Best drama TV plot holes of all time

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Magnum, P.I. picture

The Case of the Red-Faced Thespian - S4-E12

Plot hole: Magnum is incredibly slow to unveil the charade at the base of the episode; he does it based on something marginal (Robin Masters does not do "research" for his novels), but he completely overlooks the key plot point of 1-17 "J. Digger Doyle" was that he does not use a typewriter, but he dictates the novels.

Sammo

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Justified picture

When the Guns Come Out - S3-E6

Plot hole: Raylan has a hunch that Winona took the money again from the evidence room, so checks the locker, finds the empty box, and assumes she stole it. When they returned the money in the previous season, he said "Put it back anywhere except for where you found it", so as to make it easier for someone to assume it had been misplaced, rather than lost. So the locker being empty is hardly a smoking gun for him to assume Winona's taken the cash.

Jon Sandys

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Pride and Prejudice picture

Show generally

Plot hole: In Pemberley, Caroline Bingley refers to an utterance of Darcy ("I should as soon call her mother a wit") that he made after coming home to Netherfield after their first ball in Meryton. Falsely she says he made this expression "after they had been dining at Netherfield". This is a direct quotation from the novel and is not coherent with the film plot in which this utterance is made after the first ball.

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Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman picture

To Have and to Hold - S6-E20

Plot hole: In the ending scene, Mike has a probable concussion from her fall, so Sully keeps her awake to prevent her slipping into a coma. They talk all night, reminiscing as Mike experiences periodic pain spasms. Their talk ends with discussion over them having another child, and then they instantly engage in an intimate moment, which would be impossible, considering her condition, and without further checkup from another doctor. Sometime later she is suddenly feeling 'cured', and they return home.

oprlvr33

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The Magicians picture

The Secret Sea - S4-E12

Plot hole: In the poison room, Zelda is magically knocked unconscious where Everett explains to her, among other things, that there is a secret reservoir of magic. Plover then mentions the reservoir after Zelda awakens, as if he somehow heard the conversation in her head.

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1883 picture

The Fangs of Freedom - S1-E5

Plot hole: When the bandits attack the pioneer's wagons they are chased on horseback by the Captain, Jack and others for quite a distance until Ennis is killed in the confrontation with one of the bandits. In the following scenes Elsa is mourning over his body but her mother and others from the wagon train stroll up and the wagons are in the background-all this after a fairly long chase.

bnemirow

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GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka picture

Show generally

Plot hole: During the episode "Superstition", Onizuka thinks he has cancer because the magnetic pain-pads he was wearing created strange blobs in the X-Ray he has taken. However, given the fact that the X-Ray was so strange, doctors would have given him a complete physical, and noticed the pads much sooner. Here, they literally just assume he has tumors, and fail to ever take notice of the pads. Simply impossible, given the gravity of the situation. (Obviously, this is to pay off at the very end of the episode.)

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Black Sails picture

I. - S1-E1

Plot hole: Why, of all people on board, would the cook know of a specific entry in the captain's log, exactly where to look for it, and that it contained very valuable information?

Friso94

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Secret Invasion picture

Season 1 generally

Plot hole: The Skrull base is inside an abandoned nuclear power plant with enough radioactivity to force any human (like, say, Nick Fury) to constantly pop iodine pills to fight the symptoms of a poisoning that would kill them in less than half an hour. Despite that, Skrulls also detain prisoners, for years in some cases, in rudimentary shackles without any sort of shield or protection against the radiation.

Sammo

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Iodine pills don't fight the symptoms of radiation poisoning; they prevent the body from absorbing radioactive iodine. It does not protect from exposure to radiation; it won't save you from it. Secondly, it's all an act by Gi'Ah posing as Fury anyway. Thirdly, they are in the reactor control room where Gravik says the radiation is higher. The prisoners are in a low radiation room, which could be extra shielded from radiation. It could also be that the prisoners are fed iodine to block radioactive iodine.

lionhead

We can make up if we want that there's a special, super-secret anti-radiation serum and/or super-effective shielding, helping humans even during an exposure that lasts years (a decade in the case of Rhodey!), but there has to be something in the actual visuals that remotely hints at it. It's hard to headcanon that the dingy area of the plant where they are racked together, strapped to bed nets behind tarps, can be "low radiation", or that they are given anything to counter it. In particular, in the ending, the rescued people leisurely walk around the plant with zero radiation protection, even casually in the open yard where "Fury's" Geiger counter was going mad earlier. And the radiation was not something induced by the Skrulls that just ended when the baddie died. Not only is there no techno-babble justification (one could argue it's simply a pedantic detail not unlike the lack of hair growth or muscle atrophy), there's a direct flagrant contradiction in how the environment of the location - which is the only reason why they picked that site as a base - is deadly to humans only to a dramatic degree only when it's convenient.

Sammo

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The Flash picture

Revenge of the Rogues - S1-E10

Plot hole: During the fight at sundown, Cold gets a hit on Flash and he goes down. Eddie takes a shield and goes to help. But Flash was in the middle of the street with no obstacles around, and it's implausible that Eddie could have gotten to him without Cold or Heat seeing him.

Knever

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Perry Mason picture

The Case of the Deadly Toy - S2-E27

Plot hole: Claire Allison spends the night in an upstairs bedroom in the Jennings' home. In the middle of the night, she opens a walk-in closet to get another blanket and finds a small printing press. Later in the day, Claire returns to the home, accompanied by Perry Mason, who tells Mr. Jennings that Claire has received threatening letters from Mrs. Jennings' former husband, who still has a key to the Jennings' home, and the printing press may have been used to address the envelopes. Mr. Jennings says, "We'd better investigate" and immediately goes upstairs and opens the closet, even though neither Claire nor Perry Mason said where Claire saw the printing press.

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Trial & Retribution picture

Tracks: Part 1 - S11-E9

Plot hole: When Mike Walker is out looking for his son Connor calls Satch and asks, "What's up with Mike?". She couldn't know that there was anything up with him, she left before he heard his son was missing. Had she called Walker on his cell, he would have explained what was going on, as he was very eager to tell her. Obviously a set-up so that Satch could tell her that the boy was missing.

littlestar

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Alice picture

Part 2 - S1-E2

Plot hole: The White Knight is knocked out by a bomb in his attack on the casino. When he regains consciousness, he fires one last crossbow shot, which he thinks destroys the casino. But who loaded and cocked the bow for that last shot? Crossbows don't reload themselves.

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Stranger Things picture

Chapter Seven: The Massacre at Hawkins Lab - S4-E7

Plot hole: The upside down should be mirrored, i.e. all left is right and right is left. When the team finds a gateway where Chrissy died, they should be seeing a mirror image through the ceiling. Also, all buildings should have been reversed. Directions to get there on the bike would have been confusing and reversed, and when any writing was seen in the upside down, it would have been backward.

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Narcos: Mexico picture

Camelot - S1-E1

Plot hole: In the bathroom, Kiki Camarena tells El Azul he has blood on his shoes. Kiki doesn't even raise an eye to this. This is not deliberate either - we can tell Kiki isn't new to busting drug lords - so why would he miss this?

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The Rockford Files picture

The Countess - S1-E4

Plot hole: Rockford and Carl Brego are punching and kicking each other on the beach. Someone shoots him down with a rifle. The INSTANT Rockford goes to check out if he's still breathing, two people randomly happen to walk on him popping over from behind a rock as they were having a super casual and amused chat, but see Rockford by the shirtless brute and make a horrified face. Later in the episode the two identify Rockford and say that it looked like the two were fighting. Their facial expressions at the time don't make sense as depicted. Even if we assume that they did not see anything at all and they played it up/filled the blanks in their mind later, the two are not deaf and yet they were not perturbed or curious in the slightest after the loud bang of a gunshot. The way the scene was shot, the only thing tipping them off about anything was seeing Rockford over the corpse (which had barely a small dot of blood visible at the time and would hardly tip anyone off at first sight). (00:18:45)

Sammo

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Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) picture

My Late Lamented Friend and Partner - S1-E1

Plot hole: When Jeff and Marty are parked, waiting for Sorrenson to exit the building opposite, Jeff says he should call the police. But he immediately follows Sorrenson and has no time to do so. Later, they arrive even though not called.

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Saint Seiya picture

Cygnus! Hyogen no senshi - S1-E3

Plot hole: Saori Kido's presentation does not make a lick of sense. Assuming it happens through some odd holographic mechanism never seen before or after, it's day 3 of the tournament, so it appears extravagant that only then she'd start telling the audience what the Galaxian Wars are. Second.it's day 3 of the tournament.and the third match. That means that they have been packing a stadium with dozens of thousands of people, who come over for ONE match that lasts a few minutes. That's a real stretch, to say the least. There's also a minor but kinda funny matter; the way the cameras are shown pointing, the whole world is tuned into an uninterrupted upskirt shot of Saori Kido delivering her solemn speech.

Sammo

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