The Good Guys

"The bad guys are a bunch of guys running around with guns. The good guys are a team of guys running around with guns."
—Dan Stark "$3.52"

The Good Guys is a 2010 summer Buddy Cop Show starring Bradley Whitford and Colin Hanks, from the creator of Burn Notice. The Pilot aired as a sneak-peek on May 19th of that year, and the series began its first season on June 7. Unfortunately, the show struggled with low ratings via something of a cult audience, and was cancelled after one season.

Dan Stark (Whitford) is a former brilliant detective who still works as if life were in The Eighties, while Jack Bailey (Hanks) is his By-The-Book Cop partner. The show's tone is very much like Burn Notice, but unlike Burn Notice's adherence to Awesome Yet Practical, The Good Guys runs on distilled Rule of Cool. Over-the-top shootouts and car chases are a regular occurrence, and in general, the show's writers seem to plan the plot purely around what's fun.

Much like Glee, The Good Guys tends to use its Troperiffic premise to build up subversions of the genre's conventions. And, also much like Glee, this gives the frequent impression that the show doesn't know if it's a parody, a deconstruction, or a reconstruction at any given time.

Tropes used in The Good Guys include:

Dan: I think it's thinking. You know... making plans.
Jack: Yes, but until the day they rise up comes, they make a handy tool for law enforcement.

  • Anachronic Order: Every episode! A rewind effect is used to go back and explain things.
  • Anti-Villain: Nearly all the villains on the show. Which of course makes Kyle seem even worse.
  • Armed Altruism: Jack does this in the pilot, despite being specifically told by his superior not to.
  • Arson, Murder, and Lifesaving: Jack and Dan clearly expect this after they complete their first case. Then, Da Chief tells them they caused over a million dollars in property damage and violated over 30 procedural rules, and they're lucky they still have their jobs.
  • Back for the Finale: Frank Savage.
  • Badass Mustache: Dan Stark. The mustache even got its own billing in some of the promos.
  • Batman Gambit: The villain's plan in "Hunches and Heists", using a bank heist as a feint by setting up one inept, unarmed crew so he can get the cops on the wrong side of the river. Then he detonates explosives on the bridge and sends his real crew after a jewelry store. It works perfectly except that Dan and Jack get there and scare the jewel thieves off, but they still don't manage to catch them.
  • Berserk Button: As Dr. Laviolette found out, Stark hates it when another man sits in his desk.
  • Big No: Dan lets out three of these when his trailer blows up.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Kyle
  • Bland-Name Product: In the show, the local paper is called the Dallas Daily News. The actual local papers in Dallas are the Dallas Observer and the Dallas Morning News.
  • Blatant Lies: In 1x03, Dan is forced to put a toy gun to Gemini's head since his is in the car. Gemini holds up his hands, then looks in the anti-theft mirror.

Gemini: That's a toy gun.
Dan: It's not! It's an orange gun!

  • Brick Joke: Played straight... and literally, in the episode "$3.52". At the start of the episode Dan vows to take down the drug smuggling ring with the $3.52 in his pocket. Fast-forward to the last minute of the episode, when everyone believes that the brick of Heroin is long gone. In comes Dan with a flashback to where he buys a brick for three bucks and a nougat bar for fifty cents, loses the two pennies somewhere along the line, and swaps the bricks.
  • The Brute: Sasha, the Georgians' muscle.
  • Buddy Cop Show: Either an Homage, a parody, or both.
  • Buffy-Speak: A lot like in episode 4.

"So the dog poisoner is actually a meth-lab-exploder-man?"

Dan: Crime is like women. When they demand attention, you just gotta whip out your gun and- (car peels away)

  • Da Chief: While not technically an actual chief, Ruiz fits most of the conventions of the trope.
  • Dangerously Genre Savvy: The Duke, antagonist of episode 1x09.
  • Dark Action Girl: The "Murderin' Jane".
  • Deconstructive Parody: To the idea of the Cowboy Cop. See trope entry.
  • Description Cut / Ironic Echo Cut
  • Documentary Episode: Episode 11.
  • Dirty Coward: Kyle, complete with instant loss of all audience sympathy. It didn't help that he blamed all of his cowardice on Jack. This later bites him in the butt when Liz realizes that Jack would have never acted in such a cowardly way and breaks up with Kyle
  • Drunken Master: Dan can take on the world's second best assassin in a gunfight while heavily drunk. Which is handy, because he's heavily drunk at all times.
  • Dynamic Entry: Dan tries to kick down a door in 1x03, "Broken Door Theory". His technique is horrible; he keeps kicking the door too high, on the hinge side of the door instead of the handle. And then, of course, Jack just pushes the door open.
    • And, of course, any time they drive a car through a wall.
    • Lt. Ruiz gets one in "The Whistleblower". She appears from behind a tree and clotheslines a guy hard enough to flip him over.
  • Ebony and Ivory: Hodges and Lang.
  • Epic Fail: Jack empties two clips at his opponent at point blank range and manages to miss every shot. The assassin shrugs and comments, "It's harder than it looks."
  • Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: The Duke again.
  • Exact Words: After being told not to get within a mile of a case, Dan and Jack wait at a drugstore exactly 1.01 miles from the criminals house.
  • Every Car Is a Pinto: Subverted hilariously when we find out the guy who was in the trunk of a car pushed off a cliff was not blown up. But he was pissed. What was his Madness Mantra again?
    • Justified in one episode when Dan shoots at a van full of explosives using his "Sunday Gun".
  • Five-Man Band
  • Firing One-Handed
  • Fluffy the Terrible: The Georgians' muscle, Sasha, is treated like he's a cherished pet.
  • Friend to All Children: Dan. He has kids doing exercises and pushups as part of a community outreach program, and they love him for it. They apparently join the police force at a rate that Lt. Ruiz can only describe as "Alarming."
  • Fun with Subtitles: Similar to Burn Notice, it features rather snarky informational subtitles. As with Burn Notice, later episodes start to have more fun with them such as making them a part of the scene they show up in and interact with objects.
  • Genki Girl: Sam's habit of skipping around the Dallas PD and waving her arms around, not to mention her "getting into the moment" and greeting Liz like a best friend, definitely qualifies her as this.
  • Gentleman Thief: The Tech Bandit who just does that for a living to support his real love, blogging about food.
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar: In Cop Killers, Jack and Dan "cop-block" Julius in the middle of a date.
  • Gilligan Cut: at least once an episode, usually more often - and all too often involving the equivalent of someone saying "Even Stark wouldn't do X"
  • Glory Days: The '80s, for Dan.
  • Good Cop, Bad Cop
  • Good Old Ways: Dan's philosophy, which is perpetually stuck in The Eighties.
  • Grammar Nazi: Apparently, Jack got partnered up with Dan because he couldn't resist informing the captain that there's no "statue of limitations" while in front of the Chief.
  • Guns Akimbo: Pedro is highly trained and very good at trick shots so he can pull this off. When Jack tries this it results in the Epic Fail of missing with every round from only a few meters.

Jack: Not even one?
Pedro: It's not as easy as it looks.

  • Hello, Attorney!: Liz, the Assistant District Attorney and Jack's ex-girlfriend.
  • Hideous Hangover Cure: Dan's cure for hangovers is a "Guacamonut" (a cinnamon donut dipped in guacamole).
  • Hitman with a Heart: Pedro, the world's second best assassin. He's got two kids and is a pretty nice guy who frequently tells people that he doesn't want to have to kill them.
    • That's most likely why he's the world's second best assassin.
  • Ho Yay: Some believe there's some of this between Jack and Dan.
    • Invoked (sort of) in "Silence of the Dan", after Jack tells Dan he loves him:

Dan: You realize this is Texas, right?

"And there was a giant explosion, which, as far as I can tell, is a recurring motif in a staggering number of your cases."

Stark: You wanna make a movie about lab wienies or do you wanna make a movie about cops?

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