Poisoned Drink Drop

Poisoning is an effective means of disposing of an enemy. Depending on the mechanism of action, the poison can either be slow or fast-acting.

One of the more common methods of poisoning in media is slipping said poison into someone's drink. It gets the job done without attracting too much attention.

When it comes to signifying that a character has been poisoned by their drink, one of the most effective signifiers is the character in question dropping their drink vessel. Sometimes the vessel breaks because it's glass, other times because it's made of a different material, it just spills.

The trope also covers druggings.

Subtrope of Dramatic Drop. An aftereffect of Tampering with Food and Drink and Poisoned Chalice Switcheroo. Compare Faceplanting into Food. For a defeated enemy in a video game dropping a poisoned drink or other undesirable item, see Poison Mushroom.

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Played for Laughs in Kaguya-sama: Love Is War when Shirogane acts this way after Kaguya has his coffee bean supply swapped out with decaf, complete with acting like he's choking and the sound of his teacup shattering.
• In Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz, Relena is having a diplomatic meeting regarding the colonies. After drinking her tea, her vision begins to blur. Then, her teacup drops on the floor as she faints, revealing that she was drugged by the Mariemaia faction who eventually kidnaps her as a hostage.

Film — Live Action

• Hamlet: In the 1990 film version directed by Franco Zeffirelli, Gertrude drops the drink of poisoned wine after the poison hits her.
• In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry, Ron, and Professor Slughorn open a bottle of oak matured mead to share. As Harry and Slughorn toast, Ron drinks, then collapses and shatters his glass in the process. Ron then starts convulsing and foaming at the mouth, leading Harry to frantically search for and find a bezoar stone, shoving it into Ron's mouth.
• The Haunted Mansion (2003): Elizabeth Henshaw's death by poisoned wine is depicted this way, her drink-holding arm falling on the nearby sofa and spilling her wine.
• Heathers: When Heather Chandler drinks the drain cleaner-laced milk that JD mixes for her, she drops the mug, and immediately clutches her throat before plummeting into and shattering a glass table.
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: When Walter Donovan picks the chalice he believes is the Holy Grail, he takes a drink from the water font. Initially, nothing happens, but then he seizes up and drops the chalice before rapidly aging and dying.
• In the climax of Last Night in Soho, the villain sedates Ellie with a cup of tea. The latter lets the cup drop once the effect sets in.
• Red Notice: After successfully getting information from Nolan Booth as to the whereabouts of Cleopatra's third egg is, Sarah Black a.k.a The Bishop and arms dealer Sotto Voce toast with champagne. Voce downs his while Black holds onto hers. Voce then collapses, shattering his flute in the process. As it turned out, Black drugged the champagne, double crossing Voce.
• Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: A non-poisoning humorous variation. Scott tricks vegan Todd Ingram into drinking a coffee with half-and-half in it. When Scott informs Todd of what he's done, the vegan police arrive, causing Todd to drop his coffee.
• Sherlock Holmes (2009): When Sherlock Holmes visits Irene Adler in her hotel room, he opens a bottle of wine. Despite her warnings to "let it breathe", Holmes pours two glasses and immediately downs his. He then slumps and falls, knocking over and breaking his glass. As it turns out, Irene drugged the wine before Holmes visited.
• Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows: Irene Adler has tea in her favorite restaurant, but is confronted by Professor Moriarty, who just had his plans thwarted by Sherlock Holmes. He admits he doesn't blame her for the plan's failure but also dismisses her from his employ. Adler, who had just had a few sips from a cup of poisoned tea hastily departs, but not before collapsing and pulling down a table setting offscreen, which crashes in the process.

Literature

• In the Romance Novel Whisper To Me Of Love, the hero knocks the poisoned glass of milk from the heroine's hand before she can drink it, causes this.

Live-Action TV

• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: When Octavian Bloom arranges the assassination of the other HYDRA leaders in "Aftershocks", he has one of his henchmen put a poison based on the Obelisk in the Baroness's drink at the restaurant. After drinking it, she starts coughing and drops her glass, which can be heard breaking on the floor, and then her face turns to stone.
• Breaking Bad: Gus Fring poisons members of Don Eladio's cartel using spiked tequila. Eladio doesn't realize this until he drops his cigar, then sees one of his associates slump, drop and break his glass. Right afterwards, Eladio stumbles to a table and knocks over more tequila glasses before falling into the pool, dead.
• Community had a Show Within a Show example with the finale of Cougarton Abbey. The series ends with the characters committing suicide by drinking hemlock. One of the characters drops her drink glass afterwards.
• Game of Thrones: After King Joffrey drinks the wine chalice offered to him by Tyrion, he starts coughing and choking, to the shock of the wedding guests. Joffrey drops the chalice and falls forward, as the wedding guests attend to him. After vomiting and bleeding out of his nose, he dies. It's almost enough to make you feel sorry for the little bastard. Almost.
• Midsomer Murders: In "he Blacktrees Prophecy", Warren's bottle drops just before he hears the voice on the two-way radio which confirms - he's been poisoned.
• Star Trek: Picard: In "Stardust City Rag", while hiding out on Freecloud, Bjayzl offers Dr. Bruce Maddox a drink of Tranya. As Dr. Maddox drinks, he explains he's on the run from the Tal Shiar and is now in debt to her. Bjayzl says that changes everything. Maddox then drops and breaks his glass and falls over, paralyzed, as Bjayzl admits that dealing with the Tal Shiar is a pain in the ass.
• Stranger Things: In "The Nina Project", Joyce and Murray are having coffee while waiting for Yuri to confirm that they will be transported to Russia to pick up Hopper. Unbeknownst to them, Yuri double crossed them, drugging the coffee. Joyce notices this when Murray is passed out on the couch, then starts to notice her vision blurring before dropping her cup, all while Yuri taunts her about how it was much more lucrative for him to turn them over to the KGB.
• Supergirl: Lena Luthor is poisoned by cyanide in her coffee. After drinking it and heading outside, she drops the coffee and starts to foam at the mouth.

Video Game

• The Soviet ending in Command & Conquer: Red Alert has Josef Stalin celebrating his victory of conquering Europe while drinking tea which was prepared by his aide, Nadia. Then, he starts to feel unwell, drops his teacup, and collapses on top of his desk. When he realizes that Nadia poisoned him, he yells "Poison?! You bitch!" and dies.

Western Animation

• American Dad!: In "A Roger Story", Steve and Snot (with Roger's assistance) decide the only way to stop their mothers from fighting is to fake their deaths by drinking a sleeping potion. Unfortunately because they are in an apothecary and Roger's labelmaker is shoddy, they end up drinking actual poison. As they do so, they drop their solo cups and die in each others' arms.
• Disenchantment: Twice In "Dreamland Falls",
  • A flashback reveals King Zøg's brother Yøg was poisoned. After drinking his poison laced wine, he immediately fell, dead.
  • Queen Dagmar accidentally turned herself to stone thanks to young Tiabeanie pulling a Poisoned Chalice Switcheroo in order to get some grapes. After drinking the stonification potion laced wine, she immediately dropped her goblet and turned to a stone statue.
• Futurama: In "The Thief of Baghead", Calculon faces Langdon Cobb in an acting competition with his scene of choice being Romeo's death scene from Romeo and Juliet. To ensure his victory, he opts to actually poison himself using food coloring, which is deadly to robots. Calculon drinks the food coloring then drops the bottle and after a significant amount of gasping and retching, keels over and dies. Unfortunately his method acting does not ensure his victory, as Cobb easily wins.

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