YMMV / The Wrong Mans

• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Paul Smoke may be somewhat unstable and a traitor, but his breakdown in the series one finale, when he rants about his family, makes him somewhat pitiable.
  • Sam, come the start of the second series. While Phil appears to have adapted to their new surroundings rather well, making many new friends, Sam has been dragged away from his own life after it was about to turn around. He's turned to alcohol (almost becoming alcoholic in the process), constantly has his Mean Boss hitting on him in between bouts of abuse and just desperately wants to go home. It's not hard to blame him for being bitter and cynical, and while he and Phil do go to some extreme lengths to return home, such as forcing a French parachute plane to do a skydive with them and then abandoning their helpers, they still come across as the world's punching bags.
  • The unnamed Russian mook that holds Sam at gunpoint in the climax of the second series. While he doesn't appear to be particularly rational, he just misses his brother and asks why Sam did what he did, in a downright tragic aversion of What Measure Is a Mook?.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Scarlett goes from sympathetic to detestable when she accidentally murders her own husband, then blames Sam and Phil for it. In this case, the spoilered action in question is still bad, but she was somewhat traumatised at the time; the event horizon in this case is blaming two innocents that had gone through a lot to get her safe.
  • Carlos Espinosa crosses the line when he threatens Sam and Phil to a gruesome death should they refuse to kill a much stronger inmate.
  • Kalil crosses the line when he murders the rest of his team to try and make a bigger profit from selling the chemical weapons.
• Retroactive "Retroactive Recognition": David Harewood has a brief cameo in the first episode; the scene was originally shot for the pilot three years earlier, before he became well-known for Homeland. They've admitted in an interview that because of this "it looks like the biggest bit of Stunt Casting ever".
• Tear Jerker:
  • The funeral at the opening of the second series.
  • Phil's phoning home to find out that his mother's heart is getting worse, and that she might not have long.
  • The Reveal that the unnamed part of the Big Bad Ensemble is the brother of the mook that Paul Smoke killed via Neck Snap.
  • Phil and his mum reuniting, particularly when he gets to the hospital bed and finds it empty. While it turns out that she was just coming back from surgery, for a moment it looked like the writers actually were going to go through with it.
• The Woobie:
  • Both Sam and Phil in Series 1. Phil in particular looks crushed when nobody in the office, bar Sam, shows any interest in socialising with him.
  • Phil's mother in series 2. Because of Phil having to fake his death, her health has gone downhill and her heart problems may well mean she doesn't last till Christmas.
  • Lizzie, come Series 2. Her boyfriend suddenly disappears without warning and is presumed dead. She gets signs he might still be alive, and keeps campaigning outside the police headquarters for answers that will never be given to her.
• Determinator Kalil chases the duo from Slovakia to Berkshire stealing any vehicle and crossing any boarder he has to to do so.