Your Head A Splode / Live-Action TV

Heads blowing up in Live-Action TV series.

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• This happens surprisingly often on 1000 Ways to Die, even though exploding heads are impossible with the vast majority of death scenarios shown.
• Somewhat subverted in the Angel series. Cordelia's powers start to get stronger and they consequently cause her much more pain. She's told she must give them up or her head will explode. Cordy even meets someone with most of the back of her head missing. Instead, she chooses to become part-demon, which gives her the strength to contain her visions in her head and tame the splitting headaches.
  • Played straighter with Vail...Illyria made his head explode with one punch.
• Bones: "The Bullet in the Brain". Heather Taffet was shot by a high-powered sniper rifle. One of the squints even points out that the cause of death was "asploding head".
• The Boys (2019):
  • While high on Super Serum, Popclaw accidentally crushes her landlord's head as he gives her oral sex, with his brain shown getting squirted out.
  • At the start of Season 2, the Boys are meeting with their CIA contact Susan Raynor when she has a Deadly Nosebleed and her head explodes just as she's about to reveal something important. As there's no-one else in sight, the Boys are understandably freaked out.
  • While making out with Stormfront in an alley, Homelander crushes some poor criminal's head in his hand until it pops.
  • In "Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker", at the Congressional hearing, the Chairman, the key witness, and then people in the gallery's heads explode by unknown means, causing chaos.
  • "What I Know" reveals that Congresswoman and secret Supe Victoria Neuman was responsible for this massacre, and presumably Raynor's death as well, when she blows up Alastair Adana's head.
• BrainDead (2016): This happens whenever someone with brainbugs thinks too hard or over-exerts themselves.
• Happens in Breaking Bad when Hank shoots one of the Mexican assassins sent to kill him with a hollow-point bullet and a very bloody looking exit wound appears in the back of Marco's head.
  • The Tortuga bomb is a twisted variant of this trope: Tortuga's severed head is placed on a tortoise stuffed with explosives.
• In the climax of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Hush", in which the residents of Sunnydale became mute, the Gentlemen fell prey to this when Buffy regained her voice.
  • In "Storyteller", the Hellmouth is making metaphors become literal truths; this includes a student whose head literally explodes from stress.
  • An earlier episode has this little conversation occur after Buffy shows her mom her SAT scores:
    Buffy: She saw these scores and her head spun around and exploded.
    (beat)
    Giles: I've been on the Hellmouth too long. That was metaphorical, yes?
  • Season 8 has Giles using a containment field spell to do this to a guy.
• Caroline in the City stole the joke shortly after by having Richard's head explode in blue confetti upon receiving shocking news.
• In the infamous Clayton Bigsby skit from Chappelle's Show, this happens to a KKK member out of sheer cognitive dissonance when he realizes that one of his fellow Klansmen is actually black.
• CSI: NY: A sniper uses explosive bullets in "Hide Sight." One bullet explodes as Sid tries to remove it from the victim's head, tearing a big hole in it and dazing Sid, whose eyes only survived intact due to his glasses.
• The Daily Show loves to show the clip from Scanners mentioned above in response to particularly illogical statements. ("So what do you think, guy from Scanners?" *explode*)
  • When Craig Kilborn still ran The Daily Show, his "5 Questions" interview segment opened with a slow-mo head asplosion (actually, crushing) from gore-fu flick Riki-Oh. The video of the head-crush scene from the movie can be seen here; note that the "5 Questions" intro showed the head-crush in slow motion, and ran it forward and back a few times.
  • Inverted in a segment about sex ed, in reference to the "news" that abstinence-only programs are ineffective at keeping teenagers from having sex — the Scanners clip was played backward and Stewart said, "You just un-blew my mind."
• Doc Martin: Ellingham diagnoses one patient with Exploding Head Syndrome, the patient assumes it is a literal description fearing this trope.
• Doctor Who:
  • The Cybermen from the 80s did this quite spectacularly when killed. Even being shot in such irrelevant places like their arm would cause their head to explode violently. Some new series examples of Cybermen dying in this fashion include "The Age of Steel" and "Closing Time".
  • "Bad Wolf": Jack kills the two robotic hosts of the killer What Not to Wear he's wound up on this way, via his concealed Compact Laser Deluxe.
• In the Drake & Josh episode "Mindy's Back", Drake's head explodes in a shower of pus during Josh's nightmare of him telling Drake that he's dating Mindy.
• The Drew Carey Show:
  • Drew daydreams about Mimi's head exploding like a confetti-filled balloon, and, when she asks him what he's smiling about, he responds, "Just picturing you topless!"
  • In a later episode that was part clip show, a police officer asked if Drew had any violent thoughts about Mimi, followed by the above clip playing again and Drew replying, "Nope. I love her to pieces."
• Fringe:
  • "The Cure" begins with a woman in a diner who eventually begins causing bleeding of the eyes in all around her, culminating in her head asploding.
  • In "The Box", the unfortunate combination of an ultrasound weapon and dental fillings causes a dwarf's head to explode.
• Game of Thrones has a blunt force-caused example. The "trial by combat" fight between Gregor "The Mountain" Clegane and Oberyn Martell ends as The Mountain follows up gouging his thumbs into the opponent's eyes by squeezing his head until it bursts. It leaves quite a disgusting mess on the arena. This appears to be one of Gregor's favorite methods of execution, considering he also crushes the skulls of Elia Martell and a random civilian who was badmouthing Cersei.
• Inverted in the first episode of Garth Marenghis Darkplace, where the head is the only part of the body that doesn't asplode.
  Larry: It really hurts...
• The Grand Tour has this happen to James May's head in the "Conversation Street" intro for episode 13. Clarkson and Hammond look a bit surprised.
• Discussed in Heroes: Ando worries that Hiro's Psychic Nosebleeds will escalate to this.
• There is an episode of House where a patient suddenly experiences a cranial fracture and severe hemorrhage while undergoing an MRI scan. Quoth House: "Her head exploded! How cool is that?"
• The TV adaptation of the comic book I Am Not Okay With This still ends with Sydney blowing up Brad's head, though the circumstances are different: this time, it happens at the High-School Dance (leaving Syd with a Blood-Splattered Homecoming Dress in homage to Carrie) after he steals Sydney's diary and reads from it in front of the whole school, outing Syd as a lesbian in the process. Appropriately enough, Syd finally snaps and applies her powers directly to his cranium just as he gets to the part of the diary where he's prepared to call her crazy for believing that she had telekinetic powers.
• An In Living Color! sketch (starring Jim Carrey) parodied Michael Bolton's overly-emotive singing style by having his head explode after one too many tensings of his face while singing "When a Man Loves a Woman."
• The It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode'' "The Gang Cracks the Liberty Bell" has a British colonel's head explode when the 18th-century version of Frank accidentally fires a musket at his head from three feet away.
• Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger: Dai Satan's head explodes the second time Ultimate Daizyujuin blasts him. Dai Satan is a giant floating head, so this trope covers the entirety of his body. Lokar, his Power Rangers counterpart, was not shown to do this, likely because of Special Effect Failure: The head that explodes is blatantly foam rubber, and it detracts from the scene.
• A MADtv sketch involved a handyman getting his head precariously close to an emergency flare launcher, resulting in his head exploding. Somehow, he managed to live and had his head held together with bandages.
• In Max Headroom, a Blipvert could cause one's head to explode.
  • The rest of one, too.
    • And that's why TV is bad for you, kids.
• My Hero (2000) 6x08, "Believe", has Amusing Alien George grow more and more arrogant until his head expands, George screaming as it explodes. Due to his Nigh-Invulnerability, George survives the loss of his head, but is forced to literally talk out of his backside until he is provided with a replacement head.
• Similar to the My Hero example above, My Parents Are Aliens 8x13, "Big Head", has Sophie's inflated ego cause her head to enlarge and explode, covering Jaq with gunge, only for Sophie to simply regrow her head.
• The Muppet Show
  • One of Gonzo's trumpet gags ends with his head blowing up...only for it to poke into the scene.
  • Also used in one of the "At the Dance" segments.
    Man: You know, these jokes they give us each week, they make me so mad, I could blow my top.
    Woman: Me too.
    Man: Ladies first.
    [their heads explode]
    Man: Ahh, I feel better now.
  • This occasionally happens to background characters. It's never gruesome, but it's still slightly creepy.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000
  • A Running Gag is that Tom's bubblehead explodes in a flash of pyrotechnics when the going gets too tough. In "First Spaceship on Venus", Tom's head explodes when his Sarcasm Sequencer goes haywire and he gets overwhelmingly sarcastic. In Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, it's blown up several times through poor use of an Interocitor.
  • The episode "Gunslinger" has a Shout-Out to Scanners: Dr. Forrester's contribution for the episode's invention exchange is "The Scanner Planner", a magazine filled with "life's little tidbits about how to scan people's brains for information and then make their heads explode". Its cover is a print of the Scanners poster, with the iconic image of Michael Ironside. He then attempts to use these techniques on his assistant, leading to a burned-out lightbulb since his aim was off. He succeeds (offscreen) by the end of the episode.
  • In Star Force: Fugitive Alien II, the titular movie got so bad, that Servo's head shatters and this time, it nearly led to him dying. Thankfully, Joel and Crow managed to revive him.
  • In The Rebel Set, Servo has a Logic Bomb when the others counteract his attempts to prove the identity of the conductor in the film (for the record, it's Gene Roth); it leads to his head bursting into flames.
• Discussed in Nicky, Ricky, Dicky, and Dawn in "Remote Control Control". After being punished by not being able to watch TV, Nicky tells about a boy who stared at a TV to get it to turn on and immediately his head exploded. They all agreed to take that chance and were scared when their father used his new remote to turn it on
• QI:
  • After being shown a shape (a cylinder with two wedges cut out) that can fit snuggly through a square, triangular, or circular hole, Ross Noble suggests dropping the shape and holes off at a preschool and watching the kids' heads explode.
  • In another episode, Stephen Fry tells the panelists that, since each person has two parents, four grandparents, etc., the doubling effect means that going back to the Middle Ages we each should have more ancestors than humans who have ever lived^note Naturally, each ancestor is counted several times over. Sean Lock's head asplodes (in pantomime) from trying to comprehend this.
    Alan Davies: It was bound to happen on this show eventually!
• In the Red Dwarf episode "Beyond a Joker", the android Kryten gets locked in an enraged feedback loop which literally explodes his main head and several spares — just because Lister asked for ketchup to go with the lobsters Kryten just prepared. To explain this a little bit more, it's revealed that Kryten's creator modelled him after her ex-fiance so that, among other things, when he has too much repressed emotion, he literally blows his top.
• A Saturday Night Live skit spoofing The Oprah Winfrey Show had one of her audience member's head explode from being too excited.
• In Scrubs, one of J.D.'s fantasies has his head exploding due to frustration over Dr. Cox.
  Dr. Cox: I can't believe your head exploded. If your head explodes, you'll never make it as a doctor. (cut to black) I mean come on you look ridiculous!
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: A Trill scientist suggests this will happen to her brother if she makes out with Jadzia Dax (her former partner in a previous host).
• In Star Trek: The Next Generation's first season episode "Conspiracy", this is the fate of the guy taken over by Puppeteer Parasite (the 'sploding was from phaser fire, not directly from the parasites). Body Horror galore — here's a GIF◊! Be careful, it's a biggie (about 1.5 megabytes) and might be gory enough to be NSFW.
• Todd and the Book of Pure Evil: Student Len Bergman acquires Hypnotic Eyes from the Book of Pure Evil. When he attempts to control Todd's mind, he finds that the main character is immune because of his attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. As a result, Len's power backfires and... well, you get the picture.
• Torchwood references this in the episode "Sleeper":
  Jack: It's just a mind probe.
  Ianto: Remember what happened last time you used it?
  Jack: That was different. And that species has extremely high blood pressure.
  Ianto: Oh, right. Their heads must explode all the time.
• The older installments of the Ultra Series occasionally does this, blowing up monsters' entire heads... with the body still intact. This was during a time when Japanese censors weren't as strict as it was today, after all. Notably the fate of Gokinezula from Return of Ultraman after catching a missile in its mouth, which Ultraman Jack detonates before the monster can spit it out.
• Downplayed in the Under the Dome episode "Blue on Blue". Jim kills the now-insane Reverend by pressing the latter's hearing aid-equipped ear against the dome. The dome makes electrical devices in close proximity explode. So you see a runnel of blood come out of the Reverend's ear and then Jim lets him fall.
• The X-Files: In the episode "Drive", their (man and woman) ear explodes.

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