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[I couldn’t find this one, if it exists, so here’s the gist...]
“Wait, you mean you were the masked man this whole time?” “Yes! And it was I that killed your brother. Muah-ha-ha!” [scene break] “So he killed your brother? What are you going to do about it?” “Revenge, of course. Pass the salt?”
This is a heavily used trope that is often invisible, but once noticed it will gnaw at your soul.
It takes place in conversations between two or more characters where there is a particular high point of drama or tidbit of information that the writers want to spotlight using this trope. The scene ends at that most dramatic moment after all the necessary information has been provided, but it does not include the rest of the conversation. It is immediately followed by a scene change or chapter break, possibly with an intervening commercial. (Not to be confused with a Cliffhanger, as the broken-off scene is never resumed.)
One assumes the characters don’t just go blank-faced, spin around, and walk stiffly away in opposite directions, but they might as well have. Nothing that happens after that point has any impact on the rest of the plot, despite that there must have been a parting of some sort, likely with significant leftovers of drama to deal with.
Any conversation that doesn’t depict the actual end of the conversation qualifies. However, the worst abuses of this trope result in impossible conversation endings where a character’s personality would never have let them just walk away after the camera stops.