Yank the Dog's Chain

Hooray! The Butt-Monkey has finally had something go right for once in their unhappy life! And with twenty minutes to spare, we're sure to see their new joyful existence play out for the rest of the episode... right? That, right there, is the feeling and painful acknowledgment by the Genre Savvy viewer that Failure Is the Only Option. Why? Because The Woobie is not going to get to keep her money and move out of Perpetual Poverty. Because the Bond Girl is not going to stay Happily Married to James Bond and will be dead before the movie's over. The home that The Drifter has been accepted into will promptly become a Doomed Hometown, forcing him back on the road again. A character Trapped in Another World will find that his apparent chance to get back home has fatal flaws or comes at the cost of friends or innocents and must be turned down. Ash Ketchum, despite making it to the Top 4 of the Season Finale's Tournament Arc, will lose to an unintroduced rival who owns Olympus Mons. Charlie Brown will get the football yanked out from under him by Lucy once again just as he's about to kick it. Gilligan (or someone else) will bungle the latest attempt by the crew of the Minnow to get rescued and get off the island. The Trix Rabbit won't get to enjoy his bowl of Trix because Kids Are Cruel. The Brain will see Pinky's bumbling (or his own arrogance) ruin everything just when world domination seems within his grasp (yes, this trope applies to villains and Anti Villains too). And deep down, we know it and expect it. While the permutations are endless, the result is the same: writers Yank the Dog's Chain, cruelly undoing the good turn that they've done the character and keeping the bone they've just thrown them just out of reach, which can make even the simplest goals seem like Tragic Dreams. Clever writers can cause viewers quite a bit of tension and suspense this way, since we know the good turn can't last and that something will inevitably come to take it away. Hacks will merely cause viewers to bash in a new window and abandon a series in frustration. A side effect of Status Quo Is God. Frequently seen when How We Got Here and In Medias Res are used. Not to be confused with Foregone Conclusion. Compare Like You Would Really Do It for the "positive" version, and Shoot the Shaggy Dog for the "negative" version. Viewers can avoid this if they read the Snicket Warning Label. Can be considered a sister trope to Your Princess Is in Another Castle! and Will They or Won't They?. See also Hope Spot (where a character finds a glimmer of hope that proves to be short-lived), Diabolus ex Machina (where things go wrong for a character from the get-go) and Too Happy to Live (where a character or characters start out happy before everything goes to hell), which work on similar principles. Despite how obvious they can be, there are spoilers below, so BEWARE SPOILERS.