14 Famous Last Words of Famous TV and Movie Characters
A beloved character can go out with a dramatic monologue, a pithy quip or sometimes a well-timed “AAUUGHH!!”
“Cancer’s Boring”
Dr. Gregory House gets the last line of his series, right between faking his own death and literally riding off into the sunset. It’s a response to Wilson asking what he’ll do when his cancer progresses, but it may also be a meta joke — one critique of the series is that a real doctor would encounter a lot more cancer in their day-to-day job, but of course that would make for a boring TV show.
“Ya-ha-ha! You Made It! Ha-ha-ha-ha! Go! Go Save Riley! Take Her to the Moon for Me. Okay?”
Richard Kind as Bing Bong delivers the gut-wrenching last words of Riley’s imaginary friend in Inside Out, sacrificing himself so she can move on and grow up.
“Oh, Poopie”
Dr. Clayton Forrester, the OG bad guy from Mystery Science Theater 3,000, is canonically replaced by his own mother, Pearl, in Season Eight. He turns into an infant version of himself, with Pearl vowing to raise him right this time, to which he responds with his juvenile parting words.
“I Really Don’t Feel So Good. I’m Not Kidding. Maybe You Should… Go Find a Phone and Call Dr. Walker… Call Somebody…”
Toward the end of Season Eight of Roseanne, Dan Conner collapsed from a heart attack after Darlene’s wedding. He’s revealed to be okay the next episode, and spends the ninth and final season very much alive. That is, until another big reveal that all of Season Nine was a book that Roseanne had written, and Dan had in fact died back at the wedding.
“You Are a Skank-Ass Skank! Skank, Skank, Skank, Skank, Skank!”
Spooge, a Saul Goodman client from Season Two of Breaking Bad called his girlfriend a skank-ass skank one too many times. While Jesse Pinkman was lying on the ground trying to choreograph his escape, the girlfriend (who “ain’t no skank”) casually tips a stolen ATM onto Spooge’s head.
“Andros, It Is Your Duty as a Power Ranger to Save the Universe. Now Is the Time”
Zordon kindly but firmly asked the Red Space Ranger to kill his ass, knowing that busting open his signature tube is the only way to destroy the evil forces that have taken over the universe.
“Dawn, the Hardest Thing in This World, Is to Live in It. Be Brave, Live… for Me”
This capped off a long, dramatic monologue Buffy delivered to her sister before sacrificing herself for the good of humanity by diving into a portal to another dimension. That was supposed to be the series finale, but it was picked up for two more seasons on a different channel, so Buffy had to come crawling back to this dimension.
“My Power Comes From Telling You… Seeing Your Powerlessness, Hearing It. They Wanted To Kill You, Fox. I Protected You All These Years, Waiting for This Moment. To See You Broken. Afraid. Now You Can Die”
Actor William B. Davis was hired as an extra for the pilot episode of The X-Files, and came back for various episodes in the first season, saying a grand total of four words. But his character, The Smoking Man, slowly developed into the main antagonist of the series, finally ending with this monologue in Season Nine.
“Neddy, I’ve Had About All I Can Take of Homer Simpson’s Torso. I’ll Get Some Hot Dogs”
Had it not been for Homer’s antics, Maude Flanders would have never found herself on the business end of a T-shirt gun.
“What Do We Say to the God of Death?”
Two different Game of Thrones characters share this sick-ass parting phrase. In Season One, Syrio Forel reiterates his primary lesson to Arya Stark as he fights off Lannister bozos to save her, and in Season Eight, Melisandre says it before taking off her magic necklace and crumbling into sexy old lady dust. Both times, Arya gets to retort “not today.”
“So, It’s Back to That Stupid Static Again. You Think I Don’t Know What’s Going On in Here? I Know What Goes on in This Cottage. It’s a Conspiracy, and Every One of You Low-Watts Is In on It. Just Because You Move Around, You Think You’re Better Than I Am? I’m NOT an Invalid! I Was Designed to Stick in a Wall! I LIKE BEING STUCK IN THIS STUPID WALL! I Can’t Help It If the Kid Was Too Short TO REACH MY DIALS! IT’S MY FUNCTION!”
The horrifying air conditioner in The Brave Little Toaster monologues so hard, he overheats and dies. The vacuum says what we’re all thinking — “He was a jerk anyway” — which must have been especially awkward later in the movie when the AC unit is repaired by a human and comes back to life.
“Ugh, Awful”
Susan Ross, reportedly killed off because the main cast didn’t really like Heidi Swedberg, grumbles her final line before dying ignominiously from consuming toxic stamp glue while mailing out wedding invitations.
“Hey Guys, You Wanna Grab a Brewski?”
ALF slam dunks his last one-liner to the cops who have him surrounded, right before “To Be Continued” appears on screen. But a fifth season never came, forcing this classic franchise to end on a cliffhanger.
“Hey, I’m Sure It’ll All Work Out Okay. After All, Dinosaurs Have Been on This Earth for 150 Million Years. And It’s Not Like We’re Going to Just… Disappear”
After singlehandedly thrusting the planet into an ice age, Earl ends the final episode of Dinosaurs with some misplaced optimism.