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That Man Is Dead / Live-Action TV

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That Man Is Dead in live-action TV.

  • Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.:
    • After Mike Peterson has been forced to become the Centipede Group's cyborg assassin Deathlok, he's confronted by the SHIELD agents. Blake tries to reason with him that SHIELD can save him and his son, reminding him of his life as Mike Peterson. Deathlok responds with this line before nearly killing Blake.
    • Inverted with Daisy Johnson, who decided that her fake identity of Skye was dead when she learned the truth about her parents and original name.
  • Angel:
    • More often an Averted Trope than played straight with Angel; in general, you're more likely to see an emphasis on the fact that while Angel seems to be as much of a good person as any of the other characters, his dark side Angelus is always present and so is the possibility that Angelus would resurface and become dominant. Nor does Angelus have a particularly easy time getting over the unpleasant memories of rescuing puppies during his times as Angel.
    • Played straight with Liam, the human who was turned to create Angelus. Restoring his soul did not result in Angel being the same person he'd been as a human. Liam was an immature, drunken hedonist with daddy issues. Being wracked with centuries' worth of guilt for the atrocities of Angelus makes Angel a very different person.
    • Doyle feels this way about his old personality when he was the well-adjusted schoolteacher Allen Francis Doyle. "It's Doyle now. Just Doyle."
  • Arrow. Sara Lance, whom Oliver Queen thought had drowned in the same sinking that marooned him on Lian Yu, comes Back from the Dead in Season 2. Oliver Queen calls her out for not contacting her family to let them know she's alive, instead of just prowling about as a masked vigilante.
    Oliver: What's your plan, Sara? Because right now, you just... Well, you're whipping across rooftops and keeping watch over your family like some sort of ghost.
    Sara: We're both ghosts. We died on that island.
    Oliver: No we didn't. We both lived. And... I get that you have been in pain so long that it probably just feels normal now. But you can let it go and come home.
    • In Season 3, Oliver uses a curious variant in his pledge to join the League of Assassins: "Oliver Queen is alive only in the past. He's forgotten."
  • Babylon 5: An Inverted Trope which keeps the same intent: After turning away from his old life as a petty criminal to take up a new calling, "Jinxo" responds to that nickname by politely but firmly declaring, "Thomas. My name is Thomas." (his given name)
  • The Beauty Queen Of Jerusalem: Wanting to know if David is dead or alive, Luna visits the witch Jilda and gives her two photographs of him. Jilda places both on the fire, and the old one from before he joined the army burns up. Jilda tells Luna that "that one is dead". Indeed, when he comes back he's a Shell-Shocked Veteran.
  • Season 5 of The Big Bang Theory has Howard give a speech to this effect in reference to the lecherous creep he'd been for the first four seasons of the show.
    Howard: Tell her I'm really sorry. And if she doesn't want to marry me, I get it. But what I really want her to know is the guy that she is really disgusted by is the guy that I'm disgusted by, too. But, that guy doesn't exist anymore; he's gone. And the reason is because of her. So, if this relationship is over, let her know that she made me a better man, and tell her thank you.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Willow, after going insane and evil, says "Willow doesn't live here anymore."
  • Charmed (1998): In one episode, the Halliwell sisters are being stalked by someone; Prue thinks it's a demon, but it turns out to be Abbey, a bartender at P3 who's obsessed with taking over Prue's life. After Abbey temporarily blinds Prue, knocks her out and ties her up, they have this exchange:
    Prue: Abbey?
    Abbey: No, you're wrong! Abbey's gone forever! She's a loser and you're a winner. And now, I'm gonna be a winner too, as soon as I take care of you.
  • Cheers: Played for Laughs when Carla made her infamous specialty drinks causing everyone to come back the next day with the worst hangover of their lives.
    Sam: How ya doing Frasier?
    Frasier: I’m sorry Sam, your friend Frasier is dead. What you’re looking at is his undead corpse.
  • The Coroner: In "Perfectly Formed", Jane and Davey have worked out most of the details regarding the remains of the dead baby found in the cottage, including that the mother was Lisa Milar, and go to confront the remaining suspects. Once they learn the true circumstances of the birth and death and that Lisa Milar has undergone a sex change and is now Lee Milar, the group ask Davey what he intends to do. Davey answers "I came here to arrest Lisa Milar. There's no Lisa Milar here".
  • Cowboy Bebop (2021): Implied with Spike Spiegel, who refuses to be called Fearless even by those who knew him as a Syndicate soldier by that name. Tragically Julia, the woman he loves, has also left her previous self behind. When Spike refuses her We Can Rule Together offer, she shoots him to cast aside her innocent self forever.
  • Criminal Minds: In this crime drama, there is a character in one episode named Adam with split personalities. His alternate personality is named Amanda, and her job is to protect Adam. In the end of the episode though, she becomes the dominant personality in order to protect him and tells Dr. Spencer Reid that Adam's gone and he (Reid) will have to wait a long time to get him back.
  • In The Crown (2016), Anthony Eden, Foreign Minister, protegé and political Heir to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, feels that the 79-year-old Prime Minister's growing mental feebleness is creating permanent damage to the running of the state, turns to King George VI to help him convince Churchill to retire since he A) is the only person that out-ranks the Prime Minister and B) Is one of the few people that Churchill respects.
    George VI: What do you suggest I do?
    Anthony Eden: Well, as Sovereign, of course, there is nothing you can do from a constitutional standpoint. But as a friend... as Albert Windsor, you are the one person I can think of to whom he might listen.
    George VI: ...Well, that is where we run into difficulties, I'm afraid. I no longer am Albert Windsor. That person was murdered by his elder brother... when he abdicated. And, of course, Albert Windsor would dearly love to say to his old friend, Winston Churchill, "Take a step back. Put your feet up. Let the younger generation have a go now." But he is no longer with us and that void has been filled by George VI who, it turns out, is quite the stickler, and no more allow the Sovereign to interfere with the Prime Minister than stand for Office himself.
  • CSI: NY: In "Page Turner," Stella and Flack question a Buddhist monk named Lhamo Vadhana as to the whereabouts of a suspect named Timothy Pram. The monk says "He no longer exists," so they ask when he died. The monk then admits that he had changed his name along with his whole personality when he converted to Buddhism and considers his former self to be gone.
  • Dark Matter (2015):
    • The series begins with six people awakening from stasis on a starship called the Raza with no idea who they are or how they got there. They call themselves One through Six in order of awakening as a placeholder, and then it becomes permanent even after they (or rather, the five of them who are adults) learn their given names from the ship's database at the end of the pilot episode: Jace Corso (One, played by Marc Bendavid), Portia Lin (Two, played by Melissa O'Neil), Marcus Boone (Three, played by Anthony Lemke), Ryo Tetsudo (Four, played by Alex Mallari Jr) and Griffin Jones (Six, played by Roger Cross). Their reason for repudiating their former names? They learn of them from Galactic Authority wanted files that make it clear they are career criminals who are among the worst of the worst, guilty of everything from kidnapping and piracy to mass murder. Two (the captain) in particular tells the ship's android not to call her "Portia" in the second episode. The only exception is Everyone's Baby Sister Five (played by Jodelle Ferland), a teenage girl with an even more mysterious past than the rest who doesn't have a profile and so doesn't know her original name in the first place and apparently isn't a wanted criminal.
    • It turns out it isn't the only time Two, specifically, has done this. She was created as an Artificial Human prototype, who escaped, and her original name was Rebecca. She created the identity of Portia Lin when she embarked on her career as a ruthless mercenary.
  • Doctor Who:
    • Generally, the Time Lords that go renegade or are exiled seem to forfeit their names and take up titles instead: the Doctor, the Meddling Monk, the War Chief, the Master, the Rani, the Scaramancer, the Sonomancer, the Collective, and the Corsair. Why they do this has never been explained or elaborated on. In "Midnight", when a group of paranoid passengers demand that the Tenth Doctor tell them his real name, he replies that he can't.
      • A couple of expanded universe sources suggest that this might be because a Time Lord's name is the property of their family, and that it may also change over time – so the Doctor can't use his name because not only does it no longer belong to him since his family disowned him, but because he's not sure any more what it should even be.
    • "Utopia" has this exchange after Professor Yana opens the fob-watch:
      Professor Yana: That is not my name! "The Professor" was an invention! So perfect a disguise that I forgot who I am!
      Chantho: Chan — And who are you? — Tho
      Professor Yana: I. Am. The Master!
    • In a less obvious way, the Doctor's parental side:
      Tenth Doctor: When they died, that part of me died with them.
    • "The Eleventh Hour": "Amelia Pond hasn't lived here in a very long time."
    • The climax of "The Name of the Doctor", when the Doctor disavows the War Doctor, because of the actions he took during and at the end of the Time War. "The Night of the Doctor" reveals that the War Doctor himself disowned the title of "the Doctor" upon his regeneration from the Eighth Doctor, owing to the latter's desire to regenerate into a warrior to fight in the Time War.
    • Clara does this in "Death in Heaven" when confronted by the Cybermen. She's bluffing, but it certainly throws the audience, never mind the Cybermen, for a brief loop.
      Clara: You see, I’m not Clara Oswald. Clara Oswald has never existed... I'm the Doctor.
    • When faced with Clara being Killed Off for Real and trying desperately to negotiate a way out of it in "Face the Raven", the Doctor experiences a brief but terrifying Freak Out during which he momentarily renounces his name.
      The Doctor: The Doctor is no longer here, you are stuck with me! And I will destroy you and everything you love.
  • ER's Mark Greene struggled with trauma following a brutal assault, finally telling his best friend Doug, "I don't know who I am anymore. The person I was died in that bathroom. And I don't know who's going to take his place."
  • Farscape: Happens in the episode "Die Me, Dichotomy" after the neural clone completely takes over John's body. First, he refers to himself as "John Crichton" but then starts referring to John in the third person.
  • Firefly: "Objects in Space":
    River/Serenity: I'm not on the ship. I'm in the ship. I am the ship.
    Simon: River—
    River: River's gone.
    Early: Then who exactly are we talking to?
    River: You're talking to Serenity. And Early? Serenity is very unhappy.
  • The Flash (2014):
    • The Arc Villain of the third season only refers to himself as Savitar or the Future Flash. Upon being called Barry, he screams "THAT'S NOT MY NAME!"
    • Played with in regard to Caitlin, who is eventually taken over by her Superpowered Evil Side, Killer Frost. At first, the others decide to only refer to her as Killer Frost, believing the Caitlin they knew and loved to be dead (Well, just before Killer Frost took over, she was almost dead), however, they can't help but be bothered by the fact that she was once their friend and that she might still have a good side. In the season finale, Caitlin regains some control, and seems to have fully regained it by the fourth season, though not without some difficulties.
  • Frontier Circus: In "The Shaggy Kings", Retired Gunfighter Tom Jace is living under the name Jeb Randall. Every time someone accuses him of being Jace, he replies, "Tom Jace is dead."
  • Game of Thrones:
    • This is played with this quite a bit in several side-plots. Arya's refusal to say this leads to her rejection of the Faceless Men. Jorah Mormont says a version of this when Jon Snow offers him Longclaw, indicating that his redemption is complete (and thus his dramatic death is imminent). Notably, however, while several characters literally do return from the dead, they actually don't change dramatically in terms of personality. The only character that this actually happens to is Bran. Meera Reid says exactly this about Bran, when he fails to show anything resembling gratitude for her help getting him to the Three-Eyed Raven's cave.
    • While Sandor Clegane may have survived the fight and the fall at the end of Season 4, Brienne killed "the Hound", until the Brotherhood Without Banners unintentionally resurrected it.
    • Bran Stark also claims this, as in season 7 Meera Reed realizes that he died in the Three-Eyed Raven's cave. While he'll still answer to Bran, he's no longer the boy he once was.
  • Following a car accident that left him with complete amnesia, General Hospital's Jason struggled for several months to adjust to life with his family before finally blowing up at everyone and trashing everything in his room. When his distraught mother tearfully declares that he's destroyed everything that she had left of "him", he coldly declares ""He's" dead!" before storming out, never to return and using a new surname from then on. Even months later, when his parents gently tried to reach out to him by sending him presents for his birthday, he just as coldly reaffirms this by refusing them, saying "Your son died last year."
  • Gotham: The first eerie words spoken by what used to be Gerald Crane's son, who'd been locked in a closet overnight with an actual scarecrow that his damaged brain perceived as a terrifying bogeyman?
    The Scarecrow: Jonathan Crane isn't here anymore...
  • In the Grimm episode "Eve of Destruction", the resurrected Juliet tells Nick she's Eve now. Later, Nick tells Trouble and Adalind that he met Eve. When Adalind asks who Eve is, he replies "I have no idea." It turns out that Eve remembers everything, but she no longer considers herself the same person as Juliet. She's now colder, more decisive. In the final season, though, Eve is much more like Juliet thanks to a side effect of the stick. Despite this, both she and Nick know that what they once had is gone, and they're happy to remain good friends.
  • Heroes: Sylar becomes furious when Bennet insists on calling him "Gabriel." Inverted in "I Am Become Death", when Future-Sylar insists that Peter call him Gabriel. The name he prefers usually indicates which side of the Face–Heel Revolving Door he's currently on.
  • House: Has an example in its Grand Finale. When Wilson discovers that House faked his death and tells him the consequences of his survival coming to light, House responds by saying he's officially dead and can now pursue a new life.
  • Jessica Jones (2015): Kilgrave refuses to go by his birth name of Kevin Thompson, insisting that Kevin died in the experiments that gave him his powers.
  • Just Shoot Me!: When an old acquaintance of Nina's calls her by her birth name Claire, she explains that "I pushed Claire down a well and shaved eight years off her life."
  • Luke Cage (2016): A rare heroic variant: after Carl Lucas escapes from Seagate, he changes his name to Luke Cage. To show how far he's gone to disassociate himself from his past life, he says at one point "Carl Lucas died in Seagate."
  • Kamen Rider:
    • Kamen Rider Kabuto: Tsurugi claims this during his Face–Heel Turn, when he recovers his original identity as the Scorpio Worm mimicking the original Tsurugi. He's also lying, and once his ruse has played out, lets the Scorpio identity die first so he can spend his final moments as Tsurugi.
    • Kamen Rider Revice: Genta provides a rare heroic example, choosing to abandon his former identity as the vengeance-driven Junpei and reaffirm himself as the father to his children.
  • The King of Queens: Played for Laughs in the episode "Wild Cards." Deacon convinces a reluctant Doug to accompany him to Atlantic City to enjoy the casinos. Once they're there, Doug ends up extremely hyped about gambling. Deacon wonders "What happened to the Doug who was saying to slow down?" to which Doug retorts "That Doug is dead!"
  • Married... with Children: Repeatedly invoked for laughs.
    • When a relative promised an inheritance to a couple who had a child named after him, nine months of non-stop sex with Peg left Al completely grey and confined to a wheelchair.
      Lawyer: I’m looking for Al Bundy.
      Al: I was Al Bundy.
    • Another time Al met a young man who went to the same high school as him.
      Aaron: Al Bundy! I thought you died in ‘Nam.
      Al: Yeah, I started that rumor. The truth is I died here at home. Victim of Agent Red.
  • The fictionalized TV-movie biography ''Norma Jean & Marilyn" depicts Norma Jean Dougherty (Ashley Judd) and Marilyn Monroe (Mira Sorvino) as almost separate people. Marilyn even imagines backing her car right over her younger self at the moment she decides on her stage name. (Her agent responds with "Long live Marilyn Monroe" - the corollary, of course, being "Norma Jean Dougherty is dead.") When Norma Jean later returns (now as a grown woman) to haunt Marilyn, the latter is incredulous.
    Marilyn: No! You're dead! I killed you!
  • In the finale of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Vader says this to Obi-Wan over Anakin when Obi-Wan apologizes for what happened to his former student. This justifies the Metaphorically True comment Kenobi tells Luke in A New Hope.
  • Once Upon a Time: (In which dwarves take their names from the inscriptions on their pickaxes), the dwarf Dreamy breaks his pickaxe and declares that he is now Grumpy after being forced to break up with his one, true love.
    • The flashbacks in "The Evil Queen" show Queen Regina discovering what her subjects think of her, and decides to embrace the title they have given her.
    Regina: The queen is dead. Long live the Evil Queen.
  • Power Rangers:
  • Revolution: Miles Matheson says this in the episode "Soul Train" in reference to his pre-catastrophe nicer self. Subverted Trope at the end of the episode he admits that he isn't dead, he just can't be him under the present circumstances.
  • Rise of Empires: Ottoman: Mehmet is initially reluctant to take up arms against Vlad Dracula in spite of the latter's increasing defiance against the Ottomans since he still considers him a brother. After Vlad captures and executes Hamza Bey, an important ally of Mehmet and father to his favorite consort Gülbahar Hatun, she states that Vlad is a monster and no longer Mehmet's brother.
  • On The Rookie, Bradford is thrown to find some detectives are planning to use his wife, Isabel, in an undercover job. They use Isabel's past experience as one of the best narcotics operatives on the LAPD. Bradford tries to warn them that his wife is now a massive drug addict herself and is no longer anything like the professional cop she once was. They ignore him and she ends up making a rookie mistake that blows the entire op.
  • Scandal: In "The Other Woman", Quinn comes to terms that her life as Lindsay Dwyer is over. Huck even tells her that eight people died in that bombing, not seven. In "Hunting Season", she becomes very insistent that Abby calls her Quinn, not Lindsay.
  • Skins: In Series 4 Episode 7, Effy (proper name Elizabeth), brainwashed by her counsellor, asks Cook "Eff? Who's Eff?"
  • In the Lifetime Movie Of The Week Sleeping With The Devil, (Based on a True Story) a man hires a hitman to kill his ex-girlfriend after she leaves him. She survives but has to go into hiding to recover, which includes changing her name. Her father slips up and refers to her with her previous one, but she gently tells him, "That girl died with six bullet wounds to her back."
  • Smallville:
  • Stargate SG-1:
    • Goa'uld symbiotes, who usually operate by Symbiotic Possession, often utter their variation of the line: "nothing of the host survives." A major plot point between seasons 1 and 2 is O'Neill refusing to believe this and having a few verbal I Know You're In There Somewhere Fights with Skaara.
    • It also shows up in the second episode after Teal'c kills the Goa'uld-possessed Major Kawalsky by holding his head in the Stargate when it was shut down.
      Teal'c: He was your friend.
      O'Neill: My friend died on the table.
    • One early episode has Teal'c put on trial by the son of someone he killed in the course of his old job. He's found guilty and wants to submit to the execution, but naturally more Jaffa show up, Teal'c saves the village and so on, leading his accuser to declare he was mistaken and that Teal'c must have killed the man who murdered his father.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
    • This happens in "Duet", although explaining how spoils the episode: Marritza, during the breakdown of his Gul Darhe'el deception, insists "It's Marritza who's dead! Marritza! Who was good for nothing but cowering under his bunk and weeping like a woman! Who every night covered his ears because he couldn't bear to hear the screaming for mercy of the Bajorans..." before breaking down and weeping.
    • In "Hard Time", Chief O'Brien has the memories of being imprisoned for twenty years implanted in his mind. He can't cope with it, and when Bashir finds him, he's pointing a phaser under his chin.
      O'Brien: I'm not your friend! The O'Brien that was your friend died in that cell!
    • Dr. Julian Bashir pulls this in "Dr. Bashir, I Presume?" when his mother calls him by his childhood nickname "Jules":
      Julian Bashir: I stopped calling myself "Jules" when I was fifteen and I'd found out what you'd done to me. I'm Julian!
      • To clarify, Bashir had been genetically modified by his parents to be smarter after being born with a mental impairment, a decision that he had to hide for the rest of his life. In this case, he sounded regretful, but Julian was never portrayed as a bad person compared to Jules. He never goes back to his old name. Except in one of the Expanded Universe novels, in which an alien MacGuffin undoes the modification.
    • Ezri does the same thing when she is confused with Jadzia. However, in this situation, it is entirely justified, as Ezri, though she carries Jadzia's memories through the symbiont, is a different person, and Jadzia is in fact dead.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation:
  • Supergirl (2015):
    • Leslie Willis is given powers after a helicopter accident. When she reappears as a villain, she gives this line:
      Livewire: Leslie Willis is dead. D-E-A-D. Dead. She died in that CatCopter of yours. This is Leslie 2.0. Livewire.
    • In "The Darkest Place", the real Hank Henshaw declares that "Hank Henshaw" is dead, he is now the Cyborg Superman.
    • In the third season premiere, "Girl of Steel", Kara herself attempts this, dealing with her grief over losing Mon-El in the second season finale by throwing herself into being Supergirl full time, quitting her job at CatCo and generally distancing herself from her humanity, at one point declaring, "Kara Danvers was a mistake!". By the end of the episode she starts to reconnect to her normal life and retakes the name Kara Danvers.
  • Supernatural: After proclaiming himself a god and becoming evil, Castiel tells the Winchesters that the Castiel they knew is gone.
  • A real-life instance of this occurs in the reality show Tattoo Nightmares. Jasmine gets a client with a dainty tribal tattoo on the small of his back (i.e., a "tramp stamp"). He explains that he got this tattoo "for a girl who is no longer in my life." While Jas works on his coverup, he elaborates: he is a trans man, and the "girl" no longer in his life is himself, pre-transition.
  • Wings does another humorous version, when Helen suffers a concussion and has to stay awake for an extended period of time. She starts getting loopy from sleep deprivation, and finally goes with the "Helen doesn't live here anymore" version.
  • In the Xena: Warrior Princess episode "Orphan of War", Xena and Gabrielle visit a centaur village that Xena had attacked during her Conqueror period:
    Kaleipus: Xena, destroyer of nations. You promised you’d never return.
    Xena: That Xena never will.

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