Blood From The Mouth / Live-Action TV

• Many of the deaths on 1000 Ways to Die feature this, particularly if respiratory or other organ trauma is involved. Often combined with High-Pressure Blood.
• In And Then There Were None (2015), Anthony Marston is still in the middle of offending everyone in the room with his callousness over having run over two children (a huge nuisance because his license was suspended for six months) when he starts coughing up blood. He staggers around, inadvertantly knocking over Vera and spitting blood into her face, and then expires. Though a search of his room turns up cocaine, further examination shows that he was poisoned with cyanide.
• Angel:
  • This is the first sign that something is wrong with Fred in "A Hole in the World". In the middle of an incredibly sweet scene in what has been until now a mostly light-hearted episode, she starts coughing up blood, sending Lorne and Wesley into panic mode, and giving the audience a severe case of Mood Whiplash. She dies at the end of the episode.
  • Subverted in "Not Fade Away". Angel warns the Big Bad might retaliate against their people. Cut to his secretary Harmony sprawled out with blood coming from her mouth. Harmony is a vampire however, so a Bedmate Reveal shows she's just sharing a cup of blood with a lover...who happens to be The Dragon of the Big Bad in question.
• In the Banjun Drama episode "Champion," Min-woo's opponent bleeding from the mouth serves as a tell that he'd died at the beginning.
• The Barrier uses this to show that a character who just got shot got a fatal wound.
• Sweets when he dies after getting blunt force trauma to the abdomen on Bones. He’s bleeding from the mouth when Booth and Brennan get to him.
• Subverted in Breaking Bad. At first it seems to demonstrate that Walter's lung cancer is getting worse which convinces him that he needs to step up his meth production to make enough money for his family after he's gone. However, it turns out later that his cancer is actually in remission and the blood he was coughing up was the result of an (easily treatable) tear in his esophagus.
• In Call the Midwife, Dr Turner and the nurses don't realize that there's a TB epidemic starting in Poplar until one patient at the maternity clinic begins coughing up blood during her appointment.
• In the final episode of Chernobyl, Shcherbina begins coughing heavily during the plant managers' trial. He shows Legasov the bloody handkerchief during the recess, indicating that he's developed the fatal cancer that Legasov had predicted from their time spent near the open reactor.
  "They call it a 'long illness.' It doesn't seem very long to me."
• Endemic to Chinese Series. Generally it's just visual shorthand for "this character has been injured or poisoned" and doesn't necessarily mean an injury is serious or fatal.
  • In Chinese Paladin, Ling'er bleeds from the mouth after her Heroic Sacrifice. Unlike most examples, there is a lot of blood involved, and it gets very messy very quickly.
  • Till the End of the Moon makes frequent use of this trope, for everything from issues with the characters' spiritual energy to physical blows to poison.
• In the last episode of Choujin Sentai Jetman, Radiguet's otherwise-unstoppable One-Winged Angel form is impaled through a weak spot on its back, and blood starts pouring from the mouth of the human face that's still there on his torso. Ya don't see that in Power Rangers..
• In The City Hunter, Young-ju is left drooling blood after a fatal No-Holds-Barred Beatdown. In this case, however, the blood from the mouth is clearly from superficial wounds, and the least of his problems.
• In Criminal Minds, when Reid contracted Anthrax he began coughing up blood when he took a turn for the worse.
• Warrick's death on CSI. Of course, he was bleeding from lots of other places too.
• The Crown (2016) opens with King George VI coughing blood into his toilet bowl. When he asks his doctor about it, he's assured that it's just an effect of the weather. The truth that they're hiding from His Majesty is that he's got lung cancer, and even when a lung is surgically removed it's not enough to save him.
• In the eight season of Deadliest Catch, Captain Phil Harris, found himself coughing blood after getting a cracked rib in a nasty storm. It turns out to be from a blood clot in the lung.
• Dexter's ex-girlfriend Lila at the end of Dexter's second season. Dexter himself knifed her, putting her down because she fit his code.
• Caroline's boyfriend, in Dollhouse.
• Would happen a couple of time to someone in Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger after a particularly vicious beatdown.
• Downton Abbey:
  • The farmer suffering from dropsy of the heart.
  • In Series 6, Robert projectile vomits blood when his stomach ulcer burst. It is immediately dubbed the most shocking scene in the series.
• Endeavour: In "Coda", Inspector Thursday starts coughing up blood just before he goes to make what might be his last stand against a gang of bank robbers. He then coughs up the bullet fragment that had been lodged in his lung.
• ER:
  • At the beginning of Season 15, one of the first signs that something is seriously wrong with Greg is when he starts spitting up blood.
  • Another, earlier episode had Carter going to someone's house trying to track down a patient. He almost tripped trying to back away from a woman who was coughing up blood (she had TB, he didn't want to get it).
• In The Event, blood from the mouth, eyes, and nose was the first sign that the passengers of flight 514 had been infected with some unknown agent by their Human Alien captors.
• Fatal Attractions (2010) had a woman gotten bitten by one of her pet snakes and had her throwing up blood everywhere since snake venom makes you bleed more.
• The Hands of Blue on Firefly carry sonic devices that kill people by causing profuse bleeding from the mouth. And eyes... and nose... and ears... and fingernails...
• From an episode of Forensic Files, where a teenager has killed his father ^note  Only the 911 transcript was shown, so it's possible the body was right next to the door:
  Killer: I think he's dead! I see blood around his mouth!
  911 Operator: Okay, where is he?
  Killer: He's in the bedroom and the door's locked! I can't get in!
  911 Operator: Let me get this straight: The door is locked but you can see the blood around his mouth...?
• In the pilot episode of Forever (2014), after the subway crash the young cello player Henry had been chatting up is lying nearby, still in one beautiful piece but with a little trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth and her eyes open and lifeless.
• Game of Thrones: Usually restricted to justified cases where characters have suffered respiratory injuries, such as Ser Hugh, Lommy, and Polliver who are all stabbed in the throat and Jeor Mormont who is stabbing the back, presumably finding a lung. Not to mention the characters who die from blades entering or exiting via the mouth itself. Victims of poisoning tend to play it straight, however. Rhaegar Targaryen died of internal injuries thanks to Robert channeling all his hate on a single smash of his iconic weapon.
• My Country: The New Age:
  • Seol's illness makes her cough up blood.
  • Blood spurts from Seon-ho's mouth when he's fatally injured.
• Pili Fantasy: War of Dragons: the go to for showing an injured character is for them to spit or vomit up blood on occasion due to combat injury, internal injury, mystical injury, and the like. Understandable given the characters all being hand puppets, so conventional bleeding from wounds is harder to stage, though it does happen (albeit less frequently).
• In Three Kingdoms, this is the main indicator of illness, severe injury, poisoning, shock, and every other ailment that results in a character collapsing or dying shortly afterward.
• Teen Wolf:
  • Derek, after getting claw-stabbed in the back by an Alpha Peter Hale.
  • Scott, after being shot by Kate.
• Parodied in the Spaced episode "Combat". Mike takes a paintball for Tim, and starts coughing up paint. Probably not for the first time; before the game starts, Tim is lecturing Mike not to take things too seriously and get himself banned again. One of the things he tells him is "not to eat the paintballs".
• Horatio Hornblower: Several named characters die this way on this show.
  • When Clayton and Simpson duel to death, at first the villainous Simpson collapses and Clayton appears uninjured, but then a trickle of blood comes from his mouth and it turns out he's been fatally shot.
  • Lt. Eccleston in "The Even Chance". It's a variation of this trope since the bleeding doesn't seem to be internal but he was either hurt in his mouth or his lips were badly cut. However, visually, it's definitely Blood from the Mouth.
  • Archie Kennedy is shot in "Retribution" and he tries to hide his wound from his friend Horatio to spare his feelings. The Mortal Wound Reveal and The Blood from the Mouth tell the audience that he is doomed. He lasts long enough to perform a Heroic Sacrifice, however.
  • Another instance of Kill the Cutie from "Retribution": Mr Midshipman Wellard dies a heroic death, facing death with dignity. Before that, he kills some of their Spanish enemies, but is shot and Blood from the Mouth indicates that he is not going to make it. He manages to confess a possibly important secret to Gunner Hobbs.
  • Jack Hammond, a rather hopeless Midshipman, is shot at the end of "Loyalty", just as he was proving himself brave and worthy. Some blood comes out of his mouth, he has a heart-wrenching dialogue with his uncle, his courage is commended, and that's the end for Jack Hammond.
• In House of course, the list of people who don't spew blood is shorter than the list of people who do.
• Crosses the Line Twice in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia in an episode where Charlie is masquerading as a cowboy with tuberculosis. In order to sell the disguise, he swallows "Like a million of those little blood capsules", hoping to cough up blood and impress the girl he's with. However, he gets sick and proceeds to VOMIT (fake) BLOOD all over her. Bonus points for trying to pass it off as "A touch of consumption".
• Kamen Rider
  • Kamen Rider OOO:
    • The dying Shingo Izumi has blood pouring from his mouth - though he's kept alive via a Puppeteer Parasite taking over shortly afterwards and spends the rest of the story in coma.
    • Later, Akira Date spits up blood after being injured by the Greeed, but he survives and is far less badly wounded than Shingo was. The claims of his death were greatly exagerrated.
  • In Kamen Rider Gaim, Kota bleeds from the mouth during his first battle with the Byakko Inves. It's the cosmetic sort, so he is okay.
  • This happens to Chase in Kamen Rider Drive spin-off movie after he stabs himself in chest. Only the fact that spin-off movies are not primarily marketed to children allowed for so much blood to be shown. The freakier part is that Chase is an android and shouldn't be bleeding at all.
  • Using Proto Bang Bang Shooting gashat does this to both early users in Kamen Rider Ex-Aid prequel Kamen Rider Snipe: Episode Zero. Taiga coughs up blood every so often while using the gashat, pointing to his deteriorationg physical state. Likewise, brushing it off no matter what points to his deteriorating mental state.
    • Oh yeah, and let's not forget what happens when Graphite slams him with a finishing move punch at point-blank range. He's so badly injured that he needs a surgery to even have a chance at surviving. Given that Ex-Aid is a medical show at least part of the time, his condition is explained in major detail. It's a wonder he survived, let alone was able to return to the fight as quickly as he did. Though admittedly, he did have a very skilled surgeon attending to him, along with a warm-hearted pediatrician and a very dedicated younger sister figure.
  • Kamen Rider Zi-O's opening sequence shows Geiz Myoukouin bleeding from the mouth after a battle. It's cosmetic sort, so he is okay. Unlike when he started using Geiz Revive, which made him bleed from nose, ears or eyes after each use.
• Providing proof that being a Jamie Bamber fangirl means a hard, hard life, Law & Order: UK sent off Matt Devlin in nearly the exact same manner as his character Archie Kennedy from Hornblower (right down to the Heroic Sacrifice). The last seen of him on screen in "Deal", he's bleeding from the mouth (and elsewhere); in the beginning of the next episode, "Survivor's Guilt", he is mentioned to have died of his wounds.
• In the Lost season 5 finale, this happens to both Jacob and Juliet.
  • And in Season 6 this is what prompts Richard to get some real help for his wife. Instead of saving his wife, he ends up accidentally killing the doctor, Isabella still dies and things go From Bad to Worse from there on.
• The Malcolm in the Middle episode "Malcolm Holds His Tongue" has Malcolm keep his opinions to himself for once, but the stupidity of the basketball team proves too much for him to handle, and he suffers a peptic ulcer, throwing up blood on the coach's shirt.
• In the Masters of Horror episode "Imprint", the disfigured prostitute tells how her father eventually coughed up blood after a prolonged illness and promptly died in a river.
• Midsomer Murders: In "Claws Out", Perry coughs up blood into his handkerchief: a symptom of the terminal cancer he is hiding from his family.
• Monty Python's Flying Circus: In the "Church Police" sketch, a husband (Eric Idle) and wife (Terry Jones) bicker over dinner:
  EI: What kind of fish you got that isn't jugged?
  TJ: Rabbit!
  EI: What, rabbit fish?
  TJ: Err, yes. It's got fins.
  EI: Is it dead?
  TJ: Well, it was coughing up blood last night...
• Moon Lovers:
  • Myung-hee's illness makes her cough up blood.
  • Wang So coughs up blood after drinking poison.
• On NCIS, when Tony contracted pneumonic plague, one of the signs that things were going downhill was when he started coughing up blood.
• NCIS: New Orleans: In "Collateral Damage", the Victim of the Week coughs up a large amount of blood as she keels over from an overdose of arsenic.
• Pili Fantasy: War of Dragons: the go to for showing an injured character is for them to spit or vomit up blood on occasion due to combat injury, internal injury, mystical injury, and the like. Understandable given the characters all being hand puppets, so conventional bleeding from wounds is harder to stage, though it does happen (albeit less frequently).
• Rome. Atia orders the slave girl who's bringing her soup to sing for her, but everyone is puzzled when she starts bleeding from the mouth while doing so. Until she drops dead, having sampled the soup on the way to her mistress, who's just escaped a poisoning attempt.
• In Salem the poison used to take Mab out has this effect.
• Search: Blood drips out of Baek-jun's mouth after the murderer throws him across the room repeatedly.
• Chris's death in the second series of the British Skins.
• Happens to Clark Kent when Doomsday socks him in the gut repeatedly, although he bounces back and wins. From the Smallville Season 8 finale.
• Variation from The Sopranos episode "Kennedy and Heidi": When Christopher starts coughing up blood, Tony decides it's safe to kill him.
• Parodied in the Spaced episode "Combat". Mike takes a paintball for Tim, and starts coughing up paint. Probably not for the first time; before the game starts, Tim is lecturing Mike not to take things too seriously and get himself banned again. One of the things he tells him is "not to eat the paintballs".
• Squid Game: When player 324 gets eliminated in the first game, he falls to the ground. Player 250, who thinks he's just acting up, inches closer to him… only to see blood spurting out of his mouth. This makes him panic and starts running away, only to get shot - that's how the other players learn what elimination actually meant.
• Strangers From Hell: Blood pours from Deuk-soo's mouth after Moon-jo stabs him.
• This is used literally almost every episode in Supernatural. Except, oddly enough, both Dean and Sam's first death scenes.
• Super Sentai villains have done this on occasion, typically while in their death throes (ie. Chevalier, Radiguet).
• Teen Wolf:
  • Derek, after getting claw-stabbed in the back by an Alpha Peter Hale.
  • Scott, after being shot by Kate.
• In Three Kingdoms, this is the main indicator of illness, severe injury, poisoning, shock, and every other ailment that results in a character collapsing or dying shortly afterward.
• Considering all the deaths in Torchwood, this happens a surprising once. To Owen.
• Tends to happen in some of the Ultra Series, as a visual shorthand for an Ultramen inflicting a mortal injury on an opponent... without damaging the monster's suit too much. Notably Alien Bado from Ultraseven (whose blood suspiciously resembles coloured foam), Ashuran from Ultraman Leo (yellow blood to be precise), Shiela from Ultraman Tiga, among others.
• The first season of the Australian drama Underbelly is ridiculously fond of this trope. Greg Workman, Alfonse Gangitano, Nick The Russian, Mark Moran, Dino Dibra, Paul "PK" Kallipolitis and Carl Williams all get shot and end up with blood pouring from their mouths. Carl is the only one who survives, but to be fair he's the only one who receives a single bullet wound.
• In The Walking Dead, When Rick is forced to kill Shane, you can see the blood as one of them apologizes.
• During the second season of Ice Road Truckers, Alex Debogorski begins to suffer from shortness of breath and cough up blood. The cause turns out to be a blood clot in his lung, and he is forced to go home because his doctor worries that he may give himself a heart attack if he keeps driving.
• In the Wallander episode "Firewall", this is how you tell that Ella's not going to make it. Indeed she seems to have been shot in the gut. Averted in "The Man who Smiled", although it would have been fatal without Wallander's prompt intervention.
• In the 2nd season premiere episode of The West Wing, the Secret Service doesn't know that President Bartlet has been shot until he begins spitting up blood as he talks (much like the Ronald Reagan when he was shot during an assassination attempt).
• After Scully is shot in The X-Files episode "Tithonus", there's blood in her mouth. It's strongly implied she would've died from the gunshot, if not for Fellig dying for her.

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