...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!
I Can Explain
- 363 statements
- 70 feature instances
- 64 referencing feature instances
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| I Can Explain | comment |
A character with a guilty conscience reacts to the appearance of an authority figure with a cry of "Wait! I can explain!" and launches into an explanation of how whatever-it-was wasn't their fault. Often, it turns out that the authority figure really wanted to talk to them about something else or is objecting to some minor unrelated infraction, and wouldn't even have known about whatever-it-was if they hadn't tried to explain. The next step in the evolution of this trope is also common: a parent will confront their kid in a vague way, and the kid will confess to whatever he or she has done. The parent either knew the kid was up to something, but had little idea of what the specifics were; or, the parent was just making a routine surprise inspection. Alternately, a phrase spoken by someone whose masquerade's about to be blown who's about to make with some quick Clark Kenting to protect the secret. A Discredited Trope as the line is rarely played straight nowadays. And considering the number of times it's been parodied/subverted, it's well on its way to being a Dead Horse Trope. As such, a common subversion is for the character in question to deliver this line... then resignedly admit that no, actually they can't explain it. Often caused by the situation being Not What It Looks Like. See also the cousin trope Noodle Incident. |
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| I Can Explain / int_100d4e39 | type |
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| I Can Explain / int_100d4e39 | comment |
In the Aladdin: The Series episode "Dune Quixote", Aladdin finds himself kissing Sadira with Jasmine standing nearby. On impulse, he quickly starts to say he can explain before realizing that he can't explain. (Sadira had cast a spell on Aladdin that ended up going horribly wrong, trapping Aladdin in a bizarre fantasy, and only ending when he kissed Sadira, which Jasmine reluctantly allowed in order to get Aladdin back to normal.) | |
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| I Can Explain / int_18acb3a5 | comment |
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: When Will and Carlton venture into Jazz's rough neighborhood and Carlton becomes "hip", Will dreams about him going home like this and declaring his intent to drop out of school. Will rushes in, feebly insisting, "I can explain", only to have Phil being strangling him. | |
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| I Can Explain / int_1b02159a | comment |
Ultimate Avengers has Bruce Banner's plot of using the Super Soldier Serum on himself so he could control the Hulk has been discovered so he gives out this explanation before being pinned down by Nick Fury. | |
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| I Can Explain / int_1b489fda | comment |
In Integration Twilight learns that the human version of Bon Bon is named Sweetie Drops and tries to ask her about this. Bon Bon panics and makes a break for it, demonstrating her acrobatics and revealing she has Runes that let her resist magic before being caught by Twilight's guards. She has this reaction afterwards. | |
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| I Can Explain / int_20098ea4 | type |
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| I Can Explain / int_20098ea4 | comment |
Subverted in Coupling when Susan accuses her ex Patrick of filming them in bed together and keeping the video. Patrick responds with "I can explain.....Yes I did". | |
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Arrow: When Sara Lance's ex-girlfriend Nyssa al Ghul of the League of Assassins turns up to claim her, Sara starts to give this trope to her current lover Oliver Queen, only for Oliver (no stranger to complex relationships) to state that she doesn't have to—his only concern is for Sara's safety. At the end of the episode Sara tries to explain where she's been for the past six years to her sister Laurel, who cuts her off with "The Reason You Suck" Speech and Get Out! When Tommy Merlyn discovers Oliver is the Vigilante, the fact that his best friend is someone completely different from the man he'd known all his life, let alone a multiple murderer, makes him rather bitter. When Oliver offers to explain the how and why Tommy just cuts him off, saying he can no longer believe anything that Oliver says. |
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The Simpsons: In "Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment" Homer smuggles beer during Prohibition by hiding it in bowling balls. He invokes this trope when confronted by Marge. In "Bonfire of the Manatees", Marge prepares to leave Homer when she sees another one of his escapades, this being shooting a porno in the house, and says "I can explain." Marge stops to hear what he has to say, then leaves when Homer says it came about when he owed the mafia money. |
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| I Can Explain / int_26ef42e7 | comment |
In Kevin & Kell, Corrie narrowly avoids falling into this twice regarding her being a sheep disguised as a wolf. When Fiona mentions that she knows her secret. Corrie assumes that Fiona knows her true species, and is about to remove her wolfskin when Fiona tells her that she actually "knows" that she's Ralph's daughter (which turns out to be true, unbeknownst to either). Later on, when the power goes out at a slumber party, Fiona and Rhonda tell her she's hiding something, but before she can articulate an answer, they say that she's wearing Bruno's sheepskin, (he sometimes wears her on his back, but later wears a skin made out of her wool). | |
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| I Can Explain / int_274912df | type |
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| I Can Explain / int_274912df | comment |
In the Hank the Cowdog book "The Case of the Measled Cowboy", Hank begins to rehearse his explanation to the woman of the house, Sally May, for the tremendous mess that he and her son made in her absence. Subverted in that he admits he can't get any farther than "I can explain." | |
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| I Can Explain / int_3558eaa2 | type |
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| I Can Explain / int_3558eaa2 | comment |
Community: Jeff when noticed by one of his former lawyer buddies, has to come up with an explanation on the spot. Later in the same episode, Troy says it verbatim to a janitor who catches him in someone else's office. Then he plays for time by insisting "Let me explain!" to the still silent janitor, and then stands there awkwardly, unable to think of anything, until Annie comes in and chloroforms him. Also, in the Bottle Episode, when everyone discovers Abed's log of the girls' periods and begin to get distressed: |
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| I Can Explain / int_400469e | type |
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| I Can Explain / int_400469e | comment |
Calvin and Hobbes used this trope when Calvin's mother went for an interview with his teacher, Miss Wormwood. Calvin begins packing a suitcase to run away. When his mother comes back and tries to talk to him, she unknowingly Perp Sweats him and he panics as he tries to explain what he thinks Miss Wormwood told her: | |
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In Shaun the Sheep Movie, Trumper tries to explain to the Farmer about his intention after almost succeeding in throwing Shaun to the quarry. This only ends up as a distraction as the Bull of the farm pushes Trumper on the other edge of the quarry. | |
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Supernatural: A priest disturbs Sam as he's performing a séance in the church basement. A couple of Hunters discover Sam's role in starting the Apocalypse and declare they're going to blow his head off. Sam says he can explain, then flounders because he is in fact guilty as hell. So they kill him. Again. |
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Annie, the musical: Shortly after Annie's attempt to escape from Miss Hannigan's orphanage, a woman arrives and announces that she has been sent to talk to Miss Hannigan by the orphanage's board of directors. Miss Hannigan is in full self-justifying flight before the woman has a chance to explain that actually she's just come to see about borrowing one of the orphans. | |
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| I Can Explain / int_4975ee74 | type |
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| I Can Explain / int_4975ee74 | comment |
Subverted in Nerf NOW!!, a chain of implausible events conspire to have Jane and newcomer Victoire (older sister of Anne-Marie) in their underwear, wrestling. Jane's girlfriend, Morgan senses something is amiss and walks in on them. And, rather than jump to the obvious, but incorrect, conclusion, Morgan immediately (correctly) guesses they were fighting over the one good controller. | |
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| I Can Explain / int_49ad83ee | comment |
The trailer for World of Warcraft''s raid instance, Ulduar, has Rhonin meeting the human king Varian. However, Rhonin had also invited Thrall and Garrosh to meet with him. Problem is, Thrall and Garrosh show up earlier than expected and when the Varian and Thrall see each other, Rhonin reacts this way. He sounded suspiciously as if he was caught cheating on his wife. | |
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| I Can Explain / int_4b790c79 | type |
I Can Explain | |
| I Can Explain / int_4b790c79 | comment |
Subverted in Iron Man when Pepper walks in on Tony apparently being molested by robots: | |
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I Can Explain | |
| I Can Explain / int_4d5b6107 | comment |
Subverted in The Usual Suspects, where Verbal's attempts to evade giving information to the police turn out to be an elaborate strategy to get the police to believe him when he actually does provide (wrong) information. | |
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Making Money features Moist von Lipwig's first words to Lord Vetinari when he has been summoned as "look, I can explain." Vetinari's actually summoned him for something else entirely, but Moist does have to spend some time why there were mongooses in the posting boxes. (Someone had come up with the brilliant idea of Summon Bigger Fish to take care of snakes, who were introduced to eat the toads, who were introduced to eat the snails, who were eating the glue on the postage stamps.) | |
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| I Can Explain / int_58808436 | comment |
Higurashi: When They Cry: Keiichi to Satoko, during the Curse Killing Arc. Satoko arrives back on the scene just in time to see Keiichi holding a bloody axe, with Rika's mutilated body on the ground next to him. Understandably, she's a little more than distressed at this. Keiichi proceeds to chase her and yell variations of this and Not What It Looks Like at her. He really didn't do it. He was just holding the Idiot Ball at the time. | |
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I Can Explain | |
| I Can Explain / int_60996c02 | comment |
Spider-Man: The Animated Series: The first episode featuring the Chameleon ends with Mary-Jane angry at Peter because "he" promised to come to her play and then stood her up. | |
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| I Can Explain / int_63230cb | comment |
Dragon Ball Z Abridged, Krilin tells Future Trunks that after being hit by so many strong people, he can tell when people are holding back. Specifically, Perfect Cell and Trunks himself. | |
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The Lion King: Most productions have Scar's last lines as this before he's eaten alive by the hyenas. | |
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Smallville: Lex Luthor, in an attempt to convince a female friend that she deserves better, got her to a nightclub, where she found the man she is engaged with when he is supposed to be on a business trip. The guy says the line repeatedly. To quote a reviewer, "If you are just going to say that, it is clear that you can't explain s***." When Chloe and Clark are both not themselves, they do some intense making out right under Lana's nose. When Chloe strips Clark, the red kryptonite is removed and he is back to normal. He says this to Lana who slams the door in his face after Not What It Looks Like. He can't explain anyway as he must save Chloe before she get herself killed as some parasite makes her dangerously impulsive, and Clark can't tell Lana about the red kryptonite anyway. Lana once says this when Lex finds out she stole his car. There is absolutely nothing she could explain, really. Jimmy says this when Chloe, who is at the time his girlfriend, walk in on Kara and him alone but not doing anything suspicious. Chloe's paranoia is somewhat justified given her meteor infection. Clark tells this to Lois when he "accidentally" left her in the rain for three hours. And again in "Echo" when he didn't show up for a date. And again in "Escape" when Lois caught him in the shower with a naked Chloe. |
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| I Can Explain / int_70814599 | comment |
Stargate SG-1 episode "Upgrades". The protagonists are specifically told to remain on base by the general and promptly disobey their orders due to their superpower-giving and super-stupid making armbands. This leads to the following exchange: | |
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In Storm Hawks episode "Power Grab", Master Cyclonis leaves Ravess in charge of Cyclonia while she leaves on personal business, and when she gets back, almost every Cylonian commander- Ravess included- is stuck in a prison cell while Leugey is on the throne acting leader. | |
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Arcane. In "The Boy Savior", Silco has to use this line while his Psycho for Hire Jinx is jabbing him in the face with his own hypodermic needle, angry over how Silco failed to tell Jinx her sister was Not Quite Dead. Fortunately Silco is able to do so to her satisfaction. | |
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Mass Effect 3 manages to do this seriously as Paragon!Shepard insists that they can explain why they are holding three quarters of the Citadel Council at gunpoint during an active terrorist attack. | |
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In the Seinfeld episode "The Heart Attack", George is in the hospital, thinking he's had a heart attack. After learning from the doctor that he didn't, Jerry decides to mess with George, leading to this: | |
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The Drake & Josh pilot episode has this when the former caught the latter dressing up like a woman: | |
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This was somewhat of a catchphrase for Jon Arbuckle in Garfield and Friends, as he was prone to being hated on by people for making catastrophic mistakes thus forcing Garfield to make everything right. | |
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Mana in Doki Doki! PreCure said this when her friend, Alice, caught her and Rikka's transformation. | |
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El Chavo del ocho: Whenever Doña Florinda assumes Don Ramón did or tried to do something to her son, she won't listen to whatever explanation he's got to offer. Also, Don Ramón once told his daughter Professor Jirafales was coming to visit him. Her immediate reaction was loudly pleading him not to believe anything Professor Jirafales says. Don Ramón asked her what he'd say and she realized she spoke too much. |
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In Transformers: Prime, Jack is caught violating his curfew by his mother, June, and tries to explain that he is really a contact for an alien race engaged in a war on Earth. June doesn't buy it. Later on, she's kidnapped by MECH and Airachnid, forcing Jack and Arcee to rescue her. As Jack is trying to free her, he says he can explain everything—then stops, and goes, "Wait, I already did." | |
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The Onion riffs on it with a pun. | |
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Dark Shadows: When Barnabas catches Dr. Hoffman giving herself a transfusion of his blood, she quotes this trope verbatim. | |
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In Spying with Lana, one mission has Lana infiltrate a laboratory to steal a valuable catalyst being developed, which she accomplishes by sleeping with one of the scientists, Dr. Leskinen. The head of the laboratory, Dr. Makkinen, finds security tapes showing Lana and Leskinen having sex and figures everything out. Leskinen claims he can explain everything, only to restate what happened and gets demoted to janitor. | |
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American Dragon: Jake Long: The Halloween Episode featured Jake having a Halloween party and inviting both humans and magical creatures. Unfortunately, it was just when the Dragon Council decided it was his turn to make a surprise inspection. | |
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The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius: In "Send in the Clones", when the town confronts Jimmy about the stuff his clones had done. | |
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At the end of Balto: Upon being exposed as the dirty, callous liar he truly is, Steele tries to justify his actions, but the others won't have any of it and they storm out. | |
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In The Jungle Book (1967), Baloo reluctantly gives in to Bagheera's insistence that Mowgli go back to the man-village. He walks off with Mowgli, who has no inkling as to what's going on. Then Baloo prematurely lets it slip and then tries to explain himself when Mowgli reacts in horror. | |
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In the Star Trek: The Original Series fanfic Once Upon a Farmhouse, Kirk says this word for word to Amanda when he realizes she caught him and Spock sneaking out. His explanation, however, is mostly, "It was my fault, not his." | |
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The 1982 and 1999 film versions of Annie include the scene from the musical where Miss Hannigan defends herself regarding Annie's escape attempt, thinking that Grace Farrell came to the orphanage to investigate that incident. | |
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Father Ted: Inverted when Ted is caught with a stolen whistle and attempts to explain everything with a hastily-improvised sob story about a crippled boy attempting to train a horse to win the Grand National. He stops halfway through when Dougal reveals that they found out the real culprit while Ted was out of the room. Played entirely straight, however, in "Are You Right There, Father Ted?", featuring the collector of Nazi memorabilia who has left his collection to Ted in his will for various farcical reasons - a collection Mrs Doyle has put up in the house, believing it to be the expected delivery of new furniture - just before Ted returns from the pub with the inhabitants of the island's Chinatown. Uses the seemingly common "I can explain everything... Actually, no, I can't" delivery. |
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ASD Fmovie: Episode 9 features a short of a woman cheerfully announcing her pregnancy to her girlfriend/wife. Her smile drops and she says the trope after noticing her lover's expression. | |
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FoxTrot In one strip Peter punches a guy at school for making a joke about Denise and is told his parents will be called: In another instance, Peter, after his mother looks under his mattress and tells him she found something, insists that he reads the magazines there for the articles until she shows him that she found his baseball glove there. |
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Blurted by Nate in an episode of Leverage. When his ex-wife finds him after he came to Kiev when he heard she was in trouble, he speaks this line. It's also used in the first season finale when his ex-wife finds out that he was spying on her. Word of God says that he used the phrase a lot during their marriage. | |
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Played for laughs in The Blues Brothers where the 'explanation' turns out to be a series of increasingly unlikely excuses. Amazingly enough they do the job and let the brothers make their escape. | |
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Alt★Hero. Captain Europa demands to know how Dynamique ended up a magazine covergirl when he specifically told her never to use her superhero outfit for commercial purposes. Dynamique says she can explain. Her explanation? She was offered a lot of money. Cue Captain Europa Face Palm. | |
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Much British humor (Fawlty Towers, Mr. Bean, and Jeeves and Wooster being prime examples) is based on this sort of thing, although the three examples are set about it in different ways. Basil Fawlty comes up with an explanation that is even more unbelievable than the truth, Bean just pretends nothing is happening, and Bertie Wooster gets too nervous to explain. | |
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The Mask: | |
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Danny Phantom: Danny's response after the strange events of the Free the Frogs episode? "I can explain... actually, I really can't." When his family (mostly Jazz) comments on his odd behavior, Danny's Response is "ITS A LIE, I'M NOT A GHOST!" Thankfully, Jazz just figured he'd gotten a girlfriend. |
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Twice in the episode "Prehibernation Week" of SpongeBob SquarePants, an ordinarily normal-looking fish is revealed to apparently wear Osh-Kosh overalls, a beanie, and a giant lollipop underneath his regular clothes (well, okay, the second time Sandy just ripped up a building from its foundation and revealed the fish in the kiddy clothes, but anyway). One short pause later, the fish responds with "Uhh, I can explain..." | |
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In El Goonish Shive, during the non-canon Pokemon parody arc when trainer Charlotte comes across Nanase and Justin hiding in the bushes naked. The audience, having read the previous comics, knows that Justin's Gracemander is drying everyone's wet clothes with her fire breath, but Charlotte draws the obvious conclusion. Either Nanase or Justin (it's unclear as the dialogue comes from off panel) says, "There are so many reasons this isn't whatever it looks like!" In the next strip, they actually do explain themselves. | |
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Blackadder: Blackadder II: "Beer" has a gag where Blackadder is entertaining his fiercely Puritanical aunt and uncle while simultaneously holding a drinking competition. Things seem to be going well, until one of the drunks (dressed as a monk) bursts into the room, vomits in the fireplace, and leaves, saying "Great booze-up, Edmund!" When asked if he can explain, Blackadder spends the next minute staring into space and working his jaw as he tries to come up with an explanation, then finally says "...Yes I can." And he does. Incidentally, the man really was a monk, although one of extremely ill repute. Considering that puritans couldn't stand monastical system, that probably didn't do Edmund any favours, either. Later in the same episode Blackadder returns to the room, completely 'faced, wearing a cardinal's hat, fake breasts and a feather up his bum. When his Aunt demands he explains himself, he just pauses a second and replies "....I can't. Not just like that." However, he goes on to explain that he can't explain himself, he is too complicated a person. Blackadder Goes Forth: In "Major Star", Blackadder assuming that his commanding officer has realized his glamorous showgirl is actually a "strapping six-footer from the rough end of the trenches": And of course, he thinks Blackadder is saying he can't explain "the mystery of love" and he remains blissfully unaware that the woman he loves is one of his underlings. In "Corporal Punishment", Blackadder has been reprieved from his death sentence by George's uncle, and then learnt that George and Baldrick got drunk and never actually asked his uncle to do so. |
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The Mitchells vs. the Machines: When the Mitchells try to infiltrate PAL's base, she tries to flush them out by revealing what they truly think of each other, and she screens footage of Katie confiding in Aaron that she didn't mean it when she told her father she believed in him and was only manipulating him to get her future back. Rick is horrified and betrayed upon hearing this, and all poor Katie can get out is "Dad, let me explain." | |
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UFO (1970): Straker spends a lot of time away from home getting S.H.A.D.O up and running, but can't tell his wife what he's up to because his organisation is top secret and may kill anyone who knows too much. His wife suspects him of having an affair, and hires a private eye who photographs Straker with one of his Bridge Bunnies. On being confronted with the 'evidence' and a demand for a divorce, Straker is so desperate he's willing to tell her everything, but she cuts him off by saying she doesn't want to know, thinking he's referring to his non-existent affair. | |
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Forever: In "The Ecstasy of Agony" Jo comes to arrest a dominatrix only to find Henry "tied up" in her office. Henry executes this trope only for Jo to tell him he doesn't have to. | |
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Not Invented Here: Desmond and Owen are caught in the middle of a wooded area, in a motor home, wearing hazard suits, surrounded by cough medicine containers. Fortunately, Desmond's explanation is taken as truth. | |
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In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Joys of Seasons episode 4, Wolffy uses a variation of this phrase when Wolnie gets angry at him after she discovers her new cloak has a time bomb attached to it, which Weslie says was made by Wolffy: | |
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In Aladdin just after his treasonous plot against the Sultan has been revealed, Jafar tries saying "All this can be explained." Exactly how is a mystery for the ages, since absolutely no-one is willing to listen to him by that point. | |
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Buffy the Vampire Slayer: When Oz cheats on Willow in "Wild a Heart", his attempt to explain gets a curt response from Buffy. "Now would be a good time for your trademark stoicism." | |
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Rika in Digimon Tamers saying this in episode 24 when her grandmother gets the chance of seeing Renamon. | |
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The Departed when Maddy, the psychiatrist, finds out Sullivan working for Costello. | |
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It happens in the MacGyver (1985) episode "Partners". Flashing back to Mac's first adventure with Pete Thornton, the setup is that Mac has been asked to look after his friend Jack's cab (a cab that Jack regards as almost his own son). Sadly, one of the fares MacGyver picks up is Thornton, who leads him into a pursuit of the villain Murdoc, in the course of which, the car meets with an... incident. Then, MacGyver has to break the news to Jack, who decided he was going to sell the cab to buy a cargo aircraft... | |
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Danny's response after the strange events of the Free the Frogs episode? "I can explain... actually, I really can't." | |
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Friends | |
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Parodied in Nebulous, where Nebulous's underling's try to explain their attempted Dying Declaration of Love, but Nebulous simply shrugs the explanation off, saying "if you got drunk and indulged in foreplay, I'm sure you had a damn good reason." | |
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Almost a catchphrase for Major Nelson on I Dream of Jeannie, to the point where he once said, "I'm not sure what I did, sir, but I'm positive I have an explanation for it." | |
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When Sara Lance's ex-girlfriend Nyssa al Ghul of the League of Assassins turns up to claim her, Sara starts to give this trope to her current lover Oliver Queen, only for Oliver (no stranger to complex relationships) to state that she doesn't have to—his only concern is for Sara's safety. At the end of the episode Sara tries to explain where she's been for the past six years to her sister Laurel, who cuts her off with "The Reason You Suck" Speech and Get Out! | |
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.
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