the Only Way to Be Sure: In the episode "Self Destruct", Birkhoff quotes this trope as they contemplate destroying the Division facility.
• Ironic Echo: Amanda once told Nikita that "Deception is more important than brute force." This is the plot point for the series finale, "Canceled," as Nikita appears to go over the Moral Event Horizon in the process of taking down the Group and their doubles during her Roaring Rampage of Revenge over Ryan's death. She later reveals that everyone she supposedly killed is still alive and incarcerated, and that it was all a ruse to lure Amanda into a trap.
• It Gets Easier: Invoked in Season 1 when Nikita is concerned that Alex's test for promotion to field agent — which requires Alex to kill a target in cold blood — will result in her heading down the same bloody path Nikita followed. Although the test is avoided because Alex accidentally kills a fellow Division cadet who she frames as a mole, by season 2 Nikita's efforts are for naught as Alex starts killing fairly frequently during her missions with Nikita, and in Season 2, completes an assigned assassination despite Division ordering her to stand down, albeit the target was someone Alex has a personal vendetta against.
• Jumping on a Grenade: Discussed in the Season 2 finale; Michael holds Operations hostage with a primed grenade, and warns the guards that if they kill him, it will go off. One guard replies that Michael trained them to invoke this, and they will do it. Fortunately, it doesn't come to this.

• Kill the Parent, Raise the Child: Deuteragonist Alexandra Udinov is the daughter of a Russian oligarch who was rescued by Nikita against orders when Division killed her family. After rescuing her again from drug dealers after the man Nikita left her with sold her into sex slavery, Nikita trains her to infiltrate Division as her spy. In "Betrayals", Percy reveals that Nikita was on the hit squad and only rescued Alexandra after killing her father Nikolai. Nikita later admits to this, though she says she tried to get them both out: Nikolai drew on her before she could explain and she had to shoot first.
• Kill Sat: At the end of season 2, Percy gains control of an old Strategic Defense Initiative laser satellite, and uses the threat of it to make the President his puppet. Although, it turns out that the SDI satellite was a dud, and was just a cover for Percy's real method of destroying targets.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Ari and Amanda originally planned to use Alex as a puppet to control Zetrov. When this plan seemed no longer viable, Ari proposed to frame Semak for killing Alex, and stealing Gogol's operating budget in the ensuing chaos; while 300 million US dollars isn't a MegaCorp, it's still an incredible amount of money for two people.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Many, most notable among them the fact that Alex has been working for Nikita all along, and the various alliance changes in the series.
• Latex Perfection: As revealed in season three, Division has access to tech that can perfectly recreate a subject's face and allow another operative (Michael, in this case) to assume their identity.
• Latin Land: Nikita's version of Santiago, Chile's capital.
• Leave No Witnesses: Division's stock-in-trade.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Owen is too reckless for Nikita's liking.
• Life-or-Limb Decision: In 'Intersection', Michael's right hand gets trapped under a burning car after a wreck and Nikita is forced to cut it off before the vehicle explodes.
• Locking MacGyver in the Store Cupboard: In "Knightfall", Nikita and Michael raid a Division safehouse. The defenders manage to separate the duo and corner Michael...in the safe room.
• Loose Lips: Thom in the first episode, Michael in the fifth.
• Lost in Imitation: While the character of Nikita herself is Truer to the Text than the previous series' version was, almost everything else is actually adapted from that series and its adaptation expansion, rather than from the original film.
• Lovable Rogue: Arms dealer Cyrus.
• Luxury Prison Suite: Percy's prison in Season 2 becomes one over the course of his incarceration.
• Lzherusskie: A lot of them in episode 1x09, set mostly in Uzbekistan (technically, at least some of them were supposed to be Uzbeks (judging by last names) but everyone, even the police, speaks only Russian).
  • There was also an ex-KGB agent with a very Russian name Ari.
  • And episode 1x12 shows that Alex(andra) is apparently of Russian descent, as flashbacks to her childhood show her father speaking with a Russian accent. A later episode shows that Alex's father was a very successful Russian businessman.
• MacGuffin: The Black Boxes, Percy's fail-safe to prevent an assassination from the U.S. government. Nikita wants to destroy them so she can kill Percy without endangering the U.S. One of them ends up being used by Percy as an attempt to assassinate the head of the CIA, and the hunt for the remaining five carries on all the way until the end of season three.
• The Mafiya: Vlad, who runs a sexual slavery operation. Alex's father is hinted to also be part of the Bratva, or at least employ its methods.
• Mama Bear: Dana Winters. When Martin takes her boyfriend's son hostage to capture Nikita, she shoots him down, and then she quickly takes out the rest of the Division agents. All four of them.
• Manchurian Agent: P9, a sleeper assassin program set up by Oversight.
• The Man Behind the Man: Oversight, the organization that oversees Division although Percy's made it quite clear that he doesn't like taking orders from anyone, and has already had at least one member of Oversight killed to cover Division's tracks. The season one finale shows that they don't even like him, as he's long since broken free of their control and is blackmailing them with the information on the Black Boxes.
  • In the season 1 finale, Percy reveals that his huge plan is to essentially become this for the CIA after replacing the director with a puppet.
  • In late Season 2, it's revealed that Gogol is the intelligence wing of Zetrov, making Semak the man behind Tasarov.
  • Late Season 2 marks the first appearance of the Group, a shadowy private council who Percy wants to join. They continue to pop up here and there throughout season 3, and finally get brought to light in season 4.
• Masquerade: The existence of Division.
• The Masquerade Will Kill Your Dating Life: Literally, in the case of Nikita's fiance Daniel and Emily, Owen's girlfriend.
• Master Forger: Gustav, who is employed by both Division and Nikita to produce false IDs.
• Maybe Ever After: Alex and Sam.
• Meaningful Echo: Nikita and Michael tend to have a lot of the same lines, especially when they're trying to teach Alex something.
• MegaCorp: Zetrov, Alex's father's corporation, which appears to have started out as an oil company before expanding into... well, everything else.
• Menacing Mask: In the pilot episode, Alex and Nikita rob a pharmacy while wearing rubber masks of a rabbit and a pig. Cartoonish masks that are eerie by themselves and especially intimidating when combined with the black clothing and shotguns they wield.
• Mind Probe: Manipulative Bitch extraordinaire Amanda does this to Alex in "Echoes", resulting in a Battle in the Center of the Mind where Alex and her younger self try to escape from her own dark side and her father's legacy. And she also kills Dream!Jaden in the process.
  • As a bonus, Alex's mental defenses manifest as Dream!Nikita. At one point, Amanda's questioning manifests as Dream!Michael. Dream!Nikita fights off Dream!Michael for a few minutes... before they end up making out passionately. Both Alex and Amanda lampshade the UST.
• The Mole: Inverted where the character of Alex is set up to be the mole from the very start, and we see it all from her point of view. She remains the mole for the entirety of season 1. There is even a Was It All a Lie?? moment coming from the more minor character, Thom, directed at the main character of Alex mid-way through the season.
• Mook–Face Turn: When Sara, an under-performing Division candidate, is sent on a suicide mission, Nikita intervenes and kidnaps her. When she finally gets Sara to accept that Division planned to have her killed, she is able to convince Sara to go into hiding after delivering one final blow to her former employers.
• Mr. Fanservice: Seeing as the show is on The CW, no wonder it has a few. Michael and Owen stand out the most in season 1. Season 2 brings in Sean, who gets to spend more than a few scene shirtless.
• Mugged for Disguise: Happens occasionally, lampshaded in "Alexandra" when Nikita steals the uniform of a towel girl to get into a sauna full of baddies. The guard states that the man inside the sauna whom Michael is waiting to talk to won't be long as he's with a towel girl with "dark hair, long legs, very hot." Michael immediately knows who he means and breaks down the door to the sauna.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: Nikita is seriously worried that Michael might have done this.
• My Greatest Second Chance: In "Fair Trade" when Alex gives the Russian illegal migrants money she took from the dead corrupt ICE agent to give them a better chance once they get back to Moscow.
• Mythology Gag: Nikita's escape from C.I.A. headquarters in "Pandora" is a nod to the kitchen escape from the original film. In season 4, a French news anchor reporting on Nikita makes a reference to "La Femme Nikita."
• My Name Is Inigo Montoya: Alex pulls this on Vlad, the Russian mobster who had sexually-enslaved her
  "I am Alexandra Udinov, daughter of Nicholai Udinov. And this is your reward."
• Naïve Newcomer: Alex is set up as this before she's revealed to be Nikita's mole.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The Inquisitor Also known as the 'Dress Lady'
• Near-Villain Victory: In "Pandora", Percy nearly succeeds in killing the head of the CIA and having him replaced with a puppet. Fortunately, Nikita got there at the last minute and prevented it.
• Nebulous Evil Organization: By the buckets. Oversight is the most obvious.
• Neck Snap: The most popular way of offing someone if there are no weapons on hand.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Occurs twice in "Power". The first occurs when Birkhoff inadvertently cements Percy's reconquest of Division by providing its members with Amanda's Engineered Public Confession. The second occurs when Nikita spares Amanda. Both, in combination, serve as catalysts for Amanda's season three Vendetta.
  • In "Power", Birkhoff confirms to Sonya that Amanda is working with Ari, which allows Percy to seize Division's loyalties from her.
• Noble Demon: Michael in Season 1, Sean in Season 2.
• No Honor Among Thieves: Birkhoff trying to blame his breaking into Percy's office on a random recruit.
• No-Sell: In Season 4 Alex is captured by the CIA and tortured...with loud music. Predictably, she's utterly unimpressed after everything she's survived and tells the interrogator to turn the music up louder.
• No Such Agency: Deconstructed. The fact that Division doesn't legally exist allowed Percy to turn it into work-for-hire.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: In the first few episodes, Percy seems ineffectual and incompetent. As time goes on however, you can see just how dangerous he really is.
  • And as of 1x21... sweet Jesus. Just check out his description on the Magnificent Bastard page.
  • In the Season 2 premiere, semi-innocent Non-Action Guy Birkhoff unleashes a pair of attack drones on a Division strike team to save Michael and Nikita. And then when Carla attempts to betray Nikita and Michael, it's Birkhoff who shoots her.
  • This also applies to several minor enemies Nikita faces, such as a nanny and a "sweet" Texan cat lady.
• Obligatory Joke: In "Dead Drop," Team Nikita is in a shootout with two guys from Division:
  Division Guy #1: Hey, Michael! You miss Division?
  Michael shoots Division Guy #2.
  Michael: Not that time.
• Off the Wagon: Alex relapses in season three and starts using again while recovering from a shoulder injury and dealing with relationship stress.
• Oh, Crap!: An amazingly collective Oh, Crap! face by all the recruits as Nikita comes out of the elevator in Division. She then proceeds to wipe the floor with all of them.
  • Also the look on Percy's face when a pissed off Michael bursts into his office and proceeds to kick his ass.
  • And Nikita herself has a small one in the pilot when she runs into Roan in the hotel hallway.
  • Also in the pilot Michael, when he sees Nikita for the first time.
  • Birkhoff gets a pretty epic one in "343 Walnut Lane" as Alex tells him that Ellison's not only not Nikita's father, but that he's working for Division.
  • Birkhoff has a verbal one over the phone when Alex accidentally runs into Roan in S02E13, when Alex is in the middle of trying to get to the bottom of Division to shut down the gas dispersal system that would kill everybody inside. Alex, upon seeing him, has one herself. Then Birkhoff gets another one when Alex tells him that she escaped (calling Roan "the Terminator") but Roan is chasing her. Roan just seems to pick these up any time he runs into one of the main characters.
• Opening Narration: Changes depending on how far in the TV series you are, but tends to end with a particularly wham-y one liner, such as "the last word they breathe before the end, will be my name." *cue opening theme music*
• One Woman Army: Nikita Vs. Division. Nikita generally wins.
  • In case no one had gotten the point yet, it's made quite clear in "All The Way", when Nikita takes on a whole room of Division recruits and guards. She wins, quite easily.
• Only in It for the Money: Percy appears to be this. One of the Oversight members suggests that the whole motivation for his plan to kill and replace the head of the CIA is for access to the CIA's enormous black budget. His real motives are more complex.
  • Ari Tasarov, the head of Division's Russian counterpart Gogol, fits this trope better. "Origins" reveals that he and Amanda are working together to seize Zetrov from Semak, using Alex as their pawn. And when that plan was in danger of failing, Ari suggested killing Alex, framing Semak, and stealing Gogol's operating budget - 300 million US Dollars isn't the same as a MegaCorp, but it's a tremendous amount of money for two people.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: How Percy realizes that Michael is allied with Nikita.
• Operation: [Blank]: All of Division's missions are named this way, but the most important is "Operation Sparrow", which is involved in the last several episodes of the first season, and is revealed in the finale to be a ruse as part of a Batman Gambit to assassinate and replace the director of the CIA.
• Our Hero Is Dead: Alex shoots Nikita at the end of "Betrayals".
  • Turns out, she's just Faking the Dead.
• Pistol-Whipping: Nikita's interrogation technique when she captured Birkhoff in the pilot episode. Later brought up by Birkhoff in his own defense when Percy questions whether he is Nikita's mole.
  Birkhoff: "She pistol whipped me in the mouth. I don't see what's left to talk about here!"
  • Though she knew Birkhoff wouldn't tell her anything - the pistol whipping was to knock him out and leave him in pain, so that he wouldn't realise she'd planted a bug on one of his teeth.
• Poison and Cure Gambit: In "Phoenix".
• Power Trio: Season 2 has Michael, Nikita, and Birkhoff.
• Pragmatic Villainy: To prevent any future betrayals by agents, Percy has started having them implanted with kill chips that can be activated at any time. May also count as a Moral Event Horizon.
• Prisoner Exchange: In "Doublecross" team Nikita attempts to trade Percy to Division for Ryan. In "The Life We've Chosen", Amanda attempts to exchange Alex for Ari.
• Product Placement: For Kia Motors.
  • Dell Computers (laptops) also appear frequently.
• Professional Killer: The Cleaners, namely Roan, Brandon and Owen.
• Psycho Serum: The Regimen. Except the serum isn't the cause of the psycho - it's the withdrawal from it that drives you crazy.
• The Purge: Oversight has a "Clean Sweep" protocol in place for Division, so that if they ever decide to shut it down, they can remotely gas the entire facility.
• Quote Mine/Quote-to-Quote Combat: In "One Way" the Islamic terrorist who killed Michael's family captures him and they start arguing. Tariq quotes from The Qur'an to back up his point:
  Tariq: “Fight in God’s cause against those who fight against you.”
  Michael: “But do not commit aggression.” You forgot that part of the Qur'an. If you’re going to twist its meaning at least quote the whole passage.
• Race Lift: Nikita is Asian in this adaptation.
• Recruited from the Gutter: Division recruits young runaways, criminals and/or junkies and gives them a second chance in exchange for Undying Loyalty. Alex is a downplayed example; Nikita rescued her only because she was the one inadvertently responsible for Alex's situation. Alex then volunteered to infiltrate Division since they had her parents killed.
• Red Shirt: Division's alpha teams become this in Season 3.
• Remake Cameo: While there are about a dozen actors who appeared in La Femme Nikita who go on to appear here—a result of both series drawing from a shared pool of Canadian actors for their secondary and tertiary characters—Alberta Watson, who played Madeline in the original series and returns as a different character also named Madeline, is the only actor who unequivocally qualifies.
• Resignations Not Accepted: As far as Division is concerned, the only way out is cancellation.
• Revealing Cover-Up: To Division's credit, they generally try to avoid these to the general public, either finding a scapegoat or cleaning up after themselves thoroughly. Unfortunately, Nikita's mission is to cause havoc with these.
• Revenge Before Reason: A Fatal Flaw of many characters. Examples include Nikita, Michael, Alex and even Percy.
• Room Full of Crazy: Owen's London safe house in season 1.
  • In Season 4, Ryan has a big board on the jet that's covered in theories and speculation on The Shop's true identity. It's universally referred to as "Ryan's wall of Crazy."
• Rogue Agents: In seasons 1 and 2, Nikita and most of her team. In season 3, the Dirty Thirty.
• Say My Name: Happens quite often, but the two most famous examples are undoubtedly Percy and Amanda saying Nikita's name when she finally takes them down.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Several characters from Nikita's past, most notably Gary Mears, Nikita's foster father and first abuser; and the corrupt cops who landed Nikita in jail.
• Secret Test of Character: In "Resistance", Alex is tortured by supposed Egyptian terrorists. She passes the test, but Michael, who freaked out and insisted on extracting her himself, may not have.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Not as romantic as usual. Owen literally says this to Nikita, who just replies he should brush up on his compliment-skills.
• Ship Tease: There has been significant ship tease between Sean Pierce and Alex, culminating in them holding hands at Madeline Pierce's gravestone, as Sean says goodbye to his mother.
  • There has also been some ship tease between Birkhoff and Sonya, Division's new IT expert.
• Shipper on Deck: Alex and Birkhoff for Michael and Nikita.
• Shirtless Scene: Sean spends much of 2x12 shirtless and tied to a chair, after Nikita and company catch him and take his wetsuit.
  • This continues in 2x21 "Dead Drop", as he recovers from being shot.
• Shoot the Dog: Alex killing Thom and framing him as a spy borders on this, although she did the former in self-defense.
• Shot to the Heart: In the first season finale, Amanda does this to revive Alex after killing her with the Kill Chip. It was the only way to set her free...
• Shout-Out:
  • Nikita's dead fiancee is named Daniel. There was also a Russian spy (with a daughter!) called Irina.
    • The final two minutes of 2.10 are immediately identifiable to Alias fans as either an homage or a blatant ripoff of the final two minutes of "Almost Thirty Years", right down to the Not Quite Dead mother of our heroine, and a shocked "MOM?!".
  • Birkhoff calls the black boxes Percy's Horcruxes in "Betrayals".
    • In a later episode, he refers to Ari as "Lord Voldemort".
  • Apparently, Tom Cruise in a harness couldn't break into the SCIF ^note  Sensitive Compartmented Intelligence Facility room in Langley.
  • Birkhoff - played by Pyro - says he'll "fire up Cerebro".
  • During the assault on Birkhoff's house in "343 Walnut Lane" he yells "We're getting off this damn beach!" as he calls in an airstrike.
    • Afterwards, Birkhoff tells the others he'll meet up with them "on Tattooine, or wherever I set up the next rebel base."
  • When Sean suggests Division can use USAF assets to send Alex into Russia, she derides it as a Captain America plan.
    • In the same episode, Birkhoff refers to Oversight as the Imperial Senate.
  • A Division Guardian mentions the Golden Ticket when Nikita asks him if he knows what the black box is. He does.
  • Birkoff refers to Roan as "the Terminator" after Alex has a run-in with him.
  • Alex quips that revealing herself as Alexandra Udinov to the world is "like I'm about to tell everyone I'm Iron Man or something."
    • In the same episode, a foreign agent is introduced to a third party under the alias "Bill Clay," which is the same alias Hans Gruber used when introducing himself to John McClane.
  • In "Power", after Nikita flirts with two guards and then knocks them out, she quips, "Boring conversation anyway."
  • In "Shadow Walker" Division sends three trucks to deliver some money. Alex suggests that they see which truck is riding lowest "Hey, I saw it in a movie once". Later, when Birkoff does just that, Micheal snarks "I guess Birkhoff saw the same movie".
  • "Crossbow" turns into a 42-minute Shout-Out to Star Wars. The old Star Wars missile-defense sytem is mentioned, Percy's Kill Sat (dubbed the Death Star by Micheal) is called Crossbow (Like Chewie's bowcaster), Birkoff tells Nikita "May the Force be with you". The final plan is a trench run to fire a torpedo down...sorry, have Nikita drop down the silo to blow the computer room. Star Wars seems to be a favorite .
  • Birkhoff does a Dalek impersonation while hijacking a sentry gun.
    • "I am Wade's servo gun. I now betray my overlord. Exterminate! EXTERMINATE!
  • "Intersection" sees the cast in full snark mode: "Who watches the Watchman?"
    • "It was Baker. In the server room. With the candlestick."
    • "I'm on the leader".
  • Birkhoff referring to a Shop's facility: "Area 50 3/4"
  • In 1x19 "Girl's Best Friend", Nikita and Michael talk about how the plan of the week resembles that of the volksfrei movement a few years ago.
  • In the Season 4 premiere, Birkoff snarks that Alex "thinks she's Batman, which I guess makes my girlfriend {Sonya} Robin" while updating Nikita on the events since the end of Season 3.
• "Shut Up" Kiss: Nikita gives one to Ryan Fletcher in "Free".
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: Michael and Nikita's fight in "Echoes", as imagined by Alex's subconscious.
  • Alex and Sean's relationship is Season 2 is this. Their first meeting ends with weapons at each other's throats, and they squabble for several episodes before hooking up.
• The Sociopath: Amanda, Percy and Roan, and probably one or two of the Guardians as well. All of them extremely deadly individuals.
• Spies In a Van: Seen a handful of times.
• Spy Catsuit: Nikita frequently, but especially in "Phoenix".
  • And also for the majority of "Betrayals" and "Pandora".
• The Spymaster: Percy, Amanda, Ari.
• Spy School: Division. Owen hides in an abandoned school in "The Guardian" to which Nikita quips "Good place to hide, a school bound to hell. Remind you of Division any?"
• The Starscream: Interestingly, despite being the Big Bad, Percy is The Starscream to the Greater-Scope Villain that is Oversight - he stopped taking their orders a long time ago, does what he wants, and is blackmailing them with the information on the Black Boxes to stay in power.
  • And as the first season finale shows, Percy has his own Starscream in Amanda, who is working for Oversight and seems to be plotting against Division.
    • This is taken even further in the second season when Amanda employs Ryan to help take down Oversight and orders one of its core members to be killed.
  • Ari Tasarov is The Starscream to Sergei Semak, as he plans to seize Zetrov from Semak.
• Start of Darkness: Robbie in "The Recruit", when he goes crazy after becoming one of Division's babysitters instead of an operative, and then is made a Cleaner by Amanda.
  • Percy claims Operation Pale Fire ^note The mission where Division killed Alex's father was this for Division, though Ryan Fletcher doesn't buy it.
• State Sec: Division, thought it slips into a villainous version of Private Military Contractors by offering their services to the highest bidder.
• Storming the Castle: In "Crossbow", Team Nikita infiltrates Division in order to shut down Percy's Kill Sat.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: When a terrorist holds Division up for $5 million dollars for information in the third season, Nikita and Michael figure they can just pay him as they're used to that being chump change for the company. However, Ryan has to break it to them that the reason Division was flush with cash before was all the illegal dealings Percy was running. Now, they're on a government budget which means "we barely have enough to keep the lights on."
• Sword of Damocles: In Season 3, the President constantly threatens Ryan with wiping out Division and Team Nikita if they cause her any political problems.
• The Syndicate: Gogol. Second Season reveals that they are the Intelligence arm of Zetrov.
• Tamer and Chaster: Although it can get steamy, the series nevertheless is less sexual than LFN.
• Teen Superspy: Alex is supposed to be about eighteen at the start of the show. Nikita to a lesser extent in her early days at Division.
• Theme Naming: Birkoff seems to like the word "Shadow"; his hacker name is "Shadow Walker", his computer network is called "Shadow Net'', and his new search program in Season 2 is called "Shadow Bot".
• True Companions: Team Nikita. Despite everyone on the team having tried to kill each other at one point or another, once you're on the team, your family. Nikita walked away from $70 million dollars to rescue Birkoff, and she and Alex are especially close.
• There Are No Therapists: Averted. There is a therapist... and she's also the head torturer. Now that's the kind of job overlap you really don't want.
  Michael: You're using rehab to conduct an interrogation?
  Amanda: I'm multitasking.
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: In "Fair Trade" when Nikita explains to Sean that she is not the enemy.
  Nikita: "You're a decorated soldier! Why are you doing this?"
  Sean: "You're trying to kill my mother."
  Nikita:: "Your mother (Sen. Madeline Pierce) is a bitch. I am not the threat, Sean. Open your eyes."
  • In "Origins", Birkoff tries to get Carla to stop what she's doing: "Get your hands off my hardware, bitch!"
• Tired of Running: In "Crossbow", Nikita says that she's tired of running from Division and decides to finally take the fight to Percy.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Jaden, in "Girl's Best Friend". For most of the first season, she gets beat down by Alex, Nikita, and is shown to be pretty inept. But in that episode, on her first high-profile mission, she takes out four mooks, the episode's Big Bad, and saves Alex's bacon.
  • Birkhoff seems to have taken some in the interim between S1 and S2. By "343 Walnut Lane", he's become a good enough fighter to stand toe-to-toe with a Division agent and last a decent amount of time. He also programs a drone to bomb his own house, in a suicide move that actually succeeds in killing the Division strike team and not himself, Michael, and Nikita. Of course, he had incentive, after being kidnapped on separate occasions by Nikita and the CIA. After Division kidnaps him and Amanda tortures him, he now keeps a gun in close reach at all times, and regularly spars with Michael.
  • Alex takes serveral levels in Season 2, starting in "Knightfall" by ignoring a direct order from Amanda and killing her target (her first real kill), later infiltrating Russia to get revenge.
  • Sonya, after a season and a half as a quiet computer geek, opens fire with an MP5K during the mutiny in "Broken Home" to save Birkoff.
• Tough Love: Nikita to Alex in the second season premier when she breaks her arm and then shoots her in the leg during a fight.
  Nikita:: "I did this because I care."
• Torture Technician: "The Inquisitor," also known as Amanda.
• Tracking Device: Embedded in the Division agents' bodies, even the recruits, which Michael thought was excessive. As it happens, not so much.
• Tragic Keepsake: Owen, a rogue Guardian and former Cleaner, has drawings (later tattoos) reminding him of all the people he killed ( including Daniel) or failed to protect ( his lover, Emily).
  • Nikolai Udinov's watch, which Amanda seizes, and which Sean later gives to Alex.
• Trash the Set: In the first season finale, Nikita's loft is assaulted by a Division strike team and subsequently blown up.
  • And again with the shootout at Birkoff's house in "343 Walnut Lane".
  • Yet again in "Dead Drop" after Division finds the current safe house. Birkoff tells Alex that "You're buying the next house". May be on its way to becoming a Running Gag.
  • At the end of Season 3, Division's underground facility, home base and battleground for everyone on the show, is blown up as the team prepares to go on the run one again
• Trauma Conga Line: Quite a few characters in the show have crossed this. But Alex may be the definitive one. The list of traumatic events she's faced is ridiculously long.
• Treachery Cover Up: The reason why Percy can't be assassinated.
• Tree Cover: Michael and Nikita in "One Way
• Trojan Horse: Percy lets Nikita capture a Black Box and hand it over to the CIA, because it's been booby trapped with a deadly nerve gas and set to go off in the presence of the CIA director.
• Truer to the Text: While taking quite a lot from La Femme Nikita, it also undoes one of its biggest changes to the story, that of making Nikita an innocent who is turned into a killer by her kidnappers. This version of the character, like the original, is already a killer by the time Division gets to her.
• TV Telephone Etiquette: A large part of the drama sometimes replies on technology such as communication between two characters on a "safe" or "unsafe" line, such as Alex and Nikita. No one ever has a conversation as a normal person would (no one ever answers the phone with a "hello", leading to plans being uttered to enemies, of course), but that's pretty much justified.
• Undercover as Lovers: Michael and Nikita in "Glass Houses", two episodes after they actually got together.
• Undying Loyalty: Roan and the Guardians to Percy.
  • Season 4 works primarily on doubles of important figureheads being programed to be loyal to Amanda. To the point where they commit suicide rather than be captured and questioned
• Unholy Matrimony: Ari and Amanda. Alex even describes it as "a match made in Hell".
• Unrelated in the Adaptation: Phillip Jones, of The Group / The Shop, was Nikita's biological father in the original TV series.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: Michael and Nikita is the most obvious, but there are other examples as well.
  • The Michael/Nikita UST seems to have finally been resolved in "Covenant".
• Uriah Gambit: Percy attempts this with Sara in "The Recruit."
• Vice President Who?: Subverted and then played straight: in season 2, the vice-president, Kathleen Spencer, is the one on the ground during the government's assault on Division, and who directly negotiates with Ryan and Nikita to determine Division's fate. In season 3, however, once she has become president, her successor in the vice presidency becomes irrelevant until Spencer is removed from office.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Oversight
• Villainous BSoD / Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Robbie in "The Recruit", when he gets "promoted" to internal security (aka, babysitting the recruits) instead of becoming an operative.
• Villainous Breakdown: Percy has a mild one in the season finale - after his big plan to take over the CIA is ruined, he orders an attack on Nikita's loft. Rather than watching the screens with his usual calm detachment, he spends the whole time glaring in cold fury and screaming orders at the strike team:
  "Kill them both!"
  • Percy nearly goes through this in "Shadow Walker", as he watches all 70 million dollars of his money burn. It is with visible effort that he controls himself.
• Villainous Rescue: Nikita and Michael every other episode or so, during Season One.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: When a cleaner shows up at Alex's apartment in 1x20 to deal with a problematic corpse, he injects it with a muscle relaxant to make it easier to move. Alex's reaction is only mostly hidden from the camera.
• Waif-Fu: Generally averted. Nikita often takes on larger opponents and is shown picking up objects or using the environment to her advantage. At one point, when she's fighting a gym full of people, she smacks a few of them with barbells, thus inventing Weight Fu.
• Was It All a Lie?: Inverted because the main character of Alex is set up to be the mole from the very start, and we see it all from her point of view. Rather than the hero being the one betrayed by the mole and yell-asking "was it all a lie?!" toward the mole, the hero is the mole. There is a very dramatic "Was everything just a lie?!" moment coming from the more minor character, Thom, directed at the main character of Alex mid-way through the first season - it is a very intense scene that does involve a gun and is perfect fodder for a mid-season finale with a lot of drama.
• Wham Episode: 1x11, "All the Way": Nikita's backdoor leak in the Division's security system is liquidated, Thom is Killed Off for Real by Alex, who is promoted to field agent after half a season as a recruit.
  • Episode 1x16: "Go ahead, ask me how I got here."
  • Episode 1x17, by the look of the 2nd promo. Except some of the Wham-ness has been blown by said promo.
    • Though something it didn't spoil was The Reveal that Kasim, the man who killed Michael's family, did so on orders from Percy. It also didn't give away that this revelation would lead to Michael's apparent Heel–Face Turn.
  • Episode 1x20 - Jaden is killed by Nathan while fighting with Alex, and a hidden recording device on her finally reveals to Amanda that she is working for Nikita
  • Followed immediately by 1x21 - Percy turns Alex into a Double Agent by revealing that Nikita was the one who killed her father; Michael's cover is blown and he's imprisoned in Division; the captured black box is revealed to the audience to be a Trojan Horse and part of Percy's move against the government; and the episode ends with Alex shooting Nikita.
  • The following episode - the season finale - involves Ryan being arrested by the CIA, Nikita's loft being blown up, her and Michael going on the run with a fully decrypted Black Box, and Alex splitting from both Nikita and Division, and being recruited by Oversight to go after Nikita (and possibly Percy as well).
  • Season 2 has had a few shocks and surprises, but the first real Wham episode was 2x10, where in the last few minutes it's revealed that Alex's mother is still alive.
  • 2x13: Percy escapes Division with Roan and the last Guardian, Amanda takes over Division after most of Oversight is killed, and Team Nikita apparantly now includes Madeline and Sean. Alex is, as usual, stuck between Team Nikita and Amanda.
  • 2x18: Percy regains conrol of Division, thanks to a mole and some (unwitting) help from Birkoff, Ari looses control of Zetrov, and Amanda and Ari end the episode on the run, hunted by Division, Gogol, and Team Nikita.
  • 2x23 ends the season with Percy and Roan dead, Team Nikita running a collectively Heel Face Turned Division on the government's behalf, a still free Amanda revealed to have decrypted the last Black Box, and Sean asking Alex out on a date.
  • 3x18, "Broken Home". Owen/ Sam is on the run with the last Black Box, Division suffers a violent mutiny that ends with multiple dead and almost everyone leaving, Sean dies, and Alex goes rogue (again)
• What Happened to the Mouse??: In his first appearance, Nikita mentioned that Ari had an eight-year-old son in 2006. In all of his other appearances, no mention is made of a family at all, and when he runs off with Amanda he certainly doesn't act like he's leaving children or a wife behind.
  • This is later revisited in Season 3; Ari's son has been kept away from his father's life
• "What Do They Fear?" Episode: "Echoes".
• Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: A common question throughout Season One. It's eventually revealed that Nikita possesses a printing press used to print counterfeit "superdollars", meaning her only problems are getting ink and the right paper, though it's eventually lost when Division storms her loft.
  • In Season Two, Birkhoff is revealed to have stolen over twenty million dollars prior to being "recruited" by Division, and uses this to bankroll Team Nikita. Until it's eventually lost.
  • Alex, having cashed in her Zetrov stock, seems to have taken over the money side now.
  • In Season Three, Ryan tells Nikita and Michael that Division's been cut off from Oversight's black budgets, and the President won't authorise funding. They have some money (53 million), but not enough to be as extravagant as Division used to be.
• World of Badass: A Navy SEAL officer is arguably the least badass character on the show, tied with a CIA anylsyst . That's after a pair of One Man Armies, the badass who trained one of them, and an Action Girl. And the hacker has a drone airforce.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The standard procedure for Division is to 'cancel' agents who have failed or no longer have a use. This applies even to Percy and members of Oversight.
  • A Guardian in "Guardian" takes out a Swiss scientist after he secures his supply of Regimen drugs.
• You Can't Thwart Stage One: Subverted with the Group's endgame scenario, which we're led to believe wasn't stopped until the last minute with the destruction of M.D.K.'s Dubai facilities, until it's revealed that it had in fact been rendered unworkable an episode before.
• You Killed My Father: Alex's entire motivation is to avenge her parents' murder. Unfortunately, in "Betrayal", she finds out that the Division agent who killed her father was Nikita. That complicates things.
  • Actually, it just means that she refuses to work with Nikita anymore, and now plans to go after the man who hired Division to kill her father in the first place.
  • Oh, and her mom is alive.

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