Tropescilloscope: Chekhov's Skill

A previously noted skill or talent becomes essential to the plot. (read more at tvtropes.org)

More Tropes Well-Intentioned Extremist Domestic Abuse Vampire Fiction NO INDOOR VOICE Visual Pun Artistic License – Military Fatal Flaw Comically Missing the Point Face Death with Dignity Toplessness from the Back Advertised Extra She Cleans Up Nicely Suspiciously Specific Denial Poor Communication Kills Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds Never My Fault Stepford Smiler Canon Foreigner He Who Fights Monsters Asshole Victim Screw This, I'm Outta Here! True Companions Dwindling Party The Alcoholic Red Eyes, Take Warning The Atoner Ambiguously Gay You Have Outlived Your Usefulness Conspicuous CG The Mafia German Films Gold Digger Armor-Piercing Question Manipulative Bastard Evil Is Petty Becoming the Mask Blood from the Mouth Nice Job Fixing It, Villain! Knife Nut Action Girl Deconstruction You Have Got to Be Kidding Me! She's Got Legs Those Wacky Nazis Spared by the Adaptation Spell My Name with an "S" Not So Stoic Early Installment Weirdness Hope Spot Woman Scorned Show Within a Show Friend to All Children Retirony No Name Given Fate Worse than Death Bittersweet Ending Darkest Hour Historical In-Joke Deadpan Snarker The Sociopath Anyone Can Die World of Ham Artistic License – Geography Pyrrhic Victory Be Careful What You Wish For Shoot the Shaggy Dog Auto Erotica Eyepatch of Power Ungrateful Bastard Immune to Bullets Fingore Vomit Discretion Shot I Just Shot Marvin in the Face Monumental Damage Aww, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other Foregone Conclusion timeperiod All Girls Want Bad Boys Reality Has No Subtitles Smoking Is Cool Only in It for the Money Overprotective Dad Nothing Is Scarier Accidental Murder In the Back Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil Brainless Beauty The '80s Grey and Gray Morality Body Horror Overly Long Gag Hate Sink A God Am I Jerkass Has a Point Big Damn Heroes Retired Badass Film Noir Index The Ghost Creative Closing Credits Humans Are Bastards Henpecked Husband Bloodier and Gorier Straight Gay Disney Villain Death I Need a Freaking Drink Novelization Self-Deprecation Cool Guns A Father to His Men The Faceless Expy Kick the Son of a Bitch Parental Abandonment Naked People Are Funny Artistic License – Physics Reality Ensues The Bad Guy Wins Heroes Want Redheads Early-Bird Cameo Badass Longcoat Eldritch Abomination Broken Aesop Dropped a Bridge on Him Dutch Angle Crapsack World Homage Girl-on-Girl Is Hot Karma Houdini Black Comedy Rape Slap-Slap-Kiss Ominous Latin Chanting Empathic Environment Camera Abuse Take That! The Place The Bully Kick the Dog The Chick Pimped-Out Dress It Will Never Catch On Even Evil Has Standards The Ace Worthy Opponent Whole Plot Reference Half the Man He Used to Be Sexy Discretion Shot Blood Knight Groin Attack Children Are Innocent Heel–Face Turn Every Car Is a Pinto Determinator Brutal Honesty And the Adventure Continues Ripped from the Headlines Affectionate Parody Action Prologue Double-Meaning Title Anachronism Stew Loads and Loads of Characters Call-Forward Obviously Evil Rule of Symbolism Fire-Forged Friends Dies Wide Open Killed Mid-Sentence Evil Counterpart Those Two Guys Room Full of Crazy Jitter Cam Creator Cameo Science Fiction Films One Steve Limit He Knows Too Much Back from the Dead Extreme Doormat Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas Meaningful Echo Actor Allusion Shipper on Deck N-Word Privileges Even Evil Has Loved Ones Demoted to Extra Deliberately Monochrome Evil Laugh Fantastic Racism Silent Movie Love at First Sight Paper-Thin Disguise Villain with Good Publicity The Remake Screw the Money, I Have Rules! Wham Shot Imagine Spot Mr. Fanservice Famous Last Words Drowning My Sorrows Dirty Old Man Intrepid Reporter Wretched Hive Villain Song Spanner in the Works You Have Failed Me Nice Guy Animated Credits Opening Man on Fire Boom, Headshot! Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane Alas, Poor Villain Moment Killer Badass Normal Creepy Child Damsel in Distress Beware the Nice Ones Hollywood Darkness Outrun the Fireball Zombie Stories Red Shirt Dull Surprise Crucified Hero Shot All There in the Script Music Stories Covers Always Lie Big-Bad Ensemble No-Holds-Barred Beatdown Recycled IN SPACE! Big Bad Duumvirate Ghost Fiction Freudian Excuse Villainous Breakdown Ship Tease Slasher Smile Roaring Rampage of Revenge Kids Are Cruel Gender Flip Unreliable Narrator Combat Pragmatist Those Two Bad Guys I Want My Beloved to Be Happy Babies Ever After Affably Evil Arc Words Male Gaze Contrived Coincidence Animal Motifs Happily Married As Himself The X of Y Bavarian Fire Drill Drugs Are Bad Not Even Bothering with the Accent Wham Line The '50s Break the Cutie Too Dumb to Live Curse Cut Short Pre-Mortem One-Liner Getting Crap Past the Radar Undying Loyalty Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday Bland-Name Product Male Frontal Nudity Took a Level in Jerkass No Good Deed Goes Unpunished Shut Up, Hannibal! Fanservice Extra Get Out! Tap on the Head Facial Horror Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold Pretty Little Headshots Meaningful Name Depraved Bisexual Manly Tears Funny Foreigner Serious Business Not Quite Dead Thriller Police Brutality Daylight Horror Eagleland Training Montage Impaled with Extreme Prejudice Tranquil Fury Adaptation Expansion Punny Name Television Movie Index Age Lift Award-Bait Song Karmic Death Shower Scene Not So Different Toilet Humour aka: Toilet Humor Totally Radical From Bad to Worse One-Man Army Destination Defenestration Gilligan Cut Pre-Asskicking One-Liner Have a Gay Old Time Drill Sergeant Nasty Older Than They Look Face–Heel Turn Blonde, Brunette, Redhead Fourth Date Marriage Took a Level in Badass Logo Joke Aside Glance Based on a True Story Disguised in Drag Easily Forgiven Protagonist Title Enemy Mine In Medias Res Your Cheating Heart Death by Irony Public Domain Feature Films Disney Death Gory Discretion Shot Cold-Blooded Torture Serial Killer Police are Useless The Casanova Adaptation Dye-Job Manic Pixie Dream Girl Military and Warfare Films Title Drop Plucky Comic Relief Only a Flesh Wound Mercy Kill Big Applesauce Flashback Only One Name Lighter and Softer Hero Antagonist Eiffel Tower Effect Bunny-Ears Lawyer Implacable Man A Date with Rosie Palms Soft Glass Mood Whiplash Better to Die than Be Killed Heroic Sacrifice Mad Scientist Dumb Blonde Neck Lift Dramatic Gun Cock Unusually Uninteresting Sight Framing Device Drives Like Crazy Silence Is Golden Mooks From Nobody to Nightmare And I Must Scream Daddy's Girl Deus ex Machina Pay Evil unto Evil Author Appeal Bury Your Gays Victoria's Secret Compartment Camp Gay Reality Is Unrealistic Cluster F-Bomb Heel Realization Air-Vent Passageway Adorkable All There in the Manual The Power of Love How We Got Here Chekhov's Gunman Romantic Comedy Riddle for the Ages Distracted by the Sexy Not What It Looks Like Despair Event Horizon Beauty Is Never Tarnished Retcon Evil Cannot Comprehend Good Spiritual Successor The Vamp Deliberate Values Dissonance Unusual Euphemism My Beloved Smother Apocalypse How Defiant to the End Sole Survivor Redemption Equals Death Sealed Evil in a Can Not Using the "Z" Word Dark Reprise Badass Bookworm Punctuated! For! Emphasis! Unspoken Plan Guarantee Beta Couple Re-Cut Malevolent Masked Men Department of Redundancy Department Taking the Bullet Bilingual Bonus Sinister Minister Irony A.I. Is a Crapshoot Hong Kong Films Market-Based Title Almost Kiss Vitriolic Best Buds Rousing Speech Manchild In Name Only Random Events Plot Fantasy Films Insult Backfire Action Genre Bowdlerise Artistic License – History Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique Darker and Edgier Large Ham Throwing Your Sword Always Works Precision F-Strike Stuff Blowing Up O.O.C. Is Serious Business Genre Shift No Ending Fatal Family Photo Stealth Hi/Bye After the End Wicked Cultured Due to the Dead Hooker with a Heart of Gold Handicapped Badass Chuck Cunningham Syndrome Fake Shemp The Reveal Beard of Evil Downer Ending Deal with the Devil Line-of-Sight Name Rule of Three As the Good Book Says... The Load Super Strength Only Known by Their Nickname Fan Disservice The Hero Heterosexual Life-Partners Bloodless Carnage Missing Mom Love Triangle Smug Snake Yandere Hypocrite The Oner Jerk Jock Black Best Friend Canadian Movies Card-Carrying Villain Rule of Cool Refuge in Audacity Major Injury Underreaction Celebrity Paradox The Lost Lenore Suspiciously Similar Substitute Redshirt Army Big Fancy House Adults Are Useless Parental Substitute Country Matters Black Dude Dies First Awesome, but Impractical Bald of Evil Meaningful Background Event Heroic BSoD Cat Fight Historical Hero Upgrade Psychopathic Manchild Russian Films Captain Ersatz Token Minority Mind Screw The Quiet One Bar Brawl Cat Scare Faux Affably Evil Demonic Possession Villain Protagonist Parental Incest An Aesop Evil Is Hammy Leave the Camera Running Let's Get Dangerous! Composite Character Earn Your Happy Ending Names to Run Away from Really Fast Sir Swears-a-Lot Soundtrack Dissonance Oh, Crap! Evil Sounds Deep Gone Horribly Right BFG "The Reason You Suck" Speech Truth in Television You Killed My Father Action Survivor Fat Bastard Improbable Infant Survival aka: Infant Immortality Adaptation Name Change Death of a Child Wounded Gazelle Gambit The Stinger Nice Job Breaking It, Hero! Exact Words Our Vampires Are Different Shown Their Work Reckless Gun Usage All for Nothing Why Did It Have to Be Snakes? Revenge All Men Are Perverts Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking Big "NO!" Arranged Marriage Vacation Films Cool Shades Important Haircut Fanservice Bring My Brown Pants Cool Old Guy Roger Ebert: Great Movies List Foreshadowing Bait-and-Switch The Dragon Improbable Weapon User Genre Throwback Scenery Porn Insane Troll Logic Everyone Has Standards Never Trust a Trailer aka: Trailers Always Lie The Big Guy Butt-Monkey No Celebrities Were Harmed Instant Death Bullet Car Fu Martial Arts Movie Lock and Load Montage Time Skip Same Language Dub Biopic Bond Villain Stupidity Shirtless Scene Never Trust a Trailer Cool Old Lady Laughing Mad Historical Villain Upgrade Hero of Another Story Ragtag Bunch of Misfits The End... Or Is It? It's Personal The Cavalry Shout-Out Jerk with a Heart of Gold Offscreen Moment of Awesome The Mole Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right! Breaking the Fourth Wall All Just a Dream Bad "Bad Acting" Determinator aka: The Determinator Credits Gag The Lancer Pun aka: Incredibly Lame Pun Historical-Domain Character Naïve Newcomer No Antagonist Papa Wolf MacGuffin Horror Comedy Death by Sex Crazy-Prepared The Voiceless The Chessmaster Hollywood Law Idiot Ball Anachronic Order Tagline Unresolved Sexual Tension Big Bad Rasputinian Death Big Eater Failed a Spot Check Black Comedy "Awesome McCool" Name Hair-Trigger Temper Continuity Nod Hidden Depths Mr. Exposition It Can Think Men Are the Expendable Gender Word of God Catch-Phrase Really Gets Around Danny Peary Cult Movies List "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue Race Lift Casting Gag Interrupted Suicide Black and Gray Morality Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? Sanity Slippage Red Herring Calling the Old Man Out Kill It with Fire Fun with Acronyms Arch-Enemy Non-Indicative Name Villain Opening Scene Scare Chord Horror Films Film Series Pet the Dog This Is Gonna Suck For Want of a Nail Author Avatar Dirty Cop Driven to Suicide Punch-Clock Villain Brother–Sister Incest Betty and Veronica Bad Boss One-Word Title Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass Does This Remind You of Anything? Tempting Fate The '90s No OSHA Compliance Japanese Films Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping Corpsing What You Are in the Dark Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep" No-Sell Hell Is That Noise Only Sane Man Documentary Humiliation Conga Flipping the Bird Cassandra Truth Index of Film Westerns Knight Templar Corrupt Corporate Executive Sports Stories As You Know What the Hell, Hero? Ironic Echo Motor Mouth Aluminum Christmas Trees Chase Scene My Greatest Failure Off-into-the-Distance Ending Evil vs. Evil Suddenly SHOUTING! Sequel Escalation Off with His Head! Disappeared Dad Artistic License – Biology Spiteful Spit Adult Fear Made of Iron Intergenerational Friendship Skewed Priorities Dressing as the Enemy Batman Gambit Real Life Double Entendre Evil-Detecting Dog Rewatch Bonus Guns Akimbo Here We Go Again! The Film of the Book Married to the Job Actually Pretty Funny Five-Man Band Christmas Movies Index Artistic License – Law Slasher Movie The '60s Amusing Injuries More Dakka Alliterative Name Abhorrent Admirer Ass Shove Greater-Scope Villain Lampshade Hanging Obstructive Bureaucrat "Shaggy Dog" Story Posthumous Character Anti-Hero Antagonist Title Genre Savvy Sequel Hook Fish out of Water Dogged Nice Guy Mama Bear Gainax Ending Crazy Jealous Guy Belligerent Sexual Tension Psychological Thriller Does Not Like Shoes Four-Temperament Ensemble Our Zombies Are Different Wrong Genre Savvy Recap / RiffTrax aka: Riff Trax Movies Mexican Standoff Plot Hole Ax-Crazy Rule of Funny Superhero Anti-Villain Works Set in World War II Properly Paranoid Epic Fail Hypocritical Humor Stealth Pun Bi the Way Put on a Bus Adaptational Badass Mistaken for Gay Make It Look Like an Accident Brick Joke Dark Action Girl Unwitting Instigator of Doom Say My Name Fainting Eye Scream A Minor Kidroduction Bitch in Sheep's Clothing Death by Adaptation Exactly What It Says on the Tin Taking You with Me Nice Hat Mystery and Detective Films There Is No Kill Like Overkill Chekhov's Gun Improvised Weapon Break the Haughty Blackmail The Great Depression The Smart Guy Informed Ability Setting Update Real Life Writes the Plot Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene Chekhov's Skill Book-Ends Dark Is Not Evil Loophole Abuse The Starscream The Un-Reveal Badass in a Nice Suit Coming-of-Age Story Adapted Out Ascended Extra Improbable Aiming Skills Abusive Parents Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy Star-Crossed Lovers Pretty in Mink B-Movie Epic Movie Twist Ending Faking the Dead Mundane Made Awesome Red Oni, Blue Oni Not So Above It All Dissonant Serenity Annoying Younger Sibling Eureka Moment Establishing Character Moment Bloody Hilarious Peek-a-Boo Corpse Morality Pet Good Is Not Nice The Alleged Car Race Against the Clock Final Girl Offscreen Teleportation Costume Porn Animal Title Index Cool Car Broken Pedestal Product Placement An Arm and a Leg Cloudcuckoolander And Starring Dirty Coward Catapult Nightmare Italian Films Developing Doomed Characters Disproportionate Retribution Freeze-Frame Bonus Gratuitous English Last-Name Basis Dramatic Irony Dark and Troubled Past Adaptational Villainy Needs Wiki Magic Love Romantic False Lead The Un-Favourite aka: The Un Favorite Rated M for Manly The Brute Noodle Incident Parental Neglect Femme Fatale Evil Plan Villain Ball The Stoner Adaptational Attractiveness Australian Movies Extremely Short Timespan Pragmatic Villainy Accidental Misnaming Guile Hero Left the Background Music On Screw the Rules, I Have Money! Death Glare Big Brother Instinct For the Evulz Gorn Foil Film Noir Bottomless Magazines Curb-Stomp Battle The Dreaded May–December Romance Up to Eleven Translation Convention The Hero Dies Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism Cruel and Unusual Death Scary Black Man Authority Equals Asskicking Obfuscating Stupidity La Résistance Mugging the Monster Hoist by His Own Petard Anguished Declaration of Love Reasonable Authority Figure The Cameo Honor Before Reason Ambiguous Ending The Smurfette Principle Amoral Attorney Neck Snap Shell-Shocked Veteran Ambiguous Disorder An Axe to Grind Broken Bird Bond One-Liner Badass Grandpa Trailers Always Spoil Green-Eyed Monster Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome The Stoic Meet Cute '80s Hair Stalker with a Crush Light Is Not Good Diabolus ex Machina My God, What Have I Done? Kubrick Stare Attempted Rape Ms. Fanservice Defrosting Ice Queen Ugly Guy, Hot Wife Insistent Terminology Bound and Gagged Sadistic Choice Video Credits Sassy Black Woman Colour-Coded for Your Convenience aka: Color Coded For Your Convenience Very Loosely Based on a True Story Jerkass Running Gag Character Development Your Head A-Splode Playing Gertrude Bolivian Army Ending Dramedy The Dog Bites Back "Well Done, Son!" Guy Laser-Guided Karma Leaning on the Fourth Wall Adaptational Heroism Psycho for Hire Maybe Ever After Would Hurt a Child Stylistic Suck Artistic License – Gun Safety Narrator Chiaroscuro Pragmatic Adaptation I Have Your Wife The Ditz Central Theme Mythology Gag Dying Moment of Awesome Woman in White Bare Your Midriff War Is Hell Vomit Indiscretion Shot Evil Brit As Long as It Sounds Foreign Match Cut Berserk Button Leitmotif Small Name, Big Ego Death Seeker Agony of the Feet 20 Minutes into the Future It's All About Me What Happened to the Mouse? Fiery Redhead Chewing the Scenery Blatant Lies Rich Bitch Cain and Abel Storming the Castle The Musical Stock Footage French Films Mighty Whitey Frame-Up Call-Back Dual Wielding Sci-Fi Horror The '70s Bullying a Dragon Did Not Get the Girl Slashed Throat Would Hit a Girl Jump Scare Rape as Drama I'm a Humanitarian Adaptation Distillation Grievous Bottley Harm Politically Incorrect Villain Funny Background Event Never Found the Body Sacrificial Lion I Did What I Had to Do Closed Circle Together in Death Made of Explodium Take a Third Option Badass Boast Decoy Protagonist Didn't Think This Through Once More, with Clarity! Madness Mantra folderlabel Captain Obvious Kill 'em All Expository Hairstyle Change Red Right Hand British Films Scenery Gorn Cowboy Cop Alpha Bitch