With Friends Like These / Live-Action TV

Questionable friendships in Live-Action TV series.

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• Col and Frank from The Adventures of Lano and Woodley , though this is one-sided (i.e. Col -> Frank).

• Arrow: Supposedly, Oliver and Laurel have been close friends for over half their lives. In reality, especially starting in Season 2, Oliver treats Laurel very poorly. Despite claiming to support her during her Descent into Addiction arc, he actually offers very little support and ultimately throws her struggles with addiction in her face more than once; but conversely offers no support or compliment regarding her sobriety. Having cheated on her with her sister Sara prior to the start of the series, the two start dating again in Season 2 and seem to expect her to accept it and support it (even though she's clearly still in love with him). He lets multiple people join his team and offers them training, but very harshly refuses to train her despite her asking. Even after she joins his team, he spends his time telling her she needs more training...while refusing to really train her. She even comments on his refusal to treat her with respect one more than once occasion. He occasionally seems aware of his poor treatment of her (it is repeatedly indicated he believes that he is not good enough for her), but continues to do so. They actually seem to be slowly patching things up in the tail end of Season 4, but then she gets killed, and no one bothers to resurrect her. Which also may count as an example of this.
• The main characters on The Big Bang Theory are all Jerkasses who near-constantly insult each other and put their own needs above others. In particular, Sheldon might be an egotistical Insufferable Genius, but Leonard, Raj, Howard, and Penny give as good as they get when it comes to him.
• Lord Percy Percy from Blackadder II suffers absolute continued abuse from his 'friend' Edmund Blackadder and yet shows utter loyalty and devotion, wanting nothing more than to be Blackadder's friend. While the same applies to Baldrick of course, he is Blackadder's servant—Percy and Edmund actually have equal status unlike in the first series and yet Percy.
  • In the same series, Blackadder himself gets the same treatment from one of the many incarnations of Flashheart.
  • Lieutenant George basically takes over Percy's role in Blackadder Goes Forth.
  • And is it arguable that this also applies to Blackadder and Captain Darling from Blackadder Goes Forth. They hate each other, Blackadder envious of his cushy job miles from the trenches and constantly picks on and riles him, yet it is implied that they do know each other well and were possible friends before the war. Their strange friendship is shown the strongest in the final episode (Goodbyeeee), where not only do Blackadder, George and Baldrick fail to escape 'going over the top', but Captain Darling is also sent by Melchett to join them, and he and Blackadder seemingly bury the hatchet minutes before going to their likely deaths.
• The two characters in Bottom. Previously played almost identically by the same two actors who were also two of The Young Ones in Filthy Rich & Catflap and The Comic Strip Presents episode "Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door''.
• The Brady Bunch: Several episodes, most notably "Everyone Can't Be George Washington," where Peter merely feels this way after his classmates learn he's portraying Benedict Arnold, and thus assume he's sympathizing with a traitor, in a school play about George Washington.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • The Scooby Gang and Faith. After her Face–Heel Turn, they give her a We Used to Be Friends speech (Buffy and Willow in particular), and yet never seem to realize that their idea of friendship was to lie to her, go behind her back, betray her trust, and most damning of all, let her live in a dump of a motel room that could be (and was) attacked by vampires. And despite all of that, Faith still wanted at least one of them to try and get her to come back.
  • The Trio from Season 6. They repeatedly try to throw each other under the bus to save themselves, can't agree on if their crimes are/aren't too evil, sometimes create problems for themselves with their infighting, and eventually fall apart as they completely betray each other - and despite it all, by the start of Season 7, they still trust each other enough to work together.
• Dawson's Creek: Dawson to everyone. He constantly belittles Pacey, manipulates Joey, treats Jen like crap, ignores Jack, and can't acknowledge any problems other than his own. While he's idolized by the other characters, the audience is left wondering why any sane human would talk to him. Special examples include dumping Jen when discovering she's not a virgin, ending his friendship with Joey when she gets a new boyfriend a year after he rejected her, almost killing Pacey in a boat race, forgetting his birthday, admitting straight up he uses him to make himself feel better and laughing at Pacey's Abusive Parents behaviour because they're 'just kidding'. (This is after being 'best friends' for sixteen years; in comparison, Jack sees Pacey and his dad interacting ONCE and immediately understands the fraught relationship they have).
• Jimmy and Spinner on Degrassi: The Next Generation are supposed to be best friends, but in every single episode where they are featured, they play ghastly pranks on each other — and somehow forgive each other after a few episodes. The writers finally took this one to its dark extreme, leaving the friendship imperiled (and the audience hanging) far longer than usual after one prank left its victim in a wheelchair.
• On Diff'rent Strokes, Dudley and Arnold's other friends would turn on him for any reason at any time in a heartbeat. Throughout the series run. After watching the TV Movie based on the cast's backstage story, one wonders if this wasn't another source of script frustration for the late Gary Coleman.
• Doctor Who:
  • The First Doctor absolutely loathed his initial companions (except Susan, his granddaughter) and would try to get rid of them several times. Even after warming up to them, he'd troll them incessantly by playing a senile fool and then make fun of them when they fell for it.
  • The Third Doctor and the Brigadier: the Brigadier orders the Doctor around and is generally military, while the Doctor snaps and jibes and is generally uncooperative... but then one of them smiles.
  • The Fourth Doctor constantly patronised his companions (called Leela a savage, chewed out Harry for everything, even talked down to fellow Time Lord Romana) yet would unfailingly call them "my best friend(s)".
  • The majority of interaction between The Sixth Doctor and Peri is made up of nonstop bickering.
  • The bickering would rise to unprecedented levels whenever the Doctor met other incarnations, with name-calling and snide put-downs even when they were working together. Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee even kept up a mock animosity at con appearances, despite actually being good friends. Even during "Time Crash" (aka "David Tennant fangasms for five minutes over getting to meet his favorite Doctor"), Ten can't resist slipping in a few cracks against Five, while Five dismisses Ten as a particularly annoying fanboy.
  • One could argue that this defined the relationship between River and the Tenth Doctor. Ten saw her as an incredibly vexing interruption which she found highly amusing because she already knows about him while he doesn't know her. Reversed parallel timelines, you see...
• Oswald, Lewis, and Kate from The Drew Carey Show more often than not screw things up for the title character. It was once revealed that they accidentally messed up Drew's resume for College in High School without him knowing and Oswald hastily wrote one to cover it up and putting idiotic things in it like saying that his favorite animal was a bunny. With how much they mess things up, it's a wonder Drew didn't put poison in their beers and tell them it was a new flavor.
• Played for Laughs (like everything else) in El Chavo del ocho. In an episode, Quico shows off a bottle of soda pop to El Chavo, to make him angry, and then this exchange ensues:
  Chavo: And I don't hit you just because good people should love their enemies.
  Quico: But I'm not your enemy. I'm your friend.
  Chavo: Should have said it before! (punches Quico out and takes his soda)
• The crew of Moya on Farscape, who in the first season alone alternately try to kill each other, sell each other out, steal from each other, beat each other up, and in one particularly painful and memorable case (because unlike many of the others, they were under no duress) they succeed in dismembering one of the crew so they can sell the limb they take. He got better, but still... Oh, and their hobby seems to be finding new speciesist ways to insult each other. Even Zhaan and Crichton, the nicest of the crew, won’t hesitate to sell other crewmates up the river if it benefits them.
  • The subtitle of one multi-part season two arc is even called "With Friends Like These," and involves the crew of Moya throwing together an assault team of a Tavloid (Tavlek), a Sheeyang, a Vocarian Bloodtracker, and Zenetan Pirates (all of whom served as antagonists during the series's first season) to knock over a Shadow Depository, kill Scorpius, and rescue D'Argo's son.
• The Ferals. They smack each other upside the head and insult each other at a moment's notice. But break down and have a tearful goodbye when it looks like they'll have to split up.
• Friend or Foe?: This game show, which aired on Game Show Network in the early 2000s, was built on this trope. Simply put, teams of two contestants each worked together to answer questions and earn cash. At the end of each elimination round, assuming the last-place team had earned any cash, the team that was being eliminated got to decide whether they wanted to split their earnings ... but the catch was they made their decision separately, setting up the trope. If they wanted to split, they said "Friend," but if they wanted to keep all the money for themselves, they marked "Foe." Thus, one contestant saying "Friend" and the other marking "Foe" meant only the contestant who chose "Foe" kept the money ... thus fitting the "backstabbing" aspect of this trope. (Incidentally, the team split the money 50-50 for a double "Friend" and lost everything on a double "Foe.")
• Friends: Occasionally Phoebe and Rachel towards Chandler. They often mock him and his relationship with Monica despite knowing he's an Insecure Love Interest. (This includes introducing Monica's "soulmate" right in front of him.) It's implied they're just jealous, as they're mostly single while he and Monica have an unbelievably happy relationship. Plus they normally treat him badly only when Monica isn't around because, given how much she cares about Chandler and her hyper-protective personality, she'd probably kick their asses if they hurt him. When Monica wants to cut out Phoebe, Chandler doesn't seem very bothered by it.
  Monica: We are not friends with Phoebe anymore!
  Chandler: If she asks, I protested a little, but ok!
• The Golden Girls often verged on this.
  • For one example, in "The Artist," Blanche, Rose, and Dorothy lie to each other repeatedly, fight over the same man (who turns out to be gay, but they don't know that until the end), and spend the whole episode basically calling each other old, fat and ugly, only for the artist at the end to commend them on what wonderful friends they are.
  • In "Ebbtide VI: The Wrath of Stan" Dorothy winds up in court for inadvertently running a slum with Stan (they had inherited the building, Dorothy was not interested in running it, but Stan blackmailed her into co-owning by threatening to kick out her elderly uncle). During the episode, the three other main characters not only show a shocking indifference to Dorothy's problem (she could easily go to jail for being accidentally tied to the slum) but in fact do several things that make Dorothy look even guiltier - Sophia deliberately makes the court hate her by telling them she put her into a nursing home (which the show treats as a terrible thing for some reason), Rose tries to make Dorothy look guiltier to spice up the story for her consumer advocate job, and Blanche is easily swayed into incriminating Dorothy after the sleazy prosecutor flirts with her.
  • In general, the other's poor treatment of Dorothy really makes one wonder why she puts up with them at all. The final season in particular takes the bullying of Dorothy by the others to almost unbearable levels. "Thank you for being a friend," indeed.
• On Gossip Girl, neither Serena nor Nate seem to be able to decide whether Chuck is their great friend or their annoying enemy. Usually they complain about him until they need something, in which case they go straight to him. The ironic thing is, Chuck is always loyal to Nate. Nate is however a pretty lousy best friend. At one point he temporarily called off their friendship because Chuck sold his club Victrola in order to get money to lend Nate's mother so they could keep their home. Nate is also the guy who got back together with his ex Blair, knowing full well she's the only girl Chuck has ever loved and then proceeded to go to Chuck and whine about how Blair hasn't changed and he doesn't like who she is.
• Homicide: Life on the Street: This is Frank Pembleton and Tim Bayliss's relationship in a nutshell. Bayliss is Pembleton's Only Friend and the two have a close bond, but Pembleton always treats Bayliss like shit, constantly belittling and criticizing him for whatever he does that Frank doesn't like.
  Bayliss: You're my best friend.
  Pembleton: What am I supposed to say now, that you're my best friend? I don't have best friends.
• House and the entire hospital in House, but especially House and Wilson. The Ho Yay crowd will claim this is actually The Masochism Tango at work. The dynamics are thus: "House is a jerk, his team puts up with him because he's da boss, and Cuddy just doesn't seem to have a backbone." Then there's Wilson, the mousy-looking Nice Guy cancer doctor, to whom House is an unrepentant bully: stealing his food, interrupting his meetings with outrageous claims, pulling pranks on him. Then comes an episode where Wilson says, proudly, that House is his best friend. * beat* LOL, WUT? (It is worth pointing out that unlike the other characters, Dr. Wilson gives as good as he gets, and it's heavily implied that they both enjoy their pranks a lot; it's the rest of the world that just doesn't get them.)
  • As seen in this video, it's pretty obvious Wilson enjoys pulling pranks on House as well.
  • This is briefly subverted in the episodes immediately following Amber's death. House's seeming insensitivity to Wilson's pain and ducking his responsibility for what happened led Wilson to tell him, "We're not friends, House. I'm not sure we ever were."
• How I Met Your Mother:
  • Barney Stinson to everyone else. Barney is a pretty assholish, selfish, manipulative, abusive, and generally crappy friend as well when things are good and the consequences aren't serious. However, you can always count on him whenever when the shit hits the fan (see: Marshall and Lily's breakup, Ted's car accident, Robin's deportation).
  • When Marshall is finally ready to move on after his breakup with Lily, Barney offers to be his wingman, which consists of picking up every girl that showed an interest in Marshall. It's hinted later on that he did this because he wanted him to get back together with Lily.
• iCarly:
  • Sam Puckett and Freddie Benson. She tends to use him as her personal punching bag, often beating on him or attacking his self-esteem. Though they constantly go head-to-head, they have a few moments that show they do care for each other as friends, like in the episodes "iKiss", and "iReunite With Missy". And in the early episodes, the answer to the question "Why does Freddie put up with Sam?" is Carly.
  • Also, Sam and Gibby.
  • Thanks to a bit of Fridge Logic, Carly can be this to Freddie at times. Given that she has humiliated him on camera, enables Sam's abuse towards him (To the point where she thinks it's cute that she no longer hits him in the face), and played with his feelings for her on more than one occasion. As this fanfic points out, Carly has treated guys who have actually wronged her in the past better than she does Freddie.
• The opening disclaimer to Impractical Jokers shows how they get along:
  WARNING: The following program contains scenes of graphic stupidity among four lifelong friends who compete to embarrass each other...
• Jay and Will from The Inbetweeners. The dynamics are like this among the four main characters: Will and Simon are best friends, and Jay and Neil are best friends. Will and Simon both consider Neil a friend in the end due to him being generally nice though his stupidity often annoys them. Simon and Jay often seem to hate each other, but they have been friends for 13 years, so in the end, they have some grudging respect for each other and sticks together due to simply having known each other for so long. However, Will - the newcomer to the group - and Jay have basically nothing in common. 98 % of their interaction consists of them insulting each other (even interrupting each other's conversations to do it), and Jay trying to get Will in trouble. Jay has a very, very few Pet the Dog moments towards Will that may suggest they're really Vitriolic Best Buds deep down, but most of the time they are this trope.
• Every main character/the Gang in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. They constantly sabotage each other with dangerous stunts and yet they're still close enough to do things like make a board game to play together, have regular movie nights, and sing a capella every once in a while.
• The cast of Jackass are assholes to each other, pulling horrible and violent pranks on each other all the time. None of them really mind for too long, largely because they are a gang of sadomasochists.
• Kamen Rider Den-O: The four Imagin, who spend every episode fighting.
• LazyTown:
  • The other kids can veer into this with regards to Stephanie. For example, in "LazyTown's New Superhero" Trixie says "Oh man if she's protecting us we're in real trouble."
  • If his actor's comments are to be believed, Robbie Rotten qualifies as this towards everybody - especially Sportacus - because of how often he belittles, manipulates and endangers them.
• In The League, Ruxin will do just about anything to his friends to improve his position in their fantasy football league.
• Eddie Haskell from Leave It to Beaver is the living embodiment of this trope combined with Toxic Friend Influence. Anything bad that he does causes a conflict or an issue for Beaver and Wally in whatever episode they are in. The same applies for Beaver's friends Larry Mundello and Whitey.
• Merlin and Arthur tend to be like this. They bicker and insult each other, but when it comes to it, they do care for each other. Though probably they wouldn't admit it.
• This is the entire concept behind Moonlighting. Maddie (Cybill Shepherd) and David (Bruce Willis) spent the entire series bickering.
• Mickey Pearce towards Rodney Trotter on Only Fools and Horses.
  • At some point in the series, Del will be such a manipulative and dangerous friend to Boycie, Trigger, Denzil, and Mike that it is any wonder that they like him at all (and despite everything, we see in Sickness and Health when they thought that he might be dying that they do). Highlights include narrowly escaping an exploding bus, poisoning them with toxic waste, strong-arming Denzil to hand over his redundancy money, and burning Mike's head with an electric paint stripper that he passed off as a hairdryer. Boycie is the only one who comes close to also being this trope. In one early episode, the man was perfectly willing to take absolutely everything that the Trotters owned over a game of cards that he was cheating in.
• This pretty much defines Father Mukada and Miguel Alvarez's relationship in Oz. Mukada is pretty much Alvarez's Only Friend and works tirelessly to help him, which Alvarez rewards by taking him hostage twice and not beating the shit out of him when he interrupts a gang meeting to check on him. In turn, Mukada repeatedly and unhesitatingly calls Alvarez out on his bullshit and actively forces him into being The Atoner.
• Mark and Jeremy from Peep Show screw each other over pretty much once per episode. Jeremy is the usual culprit, but Mark has had his moments.
• Vorenus and Pullo from Rome. Just a few examples: Vorenus kicking Pullo to the curb claiming he is dead to him, the two of them beating each other up to the point of falling off a balcony, insults on the other one's quality of character.
• Dr Cox and JD from Scrubs, though this is also rather one-sided.
• Seinfeld:
  • Even though the four main characters hang out only with each other they snark each other constantly; George Costanza, in particular, is more pitied and tolerated than liked. By the last season, the antagonistic rapport between the main characters has deepened into mutual contempt, culminating in the final scene of the four in jail, complaining about trivialities and each other.
  • When Elaine starts dating "Bizarro-Jerry", who has a much healthier and normal relationship with his George and Kramer like friends, she finds the dynamic creepy and fails to fit it.
• Sherlock: Most of the time, Sherlock and John are sarcastic with each other, and Sherlock also locked his friend in a place, and left him stranded in Brixton but said that John was his only friend. John refers to Sherlock as his friend in a stressful moment in the episode "The Reichenbach Fall".

• Smallville:
  • In the earlier seasons Clark and Lex make a big deal of how important their friendship is while lying to each other, accusing each other of various crimes (often without cause or evidence of any kind), and making pointed remarks about each other's psychological and relationship problems. How much of this is planned building on their later relationship is an exercise left up to the viewer.
  • In the later seasons Oliver fills in for Lex. They practically do nothing but argue about this and that and in the season eight finale Oliver shoots Clark in the back with a kryptonite dart. It's a long story.
• Sometimes Jack O'Neill and Daniel Jackson from Stargate SG-1 fall under this trope.
  Jack: You're going to miss me.
  Daniel: The belittling comments, the rude remarks, the pointless arguments...
  Jack: You're going to miss Carter and Teal'c.
• The classic example occurs in Star Trek: The Original Series in the close friendship between Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy. When someone asks Kirk whether Spock and McCoy are best friends or bitter enemies, Kirk - with great insight - answers, "I don't think even they know." Later on, when Spock is allowed to invite his closest companions, he asks McCoy as well as Kirk to join him. Dr. McCoy is clearly touched by the honor.
• Commander Shran in Star Trek: Enterprise. Although arrogant, militant, and speciesist (his favourite nickname for Captain Archer is "pinkskin", and he loathes Vulcans and Tellarites) he has a strong sense of personal obligation and provides more practical help than humanity's Vulcan allies during the Xindi crisis.
• Hyde to Eric in That '70s Show (one-sided), and to Kelso, whose Jerkass tendencies are at least as strong as Hyde's own. In one episode Kelso takes the gang out to eat but plans to skip out on the check. One by one, everyone leaves, until Donna and Eric are stuck paying the bill. They get their "friends" back by making them "special" brownies with laxatives in them.
• On Top Gear, the three presenters can go from laughing like old chums to legitimately trying to kill one another in the span of seconds. For Instance:
  • James coming after Jeremy with a machete after Jeremy rear-ended him on the most dangerous road ... in the world. This was after he'd been rear-ended (on purpose) several times on the previous leg of the journey.
  • Jeremy throwing away Richard's targa roof in the middle of a snowstorm in the Alps after Richard drove over his drum kit. Jeremy followed this up by forcing Richard to drive faster to make Richard colder.
  • Perhaps this trope is best epitomized by the "Get the Others Shot or Arrested" challenge from the America special. They came disturbingly close to succeeding, too.
• Lilian from The Trouble With You Lilian is Madge's so-called "best friend", even though being her lodger, Madge bullies her and forces her to go along with anything she says.
• The Twilight Zone (1985):
  • In "A Message from Charity", Charity Payne tells her best friend Ursula Miller what she has learned of the future through her telepathic contact with Peter Wood. Ursula then brings Charity's claims to the attention of Squire Jonas Hacker and Charity is accused of being a witch.
  • In "Dead Run", it's implied that Johnny's company of truck drivers are like this.
  • In "The Last Defender of Camelot", Lancelot considers Merlin to be his friend from their days at Camelot together 1,000 years earlier. However, Merlin proves himself to be untrustworthy almost as soon as he awakens from his long sleep as he plans to sacrifice Tom and shape the world to his vision.
  • In "Cat and Mouse", Andrea Moffatt's co-worker Elaine, who calls her "the Mouse" behind her back, comes to the conclusion that sex is involved when Andrea goes from dowdy to chipper over the course of a few days. She bides her time and waits until Andrea leaves her house so that she can see for herself. She and Guillaume de Marchaux have sex in the 20 minutes that Andrea is gone, which is exactly what Elaine hoped would happen.
• The gang of friends in Britcom Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, but most noticeably Louise, who is vapid, vain, and downright nasty — she has no redeeming features whatsoever. The others frequently comment on how much they dislike her, so why is she still there?
• The four main characters in Will & Grace (Will, Grace, Karen, & Jack) treat each other horribly, despite apparently being each other's BFFs.
• Hardly an episode of World's Dumbest... passes before any of the panelists reminds one of the celebrity commentators about the events that caused their public disgrace among other things they'd rather forget.
• The entire cast of The Young Ones. When their first house is destroyed, they take it for granted that they will continue to live together in the next house. A conscious choice, not just accident. There's also an episode where Vyvyan introduces them to his mother, referring to Mike and Neil as friends (and Rick as "a complete bastard I know").
• Young Sheldon: In "White Trash, Holy Rollers and Punching People", almost the entire town, including Pastor Jeff, has turned their back on the Coopers.

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