Memento Mac Guffin / Live-Action TV

• On Once Upon a Time, Rumpelstiltskin places Belle's chipped teacup on a pedestal when he hears the false news that she's dead. Post-Dark Curse, it remains a very important symbol of their love.
• Mary's golden M on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which represents home and stability to her. It's the first thing she unpacks in her new apartment when she moves.
• The toy plane on Lost. It belonged to Kate's first love, whom she got killed during an escape from the police. Kate robbed a bank and shot her three co-conspirators to get it from a safe-deposit box.
• The titular character in Bones has a small glass dolphin trinket to remind her of her father, and she gets upset when she loses an earring that belonged to her deceased mother.
• The amulet that Dean always wears on Supernatural. A flashback in the third season episode "A Very Supernatural Christmas" shows that Sam originally got the amulet to give to the boys' father. When John, who has left the boys alone in a motel room again, doesn't show up for Christmas, Sam gives the amulet to Dean instead. When Dean comes back from Hell at the beginning of the fourth season, Sam (who has been wearing the amulet the whole time Dean was dead) gives it back to him. While the amulet seems to do nothing but serve as a symbol of the brothers' close relationship, in the fifth season it is revealed that it burns hot in the presence of God, and thus can be used to find Him.
  • Until "The Dark Side Of The Moon", of course. Castiel loses his faith completely when he finds out that God is watching but doesn't plan on helping and so gives it back to Dean, stating it "worthless". And Dean, so hurt by his brother's ideal heaven, throws it in the trash in front of Sam. Because this isn't a despairing show at all.
• In the Japanese drama Shōkōjo Seira, based on A Little Princess, Seira gave her father a necklace before he leaves, telling him he must keep it on at all times. For her sixteenth birthday, her father would send a similar looking necklace for her. And after he died, she lost her birthday necklace to Director Chieko and her father's necklace was returned to her as proof of his death, becoming a Tragic Keepsake.
• In Kamen Rider Ryuki, Ren/Kamen Rider Knight wears a necklace with two promise rings around his neck to remind him what he's fighting for: his girlfriend Eri, who is currently in a coma.
• On Community's Season 4 Halloween Episode Jeff is dressed as a boxer, which the others assume is a ploy to be a Walking Shirtless Scene for a while. It is, however, revealed that the boxing gloves Jeff carries around belonged to his Disappeared Dad, which is a sign that Jeff's finally ready to confront his Daddy Issues.
• The Vampire Diaries: Elena's necklace, which was given to her by Stefan in the first season. The necklace or amulet is often seen as representation of Stefan and Elena's love.
  • Stefan's intention on giving Elena the necklace was to protect Elena from Damon and other vampires by putting vervain in the amulet.
• On The X-Files, Scully wears a cross that her mother gave to her for Christmas one year. Over the course of the series, the necklace comes to symbolize friendship and love. When Scully is abducted in season two, Mulder finds her necklace left behind. Her mother encourages him to keep it as a reminder not to give up, and he ends up wearing it around his neck while she's gone. He returns it to her, and Scully herself ends up giving it to Emily, the daughter she wasn't aware had been conceived through her eggs (stolen while she was abducted). It's returned to her again, and once again, when she's missing, Mulder finds it in the 1998 movie The X-Files: Fight the Future.
• Castle, Beckett keeps an elephant statue on her desk, which belonged to her late mother Joanna Beckett. In the 6th season episode "Veritas", she discovers that Joanna had stored a micro-cassette tape containing evidence that she had uncovered against William Bracken inside the statue. The discovery of the tape provides enough evidence for Kate Beckett to arrest Bracken for her mother's murder.
• In Glue, murder victim Cal wears a necklace which is later missing from the body. One of his friends, James, is seen in possession of a similar necklace which he promptly throws out. James recovers it later, and Cal's is found in his shirt pocket—turns out they were matching pendants honoring the pair's Secret Relationship. To top it off, Cal's brother Eli also has a pendant like that, to remember his mum by—and he's not happy that Cal made the pendants less about his mum and more about his love life...
• In Monk, Monk can't bring himself to open or throw out what he thinks is a present from his late wife. In the finale, he finally does and it's a videotape in which Trudy tells him who will kill her.
• Taken:
  • In "Beyond the Sky", Sue discovers the artifact at the Roswell crashsite, which she gives to Owen Crawford at the cost of her life. In "High Hopes", Owen tells his son Sam that it is part of his inheritance. However, in "Acid Tests", it falls into the possession of Owen's elder son Eric after Sam is killed in a fire in Alaska and Owen dies of a stroke. In "Dropping the Dishes", it is revealed that the artifact is both a transmitter that allows the aliens to track everyone who has an implant in their frontal lobe (which was heavily implied in "Charlie and Lisa") and an information gathering device which has been continually recording the progress of the aliens' crossbreeding experiment since its inception.
  • Also in "Beyond the Sky", Sally Clarke gives John one of the star shaped earrings left to her by her grandmother. She keeps the other one, wearing it as a pendant. In "Jacob and Jesse", Sally passes it on to their son Jacob as he leaves Lubbock to attend the Greenspan School after she, Tom and Becky fake his death. In "Charlie and Lisa", Jacob gives the pendant to his daughter Lisa shortly before his death. When John returns to Earth in "John", he shows the earring that Sally gave him in 1947 to Lisa as proof that he is her grandfather. In the final episode "Taken", John passes the earring on to Allie as he thinks that her great-grandmother would have wanted her to have it. When Allie tells her as much, Lisa gives her daughter her pendant, reuniting the two earrings for the first time in 55 years. After Allie joins the aliens, she leaves one of the earrings behind and keeps the other one, sending the message to her parents that she will be back one day.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine has a not-so-friendly version. When the Dominion captures the station and the Federation is forced to evacuate, Sisko leaves his baseball behind in his office. Dukat immediately understands the message. When the Federation reclaims the station, Dukat hands the ball back to Sisko to acknowledge his defeat.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: After the death of Finrod, Galadriel took his dagger, and sworn to take revenge on his killer. At the end of Season One, the dagger was used to create the Rings of Power.

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