Line #37 Main/DeadlyClosingCredits


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4	Ever wonder what the deadliest moment in any given episode is? The very last second before the credits roll, of course! [[LiesDamnedLiesAndStatistics Statistics show]] that any character -- hero, supporting, or otherwise -- is 73% more likely to be mortally wounded at the very end of an episode than at any point in time before it.
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6	In its most typical form, the soon-to-be-dead character finds themselves staring down the barrel of a loaded gun in their very last scene. [[GoryDiscretionShot Cut to black, gunshot rings]], credits roll, and [[CliffHanger your audience is forced to stick around for the next episode to see the fallout]]. In deaths that don't involve a bullet to the brain, replace the ringing gunshot with something equally damning -- like the heavy ''thunk'' of the character's fresh corpse.
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8	Warning: Nowadays, this trope is just as likely to be subverted as it is played straight. As the death literally happens BehindTheBlack, it isn't uncommon for the next episode to [[BaitAndSwitchGunshot reveal that the "dead" character came away relatively unscathed]], making it a case of OurHeroIsDead. In fact, it might be revealed that the ''killer'' is [[BulletHolesAndRevelations the poor sod who bit it instead]].
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10	Also note that, even when this trope isn't subverted, the mortally wounded character is still likely to stick around long enough to deliver his FinalSpeech in the next episode.
11
12	!!'''As a {{Death Trope\|s}}, all Spoilers will be unmarked ahead. Beware.'''
13	----
14	!!Examples:
15	[[foldercontrol]]
16
17	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
18	* The ''VideoGame/SengokuBasara'' anime does this with both Nagamasa and Oichi. In the first case it's played straight, though [[AlmostDeadGuy Nagamasa does technically last until the next episode]]. Oichi's is the classic "killer gets killed instead" subversion.
19	* The second episode of ''Literature/{{Baccano}}'''s anime adaptation ends with the SacrificialLamb being murdered in this fashion.
20	** Later in the series it turns out that while there's still a [[CargoCult corpse]] things [[RedHerringShirt happened]] [[ChekhovsGunman a]] [[SociopathicHero little]] [[AndThisIsFor differently]].
21	* In ''Literature/{{Durarara}}'' by the same studio, we see Shizuo getting shot and lying in a pool of blood just before credits roll. Though being [[MadeOfIron Shizuo]], he ends up just walking away.
22	** Volume 6 of the original novels has another example, where Izaya is stabbed by a rival InformationBroker and passes out from blood loss before he can contact anyone he trusts to help him. The paramedics get to him in time, but the fact that he's now stuck in a hospital bed while his name, status and location are broadcasted to anyone who might want to finish him off starts [[http://anni-fiesta.livejournal.com/22439.html driving him a wee bit crazy.]]
23	* In ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'', Togusa gets shot at the end of an episode and appears to be dead. In the next episode, we find out he survived, but suffered serious injuries.
24	** In the penultimate episode of the first season, Major Kusanagi's head explodes from sniper fire. Batou responds by screaming into the sky, then the credits roll. However, the Major is a full-body cyborg; a lingering shot of her body informs sharp-eyed viewers that it was just a remote decoy body that had been killed, foreshadowing her return in the final episode.
25	* ''Anime/MacrossFrontier'', ep. 24: "SCATTER TO THE ENDS OF THE GALAXY!", Alto! But of course, he is NotQuiteDead...
26	* ''Anime/TigerAndBunny'', episode 11. Poor, poor Origami Cyclone. He ''barely'' manages to subvert the trope and live.
27	* In the Phantom Bullet arc of ''Literature/SwordArtOnline'', Death Gun has shot Sinnon with a stun bolt, and gets up close to finish her with his [[ICallItVera Death Gun]]. Her eyes go wide, the screen goes black, and a shot rings out. [[SubvertedTrope Come the next episode,]] it turns out that it was [[BigDamnHeroes Kirito shooting Death Gun.]]
28	* The short "Neon Genesis IMPACTS" from the Anime/JapanAnimatorExpo has its credits play while the sole member that stayed behind in Tokyo-3 is hiding during an [[Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion Angel]] attack. Just as the credits are about to end, it cuts to black while hearing a large amount of rubble falling.
29	[[/folder]]
30
31	[[folder:Film]]
32	* Mr. White's death in ''Film/ReservoirDogs''
33	** And Mr. Orange's, for that matter, although it happens offscreen.
34	* James Woods faces down the villain at the end of ''Film/{{Cop}}'': "The good news is I am a cop and I do have to bring you in. The bad news is I've been suspended and I don't give a fuck." ''(fires his shotgun, quick cut to black, roll credits)''
35	* At the end of ''Film/LayerCake'', just as everything is looking up for XXXX, he steps outside, there is a gunshot from nowhere, and he falls. The closing credits roll.
36	* The short film of the video game [[VideoGame/PapersPlease Papers, Please]] ends this way, with the main character, [[PunchClockVillain The Inspector]], getting shot at the end by a [[YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters Kolechian Terrorist]], who has just bombed the Checkpoint and killed the Guards.
37	* ''Film/TheFog'' cuts to black right before Blake murders Father Malone.
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40	[[folder:Literature]]
41	* Two books of ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' have had epilogues, and both epilogues ended with the death of the narrating character. The series also inverts this trope, with any character who narrates a prologue biting it either in the prologue or very shortly after.
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44	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
45	* ''Series/BreakingBad'' ends its third season with Jesse pointing a gun at a pleading Gale and a gunshot as the screen [[FadeOut fades to black]].
46	* ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' did this with [[WhamEpisode Kate's death]]. In fact, it's DoubleSubverted-- she jumps in front of a bullet to save Gibbs' life, but then it's revealed that she was wearing a bullet-proof vest. Then, while they're laughing it off, ''[[TwistEnding she gets shot in the head]]''.
47	* ''Series/HillStreetBlues'' does this with a cop's suicide.
48	* ''Series/TheSopranos'' might have ended with this. Maybe. [[NoEnding We don't really know for sure.]]
49	* Horribly, horribly subverted by the season finale of ''Series/{{CSI}}'' in which Warrick gets shot moments before the episode ends. The audience witnesses the entire thing in SloMo, with no GoryDiscretionShot, either.
50	* The ''Series/MagnumPI'' episode "Did You See the Sunrise?" ends in this way, with a freeze-frame of Magnum cold-bloodedly killing the Russian assassin who had, earlier in the episode, murdered one of Magnum's friends.
51	* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'': the episode "Heart" ends with Sam shooting a friend offscreen, to stop her turning into a werewolf.
52	* ''Series/CriminalMinds'': season 4's finale "... And Back" ended like this.
53	** So did the season one finale, "The Fisher King (Part 1)".
54	* In ''Series/{{Highlander}}'', Duncan [=MacLeod=] rescues his girlfriend Tessa from a psychotic Immortal hunter (and the first Watcher we see in the series) then, just when it seems that the day is saved, she's killed by a random mugger.
55	* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Tara (and Buffy, but she lived) was shot right at the end of the episode.
56	* The final moments of ''Series/BlakesSeven'': The crew is gunned down, save Avon, who is quickly surrounded by Federation troops. He straddles Blake's corpse, raises his gun, puts on his best SlasherSmile... fade out, the sound of shooting, roll credits.
57	* In the episode [[MeaningfulName Turn Turn Turn]] from ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'', Ward murders Agent Hand and her two bodyguards in order to rescue Garrett (aka The Clairvoyant) just as the episode ends. As Garrett had been revealed earlier in the episode, that was a WhamEpisode indeed. (The episode also featured a Hydra ending.)
58	* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'':
59	** "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S2E1AStitchInTime A Stitch in Time]]" ends like this, with a newly-forged time-traveling KnightTemplar gunning down a serial-killer-to-be.
60	** This happened on a much larger scale in "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S2E9TrialByFire Trial by Fire]]". The newly inaugurated U.S. President Charles Halsey and his advisors are monitoring the approach of an alien fleet -- who, as it turns out, were coming in peace -- from a nuclear bunker in Washington, D.C.. After the United States and Russia launch nuclear missiles at the fleet, the aliens destroy said missiles with ease before they reach their targets. They then launch two weapons of their own in retaliation: one at Washington, D.C. and the other at Moscow. With only about a minute to think about it, the President, his wife Elizabeth and his advisors prepare to meet their fate. As the episode ends, the screen turns to white, signifying the destruction of the U.S. capital.
61	** It happened on an even larger scale in "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S2E18TheLightBrigade The Light Brigade]]". In that episode, a sequel to "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S1E14QualityOfMercy Quality of Mercy]]", humanity is losing an interstellar war against an extremely belligerent and much more advanced alien race who are hellbent on exterminating them. In a last-ditch attempt to turn the tide, the ''Light Brigade'' is part of a fleet sent on a mission to attack the alien homeworld with a subatomic bomb, a DoomsdayDevice which can disrupt matter on a subatomic level. The ship is attacked and disabled by the aliens while it is approaching their planet but a cadet, one of only four survivors, is able to launch the subatomic bomb. However, it turns out that the alien posing as Major John Skokes turned the ship around while the cadet was unconscious and the cadet has just dropped the bomb on Earth. The subatomic bomb is seen making its way to Earth as the episode ends.
62	** It again happened on a very large scale in "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S4E6RelativityTheory Relativity Theory]]". A survey team travels to Tau Gamma Prime in search of resources which are desperately needed on Earth, which has run out of practically all of its own natural resources. Although the planet is believed to be uninhabited, the survey team comes under attack from a group of seven-foot-tall reptilian aliens. The team's xenobiologist Teresa Janovitch favors negotiating with them as she does not want to repeat Earth's dark history with respect to the treatment of indigenous populations but the security chief Sgt. Adam Sears leads an attack on their encampment in a network of caves. He kills one of them who is holding a gold object which he assumes is a religious totem. However, Teresa's scans of the corpses of two of the aliens indicate that their cranial sutures are not fully closed, which if they were humans would mean that they were between 10 and 15 years old. In other words, Sears killed an alien Boy Scout troop on a camping trip. She then realizes that the gold object is not a religious totem but an emergency locator beacon. The survey ship is soon destroyed by a huge and extremely advanced alien ship but not before it manages to download their database and learn the location of Earth. The episode ends with a shot of the ship approaching Earth, preparing to launch an attack on the homeworld of the brutal species who would butcher children.
63	** Once again, it happened on a very large scale in "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S4E20Nightmare Nightmare]]". While approaching the planet N184, the United World Forces spaceship ''Archipelago'' -- which is carrying a top-secret device that turned out to be a DoomsdayDevice -- comes under attack from the Ebonites with whom humanity has been at war for some time. They are taken prisoner and subjected to psychological torture. The ship's civilian crewmember Kristen O'Keefe, one of the chief designers of the bomb, is forced to reprogram it and disable all of the booby traps. After Major Ronald Neguchi is killed by Lt. Christopher Valentine, it is revealed that everything that happened after the ''Archipelago'' came under attack was part of an elaborate simulation being conducted at Fort Dix. It was designed to evaluate how the crew would respond to being captured by the Ebonites but things got out of hand. Things get even more out of hand when O'Keefe confesses that she had merely pretended to disable the booby traps; she had actually been bypassing the safeguards and firewalls in order to activate the bomb and destroy the Ebonites since it appeared as if she and the rest of the ''Archipelago'' were going to die in enemy territory in any event. Much like "Trial by Fire", the screen turns to white as the episode ends in order to signify the bomb detonating and destroying most of the Western hemisphere. Given the environmental chaos which would ensue, it is likely that most, if not all, of the Earth's population was wiped out as a result.
64	** In the final scene of "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S6E1JudgmentDay Judgment Day]]", Declan [=McMahon=] has tracked down the former ''Judgment Day'' producer Jack Parson, who framed him for Caitlin Channing's murder and killed her sister Allison. He proceeds to electrocute him with the specially designed 10,000-volt taser that has been provided to him by ''Judgment Day''. The episode ends with the sound of electricity surging and Jack screaming.
65	* ''Series/KnotsLanding'':
66	** A partial subversion in "Silent Mission". The Wolfbridge Group hires a hitman to kill Gary so that Abby will inherit his money and Lotus Point can remain open. A shooting takes place on Gary's ranch but the victim is not seen. Rather than the episode ending at that point, Valene arrives at the ranch and Mack tells her that Gary is dead. The next episode "Finishing Touches" is a textbook example of OurHeroIsDead. It deals with the community's reactions to Gary's murder, especially those of Valene and Abby, and a funeral is held. It is revealed at the end of that episode that Gary is still alive. In the following episode "Yesterday, It Rained", it transpires that the hitman had killed Ray Geary, Cathy's ex-husband who was himself planning to kill Gary. Mack used the incident as a way to get to Wolfbridge.
67	** A more straightforward example occurred in "Survival of the Fittest". Ben has been ordered to kill Greg by Jean Hackney, who tells him that she will kill Valene and the twins if he refuses to comply. Ben confronts Greg in Ben's office at Galveston Industries with a gun and the episode ends with the sound of a shot being fired as the two men struggle with the gun. The next episode "In Mourning" is another example of OurHeroIsDead in which Jean Hackney tells her superior that Greg is dead and that she saw a body bag leaving Galveston Industries. She then leaks the story of Greg's death to a newspaper in spite of the lack of conclusive proof that he is dead. While claiming that his "brother" is merely missing, Peter takes advantage of the situation by announcing his intention to take over control of Galveston Industries for the time being. Greg then turns up alive and well and Valene begins to worry that Ben is dead. The following episode "Nightmare" reveals that Ben is still alive and Mack, having convinced him to put the gun down, had him smuggled out of Galveston Industries in the body bag.
68	* A few of the [[{{Cliffhanger}} cliffhanger]] endings in classic ''Series/DoctorWho'' invoked this trope, only to then revoke it at the top of the following episode. The most effective example is probably episode 1 of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E6TheCavesOfAndrozani The Caves of Androzani]]", in which the Doctor and Peri are executed by a firing squad, with a shot of multiple high-powered rifles blazing away right at the two leads followed by a cut to the closing credits. There's clearly no way out of them being dead--and the audience already ''knew'' that this was Creator/{{Peter Davison}}'s last story and that the Doctor was therefore definitely going to die, so it could actually have been real this time rather than turning out to be some hoary cliffhanger trick (like, say, that they had been secretly replaced by [[RoboticReveal robot duplicates]]).
69	** Two of the more memorable apparent death by cliffhanger moments involved a freeze frame transitioning directly to the closing credits: Sarah falling from a high scaffolding in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E4GenesisOfTheDaleks Genesis of the Daleks]]" and the Doctor being forcibly drowned in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E3TheDeadlyAssassin The Deadly Assassin]]". The latter caused a significant amount of controversy, the allegation being made that children would imagine the Doctor being in a state of agonizing suffocation for an entire week until the next episode aired.
70	* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'':
71	** {{Implied\|Trope}} in "The Burning Man". In the final scene, the lights of Doug and Aunt Neva's car go out after the [[CreepyChild strange boy in the white suit]] asks them if they had ever wondered if there was such a thing as genetic evil.
72	** At the end of "The Beacon", Dr. Dennis Barrows is swarmed by the people of Mellweather so that he can be the HumanSacrifice that the Beacon demands.
73	** In "A Small Talent for War", this is seen on a large scale. In the final scene, the alien ambassador summons his people's armada to destroy all life on Earth as it is apparent that humanity's small talent for war will be of no use to them in their wars across the galaxy.
74	** In the final scene of "The Elevator", a GiantSpider grabs Roger and Will with its pedipalps as the elevator rises to the top. After several seconds, the brothers' screams stop. A flashlight drops to the floor and its lens breaks as blood drips down.
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77	[[folder:Video Games]]
78	* This happens during ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIII'', with Claude killing Maria at the closing of the game.
79	* In ''Videogame/DeadSpace'' after fighting through an army of [[ZombieApocalypse space zombies]], and their [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu hivemind]], Isaac Clarke sits back, takes off his helmet and is attacked by his zombie girlfriend (which may have been a hallucination), cue credits.
80	* In ''VideoGame/IWannaBeTheGuy'', you can [[PressXToNotDie die during the ending]] by failing to dodge that last falling delicious fruit.
81	* While ''[[VideoGame/TheWalkingDead The Walking Dead Telltale]]'' is no stranger to suspenseful cliffhangers, the finale is the most prominent example of this trope, if you decide to have Lee talk Clementine into [[MercyKill mercy-killing]] him to prevent him from turning. [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]] in that Lee's fate is already sealed, but it still ends with a gunshot to black followed by credits.
82	** A more traditional example occurs at the end of ''Season 2, Episode 4'' - the party is lead into a MexicanStandoff with Arvo's family, and as tensions rise, Rebecca is revealed to have [[DeathByChildbirth succumbed to exhaustion after delivering her son]] and is slowly reanimating. You are then prompted to either shoot her, or warn Kenny - either way, bullets end up flying, and the screen cuts to black. Miraculously, this trope is revealed to be [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] in terms of deaths at the beginning of episode 5 - well, [[AlasPoorVillain at least for Clementine's group.]]
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85	[[folder:Web Original]]
86	* In chapter 35-1 of ''AudioPlay/WereAlive'', CJ and Scratch are engaged in a [[KatanasAreJustBetter katana]] vs. knife fight when CJ is distracted and Scratch gets an opening and stabs her. Scratch gloats "I got you. You lose, I win." just before the credits.
87	[[/folder]]
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89	[[folder:Western Animation]]
90	* Subversion: In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode, "War is the H-Word", a bomb planted in Bender's chest explodes BehindTheBlack, followed by Bender's remark of "I'm okay!"
91	[[/folder]]

Context Main / DeadlyClosingCredits