"By the way: when the hell did it become so verboten to use foreshadowing, that you have to actively go out of your way to prove your foreshadowing wrong?"
"It's more important for a gun which is fired to be shown than it is for a gun which is shown to be fired."
"Communism was just a red herring."
— Three characters, one for each ending, from the movie Clue
"Wow, there are shapeshifters in the Star Wars universe! We've been shown that fact quite explicitly. Surely this will become important later in the plot. Only it never does. It's never mentioned again anywhere else in any of the movies. I think Anton Chekhov just committed suicide with his gun."
— Darths & Droids commentary box
Who is the killer? The movie makes it painfully obvious early on—and then insists on boring us with repeated shots of another suspect. It's as if we know who the killer is, but the movie doesn't.
— Roger Ebert reviews Prom Night (1980)
Cut to the inside of Tess's head...Oh, those sneaky devils, trying to throw us off the Martha trail by cliffhanging a scene where Ollie accuses Tess of being the Red Queen. Which makes absolutely no sense in hindsight, because none of this is actually real; Ollie isn't Ollie and Max, Martha and Tess all know that Tess isn't the Red Queen so... Obviously this is thrown out there for the three people still watching that have any illusions as to who the Red Queen is. Isn't it nice that they give us this much credit?
—Julian Finn
on Smallville, "Hostage"
on Smallville, "Hostage"Spotnik. Of course! He must've sent that fax to distract me, and now he's Charlene's date tonight wearing my pants!
—Ruff, FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman
Lt. Fred Williams: It wasn't Mickey Scellenda. He was dead for four days before Kitty's murder. So, I guess we're back to square one. Right?
Dr. Paul Davis: Well, we are... and we're not. By wiping out Scellenda as a suspect, who was really just a procurer and a peeper, brings us back to my original idea.
Dr. Paul Davis: Well, we are... and we're not. By wiping out Scellenda as a suspect, who was really just a procurer and a peeper, brings us back to my original idea.
Bowser Jr.! It was you that sent us those messages asking us to collect the Relics of Goodness... so we could unlock the Moon Gate to find Mr. Tom Phan, wasn't it? I knew it all along! Er... well, I suspected... Okay, I just figured it out in the last thirty seconds! Tom Phan was a red herring. It was just a TRAP, wasn't it?
—Beep-0, Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle
*This is a red herring
—The Annotated Ultimate Alphabet by Mike Wilks, referencing the red fish on the page for X◊
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