Dorothy and Sam Harbaugh

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“	The juice isn’t worth the squeeze	„
	~ The Harbaughs catchphrase

Dorothy and Sam Harbaugh, also known as The Harbaughs, are the main antagonists of the 2019 comedy-drama Netflix show, No Good Nick.

They are two former con artists and foster parents who use their foster kids to scam people and deliver a large portion of the money they earned to them. They agree to let the main protagonist, Nick Franzelli, scam the Thompsons not realizing they aren't a random family while getting her in under the guise of social service workers.

Dorothy is portrayed by American actress Molly Hagan, who also portrayed Nancy Dalton in Stalker, while Sam is portrayed by American actor Ted McGinley, who portrayed Stan Gable in Revenge of the Nerds.

Appearance[]

Sam and Dorothy are upper-middle aged Americans who usually dress in professional attire as foster parents in public while dressing in a chic older style when behind their scenes. Dorothy is usually wearing colorful clothes with pearls while Sam usually wears floral patterned t-shirts.

Personality[]

Dorothy and Sam are extremely greedy and impatient to their foster kids due to their chances of being caught and want to be in and aware of every scam going on under their belt. Both are extremely manipulative and can put on false personalities, as Dorothy presents herself as cheery and upbeat person while in reality is more laid back and subtly deceptive while Sam behind the scenes is more irrational, angry, and impatient. Dorothy seems to be more capable, as she logically and emotionally manipulates the Thompsons more often. However, she is less confrontational than Sam and is implied to be an alcoholic. Over time, she becomes more and more ruthless and angry as well. Both admit to not caring about the consequences of their actions as they do not care how many innocent people are harmed as long as they are able to turn a fortune off of it.

They both consistently use older lingo and metaphors to the point it has been passed down to their foster kids such as Will, who used their literal catchphrase which lead to Nick figuring out that Will was spying on her.

They are extremely aware of Nick's intelligence and praise her for it, but due to it, it can make them easily distrust her when they suspect she's lying. They put money above everything else, including their own marriage, where it mostly seems to be out of usefulness rather than love and efficiently teach every child they are in care of to become a con artist, no matter how much danger it is to the kids themselves, who are manipulated and desperate for parental care. They show conditional love to the kids, only praising them if they do extremely successful scams knowing it will turn the kids into being competitive with one another and increasing their eventual profit. They will go back on their word and steal the money earned by their foster kids if they don't get exactly or sometimes even more than what they asked for.

Despite their ruthlessness, at the beginning of the show, they showed a small portion of care for their foster children as Dorothy admitted this and took Nick to see the movies with her. She, at the start, would show kindness to Nick, wishing her good luck on her test despite Nick's anger and Sam, while playing a part, sincerely told the Thompson's Nick is a special kid and gave her back a stuffed penguin. However, as the show progresses they lose any care for all of the kids, becoming more harsh, unkind, and distrustful due to their worry over Nick playing them behind their backs. They become so unforgiving over errors, they threaten Will, one of their foster kids who is stalking Nick, with punishment to his mom who is in jail, if he betrays them or doesn't catch Nick. They also threaten to make Nick's father life worse in prison if she disobeys their final goal. Due to the show being cancelled, any other possible redeeming qualities, other than the subverted ones, weren't explored therefore greed seems to be the sole motivation.

When they are ironically tricked by the Thompsons, betrayed by Nick due to their own overconfidence, and arrested while showing their true wrath, it is played as karma as they were completely deserving of it. The consequences of their actions lead to presumably dozens of kids losing their innocence by eroding their morals. Due to the shows comedic nature, they are sometimes portrayed as ridiculous or clumsy but that mostly fades out as the show progresses as well.

Biography[]

Background[]

Sometime in the past for unknown reasons they were in contact with Nick Franzelli's deceased mother. Before that, they were most likely con artists who learned how to deceive people and get away with fraud and conspiracy. Eventually they became foster parents and came up with the idea of teaching their kids to become con artists like them and made them compete for their praise due to the foster kids desperate need for attention and desire to be worthy. They had kids participate in various schemes and the Harbaughs made sure to know all the details in case the kids wanted to betray them. Despite that, the kids were often put in dangerous situations which could lead to the entire conspiracy falling if figured out. They are open to scam ideas made by their foster kids if they think the "juice will be worth the squeeze."

After Nick's father was arrested for a robbery, the Harbaughs took Nick in and over the months taught her their skills and she became one of their smartest and most useful scammers due to her quick thinking, idea generation, and her ability to pull off gambits.

Part 1[]

Unknowingly to them, Nick and her father conspired to rob the Thompson family who were the cause of their ruin and the money they steal could be used to get her dad a good lawyer. Nick convinced the Harbaughs, saying the family was rich and she could do a long-term heist. However, Dorothy doubted this as it seemed like a lot of effort to rob just one family. Dorothy pretends to be a social services worker who contacted the wrong Ed Thompson and that Nick is a long lost relative who was sent to live there after her parents were killed in a car crash. The family initially confused, decides over time that Nick can stay and live with them.

They get notified Nick will make the job done quickly instead by knocking the family out by poisoning their drinks but are then notified Nick changed her mind and wanted it to turn back into a long term heist and that no matter how many times the Harbaughs complained, she was the one doing the job so she will get the final say. After the Haurbaughs are blackmailed by their own foster kid, they still want money coming in fast, even if Nick is throwing off their demands, as they believe she is bluffing and is possibly doing something behind their backs. Nick decides to plan a wine scam when Liz Thompson has a wine tasting event.

The wine scam fails after Nick doesn't realize the high-end wine bottles are worthless without the labels, but Dorothy takes them home anyway and she gets drunk and is hungover the next day. Dorothy goes to Nick's school to inform her that they want to see some results soon.

Nick successfully pulls off a robbery of Ed Thompsons art supplies and exchanges them for enough money to pay for the lawyer. After Nick is allowed to go outside after the Thompson Family Safety Day she runs into Dorothy who shows she's not completely heartless by saying she cares about the kids despite using them and takes Nick to the movies. Nick, pretending to go to the bathroom, delivers the money to the "lawyer" and heads back. Dorothy is suspicious and wonders why she took so long but due to Nick's good mood she dismisses it.

After Nick continually does not deliver, including failing to steal Liz Thompson's ring due to her conscience, Sam gets suspicious about what's going on behind their backs and discovers an online scam being pulled off by her and with another foster kid, Omar, at the bank and cruelly and dishonorably steals the check for ten thousand dollars from her as he understood Nick was never gonna alert them about it.

When they are alerted that a legitimate social services worker is being sent to investigate Nick's place in the Thompson family after the Thompsons worry about if Nick doesn't be at home they warn Nick to be on her toes and pull it off as the workers are like human lie detectors. They make it clear to Nick on the resources they have behind them. After Nick manages to successfully trick the social services worker by ironically telling portions of the truth, Sam arrives at their home disguised as a another social services worker directly after, and while he was pretending to be sweet it is played as sincere when he praises Nick and gives her back a stuffed penguin she had left behind at the foster home. He even warns them about her food preferences as Nick directs him out.

Part 2[]

When a file initially ordered by Jeremy is mailed in on Nick and the information is correct but the photo is of someone else, Liz calls Dorothy who clears it up by manipulating her into saying that the mixing up of files is common and that the same thing happened when they contacted the wrong Ed. She is ironically shuffling cards while doing this.

When Jeremy still isn't convinced they head down to the local office and Dorothy is helped by "someone on the inside" named Cheryl who falsely assures him and Liz that mix ups happen all the time due to everything being done by hand while also clearing up the issue with Dorothy's fake last name. Dorothy, after Liz tells her about how Nick found her ring and a crazy person showed up at her door asking for furniture, realizes Nick purposely went back on getting the ring and also set up a huge scam without notifying them. After they successfully trick both of the Thompsons, Dorothy promises Cheryl a bottle of Costa Nord.

Dorothy talks to Sam about the information she got and believes Nick is holding out on them so she decides to send one of their foster kids, Will, to keep a close eye on her. Will is able to deceive Nick by teaching her some tricks to bait her into rigging the poker tournament in the chance they win the raffle and Will can find out what Nick would do with her half of the prize money, but given the fact Nick already has a plan to not win the raffle but instead have Todd, another crook she is conspiring with, win it so she can get a bigger majority, Nick still ends up getting a leg up over the Harbaughs despite not even having the intention to do so. Will is still up to the task of finding out what Nick is doing behind their backs.

Will accidentally reveals his intentions when he uses the Harbaughs catchphrase and after Will betrays Nick during their scam, Nick is able to get the phones back using an old customer playing the part of a security officer who while he was only there to deliver the phones in exchange for money to give to Nick, sees Will with the duffel bag and "catches" Will in the act. Nick, knowing Will believes he was genuinely caught, calls the Harbaughs saying she knows about Will being their rat and that they lost a $20,000 score she could've gotten and threatens them to not mess with her since they lost a giant deal. Will, blowing his cover, tells the Harbaughs he still wants to continue his task of watching Nick and finding out her true motives.

They figure out that Nick is spending time at the park with the same man and that the phone heist was actually successful as the phones were never recovered. They tell Will to find out exactly what the man in the park is doing or, threatened by Dorothy, they will use a friend on the parole board to make his mom's life worse in prison so Will agrees to not let them down. Will is caught taking photos by the mobsters Nick is paying and Nick gets him off the hook by pretending to be his girlfriend despite his constant betrayals. Will agrees to buy her a few more days but warns her the Harbaughs will connect the dots on how she is paying off the debts for his father and her whole life could fall apart even further.

When Nick is exposed for pretending to be a long lost relative and for stealing the diamond necklace, the Harbaughs confront her and warn her she'll be lucky if she only gets juvie. Sam criticizes her for "going soft" and confessing to her crimes while never even mentioning her big steal and Dorothy says they figured out that she was stealing for her father and threaten that her dad will get extra time in prison due to receiving money made from stolen goods. They force Nick to go back to the Thompsons house to get the stolen necklace for him while supervising her through live camera footage but don't realize she has a final trick up her sleeve. She cuts a deal to give her dad immunity off screen, plants a fake necklace at the house, has the Thompsons learn the truth about them and what the Harbaughs are about to do so the Thompsons pretend to pass out, and the cops were called before the Harbaughs even entered the house. While the Harbaughs are stealing the fake necklace, they are arrested and genuinely surprised they got played by Nick as they were extremely confident in their plan. They try to gaslight Nick into feeling guilty over getting them caught saying they taught her all about con artistry but she scathingly responds that she can be so much more than what they made her into.

They are presumably imprisoned as the evidence of their crimes is overwhelming and all of their foster kids are displaced and eventually placed into separate homes.

Gallery[]

External Links[]

Dorothy Harbaugh on the No Good Nick Wiki
Sam Harbaugh on the No Good Nick Wiki