"Good mescaline comes on slow. The first hour is all waiting, then about halfway through the second hour you start cursing the creep who burned you, because nothing is happening... and then ZANG! Fiendish intensity, strange glow and vibrations... a very heavy gig in a place like the Circus-Circus."
— Raoul Duke, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
When it comes to drugs in fiction, they tend to kick in almost immediately. After all, there's limited time in the average film or TV episode, so why bother wasting precious time on how long it takes for the drugs to kick in?
However, some stories require a tad more dramatic effect than this, and so we end up with cases in which the chemical bomb doesn't go off immediately or sometimes even within the expected time frame. Instead, either by accident or by design, the effect is delayed just long enough for people to get the impression that it's not working, sometimes for hours on end, sometimes even for days. Then without warning, they go off... and the rules of Drama, Comedy, and Horror all dictate that it'll go off at a time when it's guaranteed to cause the most trouble.
What kind of trouble depends on the drug: if it's a recreational drug or prescription medicine with weird side effects, it's likely to be inconvenient, embarrassing, or just plain silly, and probably quite comedic in all cases. If it's a sedative, the character runs the risk of passing out when they're doing something important like driving, making it more dramatic. Super Serums, magic potions, Psycho Serums, and other enhancements may not work at first, resulting in humiliating or even dangerous inconveniences the user struggles with tasks that should have been easy. Poisons and other, more exotically dangerous substances won't go into effect until the victim is far from help... or if the Master Poisoner who arranged this miraculously timed toxin has a flair for the dramatic, in a position where everyone can see their grisly symptoms kick into gear.
Whatever the case, whether it's injected, ingested, inhaled, or imbibed, it's not working right away, but it will — and you'd better brace yourself for the worst. And for the love of God, do not take any more!
There is an element of Truth in Television to this: many drugs take longer to take effect than a layperson might expect. As a rule of thumb, the more direct of a path a drug has to a user's bloodstream, the more quickly it will kick in, so inhaling or injecting a drug will usually take effect faster than swallowing one, hence why it's so important not to double your dosage if your pills don't seem to be working on time.
Also, this trope can feature a very notable inversion, in which a drug wears off at the most dramatic and/or inconvenient time.
Compare Delayed Causality, which is a Dramatic Pause between an action and its result occurring, and Transformation at the Speed of Plot, which covers the viral equivalents of this trope. Contrast Instant Sedation, the polar opposite of this trope, and You Are Already Dead, the automatically lethal variant of this.
Examples
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Comic Books
- In The Amazing Spider-Man (2018), this is used to explain Ned Leeds' resurrection. Ned had taken the Goblin Formula and, unlike other users, it didn't take automatically, allowing the Foreigner's men to ambush and assassinate him in Spider-Man versus Wolverine. Once Ned was buried, the formula finally kicked in, healing him and resurrecting him.
- Batman #1: The Joker puts an announcement on the radio that at exactly midnight, he will steal the famous Claridge diamond and murder its owner, Henry Claridge. Claridge of course calls in a squad of police to guard him and the diamond, but at the stroke of midnight, he dies. The police then discover that the diamond had been replaced with a glass replica. The Joker had drugged Claridge with a poison that was somehow timed to kill him at exactly midnight.
- In Superman and Spider-Man, Dr. Doom's kryptonite dust is revealed to have been planted on Superman earlier and slowly exposed itself to him over a period of time, completely incapacitating him when it's fully revealed.
Films — Animated
- In "Hopalong Casualty", Wile E. tries to get the Road Runner by feeding it Acme Earthquake Pills. The Road Runner eats them, then runs on its merry way with no effect. Wile E. looks at the bottle of pills, wondering if they're defective. He takes a few pills, then waits for them to take effect. Nothing happens. He laughs scornfully and then downs the entire bottle, then waits again. Still nothing. He throws the empty bottle away, but as he does so, he notices some fine print on the label: it reads "CAUTION: Not effective on Road Runners." Wile E. gulps, then slowly stands up and starts to take a step... and that's when the pills take effect.
- Shrek 2: After he and Puss help Shrek steal the Happily Ever After potion, Donkey takes a swig first to make sure it's safe to drink. When nothing happens to him, Shrek assumes the potion simply doesn't work on donkeys and drinks the rest, but when nothing happens to him either, he dejectedly assumes that he and Fiona "were never meant to be". Later that night, as the three stop to make camp, Shrek and Donkey suddenly pass out, and when they come to, they find the potion has indeed taken effect: Shrek is now human (as is Fiona, unbeknownst to them), and Donkey is now a stallion. Conveniently, this gives them a full day to obtain true love's kiss and make the potion's effects permanent before they revert back to normal at midnight.
Films — Live-Action
- Knives Out: Initially appeared to be the case for Harlan, in that he received a lethal overdose of morphine but did not show any symptoms for a few minutes, but is defied realistically in that he never received the morphine.
- Men in Black II: After T manages to provoke Jeffrey into a rampage across the New York subway tunnels with his Cowboy Cop antics, J attempts to pacify the giant worm by injecting him with a tranquilizer, only for Jeff to punt J into a train and try to eat it. It's not until Jeff has eaten 3/4 of the train and J has threatened to shoot him does the tranquilizer finally take effect, several minutes later. For good measure, during an angry call to MIB headquarters, J can be heard asking if someone can check the expiration date on unipod worm tranquilizers.
- Practical Magic: Sally spikes Jimmy Angelov's tequila with belladonna, hoping to knock him out so she and Gilly can escape from him before the situation gets any worse. Because he's such a big man, it doesn't kick in until after Jimmy has pulled over, gone to the bathroom, and attempted to sexually assault Gilly, collapsing on top of her. It's only then that they realize that Sally, lacking a measuring cup, accidentally gave Jimmy too much and killed him, kicking off the real drama of the film.
- T2 Trainspotting: Bored senseless while waiting for a chance for revenge on Mark Renton and suffering from an embarrassing case of erectile dysfunction, Francis Begbie takes a large dose of Viagra, then goes clubbing. However, the promised erection doesn't arrive when he's making a move on a woman, so he goes to the bathrooms to take some more... only to bump into Renton. After chasing his former friend for some distance and very nearly killing him, Begbie's chase finally ends with Renton managing to outrun him. And then the Viagra finally kicks in, leaving Begbie even more humiliated by his own Raging Stiffie.
- W.E.I.R.D. World (1995): Dr. Abby O'Reardon takes revenge on her schmoozing partner Dr. Bryan Mayhew by injecting him with her prototype youth serum against his will. After several hours with no effects, Mayhew leaves the lab in an extremely smug mood, believing that Abby's masterpiece was a failure. However, while he's driving across the desert roads between W.E.I.R.D. Labs and the nearest town, the serum takes effect quite dramatically... and given the distance he's just travelled, he can't make it back to the lab before he's grown too young to safely drive. In the end, he has to be escorted back to the labs by the police in the belief that he's a minor clowning around in his dad's clothes, much to Abby's amusement.
- The Wolf of Wall Street: While celebrating their latest illicit financial success, Jordan and Donny pop some vintage high-strength Quaaludes. Nothing happens. They pop a couple more. Nothing happens. They pop a couple more and do some exercise to work the drugs through their systems, before concluding that the Quaaludes have expired after years in storage. About ninety minutes after his initial dose, Jordan drives down to the local country club for a secret meeting with his private detective over the payphone...only for the Quaaludes to hit all at once in the middle of the call, sending Jordan crashing to the ground, half-paralyzed and completely incoherent — meaning he can't just ask the private detective to send help. He's left to get himself home, crawling out of the building and clumsily driving off in a hurry to stop Donny from making stupid financial deals while in the midst of his own delayed high.
- Wonka: Early in the film, Wonka is shown selling “hoverchocs”, special chocolates that allow one to fly temporarily. In the climax, he tricks the villains into eating a delayed-action variation of the hoverchocs, which take effect when they try to flee.
Literature
- Danny, the Champion of the World: Inverted. Danny's plan to poach pheasants is to feed them raisins laced with sleeping pills. At first, this works, causing the pheasants to fall out of the trees after they have roosted for the night. Unfortunately, the pills wear off the following morning, causing the pheasants to make a dramatic escape from their very unusual hiding place. The vicar's wife delivers everybody's poached pheasants hidden under a baby in a pram, and on this occasion, more than one hundred birds suddenly fly out of the pram.
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas:
- Early in the novel, after mistiming his latest sampling of the huge valise of drugs that he and Dr. Gonzo brought along, Raoul Duke finds himself struggling to reach Las Vegas before the LSD kicks in. He doesn't quite make it and ends up having to check into a relatively respectable Vegas hotel while tripping out of his brain, all while desperately trying not to get too much attention.
- Later, Raoul takes some mescaline and reflects that it always takes longer to take effect than you think: by the second hour of waiting, you usually get the impression that your drug dealer ripped you off, and then the effects hit all at once without warning. In Raoul's case, they hit while he's walking through Circus-Circus, leaving him utterly overwhelmed and unprepared for how the already-trippy visuals of the casino are enhanced by mescaline.
- Jurassic Park (1990): Muldoon attempts to shoot the T. rex with a pair of tranquilizer darts the size of artillery shells and initially thinks he missed... until it drops just before it can eat Grant and the kids. Turns out he hit the target after all — it just took a while for the tranquilizer to work its way through the massive dinosaur's system.
- Lord Edgware Dies: The killer disposes of Carlotta Adams by dosing her with Veronal, which would only take effect as she slept at home, making it appear as if she had died by an accidental overdose rather than an intentional one.
- The Witches:
- This is the premise of the Grand High Witch's plan to wipe out all the children of England in one stroke: chocolates will be spiked with her Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse-Maker, and then sold to kids who will eat it one day but won't feel the effects until nine o'clock the following morning, when they arrive at school — where they'll be killed as ordinary household pests by oblivious adults. As such, nobody will suspect that the chocolate was the cause, and no suspicion will fall on the witches running the sweet shops.
- The same applies to Bruno Jenkins, the first victim of the potion: the Grand High Witch gave him chocolate spiked with Formula 86 the previous day and invites him to the meeting of the witches the following afternoon so they can witness him transform on stage. It's timed so perfectly that Bruno arrives just as the Grand High Witch explains this and barely has enough time to demand to know what's going on before the transformation kicks off.
- Subverted in the case of the protagonist; overdoses of Formula 86 result in the delay mechanism failing and the potion working immediately, as our hero discovers when he's caught eavesdropping, captured, and forced to swallow an entire bottle of the stuff, causing him to begin transforming in a matter of seconds. In the climax, the witches end up on the receiving end of the same treatment when the protagonist spikes their soup with Formula 86, causing them to transform within seconds of eating it.
Live-Action TV
- According to Jim: Played for Laughs when Cheryl is due for a root canal. Nervous about the procedure, she panics when the sedatives don't work right away, and is about to run from the operating room... only for the drugs to kick in at long last, whereupon she passes out.
- Breaking Bad:
- In "Fly", Walter becomes obsessed with trying to swat a housefly that has gotten into the meth lab, staying up for a whole night trying to get it, and refusing to sleep or start working until he gets the fly, so Jesse slips sleeping pills into Walt's coffee to force him asleep for his own good. The pills start taking effect at the worst possible moment, as Walt is steadying a ladder precariously positioned atop two rolling carts so Jesse can reach the fly near the ceiling; thankfully, Jesse manages to swat the fly and get off the ladder without falling, but by the time he celebrates, Walter is fast asleep.
- In "Salud", Gus Fring presents Don Eladio with a bottle of rare premium tequila, which is immediately shared among the capos. Of course, since he had Gus's friend and lover murdered when they first met, Eladio makes sure that Gus has a shot as well just so he knows it's not poisoned. A raucous party ensues, going on for several minutes and multiple scene changes, up until Gus asks to go to the bathroom — where he vomits up as much of his shot as possible. By the time he leaves, the poison is in full effect and almost the entire Cartel is dead or dying, with Mike and Jesse killing anyone still capable of putting up a fight; for good measure, Eladio doesn't succumb until Gus has the opportunity to look him in the eyes as he carks it.
- Early in season two, Walter realizes that Tuco Salamanca is too dangerous to continue working with and decides to poison him with ricin on the grounds that it can be overlooked in an autopsy and won't go into effect until about 48-72 hours after ingested or inhaled, ensuring that no suspicion will fall on Walter or Jesse. In "Grilled"this attempt fails due to Hector Salamanca warning Tuco at the last minute, and Tuco dies in a shootout with Hank Schrader anyway. In the seasons that follow, ricin is considered for use against anyone who needs to be killed untraceably, from the two gang members who killed Combo in "Half Measures" to Gus Fring himself in "Problem Dog", though circumstances always keep it from being used. However, in "Felina", Walter finally uses ricin to successfully eliminate Lydia Rodarte-Quayle, using the poison's slow action to prevent the target's death from sounding the alarm until it's too late: when she calls Todd to check if Walter has been assassinated yet (not knowing that Jesse has already throttled Todd to death), she's already experiencing terminal symptoms; a radio report in El Camino indicates that she's in a critical condition and not likely to survive.
- Farscape: Early in "Throne for a Loss", the crew are attacked by a gang of Tavleks armed with Gauntlets, weapons that (among other things) inject the users with a powerful strength-enhancing stimulant. After Crichton knocks one of the Tavleks out, D'Argo immediately tries on his Gauntlet... and none of its functions work, leaving him gesturing impotently while the other Tavleks kidnap Rygel. After the credits are over, several minutes later, D'Argo flings a metal pedestal across the room with very little effort, indicating that the Gauntlet is finally having the desired effect. Unfortunately, the simulant also enhances ego and relaxes inhibitions, leaving Moya's crew struggling to subdue the increasingly aggressive D'Argo instead of trying to save Rygel.
- Firefly: In "The Train Job", Jayne opts to leave Mal and Zoe behind while he takes over the ship, so Simon covertly injects him with a sedative. However, it takes multiple scene changes before the drug finally takes effect, by which time, Jayne is already in the cockpit, demanding that they take off, only to start hallucinating in the middle of his ultimatum and then pass out. An embarrassed Simon admits that it should have kicked in sooner.
- Game of Thrones: In "Mother's Mercy", Elaria Sand poisons Myrcella Baratheon via a Kiss of Death and Drugged Lipstick just as she's about to leave Dorne by ship. However, the poison doesn't kick in until her ship is almost over the horizon and Myrcella is having a heart-to-heart with her illegitimate father Jaime Lannister...whereupon she suffers a Deadly Nosebleed and very suddenly dies in Jaime's arms. Cut to back to the dock, where Elaria is also sporting the nosebleed, but is quickly given the antidote by her daughter Tyene and immediately recovers.
- M*A*S*H: In "Dr. Pierce and Mr. Hyde", Hawkeye is suffering from extreme sleep deprivation and a nasty case of Exhaustion-Induced Idiocy that has inspired him to send the officer's latrine to North Korea. Trapper and Radar give Hawkeye a heavy dose of tranquilizers to stop him... but they don't kick in until after the visiting General has taken a seat in said latrine and Hawkeye has started towing it away with an ambulance. Trapper later tells Col. Blake that Hawkeye got a good 400 yards before the drugs took effect and he finally fell asleep.
- Obliterated: In the first episode, helicopter pilot Paul eats a tub of guacamole which, unknown to him, his colleague Hagerty has spiked with copious amounts of shrooms and LSD. At first, he seems fine (and as the team is called back into action, leader Ava observes that at least one of them is sober), but a few hours later, while flying them over the city, Paul starts to hallucinate a gremlin sitting in the co-pilot's seat and taunting him, causing him to freak out. His situation quickly starts going downhill after this.
Theatre
- Romeo and Juliet: Inverted. Juliet takes a sleeping draught to make herself appear dead so she can run off with Romeo, but it doesn't wear off until just after Romeo has killed himself with poison in the belief that she's dead. Had Romeo taken a few minutes longer to set his affairs in order, she could have stopped him.
Webcomics
- "Everyone's First Edible"
by Orie Rush depicts a realistic example of this: marijuana edibles generally take longer to take effect than just smoking it, so the protagonist makes the mistake of having another after the first one fails to kick in after an hour. Two hours later, the now-amplified high arrives all at once, resulting in the protagonist getting so stoned out of his gourd that he appears to sink into the couch.
Web Videos
- Edgar Allan Poe's Murder Mystery Dinner Party: Played for laughs in Episode 9. Constables Jim and Jimmy partake in glasses Poe's wine while on the job, but even though they have been sipping the wine since the previous episode, it isn't until immediately after they have agreed to help solve the murder mystery and finished their wine that the poison takes hold and kills them both.
Constable Jimmy: Funnily enough, the first course I took in the Constable Academy was "What to do in Case Your Dinner Party Turns into a Mass Homicide". [takes out pamphlet] And the first rule is...
Constables Jim and Jimmy: [reading slowly, in realization] "Don't drink anything."
[Both fall down dead.]
Lenore: Welp, not gonna say I didn't see that coming.
Western Animation
- Bob's Burgers: In "Poops! I Didn't Do It Again", Louise is struggling with constipation, which causes her much distress because her class is going on an overnight trip to the aquarium, and she hates using public bathrooms. She takes some laxatives so that she won't have to go until after the trip, but the laxatives don't kick in until after the trip begins, thus triggering a Potty Emergency. She calls Bob on the phone to take her home, but she realizes she's missing out on all the fun just because she's unwilling to use a public restroom, so she decides just to suck it up and face her fear.
- BoJack Horseman: In "Love And/Or Marriage", Diane gets invited to an elite party with Alex Brosefino and the famous "Snatch Batch" and takes a party drug called "gush". She expects the effects to kick in right away, only for the Snatch Batch to inform her it takes a few minutes. Numerous scene changes go by, after which Diane gradually realizes she was invited by accident, as Alex thought she was his "cool and sexy" friend named Diane, but when she tries to confront him about this, the drug finally kicks in and she begins tripping balls. The trip lasts all the way home, allowing her to deliver Mr. Peanutbutter an honest drug-induced rant about how she loves him.
- The Mask: In the episode "Little Big Mask", the Mask creates an anti-aging cream and tests it on himself on live TV — though he opts to rejuvenate himself with his usual shapeshifting antics, so at first it looks like the cream was just a nonfunctional prop. However, when Stanley Ipkiss awakens the next morning, he finds that he's regressed to his teenage years overnight, revealing that the cream was real after all, just delayed. Unfortunately, Stanley and the Mask continue to suffer delayed regressions over the course of the episode, leaving the two of them struggling to develop an antidote before they suffer a Death by De-aging.
