Fair warning: many of these occur at the end of a work, so spoilers may be unmarked. Tread carefully.
Last-Second Chances in Live-Action TV series.
- In an early episode of Andromeda, Trance offers a second chance to the man who killed her in the pilot, and after a few threats and a chase scene he accepts. As Trance explained to Harper at the end of the episode. "Everyone deserves a second chance.... or as many as they need."
- Subverted in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.Faith: Give me that speech again. [...] It's not too late, we can still save you.
Willow: It's way too late. - In the Burn Notice episode "Friends and Family", Michael Westen offers one of these to his old friend Harlan. Harlan betrayed Michael, now a burned spy, framed Michael for murder, and is being paid for killing a corrupt man so his worse partners won't be betrayed. Once Michael receives affirmation the man is willing to kill Michael, Michael escapes his bonds and fights back. Harlan doesn't die, but when the extraction team comes in to obtain the unexpectedly dead corrupt man, Michael has Harlan next to the man's corpse and explains over a phone call to the team leader just who Harlan is and why he killed the man he was hired to bring in. Harlan is taken with them to get any information he has about the other businessmen in the cabal out of him.
- Doctor Who:
- The Tenth Doctor makes a point of offering most of his enemies a peaceful resolution if possible. Woe betide them if they refuse... "No second chances. I'm that sort of a man." In his tenure as the Doctor, exactly one villain ever took him up on this. Still, he's often inconsistent and generally never stops trying to get the enemy to come over to the light.
- In The Sarah Jane Adventures, Sarah Jane also tends to do this. Three guesses where she learned it from, and the first two don't count.
- "The Woman Who Fell to Earth": At the climax, the Thirteenth Doctor offers the antagonist, an alien Hunting the Most Dangerous Game, a chance to end his hunt and leave peacefully. He refuses... just as she expected.
- "Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror": At the climax, the Doctor points out to the Skithra Queen that she already offered her a chance to leave peacefully, but since she didn't take it she's not getting any more chances.
- Occurred once in Farscape, when Crichton tries to convince Pathfinder Neeyala to help save Moya instead of her research vessel, offering to return her to her home planet. Neeyala coldly refuses, explaining that returning home without her ship and its precious data would be punished with her execution, the execution of her family, and the families of her crew.
- In the series finale of Game of Thrones, Jon begs Dany to forgive Tyrion for his betrayal as well as all of the survivors of Dany's attack on King's Landing. He's pleading with her to show everyone that she's not some crazed Mad Queen out to bring the world under heel. Sadly, Dany refuses to forgive.
- Kamen Rider Ex-Aid: Parado is offered this after Emu revives him. Other options involved being left to Masamune Dan or ending his life by his own hand this time. He took the chance as he was afraid of other options more than he was afraid of Emu and realized the wrong of his actions.
- Monty Python's Flying Circus: Cardinal Ximinez of the Spanish Inquisition is awfully keen on second and third last chances.Cardinal Ximinez: You have one last chance. Confess the heinous sin of heresy. Reject the works of the ungodly—two last chances. And you shall be free—three last chances. You have three last chances, the nature of which I have divulged in my previous utterances.
- Ferron in The Musketeers is an odd example, not least because King Louis doesn't realise he's offering a shot at redemption. Louis thinks he's just asking his beloved half-brother to become guardian to his son; for Ferron, it's a display of love and trust that makes him abandon his plans to murder the King (he literally had the dagger in his hand when Louis hugged him), and instead deliberately seek out Redemption Equals Death.
- In A Series of Unfortunate Events Jacques Snicket offers this to Count Olaf, saying "we won't throw the book at you." Olaf summarily rejects this, replying "too bad I can't say the same for you," before dropping a huge book on his head.
- In Stargate Atlantis, Sheppard's team repeatedly tried to convince Lt. Ford to return to Atlantis to get cured to no avail. Note that he was not an actual villain, but just crazy because of the wraith enzyme that he was addicted to and prone to endangering the lives of expedition members without realizing it.
- Used in The Vampire Diaries on Damon, who is seemingly permanently on this trope, usually with Bonnie, on occasions with Elena & Stefan. Due to Contractual Immortality it's unlikely he'll ever get his full comeuppance.
- Averted for Sonny Steelgrave in the first season of Wiseguy: although Vinnie admits to Sonny that he would have given him a last-second chance to elude prosecution, Sonny murders a man in cold blood while Vinnie's hidden video camera is recording him, making it impossible for Vinnie to invoke this trope for him.
- Turned up to 11 in Xena: Warrior Princess episode "Tsunami": Villain tries to kill Gabrielle, Xena says "If you do that again, I will kill you." Villain tries to kill the Captain, Xena says etc. etc. Villain tries to kill the pregnant woman, Xena says etc. etc. Villain tries to kill everybody, Xena says etc. etc. Repeat for 40 minutes.
