The bungler can't murder or steal or cheat well. The bungler is always caught, often before the crime gets carried out.
Two examples:
- Blue Bloods, "Women with Guns." Frank's reporter-lover laughs at her attempted murderer. He tried to murder her because she was planning to fire him. He accuses her of age-discrimination. She answers back that her decision wasn't about age but his incompetence. Proof? He couldn't even murder her!
- Psych, "American Duos." Tim Curry's version of Simon from American Idol laughs at his attempted murderer, a fellow judge "who was sitting two feet away!"
The black comedy approach is especially strong when the "bunglers" are spouses/significant others. In one Person of Interest episode, the spouses attempt to kill each other. They fail and later reconcile--as they are being arrested. (In a later Person of Interest episode, a disgusted Reese leaves the bungling spouses together on a boat with a gun.)
A more tragic version of the bungling spouses occurs when one spouse hires a hit man and changes his or her mind. In Blue Bloods, the husband kills the hit man he hired to kill his wife since he realizes that he truly loves her. In Law & Order: UK, a husband also tries to change his mind about a "hit." Too late--the hit man strikes! The wife dies from medical complications yet the spouses reconcile before her death after the husband delivers a devastated apology on his way to jail. (The wife is played by the astonishing Juliet Stevenson.)
Back to humor! The mirror to the bungling spouses is the couple that turns the trope of murderous spouse on its head.
The adulterous husband/wife who kills and the husband/wife who wants money and kills are common tropes in murder mysteries. Tongue set firmly in the cheek, The Thin Man series disposes of both possibilities early on in Nick and Nora's relationship. Whatever they may discover about other people, those issues are not issues for them. They joke about them!
