A plot twist that has been used in some fairly decent shows and movies (won’t list them here because it’s fairly irrelevant) is the old “we thought some guy was dead, and even had a fairly learned medical professional verify it, and it turned out he had just taken a drug that made him appear dead, and was revived later on”.
This just drives me batty. It’s such a an easy cheat. Moreover, it makes no sense. Even ignoring the science and biology of it, in a universe in which a drug existed that could safely slow someone’s pulse down super duper slow so they would appear dead, you might be able to fool random bystanders briefly, but doctors would be trained to do some other test for deadness, because the pulse test would obviously be unreliable. So if such a thing exists, it immediately nullifies its own usefulness (unless it’s INCREDIBLY secret, and in the examples I’m thinking of, other people have heard of it later, “ahh, he must have taken fakeDrugzithol” or “there’s a secretion of a South American puffer fish which…”).
Scriptwriters: next time you need someone to convincingly fake their death, have them do it in a different fashion, please. Thanks.