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The thing that distinguishes TV from film has to be character investment. Spend a season or longer following a group of characters—as opposed to two hours—and it's impossible not to get wrapped up in their respective sagas (and if not, the showrunner's doing something wrong). It's that hours upon hours of investment that leads people to lose their shit on social media when a favorite character dies.
Television has pulled the rug out with some pretty shocking deaths over the years, but this isn't about those. No, this list is for the deaths that left you speechless, kept you up at night long after the episode was over, or sent you to message boards and water coolers for group therapy grief counseling. Read on for The 25 Most Devastating Deaths in TV History.
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Written by Frazier Tharpe (@The_SummerMan)
25. Chef in South Park
Voiced by: Isaac Hayes
Dies in: "The Return of Chef" (Season 10, Episode 1)
Of course Trey Parker and Matt Stone were going to respond to Isaac Hayes' very public denouncement and departure in-show. But holy christ, did they have to shit on nine seasons of Chef being the coolest with the literal and figurative assassination of his character? It’s not enough for him to be double teamed by a mountain lion and a grizzly bear (after getting struck by lightning) but he had to be brainwashed into becoming a child molester first? We hate it had to be him...
24. Henrietta "Etta" Bishop in Fringe
Portrayed by: Georgina Haig
Dies in: "The Bullet That Saved the World" (Season 5, Episode 4)
Last-minute mulligan notwithstanding, Etta Bishop seemed untouchable. The fifth season of Fringe completely reset the chess board, jumping forward two decades to an Earth overrun by Observers, invaders from a future where Earth is used up.The premiere sees Etta Bishop, the resistance’s most prized fighter, reunited with her parents (and protagonists) Olivia and Peter, frozen in amber and away from her for almost the whole duration of the occupation.
Surely, of all the final season fuckery that could go down, the Fringe gods wouldn’t reunite the Bishop family just to tear them apart again, right? Welcome to episode four—still the first act of the season, mind you—where Etta not only catches a fatal bullet, but then detonates an anti-matter bomb as a final fuck you. We have seen the future, and it is bleak.
23. Lawrence Kutner in House
Portrayed by: Kal Penn
Dies in: "Simple Explanation" (Season 5, Episode 20)
Depending on who you ask, House either portrayed the senselessness and dramatic fallout of a suicide with credible aplomb, or the show reacted to Kal Penn’s desire to leave (and become a White House liaison!) with a meaningless fumble.
Either way, it was a completely unexpected write-out for one of the best, at the time, new additions to the show’s ensemble at Princeton-Plainsboro. We’re going to go with the former, though. Random as it was, the abrupt departure and eerie mystery—there was no note, he showed no signs of depression—struck a cord that was easy to hammer home with powerhouses like Hugh Laurie and Olivia Wilde reacting to it.
22. Anastasia "Dee" Dualla in Battlestar Galactica
Portrayed by: Kandyse McClure
Dies in: "Sometimes a Great Notion" (Season 4, Episode 13)
The colonial fleet of Battlestar Galactica spends four seasons hunting for Earth. That’s years of living aboard spaceships, with little rations and poor quality of life, all in the name of finding a new home. And when they find it? The planet is one big ashtray, used up and completely uninhabitable.
That’s enough to make anybody say "fuck life" but instead of ending it right away, communications officer Dee puts on a brave face, has a nice night “out” in the fleet with her estranged husband, and then, with a full smile—why does this scene feel so strange—opens her locker—wait, what is she about to do?—and blows her brains out.
21. Elena Gilbert in The Vampire Diaries
Portrayed by: Nina Dobrev
Dies in: "The Departed" (Season 3, Episode 22)
A key moment in season two of The CW’s highly underrated Vampire Diaries draws the lines clearly: Elena Gilbert may be caught up over two vampires and BFF with others, but she’s got other goals in life besides being an immortal creature of the night, slave to blood like a crack fiend. This is what makes her so much more appealing than other vamp-drama heroines who come up short in the agency department—that and her ride-or-die selflessness for her friends.
Those two traits become her undoing when she sacrifices herself to save her friend Matt, the last relatively innocent person on the series. Elena would rather die than see a friend die for her. It’s dumb, admirable, and also rendered moot because unknowingly, she had vampire blood in her system at the time. Elena survives the accident in the last way that she wanted too, ending that season on a game-changing note that we were sure the series wouldn’t attempt until like, season eight. We’ve never felt sorrier for a character that was, technically, still alive.
20. Lori Grimes in The Walking Dead
Portrayed by: Sarah Wayne Callies
Dies in: "Killer Within" (Season 3, Episode 4)
If there’s one thing Walking Dead excels at, it’s redeeming previously annoying characters through extremely brutal deaths. Dale may have been a hovering busybody, but did he really deserve to get gutted like he did on Hershel’s farm? That moment paled in comparison to what the show accomplished in its standout hour “Killer Within,” when it forced us to sympathize with Lori and Carl, the combined bane of every viewer’s attention.
Look, we couldn’t wait for Lori to bite it, or get bitten, but you’re inhuman if you didn’t bat an eye at her sacrificing herself for her unborn child. We were hoping her story would end with her crowd-surfing a zombie mosh pit, not giving her life for one child, resigning her first-born to shoot his own mother in the head to nullify a transformation. And we certainly weren’t expecting the hero’s wife to bite it in the first act of the season, in an episode that already killed off the fan-favorite formerly known as T-Dog.
19. Dan Conner in Roseanne
Portrayed by: John Goodman
Dies in: "Into That Good Night" (Season 9, Episode 23/24)
Fans cried foul when Roseanne seemingly went against its core themes and rewarded the long-suffering Conner family with a winning lottery ticket and, thus, all their hopes and dreams. Then a borderline sadistic twist in the series finale reveals Roseanne has been writing Conner family fan-fic this whole time: In reality, they’re still dirt poor, and what’s worse, Dan succumbed to his heart attack. Well, viewers that didn’t want a happy Conner family, were you satisfied?!
18. Drew Sharp in Breaking Bad
Portrayed by: Samuel Webb
Dies in: "Dead Freight" (Season 5, Episode 5)
A pre-teen kid rides through the desert on his dirt bike. He finds a tarantula. Rides off. Even by Breaking Bad standards, this is one obscure, what-the-fuck-does-this-have-to-do-with-anything cold open. Then we forget all about him, because Walter Heisenberg White, Jesse, Mike and Todd, Walter’s own personal Stan, are executing the most nail-biting train heist ever.
Then they pull it off, fist pumps abound, and...look over to see dirt-bike kid has been watching the entire time. And before anyone can react, Todd guns him down. This was the crucial last step in the corrosion of Walter White’s soul but still...damn. We’re not sure which part of the aftermath is tougher to watch: Walt’s, once the sympathetic antihero, indifference or bleeding heart Jesse’s inability to stomach it.
17. The Vendrell Family in The Shield
Portrayed by: Walton Goggins, Michele Hicks
Die in: "Family Meeting" (Season 7, Episode 13)
As soon as Shane betrayed fellow Strike Team member Lem by dropping a grenade in his lap, we were counting down the days until a vengeful Vic would blow him away with that huge .45. We were pumped when the final season finally pitted Vic against Shane, master against the too-attentive student, resulting in Shane going on the run with his wife Mara.
But Mara was pregnant. Vic couldn’t kill her husband and expect her not to snitch him out. We were prepared for a morally challenging showdown, but those expectations did not extend to Shane, at the end of his rope, facing death, or jail time and resigning his son and unborn to a life in the system, to pull a murder-suicide on his whole family. The news even reduced Vic Mackey to a rare moment of silence, as he (and we) wondered how things got so fucked up for a team once as thick as thieves.
16. Lane Pryce in Mad Men
Portrayed by: Jared Harris
Dies in: "Commissions & Fees" (Season 5, Episode 12)
Lane’s season five experience is a series of fails (despite getting to administer a proper fade to Pete Campbell), but it was over for him as soon as Don discovered that he’d stolen money from the agency—and forged Don's signature on the check—to pay off his own debts. There are two key points to remember about Lane: He loves being in America about as much as he hates being with his prim British wife.
The embarrassment of presenting her with such a failure, disappointing his son, and slinking back to the UK defeated is too much for him to bear. As soon as you see him calmly drinking while “settling some affairs,” you know what time it is. Cut to: Lane attempting to commit suicide in the Jaguar his wife bought him with money they can’t spend. Of course, the damn car doesn't start.
The next time we see Lane, he’s back in the office, and there’s a slight sliver of hope that he’s gotten over his suicidal thoughts—a hope that's dashed when the staff finds the P in SCDP hanging in his office. The moment is as heartbreaking as it is chilling. There’s Joan’s initial mounting dread when she tries to get in his office but can’t get through the door, and catches a nasty smell.
Then there’s the note, which turns out to be a simple, rote resignation letter, with an added sting that only Don understands. But all of that is trumped by the sight of his body dangling ominously (seriously, hats off to the make-up department) when they cut him down. Lane Pryce, we hardly knew ye.
15. Connor Gavin in Rescue Me
Portrayed by: Trevor Heins
Dies in: "Happy" (Season 2, Episode 12)
When a show makes a habit of killing off its protagonists' loved ones, sure, it creates an atmosphere where no one is safe, but there’s also a desensitizing effect.
We figured haunted firefighter Tommy Gavin didn’t have anymore to lose, at least not without the series coming off as unforgivably sadistic. To which we now think: welp.
We should’ve seen the signs as soon as little Connor announced he wanted to be a firefighter just like Daddy. Not long after, there’s a screech as the rat bastard driver peels off, and Connor’s on the ground, the victim of a hit-and-run.
14. Jimmy Darmody in Boardwalk Empire
Portrayed by: Michael Pitt
Dies in: "To the Lost" (Season 2, Episode 12)
The Greek tragedy that was James Darmody’s life was one cruel joke, and he knew it. A miscommunication leads him to betray his only father figure, Nucky Thompson, in favor of his biological father, the Commodore (the man who took advantage of his mother at age thirteen). Couple his approval-seeking power play with the narrative haymaker that his kooky mother made their Oedipus and Jocasta themes literal, successfully seducing and sleeping with him, and it’s clear that this poor, screwed-up kid, haunted by all that plus action in WWI, was never going to hold on to the keys to the city.
On a broadcast network series, where keeping fan-favorite characters around is at times a higher priority than organic storytelling, Jimmy and Nucky might’ve shaken hands and let bygones be bygones. But you can’t be the boss and let insubordination and assassination attempts slide with just a slap on the wrist.
It was a shock when Boardwalk killed the character who had been the co-lead for two full seasons, but what made it particularly devastating was Jimmy’s participation in his own set-up. He does everything he can to make amends with Nucky and untie the noose he spent a season tying around the man’s neck. But he knows Nucky can’t—and won’t—forgive him for real, and his resignation is palpable during what will be his last moments with his batshit mother, soon to be orphaned toddler, and best-friend/killing-machine Richard Harrow.
He drives to a nighttime rendezvous with Nucky completely unarmed, simply because he’s given up trying to force a win and accepted that he was born to lose.
13. Teri Bauer in 24
Portrayed by: Leslie Hope
Dies in: "11:00 P.M. - 12:00 A.M." (Season 1, Episode 24)
The first season of 24 is an exercise in breaking down TV conventions, right into the silently ticking seconds of the final hour, when the hero’s big reward for a day’s worth of saving lives, being put through the emotional wringer, and outing the agency mole, Nina Myers, is to discover that his wife already found Nina out, and caught a fatal bullet in the gut for it.
After saving his wife and daughter multiple times throughout the day, Jack makes it to Teri just in time for her to die in his arms. 24 would go on to kill off fan-favorite characters in bulk, but even if we didn’t quite care for Teri, this was a historically dark moment for TV, just for it’s total refusal of a happy ending.
12. Chloe Carter and Cal Vandeusen in Harper's Island
Portrayed by: Cameron Richardson and Adam Campbell
Die in: "Splash" (Season 1, Episode 11)
If you told us at the start of Harper’s Island (far and away the best thing to grace CBS’ in years) that we’d end up feeling a type of way when a few characters inevitably bit the dust, we’d have laughed at the thought of feeling feelings about characters who, at the time, were the thinnest of archetypes.
Chloe, specifically, was the flirt; Cal, her nebbish boyfriend. Fast forward ten episodes and thanks to some solid horror writing, we found ourselves rooting for these two crazy lovebirds to make it more than the central couple. So we were very anxious when the duo found themselves cornered on a bridge by the island’s resident psycho, John Wakefield.
Then we were low-key heartbroken when Cal proposed to Chloe (and she accepted!) in the face of certain death before Wakefield stabbed him up and tossed him over. And then we were absolutely finished when the devastated Chloe declared to Wakefield that “he couldn’t have her,” and jumped off to join her fiance of five-seconds in a watery grave. The joke’s on us.
11. Jen Lindley in Dawson's Creek
Portrayed by: Michelle Williams
Dies in: "All Good Things Must Come To an End" Season 6, Episode 23)
It wouldn’t be a proper send-off if the Dawson’s finale didn’t shank at the heartstrings, and it's Jen who draws the short straw.
After spending most of season six anxious over Grams’ breast cancer, the finale jumps forward only to offer a cruel reversal, with Grams at Jen’s bedside as she slowly dies from pulmonary congestion. When Dawson helps Jen record a video to her one year-old daughter, it’s officially over for the tear ducts.
10. Adriana La Cerva in The Sopranos
Portrayed by: Drea de Matteo
Dies in: "Long Term Parking" (Season 5, Episode 12)
Agreeing to inform for the FBI might as well be the same as a death certificate on The Sopranos. We saw it with Big Pussy. And at the start of her snitch tenure, we didn’t expect a happier ending for Adriana. Then again, we weren’t invested in Big Pussy like we were Adriana and Christopher, and like her, we foolishly believed things could turn out differently. But of course, a guy as weak as Christopher would choose The Family over starting a new one with his girl. Silvio Dante, you ruthless bastard.
9. Rita Morgan in Dexter
Portrayed by: Julie Benz
Dies in: "The Getaway" (Season 4, Episode 12)
Love her or find her annoying, you’re fronting if you weren’t downright unsettled when Dexter came home after triumphantly dispatching The Trinity Killer to find his innocent, unbelievably oblivious wife Rita’s lifeless body soaking in a tub of her own blood (a Trinity trademark), while their baby cried in a pool of the red stuff off in the corner.
After a season of playing unnecessary cat-and-mouse games with Trinity instead of just killing him outright, Dexter pays the ultimate price, in a Se7en-esque gut punch that reveals the protagonist triumphed too late. It’s a tragedy he brought on himself, but that bathtub image...
8. Winifred "Fred" Burkle in Angel
Portrayed by: Amy Acker
Dies in: "A Hole in the World" (Season 5, Episode 15)
TV viewers have recently experienced the cruelty of George R.R. Martin, but before Game of Thrones, the reigning king of death was undoubtedly Joss Whedon. No star-crossed couple could safely enjoy romantic bliss on a Whedon series for long, especially on the vampire redemption saga Angel. Astute fans should’ve known bad times were coming for Wesley Wyndam-Pryce when he finally bagged Fred after almost two seasons of pining.
But pardon us for assuming he’d give them more than one episode to breathe before ripping Fred’s heart out, and with that, ours. Literally, the pair finally consummate the will-they-or-won’t-they at the end of the previous episode, one of the show’s lightest and funniest hours. But smile-time doesn’t last long. Fred, the sweetest, most innocent character on a show full of bad people trying to atone, gets infected with a parasitic virus that begins painfully hollowing her from the inside out.
Angel races across the globe for the antidote, only to discover that curing Fred will unleash the virus on the world around her. So, we’re forced to watch Wesley watch the girl of his dreams die before his eyes, and then the knife twists: The parasite working on her is actually a demon plotting to use her body as a vessel. For the rest of the series, everyone is forced to interact with an enemy wearing Fred’s face, and with her memories, too.
7. Omar Little in The Wire
Portrayed by: Michael K. Williams
Dies in: "Clarifications" (Season 5, Episode 8)
We had a feeling it wouldn’t end well for the legendary stick-up man in his one-man war effort against the Stanfield outfit, despite his superheroic escape from various traps they set for him. The tragedy of Omar Little isn’t that he died, it’s how.
This man, with his respectable code of ethics, deserved to die an honorable death on the battlefield of the streets. We for sure couldn’t even fathom his story coming to end at the hands of midget juvenile delinquent Kenard, completely off the cuff in a corner store, just because he sees an opportunity. Omar overlooks, Kenard is underwhelmed, and one of the greatest badassess of television is felled by a truant. Cold world.
6. Jin-Soo and Sun-Hwa Kwon in Lost
Portrayed by: Daniel Dae Kim and Yunjin Kim
Die in: "The Candidate" (Season 6, Episode 14)
Jin and Sun spend most of Lost's latter seasons separated. Their respective storylines are driven by the same goal: They must reunite.
With time travel, the vengeful Smoke Monster, moving islands, and murderous mercenaries standing in between them, the couple that previously healed their fractured marriage on the island years before, finally finds themselves on the same beach, of the same plane of existence, in the same year.
It's a beautiful moment, anchored by that beautiful, trademark Lost score. Fast forward one episode later and they're up to their necks underwater, drowning from a bomb the Locke-ness Monster planted on their submarine, refusing to separate again. And so they die, hand-in-hand until rigor mortis takes effect, after enjoying maybe 10 hours of being back together, orphaning their toddler daughter back home on the mainland. A nice, swift kick in the gut from co-creators Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse while on their way out the door.
5. Harry "Opie" Winston in Sons of Anarchy
Portrayed by: Ryan Hurst
Dies in: "Laying Pipe" (Season 5, Episode 3)
Opie, the heart of SAMCRO, took his first L in season 1 when club leader Clay accidentally had his wife killed (the ATF set him up as a rat, she took his car, it was all one big fail in communication). In the epitome of taking one for the team, he reluctantly buried the hatchet. Clay repaid Opie for his graciousness by murdering his father two seasons later.
We were practically cheering for the shaggy giant to finally pump some lead into his duplicitous president, but plot machinations necessitated Clay’s continued survival. How then, we wondered, could Opie ever agree to sit at the same table as the man who slaughtered half of his family?
That question was quickly deflated just a few episodes into the most recent season when Opie, ever the beleaguered but loyal best friend, literally takes a hit for Jax when the crew are stuck in a prison full of enemies. The look of resignation on Opie’s face (that of a man who became a fan favorite, yet couldn’t get right with life since his wife’s death), right before a lead pipe bashes his brains in, still kind of brings a thug tear to our eyes.
4. George O'Malley in Grey's Anatomy
Portrayed by: T.R. Knight
Dies in: "Now or Never" (Season 5, Episode 24)
It’s the execution, no pun intended, of George’s death that really hits home. The staff at Seattle Grace are steeling themselves for his departure to become a field surgeon in the military, while organizing a combined effort to convince him to stay.
They’re also working on a horribly disfigured John Doe, rushed in from a bus accident, while waiting for George to return. And then series creator Shonda Rhimes effortlessly pulls the rug out, when John Doe manages to communicate his identity thanks to a bittersweet call back to the early internship days: John Doe is George. By the time Meredith and the gang realize it, it’s already too late to say their goodbyes.
3. Joyce Summers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Portrayed by: Kristine Sutherland
Dies in: "I Was Made to Love You" (Season 5, Episode 15)
Plenty of beloved characters have fallen prey to a nasty vampire, demon, or otherwise malevolent creature whilst battling evil in Sunnydale, California. As Heath Ledger’s Joker would say, it was all “part of the plan.” And then there's the death of Joyce Summers, which is, decidedly, a deviation. The episodes leading up to her death are full of foreshadowing and gloom, when doctors discover she’s battling the most common creature, cancer.
Instead of building up to Joyce’s death, Buffy overseer Joss Whedon and co. float the idea of remission in front of us for a few episodes. That makes it all the more shocking when, at the end of one of the show’s goofiest episodes, Buffy walks back into her house to find her mother, sprawled out cold and lifeless on the couch. What follows is a quiet, meditative episode as the whole cast reacts to the first normal passing they’ve ever had to deal with. It's a crushing hour of television.
2. Eddard "Ned" Stark in Game of Thrones
Portrayed by: Sean Bean
Dies in: "Baelor" (Season 1, Episode 9)
In the immortal words of Avon Barksdale, the game is the game, and in the presently ubiquitous words of Meek Mill, there are levels to this shit. Ned Stark, respectable protagonist, cool dad, and honorable man as he was, did not adhere to either of those two adages, and his sudden plummet from Hand of the King to Headless Lord is a cautionary lesson for those who think they can operate in the political machinations of Westeros armed with honor and, worse yet, mercy.
If you’re going to come at the Queen, then you best not miss. You certainly don’t warn her that you’ve got dirt on her, and when your advisers tell you to take action at the first opportunity it’s best to listen. Ned Stark thought the law would protect him; the Lannisters only obey the laws as they suit them. But even amidst noble yet foolhardy blunders, spend a full season with a guy, then that’s our hero, no question, right? And the hero can’t lose for long, right?
We, non-readers of A Song of Ice and Fire, that is, spent two whole episodes wondering and waiting to see how Ned would escape the Lannisters. Then Joffrey marched him out for a whole courtyard to see, dangled a lifetime banishment in front of him and...had his head lopped off for treason. In front of both of his daughters. Here endeth the lesson, and there goeth the TV rulebook.
1. Robb, Catelyn, and Talisa Stark in Game of Thrones
Portrayed by: Richard Madden, Michelle Fairley, Oona Chaplin
Die in: "The Rains of Castamere" (Season 3, Episode 9)
The death of Ned Stark in the climax of season one taught a harsh, but true lesson to both the surviving characters and the audience. And yet, we let George R.R. Martin and series creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss lull us into a sense of narrative security yet again. Kill the hero, fine, but surely his son will avenge him. Or, at least, valiantly die trying. But in Martin’s world, characters get what they have coming to them, which is not to say the unjust get punished.
The Red Wedding is essentially a bigger, meaner, more efficient, and ferocious sequel to the beheading of Ned Stark, because his wife and his son continue his trend of fatal mistakes. Breaking oaths for love, beheading allies to uphold the law, releasing prime prisoners at the mere chance the other side will do the same—all noble sentiments, which are liabilities in this game.
Whis is to say, it’s not surprising that Robb dies. It is however, absolutely, unfathomably, unreal watching Walder Frey repay Robb’s broken oath to him with another act of betrayal, turning on Robb and his entire army, at a wedding and slaughtering every last one of them.
The whole sequence is constructed beautifully, with the dread mounting incrementally before an anvil full-on drops onto the viewer’s stomach. Why is Catelyn looking around with worry? Why did they close the banquet doors? Why are they denying The Hound entry at the gates? Why did the music shift to a dreary, pro-Lannister song? What is Roose Bolton’s excuse for smirking so goddamn suspiciously if he’s not drunk?
Then, it happens. The same Frey soldier with whom Talisa, (the wife Robb chose over a Frey girl) had been making small talk guts her numerous times in the womb. The balcony-seated band members whip out crossbows and the whole thing goes off with the nightmarish precision of a mob hit (they even run up on his caged wolf).
A combination of fantastic acting and direction makes every small moment in this otherwise huge sequence quietly devastating in its own right. Like how Robb and Talisa had just been talking about their baby (she wanted to name it Ned, a jinx that totally put the nail in the coffin). The palpable desperation of Catelyn contrasted with the defeated resignation of Robb. Arya, once again present for a family member's murder.
Apart from the brutality, what makes the Red Wedding sting is how it dangles the idea of a Stark victory at the beginning of the episode, only to completely and totally squander. There's no hope of justice or vengeance for the wronged of this show. A man’s wife, child and mother were murdered before his eyes, orchestrated by the same family that unjustly beheaded his father, and set his thirst for righteous vengeance in motion in the first place. Life in Westeros just isn’t fair.