Ungrateful Bastard / Live-Action TV

Ungrateful Bastards in Live-Action TV series.

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#-F

• Jack Bauer in 24 has personally saved US government officials from political assassinations, a false pretense for war, nuclear attacks, biological attacks, a corrupt president, and more. To thank him, the officials he worked for don't do a damn thing to save Jack when he was captured by Chinese agents who tortured him for almost two years for information (that he never gave.) Also, most of 24 consists of bureaucrats putting all their efforts in punishing Jack after or even when he's stopping terrorists from murdering hundreds of thousands of people. After everything he's done to save the country, the country's leaders give him less than squat back.
• All in the Family: Mike "Meathead" Stivic contributes nothing toward the room and board while living with his wife and in-laws and attending college, spending almost all of his free time demeaning, belittling, and otherwise antagonizing his (admittedly quite reactionary and unpleasant) benefactor father-in-law Archie, who works long hours at a loading dock to provide for the family. A particular sore spot for Archie is that Mike is a Big Eater and so is eating him out of house and home. Mike also shows very little gratitude towards his wife, Gloria, who works as a sales clerk at a department store to cover their share of the expenses. We eventually learn that Mike was fired from his teaching job for participating in an anti-nuclear protest in the nude, and later abandons Gloria and their son to live on a hippie commune with one of his former students.
• Angel, "Billy": Lilah fights tooth and nail to free Billy Blim from a Prison Dimension, going so far as to torture Cordelia to blackmail Angel into breaking him out for her. How does Billy repay her for it? He thanks Gavin, her rival, instead and induces him into beating the ever-loving shit out of Lilah while he walks away with a Psychotic Smirk.
• Arrowverse:
  • Arrow: Whenever the team gets framed for murder, the entire city is quick to turn on them. The first time this happens it's not too surprising, as it's been shown that opinions on vigilantes are decidedly mixed. But when it keeps happening, even after they've proven that they've been framed before, and they've saved the city multiple times, it starts getting ridiculous. Flash-forwards show that this is still happening twenty years in the future.
  • The Flash (2014): In the episode "Borrowing Problems From The Future" Wally (Kid Flash) has this happen to him twice:
    • First, at the beginning of the episode, he and Barry rescue a cop from a burning building. Later on, Wally is at the precinct and overhears the cop calling Kid Flash a coward.
    • The second time is when Wally saves Barry from Plunder. Instead of thanking him, Barry scolds Wally for not following his orders to stay behind. Thankfully, he apologizes later on.
  • Supergirl (2015): Played with in Season 4. When Supergirl gets framed for an attack on the White House (through the admittedly convincing method of having a clone of Supergirl that no one knew about attack) a lot of people are very quick to jump to the worst conclusion. Even when she saves a man from a car crash, bystanders decide it's better to attack her (almost killing the guy she's saving in the process) rather than believe a superhero who has saved the world on no less than three occasions might be framed. Even the guy she saved, while he does thank her, is very confused as to why a traitor would save him.
• On Bar Rescue, John takes on a terrible Baltimore bar with a horrific pirate theme that's doing no business. John re-trains the staff and helps pay for a huge makeover that does away with the bad theme and embraces a modern look. Business picks up immediately although the owner isn't happy about losing the old look. In a "back to the bar" episode, Taffer learns that three days after he left, the owner threw away all his work (literally burning the new bar sign), spent a load of money to restore it to the way it was and went right back to the pirate theme. To no one's surprise, she was out of business within months.
• Better Call Saul:
  • Chuck McGill. His brother Jimmy slaves away and goes through all sorts of ridiculous hoops to keep him afloat despite his mental condition, and does all he can to help him return to the real world and practice law again and what's his thanks? Chuck has been conspiring to keep Jimmy a dirt-poor lawyer with a terrible reputation, and won't let him get a job at HHM.
  • In Season 2, Jimmy is hired by the law firm of Davis & Main. Cliff Main is a Nice Guy who treats Jimmy really well and gives him access to all kinds of perks like a company car or a fancy desk for his office. However, Jimmy is not really cut out to work for a big law firm and starts making unilateral decisions like airing a commercial without Cliff's permission. Cliff decides to give Jimmy a second chance but Jimmy has pretty much decided to leave and start his own firm. However, if Jimmy quits he would be contractually obligated to return his signing bonus. The honorable thing for Jimmy to do would be to quit and return the money or stay on with the firm for the rest of the year as the contract requires him to. Instead, Jimmy makes himself an utter pest in the office (including never flushing the toilet) so Cliff is forced to fire Jimmy and thus allow him to keep the bonus. Cliff gave Jimmy a chance of a lifetime and in return, he was humiliated and Jimmy walked away with thousands of dollars of Davis & Main money that he did not deserve.
• Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory certainly qualifies. Whenever he is tended to while sick, he makes a pest out of himself, griping over the most insignificant of things (which he does when he isn't sick anyhow) and insulting the people who tend to him. One time, when Leonard went around Pasadena to meet a food demand for him, all Sheldon could respond with is "What took you so long?"
  • At times, the rest of the characters have their fair share of ungratefulness, like how Penny can often take advantage of Leonard's Extreme Doormat tendencies without any limits despite bending over backwards for her as much as he does for Sheldon.
  • The biggest offender of all has to be Leonard's mother Beverly, who is basically Sheldon but older and female (and a bit more mature). Whenever someone gives her a little bit of respect, she does not respect them back.
• After Black Jesus and his crew save Vic from losing his job and his reputation, and get him out of the almost permanent Lloyd-induced drunken stupor, he gets the city to serve the group's garden an eviction notice.
• Breaking Bad: The Villain Protagonist Walter White does not like it when people are charitable towards him because he is too proud of a man to accept what he perceives to be handouts, and wants to get money his own way, even if it's a criminal way, with all the danger that entails.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Rona has this throughout Season 7. Doesn't matter how many times Buffy saves her life, Rona will still treat her with nothing less than pure hatred and disrespect; it's to the extent that when the Scoobies force Buffy out of the house, Rona goes so far as to quip, "Ding dong, the witch is dead," prompting Dawn, who reluctantly participated in the mutiny, to threateningly tell her to shut up.
• Control Z:
  • In 1.06, Javier's father accuses his son of being this after his previous anger issues on football manifest during a friendly match at Colegio Nacional, reminding him that he's always the one who has to constantly clear up his name.
  Damián: Okay, moron. Don't forget who gets you out of all the f—king trouble you get into.
  • Most of the students whose secrets were leaked by the hacker, including Pablo in season 2 and Rosita, who misinterpreted Sofía's warnings of the Avenger as excuses of wanting to ruin her birthday party. Sofía calls Darío and Ernesto this when they start cursing her for supposedly being Raúl's accomplice in Gerry's harboring, reminding them that she had saved their lives. In addition, Quintanilla calls them out for not acknowledging his hard work for the school and believes that they deserve what's been happening.
  Sofía [to Darío and Ernesto]: Have you forgotten who saved your lives? Ungrateful jerks.
• In Crossing Jordan Garret Macy found out that a dead victim is alive and paralyzed near death, said victim happens to be his old friend who sets his life in ruining the entire cast. When he was paralyzed he said in his mind that he would change as a better man if they saved his life. But when he got out of the hospital he decides to sue the team for negligence. On the way to his car, he was killed for real when he was hit by an ambulance.
• Doctor Who
  • In "Full Circle", one character doubles back and pulls another free from the marsh men, and is caught himself. The rescued one takes one look at his rescuer and runs off without even trying to help.
  • In "The Mind of Evil", the Doctor is nearly Mind Raped to death by a machine that feeds on fear, until Jo saves him by coming into the lab and distracting him. Rather than thanking her, the Doctor chastises her for not staying outside as he told her to.
  • In "The Waters of Mars", Captain Adelaide tearfully begs the Doctor to break the rules and intervene and save her and the others. When he gives in, returns to save her, Yuri and Mia, only then does she suddenly worry about the timeline, regret it, and throw away the Doctor's efforts to save her. Although to be fair, her Heroic Suicide likely prevented a horrific Time Crash.
  • Rassilon and the Time Lords (well, some of them) in "Hell Bent". You'd think being saved from complete annihilation in "The Day of the Doctor" would cause you to become nicer and more thankful. Wrong! Especially when you're willing to torture your savior for 4.5 billion years, immediately after (unintentionally) killing off for real his best friend and possible love interest. Yeah, be thankful you were only deposed and exiled from your home planet at the end of the universe, where there are only a few places left to go to, instead of having to suffer the Doctor's wrath. And we all know that the Doctor's wrath is nothing you want to be inflicted upon you. (Not to mention it's possible he might have been more wrathful if not for the fact that he was now insane and preoccupied with a Tragic Dream thanks to what they did. At least he got better.)
• Drake & Josh: In "The Battle of Panthatar", both Drake and Josh give Thornton the former's autographed Abbey Road album in the hopes that Thornton will let them back inside his birthday party. Even though he appreciates the gift, he still refuses to let them inside. Fortunately, the two eventually manage to get the album back from him and had his show sabotaged in the process.
  Drake: Tell them to let us in!
  Josh: Yeah!
  Thornton: No.
  Drake: But we just gave you the best present you've ever gotten!
  Josh: You said so!
  Thornton: Yeah, it is. Thanks. You're still not invited to my party.
• The Dropout: The Holmes family in spades:
  • Elizabeth and her brother arrive from school and learn that their father has lost his job due to being involved in the Enron scandal. Her brother's first instinct is to whine about not wanting to move from their luxurious home.
  • Despite her family relying on Richard Fuisz financially to help them out, Elizabeth avoids going to him for help in starting up her medical technology company. It makes no sense to Fuisz since he founded and sold off a medical technology company himself. In fact, he feels so insulted by this that he actually goes on to invent and patent a technology that would make dealing with him essential, only for Elizabeth and Theranos to sue him.
  • Elizabeth leaves a meeting with Larry Ellison to see her father who's been hospitalized. Instead of being glad she came, he bluntly chastises her for it and demands that she "get back to work."
  • Edmond sacrifices time with his family to help get the initial Edison machine off the ground and helping the team when they are pitching to overseas investors. But when he resigns after participating in a phony trial involving cancer patients, he's coldly escorted out of the company and not even allowed to keep any of the material he brought from home.
  • In an example unrelated to Elizabeth or her family, George Shultz accuses Erika of being this to Elizabeth by repaying the opportunity of working at Theranos with tales of falsified data.
• In The Escape Artist, Liam Foyle is a sociopath that shows no gratitude to either of the two people that go out of their way to help him. This applies to both Will Burton and Maggie; he murders the former's wife and threatens his son because he didn't shake his hand (after the former got him Off on a Technicality), and stalks the latter by breaking into her apartment even after she did shake his hand (after she did the same thing for the murder trial of Will's wife). This is Played With in the final act, when he whacks Will on the back of the head after being injected with a life-saving epi-pen... only it turns out that said epi-pen injected him with more of the stuff he was allergic to, and he was probably aware of this.
• Frasier:
  • In "The Good Samaritan", Frasier spends all day doing good deeds, but every person he helps turns out to be a jerk. He returns a man's wallet only for the man to accuse him of stealing money out of it. Then, he helps a woman put her dog into her car and she drives off without even thanking him. Then, he helps a man fix a tire on his car only for the man to threaten to sue him because he scratched the car with his cufflinks. Finally, Frasier picks up a woman left in the rain, only to find out that she's really a prostitute (and a guy) and gets arrested for it. The last one turned out to be just an Imagine Spot Frasier thought of as what was the worst thing that can happen. He then decides to pick up the woman for real, and she turns out to be very grateful.
  • Maris, the unseen former wife of Niles, apparently sees gratitude as a foreign concept. Whenever Niles goes through Hell to please her, she does not show him any sort of respect whatsoever. It is honestly quite cathartic when Niles finally decides to divorce her.

G-N

• Game of Thrones:
  • Tywin Lannister. Tyrion not only carried out his father's orders in Kings Landing in reigning in Joffrey and Cersei, but he personally planned the city's defense, fatally weakened Stannis' forces, and personally led the fight against the remaining attackers despite Cersei and Joffrey's idiocy and spitefulness hampering him at every turn, including trying to assassinate him on the battlefield. Without these efforts, Tywin's relief force would have been facing a far larger, better organised, and untouched army, who by the time he arrived would have likely killed both his grandson and daughter, as well as taken the city and thus made his attempted counter attack both pointless and nigh suicidal. Tywin thanks Tyrion by ignoring him for several weeks as he was wounded, and when Tyrion brings up his grievances, he gives his son a few concessions such as a larger room "more suited to your name", a position where he can continue serving his family, and a suitable wife in due time... then he flatly refuses to officially make Tyrion his heir, unleashes a spiteful tirade about how much he hates Tyrion and threatens to kill the next whore he catches him with. This is taken even further in Season 4. Joffrey was, Tywin admits in front of his dead body no less, not a wise king. So even if Tyrion was guilty, which of course he wasn't, Tywin and company should really be thanking him for the getting the millstone out of the way but instead, he lets him take the fall for Joffrey's oh so terrible murder. It's the equivalent of a wife and husband having a domestic argument and the husband grounding the child for daring to speak out against the horrible wife causing problems, "How dare you disrespect her, even though she's been a pyscho towards me and I should really be thanking you." Never have the words No Good Deed Goes Unpunished been more appropriate as far as Tyrion's concerned.
  • Cersei Lannister never has anything good to say about Tyrion or Loras, despite both of them being vital in saving her and Tommen's lives at the battle of Blackwater. Tywin even calls her out on her ingratitude to the Tyrells. Probably the most blatant example of this was her framing Ned Stark as a traitor after he warned her to save herself and her children; though it was mixed with Pragmatic Villainy, since they would be forced to go into exile if she accepted Ned's scenario.
  • Rorge is one of the three criminals Arya saved from burning to death. He responds by threatening to rape her afterwards; later on, he tries to capture her to collect a bounty on her head, which fails miserably.
  • Aerys Targaryen was not very appreciative of Tywin propping up his kingdom for him.
  • Stannis feels this way about Robert. In the backstory, Stannis held Storm's End, the Baratheon castle, against a siege by the Tyrells during the war, despite having few provisions and his army starving. After the war, Robert sent Stannis to hold Dragonstone, a defensible but barren island in the Narrow Sea, while the younger brother Renly was given Storm's End with its wealth and fertile lands.
  • Renly Baratheon:
    • Stannis saved his life during the Siege of Storm's End when he was only a young boy, and yet as an adult decides to usurp his claim because the former has the personality of a lobster — by siding with the people that almost had them both killed.
    • Subverted when he insults Robert for romanticizing his warrior days and victories and keeps insulting Robert, forgetting that had it not been for his brother, House Baratheon would have probably been destroyed by the Targaryens, nor would Renly ever had a seat on the Small Council or met Loras. Robert also made him Lord of Storm's End despite Stannis being more deserving, and yet Renly never shows the slightest gratitude. However, if one actually looks at it from a more general perspective, he is not criticizing Robert for the Rebellion but for enjoying it. He is disgusted that Robert would prefer to live in the days where women were raped and murdered and cities were burned to the ground because things were more exciting, and he is most likely extremely disgusted by the Sack at King's Landing which was not only cruel and savage but unnecessary. The war was already won at that point. The fact that Robert did not punish Tywin Lannister or his men but rewarded them instead for their vile deeds, gives Renly a very strong reason to hate him.
  • Sansa Stark feels no gratitude or appreciation for Daenerys’s help against the White Walkers. She says that Arya is the one who killed the Night King, ignoring that if it weren’t for Dany’s dragons and armies, Arya would never have gotten the chance. And now that she knows Jon is the real heir to the Iron Thrones, Sansa is using that to undermine Dany, betraying Jon’s trust and telling Dany’s advisors to sow dissent.
  • Tyrion finds out that Varys has been having such doubts about Daenerys ruling Westeros that he has begin making plans to place Jon on the throne instead because Jon is also a Targaryen by blood, he responds by telling Daenerys about it, who then has Varys incinerated alive by Drogon (which Tyrion knew was going to happen). This after Varys smuggled Tyrion out of King's Landing after Tyrion murdered Tywin (and was accused of murdering Joffrey), stopped him drinking himself to death on the way to Volantis and was going to formally introduce Tyrion to Daenerys to be her Hand before Tyrion wandered off and got kidnapped by Jorah. Tyrion even has the nerve to call Varys "old friend" when he admits to Varys he's the one who snitched on him.
• Good Omens (2019):
  • Many of the things Agnes's neighbors cite as proof she's a witch are helpful things she did, like healing them. Even the rest are neutral (making prophecies, taking up jogging, suggesting diets that are higher in fibre) not malicious.
  • Hastur, oh so very much. He burns down the convent where the Satanic nuns live after they swap the baby (albeit wrongly), devours the telemarketer and her colleagues in a sea of maggots after she frees him from Crowley's answering machine (though that could be considered a community service), and drops the court usher in the holy water to test it at Crowley's trial in hell.
• Hank Zipzer: In one episode, Hank and Nick are on a camping experience with Miss Adolf. She gets extremely sick and they call for help using a cellphone Hank brought. Miss Adolf, instead of thanking them for saving her life, fails them both for having a cellphone when they weren't supposed to, even though it was only Hank who brought it.
• Henry Danger: At the end of "Love Bytes", Ray is furious at Schwoz destroying the prized sword he used to destroy Halley with, despite the fact he saved his and Henry's lives. Henry was not at all happy with Ray's unpleasant behavior.
• House of Anubis:
  • Nina is this to Fabian many times, most notably when he rescues her from falling into the chasm.
    Fabian: I... I saved you...
    Nina: Oh yeah? Well, why don't you save the other girl (Joy Mercer) in this dress?!
  • Fabian has also tended to be like this towards Joy in Season 3.
  • Also Rufus Zeno. Patricia had taken a huge risk and rescued him from the hospital when the teachers had put him into some sort of coma, and he repaid her by kidnapping her later on.
• Horatio Hornblower's first villain of the week, Midshipman Simpson, is a tyrant to the other midshipman on the Justinian, driving Horatio to suicidal feelings, and is implied to have done truly horrific things to Archie in the past. After the declaration of war sends Horatio and Archie to the Indefatigable, they find the wreckage of the Justinian and are sent out to rescue the survivors, one of whom is Simpson. There is absolutely no question of Simpson showing gratitude for being saved from freezing to death in the water. Instead, he tries to reestablish his old habit of terrorizing them and when that fails, attempts to murder them both during a cutting-out expedition.
• The Jeffersons: Unlike what the episode title may imply, "Sorry, Wrong Meeting" is not a funny little story about accidentally walking into the wrong meeting, although the plot is most certainly about walking into the wrong meeting. To determine how to handle a series of burglaries in the Manhattan high-rise where the Willises and Jeffersons live, Tom plans a meeting; in the elevator, he runs into a man (who has just moved into the building) and his son, who are planning their own meeting. Tom — unknowing that the gentleman is the master of the local chapter of The Klan, and unknowing that the meeting is about running the Jeffersons out — offers to come. George, Tom and Mr. Bentley (also a white man) arrive and discover that they have the wrong meeting. A loud argument eventually ensues, with George's natural talent of wit (along with Tom's reasoning and Mr. Bentley also using sarcastic wit) thwarting the leader's racist reasoning at every turn. Eventually, the Klan leader suddenly passes out, and George — the only one who knows CPR — manages to revive him and save his life. However, when the man's son tells him that George had saved him, the leader promptly tells his son that "You should've let me die" as the paramedics take him away (the audience gasps in disbelief at this point). His attitude makes the other members realize what they're doing is wrong and, when his assistant tries to resume the meeting, the others all leave the club en masse, with the son — who had once admired his father and was starting to become the very racist image of him -- apologizes and takes a look at his own values.
• Kamen Rider Gaim: Once mob mentality set in for the citizens, they rarely acknowledge Beat Riders as their heroes, even after witnessing them attacking the Inves. In fact, they hail a guy who fought a Beat Rider as a hero despite the former being responsible for an Inves outbreak... Granted, the latter was about to sic some Inves at the mob...
• On one episode of Kirby Buckets, Dawn saves Principal Mitchell's life after he chokes on a turkey leg, but the first thing he sees when he regains consciousness is a stray dog, and he thinks the dog was the one who saved him. Fortunately, Dawn is later able to prove to the whole school that she, not the dog, deserves credit for saving Mitchell's life. How do they react? They boo her because they are disappointed the dog wasn't the hero. In fact, Mitchell wishes he would have choked to death rather than being saved by Dawn.
• In Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Detective Robert Goren's mother is this towards him. Despite Goren being the most successful out of her two sons, she constantly treats him with disrespect and indifference, even though he's always there when she needs him, and he always checks up on her from time to time to see how she is doing. Meanwhile, she treats her other son with love and affection, even though he is a loser and a drug addict who has been in and out of jail many times. He never goes to visit her, even when she was dying, and he didn't even attend her funeral. This is explained in a later episode. Goren is the product of a man his mother had an affair with, who also turned out to be a notorious serial killer, while his older brother is the only child she had with her husband.
• Little House on the Prairie: The 1979 episode "Barn Burner", which deals with the hardcore racism of a Walnut Grove-area farmer, has such an example at the episode's climax. Judd Larabee is being tried for barn burning in the aftermath of the destruction of Jonathan Garvey's barn; the offense carries an automatic death penalty upon conviction. Eleven of the 12 jurors have voted to convict Larabee, but one –- Joe Kagan, the black farmer whom Larabee strongly hates –- is not convinced Larabee was responsible; Kagan's instincts prove correct when Jonathan's son, Andy, admits he left a lantern hanging too close to the barn and it ignited the dry tinderwood. Larabee is acquitted ... and shows his graciousness by continuing to call Kagan every racist name in the book! Larabee pays a heavy price in the end, as his family leaves him and the other townsfolk shun him; it is implied that Larabee dies shortly thereafter of a heart attack.
• One episode of Lois & Clark had Superman facing a lawsuit after rescuing a rock musician who claimed Superman injured his hand in the process and that he couldn't play guitar anymore. Turns out the guy had a history of suing people at the slightest provocation.
• Lost: Kate killed her abusive stepfather after getting sick of the way he treated her mother. Diane, her mother, is the one that turns Kate in to the police for the murder, effectively choosing an abusive asshole over her own daughter.
• In the eleventh episode of The Mandalorian, Din Djarin subverts, then plays this trope straight, after being rescued by Bo-Katan and a small squad of Mandalorian warriors. He's initially grateful that they rescued him and the Child from being killed during a double cross, but he absolutely loses it when the Mandos take off their helmets (as "The Way," a creed he strictly adheres to, prohibits such removal in front of others not in one's family). Bo tells him that his philosophy came from a cult of zealots, and he storms off with the Child in tow.
• M*A*S*H
  • In the episode "Of Moose and Men", Hawkeye saves the life of a Colonel who is angered by his unmilitary bearing and lack of discipline. After the operation, the closest he can come to thanking Hawkeye is to tell him he's "letting him off the hook" (as a favor to Colonel Potter, not Hawkeye himself) by not having him court-martialed for insubordination.
  • In another episode, Hawkeye saves the life of a North Korean spy, who curses him for weakness and vows to fight him someday.
• Merlin
  • Sophia from the episode, "The Gates of Avalon". As one of The Fair Folk forced into the body of a mortal woman, Sophia was not at all pleased when Arthur (whom she enchanted into falling in love with her) saved her from a raider attack. In fact, she was enraged that she had been lowered to a state where she had to be rescued by someone far less powerful than she had been and still plotted to kill Arthur so she and her father could return back to Avalon.
  • Arthur in the earlier seasons was completely unwilling to thank Merlin for his help or his advice. Nowadays, he's much more grateful, to the point where Merlin is practically Arthur's unofficial advisor and everyone knows it.
  • Subverted in the finale, when Merlin tells a dying Arthur his secret. At first, Arthur feels angry and betrayed and tells Merlin to get away from him. Then he realizes how much Merlin has done for him and Camelot and is grateful. His last words:
    Arthur: I want to say something I've never said to you before. Thank you.
• In Misfits, when Nikki receives a heart transplant that saves her life, she tells the doctor she doesn't want her new heart and orders him to take it out and give her a different one. In her defense, along with the new heart she had inherited the "gift" of spontaneous teleportation (her first trip resulted in her finding herself in the morgue, lying on top of the frozen corpse of her heart donor) but she couldn't really tell the doctor that part without sounding batshit crazy.
• My Country: The New Age: Seon-ho, in more ways than one. Bang-won spares his life and Seon-ho repays him by killing his soldiers and trying to kill him.
• Neighbours: When Nicolete Stone personally rescues Harlow Robinson from the woman who kidnapped her, you might expect this to end the feud she was having with Harlow's grandfather Paul, who wanted her out of his son and son-in-law's lives, in large part due to not-entirely-unreasonable concerns about Nicolette's integrity (not that Paul has any moral high ground in that area). Barely two weeks after the kidnapping, Paul was still as antagonistic as ever.

O-Z

• Outlander: Stephen Bonnet, a thief, is helped by Claire and Jamie. He repays them by coming back with some other thieves to rob everyone.
• Oz:
  • Beecher protects Guenzel and prevents the Aryans from using him as a sex slave. Guenzel repays him by beating him up and humiliating him in front of the entire prison after learning that he's bisexual. Beecher then rescinds his protection and trades him to the Aryans.
  • Clayton Hughes is unable to show any sort of gratitude to anyone. Glynn repeatedly covers for his mistakes and drops out of his campaign for lieutenant governor to take care of him, which Hughes repays by viewing him as a Category Traitor and trying to murder him. His mother is nothing but loving and even visits him in prison, which he rewards by bitching at her for sheltering him. Yood and Basil's efforts to be friendly with him are met with Hughes behaving like a total Jerkass just because Yood is white.
• Power Rangers
  • In Power Rangers Time Force, it was revealed in his Back Story that Ransik was this to Dr. Ferricks after he used a special serum to save him from Venomark's venom by stealing all his serum, destroying his lab, and nearly killing him. This lead to Ferricks' transformation into Frax and his Start of Darkness.
  • During Finn's backstory in Power Rangers RPM, we are shown a time when he tried to get a little girl's lunchbox back from a group of bullies, which resulted in him getting beaten up for it. After the fighting is over, the little girl goes up to Finn and instead of thanking him, she dumps all the contents in her lunchbox onto him.
  • There's a subplot in Power Rangers Zeo that revolves around a blind woman. She drops her books and the Rangers try to help, only for her to get pissed and storm off, believing they were only helping her because she's blind. When Rocky goes to see her, she takes off again. One of the Rangers tells him it was because he "felt sorry for her", e.i. pity. But really, getting pissy at someone who helps you after dropping your books doesn't win you points at all, even if you're disabled.
• Princess Agents:
  • Chu Qiao gives Jin Zhu a chance to escape prison, a change of clothes, and lets her leave unharmed. Jin Zhu repays her by blaming all her misfortune on Chu Qiao instead of her own actions.
  • Yuan Chun blames Chu Qiao for everything that happened to her and Yuan Song. Even though Chu Qiao knew nothing about it beforehand, rescued them as soon as she found out, and goes out of her way to protect and help them. Somewhat justified since Yuan Chun is traumatised and heart-broken, but she still pins the blame on the one person who isn't responsible in any way.
• Scrubs:
  • Elliot qualifies with her behavior towards Dr. Cox in later seasons. In a few episodes, Elliot would rant at Dr. Cox about how he has never helped her. Not counting that he helps her in all of these episodes and other times, he punched out the CHIEF OF MEDICINE for her, risking his job. Though she was a bit ungrateful, she did have a point, as Dr. Cox supported and helped JD out a lot than any of the other interns/residents.
  • Dr. Kelso was one as well, treating Ted, the hospital's lawyer, as his personal assistant and making him do degrading tasks. When Kelso finally retires in Season 8, he finally thanks Ted for all he's done for him.
  • Discussed in "My Big Bird": JD does extra work to diagnose a patient, then is upset when the patient doesn't thank him for his hard work. The patient says he shouldn't expect to get thanked for just doing his job, and as a garbage collector, he never gets thanked. Later, JD waits outside for a garbage man to come so he could thank him and is shown hugging him.
• In "The Parking Garage" episode on Seinfeld, George defends a little boy who is being mistreated by his mother, and the boy thanks him by saying that he's ugly.
• Played straight and averted in Stargate SG-1. Despite various team-ups with the likes of Apophis and Ba'al, both continuously try to destroy the SG-1 afterwards. Averted with Lord Yu, who was at least honorable enough to respect their deals, though admittedly he held to a higher moral standard than most Goa'uld, for instance being the only System Lord to vote against readmitting Anubis into their ranks, and not hiding behind a pretense of being a god. It's notable he was the only one still alive from the time Anubis was expelled, making him one of the more successful ones too.
  • SG1 themselves were the Ungrateful Bastards when they left Fifth trapped in a time dilation field after he betrayed the other replicators to help them escape. This comes back to bite them in the ass... hard.
• The living Ancients in the Stargate Atlantis episode "The Return" fall squarely within this trope. After their hyperdrive failed in the void between the Milky Way and Pegasus, they set their ship up to travel at .999 percent the speed of light. Thanks to relativity, they're still alive 10,000 years later when the Atlantis expedition finds them and brings them home. Their thanks? Kicking the entire human population out, including the people on the mainland, so they could be "alone" and have "time to adjust". Despite repeatedly stating their gratitude, they never actually show it. Arguably they could have had a chance had they not been killed within weeks of reclaiming the city, but there's really no excuse for just how unreasonable they were behaving at the beginning.
  • The Coalition of Planets that puts Sheppard's team on trial definitely counts. They made some good points (the same points the fandom made about their numerous What the Hell, Hero?-worthy moments, in fact) but, as Sheppard pointed out, the Atlantis team is the only thing standing between the Pegasus galaxy and total domination by the Wraith (or Michael).
• Despite being the self-professed model of the Proud Warrior Race Guy with the obsession for Honor Before Reason, the Klingons of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine can be sadly deficient in this area.
  • In one example, Worf is given the chance to kill Toral because of what his family did to disgrace Worf's. However, since Toral is just a boy whose family used him as a pawn, Worf spares his life. Years later, Toral confronts and tries to kill Worf over the legendary Sword of Kahless, even taunting Worf for having spared his life. Honorless petaQ.
  • Chancellor Gowron owes his position to The Federation—Picard (as the Arbiter of Succession) installed him as chancellor and exposed the illegal Romulan aid to his enemies of the House of Duras, and Worf actively fought for him and persuaded his brother Kurn to do so. After his forces win the civil war, he immediately begins re-writing history to make it look as though he didn't need Picard's help. And when the Federation opposes his invasion of Cardassia? He withdraws from the Khitomer Accords and declares war on his former allies.
• Star Trek: Enterprise carries on the tradition of ungrateful adversaries.
  • In the episode "Sleeping Dogs", Archer and his crew save a Klingon ship in two ways: they cure the crew of a neurotoxin that they'd all unknowingly ingested and save the ship itself from being crushed in the atmosphere of a gas giant. When the Klingon captain recovers, he immediately demands Archer's surrender, even threatening to fire on Enterprise. Archer tells him to shove it up his torpedo tubes before warping away. Lampshaded by Archer himself: "Remind me to stop trying to help people."
  • Lampshaded by Archer again during a conversation with Silik, whose people (the Suliban) are one of many fighting to alter the timeline for their own benefit, despite the efforts of Daniels and his associates to protect the timeline. Archer learns that Daniels and his watchdog buddies once saved the Suliban from another faction led by a fanatic named Vosk, whom Archer and Silik are teaming up against.
    Archer: Are you saying you owe Daniels' people your lives?
    Silik: They still oppose us, they're still our enemy. That will never change.
• Supernatural:
  • Discussed by Bobbywhen speaking to his younger self, who had just killed his father, a Domestic Abuser. His mother tells him "God is going to punish [him]".
  "This is where you learn they pretty much never say thanks when you save 'em".
  • Castiel accuses Dean of this late in Season 5, when Dean has decided to say yes to Michael, which basically voids every sacrifice Castiel has made for the Winchesters up to that point.
  Castiel: I gave you everything! And this is what you give me.
• The Twilight Zone (1959): In the episode "What You Need", Jerkass Fred Renard meets a clairvoyant peddler who gives people items they'll need in the future, and demands something from him as well. He's given a pair of scissors that ends up saving his life when his scarf gets caught in an elevator, but instead of thanking him he instead demands that he help him cheat at gambling and attempts to kill him when he refuses. He's then hit by a car due to a pair of slippery shoes he stole from him, as predicted.
• The Twilight Zone (1985):
  • In "Healer", Jackie Thompson revives Harry Faulk using the healing stone after he has a heart attack. However, Harry refuses to heal him after his gunshot wound reappears as he doesn't want the share that the money that they made from their TV ministry.
  • In "Acts of Terror", Jack Simonson beats his wife Louise, cheats on her, and breaks her property. Thanks to a supernatural Doberman responding to her anger, Jack starts suffering for his ways. When Louise is finally pushed over the edge, the Doberman begins mauling Jack (who is begging for mercy). Louise ultimately stops it from killing him, and the dog vanishes. The next morning, rather than express gratitude or change his ways, Jack intends to get payback for his injuries now that the supernatural pooch is seemingly gone. Of course, Louise is no longer scared of him, and the Doberman reappears as backup.
• As shown on the quotes page, in the Victorious special Locked Up!, Tori protects Jade from a prisoner who was threatening her. Jade's response: "I didn't need your help!" Which is an interesting perspective considering that said prisoner just knocked Jade to the ground with one blow.
• In Wolf Hall, Anne Boleyn likes to call Thomas Cromwell the man she made, not believing that he'd already made himself under the tutelage of Cardinal Wolsey, to say nothing of the fact that Cromwell was the one who provided the legal framework for Henry to marry her. Her relatives get in on it too once they see Cromwell isn't their Yes-Man; they promise to kill him when everyone thinks Henry is dead in a jousting accident and George tries to remind Cromwell who is "responsible" for his rise by slandering him to Henry. It's only when Anne is arrested that someone finally points out that Cromwell is the one who got her the throne in the first place.
• In The Wrong Mans, Scarlett's husband goes to some extreme lengths to get her safe, showing that he does genuinely care for her. Her response is to chew him out for sending those "dickheads" to do the job. She then realises that he's sold a box of vital information and beats him to death, albeit accidentally.
• Ingrid in Young Dracula, especially in Season 3. She's trying to distract her brother so one of her vampires can kill him. She decides the appropriate distraction is to thank him for when he saved her life the previous episode.

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