41 Confusing TV And Movie Plot Holes

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14-06-2025

The last time I talked about annoying plot holes, I mentioned the big one in A Quiet Place: why don't they live by the waterfall? But I have another smaller one — where does that nail Evelyn steps on come from? How had no one stepped on it before? Wouldn't someone have noticed it and removed or covered it? And why was there even a nail randomly sticking up from a stair to begin with?
Also, you see this newspaper identifying that the creatures are attracted by sound. Now, I haven't seen the Day One sequel, but I assume this invasion happened pretty quickly. Did they really have time to print newspapers? And isn't printing...well, pretty loud? They were just delivering newspapers as usual during all of this?
Who put down this sand in the woods to make people's feet quieter? Wouldn't that have been loud? Where did they even find the sand? Don't they live kind of in the middle of nowhere?
Maybe I'm missing something here, but in the second film, why do they have to send an encoded message about their location? Like...the monsters don't understand English, do they? And if I remember correctly, this song was also about the monsters fearing water? Wouldn't they have wanted to spread that message more explicitly?
I also mentioned some Disney examples in the last post, but I have more, especially from Tangled. First of all, why does Mother Gothel tell Rapunzel her real birthday? Couldn't she just lie so Rapunzel doesn't realize the lanterns are connected to her?
Rapunzel's tower appears to have a working stove/oven and a sink. Are we supposed to believe that Gothel made this all on her own?
And how'd she get the furniture up there? It's established that she gets up using Rapunzel's hair. There's also a blocked-off entrance and a trapdoor in the floor that Rapunzel doesn't seem aware of until the end, with just a ladder, but she'd still have to move it without Rapunzel noticing. And how did she get up to the tower when Rapunzel's hair was shorter?
I'm not gonna otherwise question Rapunzel's magic hair when it comes to keeping it clean and untangled, and not getting caught on things, or even being too heavy for Rapunzel – 'cause, y'know, magic — but I will take issue with how a few kids braided Rapunzel's wildly long hair into THIS.
A few things in the most recent season of The Last of Us bothered me. Like in that big battle episode, why was their big solution exploding canisters of gas RIGHT NEXT TO A WOOD WALL that was keeping the infected out??? Doesn't that seem dangerous and counterintuitive?
I know Ellie questioned this, but I'm still convinced Dina's pregnancy tests would've all been expired. I also call BS on her finding so many. It's been decades of this; I don't buy that in-demand medical items haven't already been scavenged from literally everywhere.
But my biggest issue is with the spores. They seem to literally only exist in one spot to create that one scene for Ellie and Nora. Why do the spores exist in only one location? In the game, they're in a ton of different poorly-ventilated areas. It feels like the show just threw them into one episode and didn't want to deal with them the rest of the time.
In another recent example, let's talk about this season of Severance. Near the end, Outie and Innie Mark fight over the idea of reintegration. Why does Outie Mark never mention Petey??? Innie Mark directly challenges the existence of reintegration, and Outie Mark bringing up Petey (whom he couldn't have known about otherwise) would've been proof that it works. He didn't have to mention that Petey died if that was his reason.
It feels like the show completely forgot about Petey. It also feels like they forgot about Reghabi for a large stretch.
And why is reintegration working so slowly this time? It feels like they just decided that for plot reasons.
In The Umbrella Academy, how are Lila and Diego's children — and Allison's daughter — able to exist if the siblings made it so that they never existed? The train took them to the correct timeline, I guess, but still. How could they have done that if their parents never existed? Wouldn't they just fade from existence once they got there?
I never totally got the whole Elder Wand thing from Harry Potter. Harry doesn't disarm the Elder Wand from Malfoy, because Dumbledore has been buried with it. He disarms Malfoy's wand from him — so it makes sense that Malfoy's wand's allegiance changes to Harry, but why does the Elder wand's allegiance change if Malfoy never even held it, and Harry never took it from him or anyone else?
And WHY DOES HARRY NOT USE THE ELDER WAND TO REPAIR HIS OWN WAND IN THE MOVIE?? He does in the books, but in the movie, we're just supposed to believe he uses Malfoy's old wand forever?
On You....HOW does Joe manage to bring and assemble that cage everywhere he damn goes???
I also think it's so obvious that Nadia doesn't report Marienne in the cage to the police because the writers didn't want Joe to be caught red-handed. I *maybe* buy Marienne, starving, paranoid, and terrified of Joe's capabilities, suggesting that wild plan, but I don't buy Nadia, just a regular college kid, going for it. I also don't buy Joe believing Marienne was dead just from her blood pressure lowering. He's seen enough dead bodies to know the difference.
In Hannah Montana, Miley's dad is the famous in-universe musician Robby Ray. He's also Hannah Montana's manager. You're telling me NO ONE put together the fact that his daughter Miley is Hannah? Sure, he wears a "disguise" as Hannah's manager, but that disguise is literally...a mustache. As I admittedly watched this show over a decade ago, I did some digging on this one, and it turns out Robby publicly refers to Hannah as his daughter while presenting her with an award. However, it's also common knowledge, at least where Miley lives, that she's Robby's daughter. So what gives???
I know this isn't the only film to do this, but why do Yelena and her dad speak in English to each other in Thunderbolts?
And how does everyone get to that one spot in Bob's mind? Yelena struggles to get there, and she's the one who knows Bob best and the only one he actually trusts. The others show up quickly after, at the exact same time, pretty soon after she gets there (and she went in way before them). How?
And how does Bob gain control of his powers so fast? He goes from trying out his powers on a glass of water, immediately shattering it, to being all-powerful and completely in control in the next scene. This happens in a lot of movies and TV shows, and it always pisses me off. Give us a training montage, at the very least!
Also, I don't know if this is really a plot hole, as they haven't had time to explain it yet, but how does Selena just announce the new Avengers like that? Is there not still plenty of evidence that she's been experimenting on humans? I mean, Bob's right there. And how in the world is she going to have John Walker be in the group after he publicly beheaded someone with Captain America's shield? And she really got a whole press conference ready that fast in an active situation zone?
In Stranger Things, I'm still not buying that Hopper survived just by jumping down a little lower, without at least becoming permanently injured in some way. The blast literally vaporized the other people there!!!! And how did the Russians get him out of there so fast before the US Army showed up?
On a similar note, how did Sherlock actually fake his death in Sherlock??? They explain a few different versions — that each has its own issues and feels wildly unrealistic — but never confirm the real one, and it feels lazy. And why was it so important for him to stay away from John for two years? Couldn't he have discreetly confirmed the truth without alerting Moriarty's remaining cronies?
In Sinners, why does Stack stay away from Sammie for all those years? Stack "promised" Smoke, but like...is he not an evil vampire now, whose main goal is to turn Smoke and Sammie? Why would he care about that promise, or stick to it after Smoke was dead? Why would he even let Smoke go; wouldn't he try to turn him again the second he let go of him? Even if Vampire Stack was trustworthy, we're supposed to believe Smoke actually trusts he'll leave Sammie alone, or even has time to talk it through? He shows up to save Sammie moments later!
Dan's reveal of being Gossip Girl still makes absolutely no sense to me. There are multiple instances when Dan simply couldn't have been Gossip Girl, and that's not even counting all of the Gossip Girl blasts he seems shocked by when he's alone. They also then frame Gossip Girl as a "love letter" to Serena, which is just absolutely ridiculous, considering how much he tortured her.
Also, on Pretty Little Liars, Mona's explanation for becoming A makes no sense. She states it's because Aria, Spencer, and Emily took Hanna away from her. But...they weren't even talking when A started sending messages. In fact, A is literally what brought Hanna and the girls back together. And why torture Hanna along with the others? She arguably got it the worst, considering Mona hit her with her car and constantly tormented Hanna over her eating disorder.
I won't excuse what Mona did to Emily, but Emily came out fairly quickly, so there wasn't much to torture her over anymore. Spencer and Aria were being groomed, and those things frankly should've been outed to the adults in their lives. But Hanna? Beyond threatening to expose her stealing (which she literally does in Episode 1), most of A's torture centers are around Hanna having been "fat" and trying to get her to relapse.
Cece is even worse. She tortures the girls because they "moved on" when Ali was dead. Except...she tortures Ali too? Also, how did Jason just forget he had another sibling? And HOW DID CECE FUND THE DOLLHOUSE???
I have to bring up a continuity plot hole with Pretty Little Liars because it's SO bad. Season 3, Episode 13 is Halloween of their Senior year. Season 5, Episode 12 is Thanksgiving. Almost two seasons passed in a matter of weeks??? This includes Caleb recovering from being shot, Ali coming back from the dead, all of Ravenswood, Ezra's betrayal, and much, much more.
In Mickey 17, how does Mickey have memories of his past selves who have died? They upload his consciousness into each new version, but how do they have access to the new memories that he's created just before dying, assuming they don't have access to his body?
I guess this is less a plot hole than something I just refuse to believe, but it just makes no sense to me that there would EVER be another dinosaur park created after the dinosaurs got out the first time. Jurassic World shouldn't exist.
Lost has so many plot holes I should probably ignore it entirely, but one that still bothers me years later is the reveal that Libby had been in the psych ward with Hurley. What did it mean??? What were they trying to tell us?? SO many things were never explained on Lost, but this one really irked me because it genuinely felt as if they forgot about it, and it was such a huge cliffhanger at the time.
In Avengers: Endgame, we see Hawkeye's family just chilling when they dust. Same with a ton of Avengers-adjacent people, like Yelena, Scott, and Nakia. Was just no one aware the world was about to end? I know the big battle was in Wakanda, but wasn't there a battle early on in Infinity War in New York? Natasha didn't even want to warn her own sister?
This is a sillier plot hole, but it's a funny one. Rhodey and Scott appear to have seen Hot Tub Time Machine, but...Sebastian Stan is in that movie. Did they not notice that Bucky was just casually in a movie?
Hot Tub Time Machine came out in 2010 too, so that was while Bucky was still the Winter Soldier. Guess he was also an actor on the side?
Why didn't Fury ever call Carol before the very end of Infinity War? I know Carol said she was off helping other planets, which, fine, but you're telling me Fury didn't use the device ONCE during the massive global threats of the preceding movies? He didn't even TRY to contact her?
Speaking of Carol, how did she find Tony and Nebula at the beginning of Endgame?
I have sooo many questions about the cure on The Vampire Diaries. Katherine takes the cure, leading her blood to become the cure. Silas then takes the cure from her, leading to her rapidly aging. It appears you don't age while the cure is in your blood. But then later, when Stefan takes it (and then gives it to Damon), the show acts like they're going to grow old slowly, like a normal human? The whole plan was for Damon to take the cure and grow old with Elena. But wouldn't he still look young and be immortal until someone takes the cure from him? Was the plan for someone to do that when Elena was near death, so they'd die together??? Stefan also mentions in this scene that Damon has eternity with Elena, which makes no sense as Elena is human at this point.
Also, Silas drinks ALL of Katherine's blood to ingest the cure, but later, you only need a syringe. What happens to the rest of the person's blood? It's just normal, then? Or could you make multiple cures?
Let's talk about when Bonnie brought back the cure from the prison world. How the hell did Bonnie get 200 miles off Nova Scotia alone? And this is, like, a fake world, right? How is the real cure there, with no Silas or any other people existing?
Also on TVD — and The Originals – all the Originals have different accents. But...they're siblings? At least Rebekah, Elijah, Kol, and Klaus are somewhat similar (I still think Rebekah sounds Australian), but Freya is full-on American.
Finally, on Revenge, how is Sammy still alive when Emily/Amanda comes back almost 20 years later???