Are you my mommy? TV's best and worst parental plot twists

As every Jessica Jones viewer knows, the heroine gained her powers when her entire family died long ago in an accident. But, in a shocking season 2 episode, she discovered (spoiler alert!) that the villain Jessica (Krysten Ritter) had been chasing was, in fact, her own mother, Alisa (Janet McTeer), who did not, in fact, die in that accident but did, in fact, become super strong and super evil.

The saga of Olivia's (Kerry Washington) mother had many parts. For the first few seasons, Scandal audiences (and Liv herself) were led to believe that Maya (Khandi Alexander) died on a plane, along with 300-plus other people, in a terrorist attack. Then, Shonda Rhimes and her co-conspirators hit us with the fact that the plane didn't explode but was rather shot down by a Navy plane flown by...Fitzgerald Grant (Tony Goldwyn). Then, it was revealed that Maya was never even on the plane in the first place — she was removed by her husband (and Olivia's father) and then lied about the bomb. Oh, and Olivia assumed she was dead because her father told her so, all the while keeping her locked up in a hole for decades.

Rachel (Lea Michele) was the last person on the planet to find out that vocal coach Shelby Corcoran (Idina Menzel) was actually her mom. The final reveal happened during (what else?) a musical performance where Rachel heard Shelby singing the titular ballad from Funny Girl and recognized her voice. It was super Glee, but not exactly groundbreaking.

It was nearly impossible to keep track of all the plot twists and turns on Once Upon a Time, not to mention keeping the characters straight. But even the most attuned viewer felt the shockwaves when Pan (Robbie Kay) was revealed as Rumple's (Robert Carlyle) father. The story goes like this: When Rumple was a wee lad, he and his dad escaped to Neverland, but his dad was soon convinced to leave because his heart wasn't young enough. He wound up assuming the name of Peter Pan, all unbeknownst to present-day Henry (Jared S. Gilmore). (Did you get all that?)

The entire second season of the Netflix comedy built toward Kimmy (Ellie Kemper) finally finding her long-lost mother. The identity of her mom wasn't so much groundbreaking as was the identity of the actress who played her mom. The Lisa Kudrow reveal was a terrific casting coup, and their reunion (at Universal Studios, no less) was the perfect combination of sad and hilarious.

Chuck Bass: You are not the father. It was the question that no one was asking, mostly because we were all so exhausted from the ups and downs of the lives of the Upper East Siders. Regardless, as everyone expected, Blair (Leighton Meester) took a paternity test and, it turned out, the baby belonged to Louis Grimaldi (Hugo Becker).

Arthur Petrelli (Robert Forster), founder of the Company and father to Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) and Nathan (Adrian Pasdar), was long assumed to be dead — until season 3, that is. Arthur was revealed to be very much alive, albeit confined to a respirator, and continuing with his evil ways.

Okay, stay with us for a moment. We're not actually criticizing the most perfect first season of the Monterey series. We're merely stating that, in the cadre of big parent reveals, this one fell near the bottom. To start, Big Little Lies was a book, so a lot of people weren't actually surprised when it played out on the small screen. Those who were surprised about Perry (Alexander Skarsgård) being Jane Chapman's (Shailene Woodley) rapist — and, subsequently, Ziggy's (Iain Armitage) father — had secretly kind of guessed it all along. And, finally, the are you my daddy portion of the plot twist was swiftly overshadowed by the revelation that Perry was the rapist Jane had been hunting and, well, his death.

Dang it, if Shonda Rhimes doesn't know how to introduce a new character. Maggie Pierce (Kelly McCreary) replaced Yang as the head of the department in the penultimate episode of season 10, and, by the season finale, it was revealed that her biological mother was Ellis Grey (Kate Burton), making her both Richard's (James Pickens Jr.) daughter and Meredith's (Ellen Pompeo) half-sister. Phew.

The ick factor is high here. Justine (Britt Baron) was the star of the show-within-a-show on GLOW and Sam (Marc Maron) was the smarmy director. After several episodes in which it became increasingly clear that Justine had her sights set on the older man, Sam tried to hook up with her. The skeeviness was amplified tenfold when she exclaimed that she was his daughter.

Doctor Who...is River Song? It's a question the show teased ever since the character (Alex Kingston) joined the group of time travelers. All was revealed as the Doctor (Matt Smith) and Rory (Arthur Darvill) attempted to rescue Amy (Karen Gillan) from kidnappers who casually wanted to use her baby in their war against Doctor Who — the baby wound up getting stolen, but then River showed up to out herself as the baby and revealed that her real name was Melody Pond. Get it?

In season 10, the ascot-wearing Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick) who everyone loved to hate found out — via a blast from Gossip Girl, naturally — that the older woman sleeping with Nate (Chace Crawford) was actually his birth mother, Diana (Elizabeth Hurley). She had an affair with Bart Bass (Robert John Burke), but gave up the baby to Elizabeth Bass (Laura Harring). In other words, it all tracked.