The Last of These Is Not Like the Others

"It’s called the science of listener attention. We did repetition, we did floating opposites and now you end with the one that’s not like the others."

- Toby Ziegler, The West Wing, "Somebody's going to emergency, somebody's going to jail."

A dialogue trope where a character makes a list of items, groups or individuals and then deviates from the pattern established with the last one, sometimes the penultimate one. Usually Played for Laughs.

In literary criticism, this is called a syllepsis, or semantic zeugma.

Typically used for comedy, the last item is normally a focus of insult or Butt Monkey status. However it is possible to just delight in the subversion of the theme listing.

A Sub-Trope of Non Sequitur.

A Super-Trope to:


 * And a Diet Coke
 * And the Rest
 * And Some Other Stuff
 * Arson, Murder, and Admiration
 * Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking
 * Arson, Murder, and Lifesaving
 * Bill, Bill, Junk, Bill
 * Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick
 * Famous, Famous, Fictional
 * Flight, Strength, Heart
 * Ladies and Germs
 * My Friends and Zoidberg
 * Odd Name Out
 * The Runt At the End
 * Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion
 * The Triple

Compare Step Three: Profit.

Comic Books

 * This panel has several superheroes reacting to a warning of doom for them and anyone they've touched—the rest worry about their female signifiant others; Batman worries about Robin. Of course, what makes it funny is the insinuation that the last one isn't really all that different....

Fanfic
"[N]ow I had identifications for all five: Emmett the bear, Jasper the lion, Rosalie the Aphrodite, Alice the pixie, and Edward, the one who expected something to happen with or to or near me that wasn't[.]"
 * When Bella is describing the Cullens in Luminosity:

Film
"Being the adventures of a young man whose principal interests are rape, ultra-violence and Beethoven."
 * The Tagline to A Clockwork Orange:

"Lewa: But what will come out of this? Some claw-tooth monster? A new Mask of Power? A Matoran marching band?"
 * Bionicle:

"Roger Delacorte: I'm Roger Delacorte. Are you the men from the university? Dr. Peter Venkman: Yes, I'm Dr. Venkman, Dr. Stantz, Egon..."
 * Played with brilliant subtlety in Ghostbusters when Peter Venkman introduces his team at the library:

"Milo: What else have you got in there? Vinny: Oh, you know: gunpowder, nitroglycerin, notepads, fuses, wicks, glue, paper clips (big ones). You know, just office supplies."
 * Atlantis: The Lost Empire:

"Moe: There goes Shemp with a left jab! There goes Shemp with a right uppercut! There goes Shemp with a haymaker! [Offscreen Crash] There goes Shemp..."
 * Well, they're office supplies for him.
 * In the Three Stooges short "Fight Night", Moe and Larry watch Shemp in a boxing match Behind the Black:

"We once laughed at the horseless carriage, the aeroplane, the telephone, the electric light, VITAMINS, radio, and even television!"
 * An unintentional one in Plan 9 from Outer Space, though not at the end of the list.

"Dave: And this is...Everybody Loves Raymond. You know, that's not supposed to be in there. It's just a good show."
 * In The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Andy reads out the names of some of his porno tapes, such as Hairy Twatter.

Literature

 * One of the sections of Gulliver's Travels is titled "A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib, and Japan." Admittedly, at that time Japan was almost completely closed off to foreigners and thus almost as fantastic as said other countries.
 * The Doctor Who Expanded Universe short story "Walkin' City Blues" by Joffy Brown has the Doctor describing a Femme Fatale's "glamour implants" to his companion "A subtle combination of exotic pheromones, AI wetware wit-routines, genetically-enlarged pupils, and a spray-on tan."

Live Action TV
"Stephen (introducing the panel as "four people who look a bit like other people"): Please welcome Tony Blair (Rory Bremner)... Tommy Cooper (Phill Jupitus)... Ruby Wax (Ronni Ancona)... and... Alan Davies."
 * On QI, Alan is always treated as the Butt Monkey of the group and there are several running gags to this effect. For instance each episode has a theme for the buzzers and then Alan will always reveal his one last as something comedically different e.g. the first three together are sections of the Westminster Chimes and his is a cuckoo clock; the first three get a cow bell, a bicycle bell, a tea bell and then Alan gets Leslie Phillips going "Ding Dong!". They also are often introduced with some extraordinary adjective or other theme and then a similar twist for Alan e.g.

"Dick: You are missing the real earth, like the happiness in a child's eye, when a loving parent tucks him in at night. Sally: Or the wonder of two young lovers as they stroll down the beach, dreaming of what is yet to be. Tommy: Or the quiet contentment of a couple in their autumn years as they sit and reflect on a life well spent together. Harry: Or hookers (Beat) Cheap painted hookers."
 * On 3rd Rock from the Sun the Solomons try persuading an alien why he should spare humanity

"Rajesh Koothrapali: Doctor Gablehauser. Eric Gablehauser: Doctor Koothrapali. Leonard Hofstadter: Doctor Gablehauser. Eric Gablehauser: Doctor Hofstadter. Sheldon Cooper: Doctor Gablehauser. Eric Gablehauser: Doctor Cooper. Howard Wolowitz: Doctor Gablehouser. Eric Gablehauser: Mister Wolowitz."
 * The Daily Show: In October 7, 2008, while analyzing the "stupid" vote, John Oliver broke it down into twelve sections: paste eaters, numbskulls, nitwits, fucktards, people whose hands get stuck in pickle jars when they eat pickles, people who lose arguments to babies, douchenozzles, tiger petters, people who jump up and down on frozen lakes, shaved gorillas who've somehow managed to acquire a driver's license, the voluntarily lobotomized, and Cubs fans.
 * In their commentaries on the television news media, they'll often show the news media's hive-mind collective latches onto a particular key-word or -phrase and repeats it incessantly by means of a montage. They'll show sometimes upward of a dozen clips of different news anchors, reporters, and pundits repeating the same catch-phrase about an item, then end it with one of the talking heads (usually a Fox News pundit) saying something ... really bizarre, though still on-topic.
 * From The Big Bang Theory:

"Rose: We are not giving away Fluffy, Muffy, Buffy, and Joanne. Dorothy: Rose, they are non-breeding minks who eat their weight in food every day—Joanne?"
 * One Law and Order SVU episode had John Munch give a strange set of statements, "Yeah, and I want the troops home, the Kyoto Protocol signed, and a Tijuana oil job from Miss February." to a high school girl. He might have been playing up some I Take Offense to That Last One to the "old" part of being called a Dirty Old Man.
 * The Golden Girls, "The End of the Curse". Dorothy insists that the minks have to go. Rose counters:

Music
"In the morning the film crews start arriving With donuts, coffee and reporters"
 * "The Genius Next Door" by Regina Spektor:


 * "We Are the World" (the original one from the 1980s, not the remake made in light of the earthquake in Haiti) had an all-cast of musicians...and Dan Aykroyd.

Theater
"(Acclamations. Applause in the boxes. Flowers and handkerchiefs are thrown down. The officers surround Cyrano, congratulating him. Ragueneau dances for joy. Le Bret is happy, but anxious. The viscount's friends hold him up and bear him away.) The Crowd (with one long shout): Ah! A Trooper: Tis superb! A woman: A pretty stroke! Raguenau: A marvel! A Marquis: A novelty! Le Bret: O madman!"
 * Cyrano De Bergerac: After Cyrano wounds Viscount De Valvert while singing a ballade in his honour, Burgundy Theater's public comments about the duel:

""Seven million crumbs and a gravy spot, Teaspoon stuck in the mustard pot, Napkin on the floor, Ashes in the cup And--one Canadian dime!""
 * In the opening scene of The Most Happy Fella, Cleo describes what her customer left on her table:

Video Games

 * In World of Warcraft is a quest which has players delivering a package containing compressed blasting powder, a tempered mithril bomb casing, and some safety goggles. If you don't understand why this qualifies, then you don't know Goblins.

Webcomics
"They wait for he who would extinguish candles whilst fanning a fire. They wait for she who would thaw solid flesh and resolve it into a dew. They wait for she who would breed lilacs out of the dead land. They wait for he who would drop it like it's hot whilst the pimp's in the crib."
 * Homestuck: The tapestries displaying the elemental symbols of the four kids hanging in the white castle read thus:

Western Animation
"Morbo: "I now present: puny human #1, puny human #2, and Morbo's good friend Richard Nixon.""
 * In The Simpsons "Bart Gets An Elephant", Lisa ask someone if they're an ivory dealer, with the reply "Well, little girl, I've had lots of jobs in my day: whale-hunter, seal-clubber, president of the Fox network..."
 * Futurama in "A Head in the Polls":

"Gorrila Grodd: [We are not in it for the money] Sinestro has a blood oath against all Green Lanterns, Parasite simply hates Superman, Giganta is totally devoted to me. The Shade: And the other one? Gorrila Grodd: Killer Frost? She just likes to kill things."
 * The Justice League episode "Secret Society" Had this:

Web Original
"Top Man: I want to be in the Indy 500! Quick Man: I want to break the sound barrier! Turbo Man: I just want to sit at home and eat chips."
 * Wily Shorts:


 * Zero Punctuation loves to do these these in the animation. In the LA Noire review, there is a mention of the main character "hopping around between four different police departments", which is illustrated with four doors marked Traffic, Homicide, Vice and Biscuits.
 * In Bonus Stage, the last of the Cool And Unusual Punishments that Joel gets to choose from when going to hell is eating Satan's mom's spaghetti, when the first two were related to watching something 24/7.
 * How It Should Have Ended: Mortal Kombat has the free-for-all confrontation between Liu Kang, Scorpion, Shang Stung, and ... a guy with a gun.
 * SCP Foundation has this with SCP-586 "Results: "It it", "Is is", "If is", "Illinois", "I hiss", "Titties", "Ibis", "Iris", "Italy", "[DATA EXPANDED]"."

Real Life

 * The Onion published a list of those we lost in 2011. Unless you have a particular hatred for the author of Family Circus, this trope is in full effect, since boring cartoons are not akin to mass murder.
 * Australia's Today Tonight ran a story in early 2007 about a man who was, quote, "an armed robber, drug traffiker, and shonky builder."