Last Minute Reprieve - Television Tropes & Idioms

Last Minute Reprieve is when our brave hero is facing death on the gallows. Suddenly, a royal messenger gallops in to inform everyone he's been pardoned Just in Time.

The gallows is replaced with an electric chair in modern settings, and the messenger on horseback with a telephone call from the mayor or governor.

Now a Discredited Trope that is subverted more than not. Compare Acquitted Too Late.

Examples:

Anime and Manga

One installment of Golgo 13, "One Minute Past Midnight", plays with this trope; the target is a Death Row prisoner who is remarkably calm about his upcoming execution. For good reason; he's a corrupted ex-CIA agent who has enough blackmail material on the CIA that they're arranging for the state governor to grant him a last minute reprieve. A friend of one of his victims hires Golgo to kill the prisoner, he accomplishes this by assassinating the governor in his mansion, just before he can grant clemency. The CIA agent in the room with the governor can't give the failsafe code on his behalf, and despite the prisoner's suddenly frantic pleas, the execution is carried out on time.
Samurai Champloo subverts this in the episode "Beatbox Bandits", where Fuu and Jin are ordered to be executed unless Mugen delivers a parcel and comes back in time. In the end, just as Fuu gives up hope of Mugen appearing, his sillhouette appears in the horizon...which turns out to be the annoying, reoccuring, comedy relief character (Fuu and Jin survive in the end though).

Comic Books

All the way back in Superman #1, Superman breaks into the governor's house (and we do mean breaks) to present evidence that an innocent woman is about to be executed and get the governor to phone in a reprieve.
- Note that he did this with a forced confession from the woman he believed to be the real killer. And that he bullied the other woman to write that confession on the totally unsubstantiated testimony of a man in prison who he saved from a lynch mob. He could have just as easily been freeing a guilty woman and condemning an innocent one.

Film

The narrator of Stephen King's The Green Mile reminds us frequently that this almost never happens—and, indeed, no pardon comes to save John Coffey, an innocent man, from the chair.
In the movie Almost Heroes, we are introduced to Bartholomew Hunt as he is about to be executed then pardoned in this manner.
The film Serenity has the lead characters facing down Alliance troops, waiting for orders to shoot them down. The antagonist, "The Operative", tells them to hold their fire when he sees security footage of the scientists who created the Reavers.
- Of course, it's worth noting that this was probably more of a reprieve for the troops.
In The Mummy, Brendan Fraser's character is introduced as about to be hanged. And then he is hanged, but because his neck doesn't break, it gives the heroine time to bribe the warden, who has him cut down.
Subverted in the 2005 Casanova starring Heath Ledger, where it turns out the papal messenger is a fake, and when the authorities find this out, all the main characters are obliged to make a run for it.
Played straight in D. W. Griffith's silent movie Intolerance which interweaves stories set at different historical periods. In the 20th Century story the hero is framed for murder, but the heroine finds a witness to his innocence on the morning of his execution. A frantic race against time ensues for the Governer to issue his pardon before he is hanged. To be fair, this film was made in 1916, and the visuals were great (a car racing a train, trying to get word of the pardon to the gallows in time), and had not been seen before. This was almost 100 years ago, and the trope was not yet so old and overused.
Subverted in Manhattan Melodrama.
Parodied in Top Secret!, where the Germans decide not to execute Val Kilmer's character at the last minute. Cut to the firing squad who's getting ready to aim and fire while the phone rings, and an old lady with a walker slowly inches her way towards it.
Done at the end of the Bob Hope vehicle My Favorite Brunette, much to the disgust of the prison guard assigned to throw the switch on the electric chair. (Bing Crosby in a cameo.)
Done in Big Damn Heroes style in The Player. One movie within the movie is an art film in which the heroine dies in the gas chamber at the end, even though innocent. By the end of the main movie, the director of the art film has become so corrupted by Hollywood that his little art film with a downer ending now has Bruce Willis rescuing Susan Sarandon from the gas chamber complete with snappy one liners.

Folklore

In the legend of Damon and Pythias, Pythias returns for his own execution just in time to save Damon, who had volunteered to act as a hostage for him.

Literature

Subverted in the beginning of the Discworld book Going Postal. As Moist von Lipwig is about to be hanged, when the Patrician's carriage pulls into the square. As Moist desperately stalls on his last words a messenger comes out, and struggles to make his way through the crowd as the hangman starts to become annoyed that he doesn't have the decency to keep it short. Eventually Moist points out the messenger, who does bring a message from the Patrician. Which is that they haven't got all day, and that the hangman should get on with it already. Fortunately for Moist the Patrician has work for him, and the hangman was already under instructions to fake his death.
One of the Vorhalas brothers was expecting this when Regent Vorkosigan showed up to his brother's execution in Barrayar. Unfortunately, Aral was there because he believed that he needed to witness the execution with his own eyes.

Live-Action TV

Subverted in the Cycling Tour sketch from episode 34 of Monty Python's Flying Circus. Mr. Pither is about to be executed by a Soviet firing squad. An officer is shown running toward the execution site yelling "Nyet!" (No!). He hands a paper to the firing squad officer.
FS Officer: A telegram? From the Kremlin! The Central Committee! It says..."Carry on with the execution".
Also subverted in The Twilight Zone TOS episode "Shadowplay". Henry Ritchie is about to be executed in the electric chair. Prosecutor Adam Grant has been convinced that Ritchie may be not guilty by reason of insanity and convinces the state governor to postpone the execution. The governor calls the execution chamber, but he's too late - Ritchie has already been killed.
In Blackadder, a message gives Blackadder reprieve from death by firing squad, with a bit of a subversion... The message is from the firing squad and contains a last greeting to him. He's then saved by the trope played straight, but offscreen.
- This example may be the latest possible reprieve, given that the firing squad corporal gets as far as "Ready, aim, f-".
Subverted in The West Wing, which looks at the issue from the point of view of the man granting the reprieve; after wrestling with the issue of whether to grant a Death Row triple-murderer a stay of execution for a weekend, and initially deciding not to, Bartlet eventually realises that he should — unfortunately, he realises this too late, and the man is executed.
In the live action The Flash series, it was a genuine race against time to clear an innocent man before he was electrocuted in an hour. In the end, the Flash actually outruns the governor's telephone call and unties and pulls the man out of the chair before the volts zap him.
Parodied in a Rutland Weekend Television sketch. Just before the condemned man is about to be executed a telegram arrives which reads "The execution is candelled" (sic). The prisoner insists that this must be a typo for "cancelled", but his jailors argue that it might mean the Governor wants the execution carried out by candlelight.
An episode of the short-lived D. B. Sweeney series Strange Luck featured a mad gubernatorial dash to the prison to rescue a man about to be executed for a murder he did not commit, with the hero and the real murderer (who had confessed after years of a guilty conscience), following along behind. During the rush to the prison (the phones were out... it was raining heavily), the brakes on the hero's car give out and he slams into a power pole, snapping a high-tension power line. When the power line breaks, it simultaneously a) cuts power to the entire prison just as the switches are flipped to fry the innocent man and b) clips the real murderer, electrocuting him.
The first episode of Tales from the Crypt, "The Man Who Was Death", had an inmate frantically pleading for time, stating that the governor would call while the narrator claims that it never happens. At the end, when the executioner is being strapped to the chair, he makes the same type of comments.
Averted in an episode of Criminal Minds. A woman who had been involved with a serial killer, eventually killing their son, is about to be executed alongside the killer. Gideon suspects that her son is still alive and the team does a mad dash around the area trying to find him. The son is found but the woman convinces Gideon to let him live without knowing who his parents were, and both are executed.
In one episode of F Troop Agarn is sentenced to death because he allowed a prisoner to escape and is therefore obliged to fill out the prisoner's sentence due to some Army law that undoubtedly only exists in TV. Just as the firing squad is assembled, O'Rourke arrives with the recaptured prisoner, meaning that Agarn no longer needs to be killed for the other man's crimes. Unfortunately for Agarn, Captain Parmenter accidentally says "Fire" (As part of a conversation) before dismissing the firing squad, so they shoot Agarn. Fortunately for Agarn, due to the poor quality of the men at Fort Courage, every single one of them misses him and hits the water tower instead.
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation did it in "The Execution of Catherine Willows", only to have the guy done in at the end anyway.
Bones had an episode of it as well, played straight, even though the guy actually *was* a killer. More bodies were found and his execution had to be called off while they were examined.
During a late point of the 1840 time line of Dark Shadows, Quentin Collins I and his cousin Desmond were about to be executed on charges of witchcraft, in fact Quentin's head was on the block, when Valerie Collins (really the extremely long-lived witch Angelique), the wife of "cousin from England" Barnabas Collins (really a time-traveling immortal vampire), arrived to stop the execution by producing a box containing the head of warlock Judah Zachary, who had been her master almost 200 years earlier and whose spirit was possessing Quentin's friend and main accuser, Gerard Stiles, in order to see Quentin killed so that he could gain control of the Collins fortune.

Real Life

During the American Revolution, General George Washington handled low morale and rampant insubordination during a harsh winter (worse than Valley Forge, even) by sentencing eight men to be hanged for various charges. As the eight men had the nooses placed around their necks, staring into the already-dug graves, with the coffins ready and everything, a soldier suddenly stepped forward and pleaded for a reprieve. Seven of the eight were let go.
Likewise, the Swedish king Gustavus III had sentenced all the participants of Anjala Conspiracy to death by beheading. As those fifty men stood at the scaffold and executioner had honed his sword, a messenger suddenly announced that all but two conspirators had been pardoned. One, Johan Hästesko, was beheaded - he had personally insulted the King - and another, Göran Sprengtporten, was banished from the realm - he had been an officer in the Russian army.

Theater

The ending of The Threepenny Opera. The finale goes on to note that the King's mounted messengers don't come very often. In fact, the finale is pretty much a savage parody of the whole trope because the main character has not only thoroughly deserved a hanging, but the ending is lampshaded as an "obligatory happy ending" to the n-th degree — depending on the theatre, confetti, giant posters, fireworks and marching bands may be included in said Lampshade Hanging.

Video Games

Kind of done in the game Jade Empire, where a giant "Siege Golem" lunges its ax downward at one of your party members, and stops right above the party member's head...because at that exact moment you defeated the person controlling the golem. It's not a messenger, but...
Jowd gets at least three of these in Ghost Trick. Sissel rescues him from being killed by the electric chair (not in the chair, it explodes and kills him before he can sit on it) by helping him escape from prison. He's immediately recaptured by Cabanela. Lynne then goes to convince the Justice Minister to give him a reprieve. Unfortunately when she gets there he's died of a heart attack...but that's nothing Sissel can't handle. However, the minister won't give a reprieve until he's sure that his daughter hasn't been kidnapped, since he's being blackmailed into upholding the execution order. After all these hoops are jumped through, he's finally allowed to live another day as well as be out of prison for the rest of the night.
In Metal Gear Solid 2 Olga steps in front of Raiden to stall Solidus for a few more moments before he can shoot him. Since the moment Raiden dies, Olgas daughter will as well. He simply grabs her and kills her with a bullet to the head, but right when he aims to shot Raiden, the virus that had been placed in the main computer hours earlier finaly becomes active, causing Solidus to keep him alive for the time being.

Western Animation

Subverted in Futurama where Bender is about to be executed for being Santa Claus. The Planet Express crew burst in and all claim to be Santa (except for Zoidberg, who claims to be Jesus).
Mayor: "You aren't Santa Claus! You're not even robots. How dare you lie in front of Jesus!"
And on The Simpsons, where the governor calls before it's "too late", to give Homer a message: He hopes he's a twitcher! He only lives because it turns out to be Reality TV Gone Horribly Wrong.
In "The Late Mr. Kent," Superman saves an innocent man from the gas chamber so Clark Kent can produce the evidence that will send the real culprit there in his place.
Happens with Huey's friend Shabaz in The Boondocks. Huey had written a letter to the Governor threatening to expose his gay love affair if Shabaz wasn't pardoned; in reality, Huey had no idea if that was true or not, but reasoned that "since 20% of men are gay, and 25% of men cheat on their spouses, this should have a 5% chance of success."