Fans unfamiliar with the George R.R. Martin books lost their heads when Ned Stark (Sean Bean) was executed in the first season of Game of Thrones.
The big twist in The Last of Us wasn’t the first to completely upend a TV show and its fandom. Here’s a look at some other notable exits.
SPOILER ALERT: This story contains major spoilers for Season 2, Episode 2 of The Last of Us and for 10 older shows dating back to 1975.)
Shocking TV viewers these days is harder for a variety of reasons, and that is true of even major character deaths. Audiences may be tipped off by internet leaks and rumours – or, in this intellectual property-driven age, by source material. Millions of Game of Thrones watchers were floored when the Red Wedding episode aired on HBO in 2013; millions of George R.R. Martin readers were not.
But for the many viewers of HBO series The Last of Us who haven’t played the video games, Season 2, episode 2 most likely came as an immense shock. (The episode is drawn from events in the video game sequel The Last of Us Part II, from 2020.) As when Rosalind (Diana Muldaur) fell down the elevator shaft in L.A. Law or when Omar (Michael K. Williams) was killed by a child in The Wire, the death of Joel (Pedro Pascal) was jaw-dropping. It felt in some ways like a throwback.
It remains to be seen how Joel’s death will change the complexion of the show, but it will be fundamentally different without him. As we ponder how that might take shape, we look back at some shocking character deaths that changed everything.
Season 3, Episode 24 (Airdate: March 18, 1975)
In retrospect, it shouldn’t be that shocking for someone in the Army to die during wartime. But audiences in 1975 were unprepared for news that the former commanding officer of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital didn’t make it home alive. Sure, it had been announced that McLean Stevenson (who played Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake) was leaving the series, but the expectation was that his character would be simply discharged, given some fond farewells, and that would be that. But then suddenly, in the last scene of the third season finale, Radar (Gary Burghoff) announced that Blake’s plane had been shot down: “There were no survivors,” he said. With that, the mood of the show shifted from sitcom to dramedy.
Season 4, Episode 1 (September 22, 1976)
Norman Lear’s sitcoms were known for tackling tough subjects, but they rarely turned tragic. But that changed with the character James Evans snr, who helped create a blueprint for strong Black fathers on television. John Amos, who portrayed Evans, had been dissatisfied with the direction of the show. He wanted more authenticity, more serious storylines. He also publicly criticised what he saw as the show’s increasing tendency toward caricature. His attitude put him on Lear’s chopping block. As with M*A*S*H, death happened off-screen, with the dreadful news by telegram that James had died in a car crash. After this, the show struggled to continue but never recovered.
Season 5, Episode 22 (May 22, 2001)
When the apocalypse comes, remember to beep Buffy, the “chosen one” who stands against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness. Naturally, this comes with a lot of death, including Buffy’s own. She had already died in Season 1 (just a little drowning), but this second time, which capped Season 5, was different. When she realised she could close a portal between human and demon dimensions, she made the fateful choice to sacrifice herself, shocking her sister (Michelle Trachtenberg), her friends and viewers. How could Buffy the Vampire Slayer ever hope to continue without Buffy? This episode could have served as a series finale (it was the end of the show’s WB run), but it was just the beginning of a new chapter. The show’s next season took a huge tonal shift with Buffy’s nonconsensual resurrection, the aftermath of which was one of the most realistic depictions of depression ever seen on television.
Season 5, Episode 12 (May 23, 2004)
The Sopranos wasn’t reluctant to dispatch characters – the mob world is dangerous, and people get whacked. But Adriana La Cerva (played by Drea de Matteo) wasn’t expecting to die – at least not until she found herself on a one-way drive with Silvio Dante (Steven Van Zandt) and started to realise what was about to happen. By then, it was too late. Compared with the show’s other characters, she was collateral damage – mob-adjacent but not really a criminal, even if the FBI had made her think otherwise when it tricked her into turning informant. What made her death scene especially moving was the camera’s drift into the sky as we heard (but didn’t see) the gunshots. It felt like not only her death but also the death of hope itself.
Season 1, Episode 9 (June 12, 2011)
Readers of Martin’s books were not surprised when Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) called for the head of Ned Stark (Sean Bean). But non-readers definitely were, having been set up for the biggest of rug-pulls – not least because Bean had figured so prominently in the marketing of the series, as if he were the star. It seemed certain that he would escape a bloody fate. But poor Ned was shocked when his plea bargain was betrayed, and viewers soon realised that his story was only a prelude to the war to come. Such seemingly out-of-nowhere deaths of beloved characters became one of the show’s signature moves, demonstrating over and over that no one was safe.
Season 5, Episode 14 (September 15, 2013)
Martin once wrote that Walter White was “a bigger monster than anyone in Westeros”. There is also an argument to be made that Walt’s brother-in-law, Drug Enforcement Administration agent Hank Schrader (Dean Norris), was the true hero of Breaking Bad. When Hank was executed, it was devastating. The two men’s positions reversed so rapidly: from Walt in handcuffs, spitting at Hank, to Walt begging and bargaining the neo-Nazis for Hank’s life, wrestling with his own culpability. But Hank won’t beg. He accepts his fate with dignity. Walt is the one who breaks.
Season 5, Episode 15 (March 23, 2014)
Often when an actor asks to leave a show, his or her character is killed off. It wasn’t surprising, then, how The Good Wife handled Josh Charles’ request to stop playing Will Gardner. What was surprising was how violently it did so. (He is shot by a client having a psychotic break during a courtroom hearing.) This became one of the best things to happen to the show’s protagonist, his longtime associate and former lover Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies), allowing her to reveal her true emotions and creating a hole she could never quite fill.
Season 4, Episode 12 (June 17, 2016)
This one hurt. When Litchfield Penitentiary inmate Poussey Washington (Samira Wiley) was suffocated by Officer Bayley (Alan Aisenberg), it felt all too real, like the then-recent deaths in real life of Eric Garner, Michael Brown and Sandra Bland. Poussey was a lovable, non-violent offender who might easily have re-entered society, but she was instead killed and then blamed for her own murder. A perfect storm of problems – the overcrowding, the privatisation of the prison, brutal guards – could lead only to disaster, culminating in a three-day prison riot that continued over the course of the next season.
Season 7, Episode 1 (Oct. 23, 2016)
Any adaptation of a popular book will inevitably run into the problem of what to do with the death of a major character. Should it be foreshadowed? Should there be fake-outs? Should there be cliffhangers? Why not all of the above, if you’re dealing with one of the most shocking deaths in the Robert Kirkman zombie comic The Walking Dead. The sixth season finale, Last Day on Earth, made it obvious that someone would die at the hands of Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and his barbed bat, but who? Fans were left in suspense for a gruelling seven months after that tease, only to discover that, yes, Glenn (Steven Yeun) was indeed a goner, just as he was in the comics. Ratings started to drop after this, suggesting that perhaps all the hype may have backfired.
Season 4, Episode 3 (April 9, 2023)
You can’t have a succession without someone either stepping down or dying, so the idea of Logan Roy’s death was always in the background. (He nearly died in the pilot.) But Logan (Brian Cox) managed to hang on, continuing to outmanoeuvre his adult children, each of whom wanted his throne or power of his or her own. Finally, though, Logan collapsed in the bathroom of his private jet. As he received heart compressions, the audience was mostly with Logan’s children Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Shiv (Sarah Snook) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) as they tried to say goodbye on the phone. For these three, what was once theoretical had became painfully real, and the remainder of the series was all about the aftermath.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Jennifer Vineyard
©2025 THE NEW YORK TIMES
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