The original post: /r/television by /u/AporiaParadox on 2024-08-20 12:46:39.
TV shows are full of characters who are meant to be smart. However, the people who write their dialogue and the plot probably aren’t as smart. As such we often see situations where we’re told that a character is supposed to be smart, but their actions don’t reflect that. They’ll do things that seem completely stupid and/or illogical even to the average viewer, but we’re still meant to believe that they are smart.
The worst cases for me though is when we are told that a character is smart because they came up with a convoluted plan or were able to predict and guess everything because they’re smart, but if you look it at it from a logical perspective, there’s no way they could have possibly been able to reach those conclusions based on the information available, or their plans relied on too many luck factors they couldn’t have possibly assumed would happen exactly as planned. It just comes off as lazy, the character jumps to conclusions because the script says so, not because of any actual smarts.
One of the most notable examples in recent times is Sister Sage from The Boys, who claims that everything went exactly as planned, even the parts she wasn’t around for and wasn’t involved in, when she couldn’t have possibly predicted most of the things that happened to make her plan work.
So what are some notable instances of smart characters not actually seeming smart despite what the writers want you to think?