History Main / SickbedSlaying

** ''Film/TheDarkKnight'': The Joker dresses up as a nurse (with hella scary lipstick) to visit a badly injured Harvey Dent in the hospital. He doesn't kill him, but his visit is enough to [[spoiler:send Dent over the edge and make him fully embrace his new nature as the vengeful Two-Face]].
** ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises'': Two mooks break in to Gotham General Hospital where Commissionner Gordon is recovering from previous gunshot wounds with the intent to kill him. This being [[BadassNormal Commissionner]] [[OldMaster Gordon]], he manages to turn the situation to his advantage and get the jump on ''[[DangerouslyGenreSavvy three]]'' guys.
---> '''Gordon:''' ''Don't forget to [[ClickHello check your angles]], rookie.''

* Subverted twice in TheDarkKnightTrilogy:

** ''TheDarkKnightRises'': Two mooks break in to Gotham General Hospital where Commissionner Gordon is recovering from previous gunshot wounds with the intent to kill him. This being [[BadassNormal Commissionner]] [[OldMaster Gordon]], he manages to turn the situation to his advantage and get the jump on ''[[DangerouslyGenreSavvy three]]'' guys.

* A sidequest in ''MassEffect 3'' offers Shepard the chance to do this to a known batarian terrorist -- with the twist that the victim is awake and [[MercyKill begs Shepard to kill him]].

* The reason Gil from ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'' had to send out Captain Vole to try to get Agatha is because waves of assassins were trying to kill his hospitalized father.

** ''Film/TheDarkKnight'': The Joker visits a badly injured Harvey Dent in the hospital. He doesn't kill him, but his visit is enough to [[spoiler:send Dent over the edge and make him fully embrace his new nature as the vengeful Two-Face]].

* ''CallOfCthulhu'' supplement ''TheFungiFromYuggoth''. In the playtesting of the first adventure "The Dreamer", the {{PC}}s entered Paul [=LeMond=]'s hospital room to find the cultist Clarence Rodgers strangling him. Rogers had infiltrated the hospital dressed as an orderly.

** TheDarkKnightRises: Two mooks break in to Gotham General Hospital where Commissionner Gordon is recovering from previous gunshot wounds with the intent to kill him. This being [[BadassNormal Commissionner]] [[OldMaster Gordon]], he manages to turn the situation to his advantage and get the jump on ''[[DangerouslyGenreSavvy three]]'' guys.

** TheDarkKnightRises: Two goons break in to Gotham General Hospital where Commissionner Gordon is recovering from previous gunshot wounds with the intent to kill him. This being [[BadassNormal Commissionner]] [[OldMaster Gordon]], he manages to turn the situation to his advantage and then get the jump on ''[[DangerouslyGenreSavvy three]]'' guys.

** TheDarkKnightRises: Two goons break in to Gotham General Hospital where Commissionner Gordon is recovering from previous gunshot wounds with the intent to kill him. This being [[BadassNormal Commissionner]] [[OldMaster Gordon]], he manages to turn the situation to his advantage and then get the jump on ''[[UpToEleven three]]'' guys.

** TheDarkKnightRises: Two goons break in to Gotham General Hospital where Commissionner Gordon is recovering from previous gunshot wounds with the intent to kill him. This being [[BadassNormal Commissionner]] [[CoolOldGuy Gordon]], he manages to turn the situation to his advantage and then get the jump on ''[[UpToEleven three]]'' guys.

** TheDarkKnightRises: Two goons break in to Gotham General Hospital where Commissionner Gordon is recovering from previous gunshot wounds with the intent to kill him. This being [[BaddassNormal Commissionner]] [[CoolOldGuy Gordon]], he manages to turn the situation to his advantage and then get the jump on ''[[UpToEleven three]]'' guys.

* Subverted in ''Film/TheDarkKnight'': The Joker visits a badly injured Harvey Dent in the hospital. He doesn't kill him, but his visit is enough to [[spoiler:send Dent over the edge and make him fully embrace his new nature as the vengeful Two-Face]].

* ''Telefon''. A priest who's been [[ManchurianAgent brainwashed to commit sabotage]] is captured alive. A female KGB agent purchases a nurses' uniform from an on-sight outfitters, while Charles Bronson (posing as a doctor) rings up the duty nurse and tells her that another nurse will be replacing her, as she's to report somewhere else. The false nurse then injects air into the IV tube of the patient.

* On Seinfeld, George is in the hospital and keeps going on about how he doesn't want to suffer and just be sick forever so he asks Jerry, that if it comes to that, to put him out of his misery. Jerry says "Like this?" grabs a pillow and start suffocating him while he struggles.

[[HeKnowsTooMuch Someone is too close to finding out the]] ''[[HeKnowsTooMuch truth]]''. Or perhaps he or she knows too much [[ForYourOwnGood for their own good]]. For whatever reason, this person has been seriously injured or ill, and is now unconscious in a hospital bed. An assailant slips behind the hospital staff and quietly sneaks into the hospital room with intent on killing the sleeping patient. Sometimes they succeed. Sometimes they [[BigDamnHeroes don't]].

* Subverted in ''{{The Dark Knight|Saga}}'': The Joker visits a badly injured Harvey Dent in the hospital. He doesn't kill him, but his visit is enough to [[spoiler:send Dent over the edge and make him fully embrace his new nature as the vengeful Two-Face]].

* ''TwentyFour'':

** This is [[InvokedTrope invoked]] in season eight -- CTU release a news bulletin saying that the very dead [[spoiler:Farhad Hassan]] is alive and has been taken to hospital in the hope that the villain will send one of his men to finish him off, who they can then capture.

* An unusual humorous (if morbidly so) example occurs in ''RescueMe'', in which a character suffering from kidney cancer awakens from a musical [[DreamSequence dream sequence]] gone awry to find a well-meaning uncle attempting to smother him as an act of mercy because the doctors say he's taken a turn for the worse.

* ''{{Leverage}}'', "The Beantown Bailout Job." [[spoiler: The bank manager]] behind the whole scam is on his way to the hospital to kill the only witness, who's lying in a coma... only to find the Massachusetts State Police waiting for him when he arrives.

** And Skinner himself attempts to do this to the comatose Mulder in "Deadalive", thinking he is saving Scully's unborn child by doing so. It fails, but ends up saving Mulder from a life of alien replication.
* ''{{Castle}}''. In season one, this almost happens to a man in witness protection - [[spoiler: luckily, it turns out just to be a trap, and our heroes catch the would-be assassin.]]

* Considered in the first ''[[{{VideoGame/Persona}} Persona]]'' game by Nanjo at upon discovering that [[spoiler:their friend Maki is trapped in Kandori's DVA system, which has been the cause of all their problems]]. [[YouBastard Mark decks him for it]].

* Barely averted in both the first and second ''[[TheGodfather Godfather]]'' films. In the first Michael Corleone arrives to find the police guards have been 'reassigned'. He gets a nurse to move his father's bed to another room, then bluffs the killers by standing outside (with a friend) and sliding a hand inside his coat when the carload of killers turn up. In the second film the hitman, having distracted the nurses, is about to press a pillow over the patient's face when a squad of Cuban soldiers, who have been tipped off about the hit, march in and shoot him.

* In ''TwentyFour'', this happens to [[spoiler:Janet York]].

* ''{{Luther}}''. [[HeroicSociopath Alice Morgan]] disguises herself as a doctor, hits the fire alarm and then tells the police officer guarding the man she intends to kill that there's some violent patients on the floor below who are hindering the evacuation. She then walks into the room and smothers her target with her bare hands.

Compare with RoomDisservice and DudeShesLikeInAComa.

** This is done all the time! When nobody is able to kill the Major in combat, they try something else and send an assassin to kill her when she gets her cybernetic body replaced and is nothing more than a BrainInAJar for a few minutes. [[spoiler:Then the assassin looks away just long enough for the Laughing Man to plug her back in...]]

* The climax of the film ''U.S. Marshals''.