The Summation - Television Tropes & Idioms

"Here's what happened."

— Adrian Monk, Monk

"The facts were these..."

— The Narrator, Pushing Daisies

The part of the show (typically at the end) where the protagonist explains how the crime was committed. An essential part of a Locked Room Mystery. Another common approach is to have the summation serve as a Framing Device for a Whole Episode Flashback.

Related to the Kirk Summation. May take the form of a Summation Gathering.

Examples

Anime and Manga

The titular character of Detective Conan can't NOT do this. He does it so compulsively that the detective he regularly pretends to be has become famous for passing out and then giving a "deduction show" while unconscious. In fact, Conan does this SO compulsively that at the end of the 11th movie, the delay NEARLY KILLS the cast, as he's giving the summation in an underwater cavern filling up with water and poisonous gas during an EARTHQUAKE.
Happens all the time in Spiral
Haruhi Suzumiya did this once, with plenty of Shout Outs to Phoenix Wright.

Comic Books

At the end of the first arc of Fables, Bigby Wolf, the Fabletown sheriff, gets to do one of these about Rose Red's not-murder, calling it the "parlor room scene" and explaining that it's basically every detective's dream to actually perform it.
Done by Gabe in just about every issue of The Maze Agency. Occasionally Lamp Shaded by having another character think they've solved the mystery and do the summation, only for Gabe to explain why they are wrong and provide the true solution.

Film

The best summation ever was conducted by Tim Curry in full maniac mode at the end of the movie Clue, and included as much reenactment of every single event of the evening as he can very humorously manage.
Wadsworth: And to make a long story short—
Everyone Else: Too late!
Sort of subverted twice in Hot Fuzz. Once where St. Angel confronts Skinner, and lays out why he thinks he's committed the murders; subverted in that nothing comes of it, because as it turns out Angel's wrong on a few points, which (for the moment) exonerates Skinner. The second time is a Summation by the Neighborhood Watch Alliance, a subversion because it's the culprits giving it to the hero, who's just shocked and amazed by the meager justification they had for killing people.
Spoofed in Dead Men Dont Wear Plaid, where the Private Detective argues over his right to give The Summation versus the Big Bad's right to his Just Between You And Me speech. They start alternating, then revealing the whole scheme simultaneously.

Literature

The Harry Potter novels play with this, though it's not Harry who gets to do it until the final book.
Practically every book by Agatha Christie.
Erast Fandorin does this, ofcourse. Subverted in Murder on the Leviathan, when another detective gave a summation 2/3rds of the way through.
There's a long one at the end of China Mieville's The City & The City.
Isaac Asimov loved this trope, because he loved to write neat little stories with perfect logical solutions. Pick any Asimov short story, there's a 90% chance it'll contain one of these.
The Sherlock Holmes books are almost nothing but this trope.

Live Action TV

This occurs in nearly every episode of Monk, usually from the title character. The line "Here's what happened" is normally used for these and is used in almost every episode (or possibly every episode)
- This was hilariously subverted on one episode where Monk, driven insane by a garbage strike, does the summation line before a telling an insane story about Alice Cooper murdering a man so he could steal his antique wingback chair.
- Another good one is when Monk and Disher are both Summating different cases, at the same time, in the same room, under sniper fire...
- Or the one where Monk becomes traumatized because of an earthquake, and does the entire summation in gibberish. You can still kind of tell what he's saying because the show still gives you flashbacks to the crime.
- The show tends to make this a gag about once every ten episodes: for instance, Lt. Disher explains it in Monk's style, complete with flashbacks, to a rookie officer, who then explains she already heard it from Monk.
- The Summation is Lampshaded and parodied in the 100th episode special. While a documentary crew was interviewing several criminals Monk had put away in prison, the criminals complained that they found the Summation tedious, because Monk was basically reciting what they already knew (they were the criminals, after all!).
- Lampshaded with the CSI parody episode. Captain Stottlemeyer walks into the editing room of a clear CSI Expy while the villain is helping put together the Summation scene of the episode they're working on and says, "You know, I love this part, when you explain how the crime was committed. The villain thanks him and the captain responds, "I wasn't talking to you," as Monk walks in and begins his Summation.
- Subverted in the episode Mr. Monk goes to jail, when Sharona does the Summation instead of Monk.
- And in the one with the farm, Disher does it and starts to doubt himself part way through, so Monk has to prompt him to continue.
- Parodied in one episode when Monk has to join a therapy group and the members keep getting killed off. When Monk tells the rest of the group about the possibility of the deaths being homicides, Harold mimics Monk's investigation style and then goes into a The Summation-slash-Hannibal Lecture in which he points out that Monk had motive, opportunity, and a advantegeous position complete with fake flashbacks that portray Monk as an Ax Crazy psuedo-Yandere who wants Dr. Belle all to himself (Harold was right about the last part). This is effective enough to make Monk himself seriously consider that he might be unconciously killing people.
- Parodied in another episode where Monk, being rushed, literally gives his summation in fast motion, complete with squeaky fast forward (or as he says, picture-go-fast) voice distortion. Unable to understand a goddamn word, he's asked to repeat it in normal speed (picture go regular).
A subversion occurs in an episode of New Tricks, in which one of the squad explains how a suspected arsonist didn't burn down his factory; the explosion and fire was caused by an accident gasleak and a spark from the ringing of his mobile phone, which he had accidentally left behind.
Lt. Columbo is fond of this method, explaining to the perp of the week exactly how they tripped up.
Rarely done on Shark, except for the time that Stark turned a suicide into a murder victim and framed a guy.
Standard Operating Procedure for Shawn from Psych, as part of his psychic schtick.
CSI? We forgot that!!!
Once An Episode on Jonathan Creek, following the obligatory Eureka Moment.
A whole bunch of episodes of Veronica Mars.
Spoofed in an episode of Angel, where the actual mystery plot takes place entirely offscreen, but the audience is nonetheless shown Wesley giving one of these to the gathered suspects at the end.
Common in Pushing Daisies, but done by the narrator instead of an actual character.
Psych typically has two: first Shawn's BS-laden explanation to the police of what's happened and how to prove it, and then his explanation to Gus and/or Henry of how he figured it out.
Parodied in Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia when the gang is trying to figure out who keeps pooping in Charlie and Frank's bed. At the end of the episode, Artemis gives a long summation showing that each member of the gang is guilty. Frank then denies the story and admits that he did it all, because "poop is funny." He even pooped on the floor while Artemis was making her summation.
Poirot, he always does this.
Ellery Queen (NBC, 1975) always had one No Fourth Wall moment every episode. Immediately following Ellery's mandatory Eureka Moment, he would turn to the audience, briefly review the key evidence for the viewers, and ask them if they'd figured out who the culprit was. This came from the Ellery Queen books, where the authors would stop at some point and tell you that you now had enough clues to prove who the murderer was. After that, Ellery Queen would do the big 'one of you is the murderer' speech and solve the murder.

Video Games

The Ace Attorney games have this. Except for case 1-4, they are set to that games version of "Announce the Truth"
Related to the above, "Umineko No Naku Koro Ni" has this at the end of the fourth arc. It's subverted, as it seems as though Battler's explanations for the mysteries are badly wrong.
Due to the story of Persona4, this happens multiple times over the course of the game, with different twists based on the evidence you get. The second to last one is done by the killer himself, and fantastically tears down the entire structure of the case thus far.

Web Original

Subverted in the Whateley Story solving Reach. It was For the sole purpose of getting the bad guy to flee, scared stiff, and reveal where she kept the hostage. The Summation, however, was real. They just needed that last info. (And the bad guy needed to accomplish his/her plan.)

Western Animation