25 Saddest TV Character Deaths of Fan Favorite Characters Read Next: Pamela Anderson, Dakota Fanning, and Lindsay Duncan to Lead Sally Potter’s Family Drama ‘Alma’ Newsletters Alerts & Newsletters By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. IndieWire is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2025 IndieWire Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. The 25 Saddest TV Character Deaths of This Century Death holds great meaning — in life and on television. By Ben Travers, Wilson Chapman April 28, 2025 7:00 pm Netflix/AMC Share on Facebook Share to Flipboard Share on LinkedIn Submit to Reddit Post to Tumblr Print This Page Share on WhatsApp [Editor’s Note: This list was originally published in February 2018. It has been updated to include new shows, including “The Last of Us.”] Dwelling on death isn’t exactly healthy if you think about it the wrong way — except TV deaths, which leave special, agonizing scars. Losing a TV character you’ve spent years with hits hard, and can often change the course of the series moving forward. Someone like prickly “Succession” patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox) was integral not only to the narrative, but to how each and every other character relates to one another and to their core attributes and aspirations. “Succession” was simply not the same show without him. Other deaths devastate you by building up a character into someone you love — which is why so many fans struggled with the gruesome death of Pedro Pascal’s Joel in “The Last of Us.” Related Stories The 46 Best HBO Shows Ranked, from ‘Succession’ to ‘Room 104’ Brian Cox ‘Won’t Watch’ Jeremy Strong in ‘The Apprentice,’ but Has Seen Kieran Culkin in ‘A Real Pain’ To process (or calcify) our feelings, IndieWire’s TV team collected the biggest TV deaths of the 21st century — deaths that were not only shocking and hurtful, but pivotal to the shows that delivered them. Eligible characters had to suffer a permanent death (also known as the Michael Cordero Clause), die within the series and not before it (the Boo from “Fleabag” Clause), and come as a surprise (not taunt audiences with years of tortuous buildup — the Jack Pearson Clause). So let’s pour one out for those heartbreaking, harrowing, and mercifully fictional departed by revisiting their memories. This post is full of spoilers (including above), so read with caution if these major shows are “on your list.” Steve Greene, Christian Blauvelt, Hanh Nguyen, Liz Shannon Miller, Erin Strecker, Michael Schneider, and Proma Khosla contributed to this list. Maybe we shouldn’t have been shocked that Julia Schlaepfer’s Alexandra would meet her end in the “1923” finale. Elsa (Isabel May), a similar “shooting star” character, died in the “1883” finale as well, though that death was telegraphed from the very opening scene of that show. With Alexandra, a British aristocrat separated from her husband Spencer Dutton (Brandon Sklenar) aboard an ocean liner following his duel with her ex-fiance, survival had always been so singularly her aim that not being able to cheat death almost seemed impossible. She’d survived lions, sharks, a capsized tugboat, a robbery in Grand Central Station, a sexual assault aboard a train… how could she finally succumb? But she did, because of her frostbite injuries suffered when the nice couple driving her across America ran out of gas in the middle of a blizzard. Somehow, their car ended up right next to the train tracks, bringing her husband Spencer back to Montana, and so we got one particularly euphoric reunion, at least. Only to have the gloves and stockings removed from limbs… to see her hands and feet blackened from the frostbite. It’s one of the grimmer and sadder images Taylor Sheridan has ever given us — and at that moment, only the most hopeful of us still thought she wasn’t doomed. —CB Would “24” have been elevated to the annals of TV history without that final awful moment of Jack cradling the body of his dead wife Teri, after a very long “day” spent trying to save her? Perhaps, but the show’s ballsy choice to end in explicit tragedy rather than triumph spoke to the very immediate post-9/11 environment — and also set up Jack Bauer for so many seasons of crazy to come. “Battlestar Galactica” “Battlestar Galactica” featured no shortage of shocking deaths over the course of its four seasons, but the unexpected suicide of Dualla at Season 4’s midway point was a major blow, cementing the show’s descent into a nihilistic depression that made the last several episodes extremely heavy viewing. More importantly, the death of Dualla during its initial airing led to arguably the most tragic/hilarious/painfully sad cut-to-commercial of all time, as the ad immediately following her suicide proved to be… badly timed, on both an audio and visual level. Fortunately, YouTube remembers: “Boardwalk Empire” Michael Pitt, ‘Boardwalk Empire”HBO/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Although Jimmy Darmody (Michael Pitt) didn’t gouge out his eyes, his wretched life and death were as Oedipal as they come. The former protege of Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) had been locked in a power struggle with his father in spirit if not by blood for control of the Atlantic City booze trade during Prohibition. But after losing the love of his life, drunkenly sleeping with his own mother (such Greek tragedy!), and botching an assassination attempt on Nucky, the bloody writing was on the wall. Jimmy died from two bullets to the brain, courtesy of Nucky himself. Killing off the second-most important character on the show by the end of Season 2 was a bold and unexpected move, and cemented Nucky’s true potential as a gangster and the series’ ability to shift its dynamics at the height of its popularity. “BoJack Horseman” The crown jewel in Netflix’s animation stable (sorry) has never shied away from the darker side of life, much less a life lived in Hollywoo. After establishing that it is a show that takes an honest look at mental illness and addiction and the general feeling of loneliness, the end of Season 3 brought one story of a child actress to a dark and unexpected close. Credit Kristen Schaal with tracking the progression of Sarah Lynn from adorable TV moppet to someone the industry failed and left behind. Her death wasn’t simply a ploy for pathos in an emotional minefield of a series. It was the show’s very real way of acknowledging the brutal steamroller of fame. “Breaking Bad” “Breaking Bad” was always defined by the danger that lurks around every corner. Even beloved characters could disappear in the blink of an eye, not to mention villains like The Cousins. Against all this, it was inevitable that the Walt/Gus showdown of Season 4 would end in only one winner. When an intricately laid wheelchair plot finally took down the chicken entrepreneur, it was the perfect example of the show’s bittersweet notions of victory. The best part is that for those three or four steps of Gus emerging from the nursing home room unscathed, there was the tiny thought that he might be able to survive even a bomb blast. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” The least-supernatural death of “Buffy” will always be its most memorable and heartbreaking, as creator Joss Whedon devoted an entire episode to the passing of Buffy’s mom Joyce (Kristin Sutherland). Season 5’s “The Body” featured some incredible acting work on the part of its ensemble (Emma Caulfield’s monologue about fruit punch will haunt us forever) and in years past has gotten a fraction of the attention it deserves for how it took on the truth of what happens immediately after a loved one passes away. In the days before “Game of Thrones,” when genre-focused shows were struggling for mainstream acceptance, “The Body” shouted for real acknowledgment beyond the basic. Henry Winkler and Paula Newsome in “Barry”John P. Johnson/HBO There is a lot of death in “Barry,” a lot of it perpetrated by Barry himself (Bill Hader) — but arguably nothing with as high emotional stakes and dire consequences as the murder of Janice (Paula Newsome) in the Season 1 finale. Part of the skittish hook of “Barry” is how it compels the viewer to root for its antihero as well as the forces seeking to track him down and service justice. Janice is undeniably sharp and good at her job — too good, even — the kind of character who you not only want to see win but expect to because she knows exactly what she’s doing. Her unlikely romance with Gene (Henry Winkler) is genuinely amusing and winsome, made convincing by two actors giving it their all (a Cousineau technique if we ever saw one). Season 1, Episode 8 “Know Your Truth” presents a reality that feels instantly too good to be true; in which Barry is now dating Sally (Sarah Goldberg) and they’re taking quaint couples trips with Gene and Janice, the stains of death and violence firmly in the rearview — or so it seems. A gaffe from Gene leads to Janice realizing that Barry is the killer she spent months pursuing, and as things escalate, as they often do on “Barry.” Janice’s death destroys Gene, and creates chaos for Barry through the remainder of the series. It wouldn’t be out of line to call this show “Janice” (as Gene probably would). “Dexter” was never an easy show to watch, but the sympathetic serial killer series got exponentially harder to take as the seasons went on. A breaking point for many fans came when Dexter’s (Michael C. Hall) innocent wife, Rita (Julie Benz) — who remained ignorant of her husband’s hidden hobby until the bitter end — was killed by Arthur Miller (John Lithgow), the Trinity Killer. Lithgow’s performance won him an Emmy, and Season 4 is arguably the last great season of “Dexter.” Rita deserved such quality, and her death was anything but cheap. (Miller wanted to show Dexter that his way of life would never last, especially with loved ones in harm’s way.) But what made Rita’s demise even more painful was that Dexter had already caught and killed Miller before he found his wife’s body in a blood-red bathtub. It had seemed like he’d won, making his ultimate loss — and ours — all the more heartbreaking. “Downton Abbey” Anglophiles were prepared for a certain amount of melodrama from Julian Fellowes’ series, which focused on the upper crust Crawleys and the lives of their servants downstairs. But on the heels of losing the beloved Lady Sybil (Jessica Brown Findlay) from pre-eclampsia after giving birth, anything more would just be cruel. Unfortunately, series star Dan Stevens decided not to re-up his contract, and the show was left scrambling after his character Matthew had finally, at long last after three seasons, won the hand of Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery). Their marital bliss and new status as parents was short-lived: After visiting his wife and newborn son at the hospital, Matthew perished in a car crash, his dead staring eyes killing the hope in viewers, many of whom jumped ship (or at least claimed to) after that. While the rest of the cast remained relatively intact, critics deemed that the show never fully recovered its storytelling momentum after that tragedy. “Game of Thrones” Sean Bean, “Game of Thrones”HBO It was the beheading heard ‘round Westeros and beyond. In its first season, the HBO fantasy series was still drawing in newcomers who didn’t know what to make of this vaguely Medieval world that was obsessed with an uncomfortable seat of power and an imminent cold snap. Fans of George R.R. Martin’s books waited with bloodthirsty glee for that fateful ninth episode when Ned Stark (Sean Bean), the series’ obvious hero and moral center, was cut down in his prime in front of his daughters’ horrified eyes. Good did not triumph over evil. Justice did not prevail. The bad guys didn’t just win, but ascended the throne and laughed about it. And the world fell in love with this cutthroat batshit-crazy show one episode before even meeting those damn dragons. “The Good Wife” Well, that’s one way to quit a job: When “Good Wife” star Josh Charles decided to leave the show in Season 5, he exited in a blaze of tragic gunfire that was technically one of the least violent primetime deaths in recent years, but also one that left us genuinely shaken to the core, in part because Charles and the producers had kept it so very much under wraps. Because it seemingly came out of nowhere — the way so many tragic deaths do in real life, but not on television — Will Gardner’s demise at the hands of a random gunman still echoes in the TV landscape; one which made any CBS procedural viewer wary about the fates of their favorites. “Better Call Saul” After the show’s final season was marked by tragedy and bloodshed, it’s easy to forget that early “Better Call Saul” was far more of an in-the-weeds legal drama, defined far more by the threat of danger than the certainty of death. Even as viewers did the math of which characters weren’t still hanging around Albuquerque during the Walter White era, there was enough document malfeasance and family strife to distract from the fact that some of the biggest “Better Call Saul” were marked in some metatextual way. Still, that didn’t make the death of Chuck McGill at the end of Season 3 any less of a gutting moment. Just a week before, the show had turned up the Kim-related anxiety to previously unreached heights after an episode-ending car accident. But being the misdirecting grief magicians that the “Saul” braintrust members are, subjecting Chuck to an ambiguous, fiery end made the show’s strongest statement that no one in this muddy legal territory was safe, whether from electrical signals or assassins. “Grey’s Anatomy” Sometimes, TV couples are just meant to be, and Shonda Rhimes’ long-lived medical series set up the grand love affair between Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) and Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey), aka MerDer, from their first drunken hookup in the pilot. Despite all that they had been through, their relationship remained a staple on the show… until Dempsey decided to move on from Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital and race cars or something. Enter the tragedy porn. After a fakeout situation when he helps victims of a road accident, Derek’s car is hit by a semi-trailer truck as he pauses in the middle of the road to make a phone call. Because of his loss of speech, he can’t communicate at the hospital that he needs a CT scan, which would’ve detected his brain hemorrhage. He dies, killing the most signature relationship on the show, and proving that Rhimes truly knows “How to Get Away With MerDer.” Damian Lewis’ Brody was never supposed to last long on “Homeland.” In the original series, “Prisoners of War,” the character died at the end of the first season. So after surviving two finales, it was finally time for the loyalty-torn POW to face his end. Showrunner and co-creator Alex Gansa didn’t make it easy, though. Not only did the twist-heavy nature of the series demand an indisputable death — which translated to a public, lengthy hanging — but his offing was made doubly torturous when we found out Carrie (Claire Danes) was pregnant with his baby. Throw in the extra attachment formed from so much time spent with the series’ co-lead, and Brody’s death goes down as one of the all-time most difficult scenes to watch. [Author’s Note: This writer couldn’t even go back to re-watch the scene. It still hurts too much.] “House of Cards” The opening season of the Netflix version of “House of Cards” mirrored many of the story beats of its UK predecessor. One that didn’t happen in those first batch of episodes was the death of the intrepid reporter character, played by Kate Mara. Lulled into a false sense of security that maybe she might survive much longer stateside, both her and the audience ended up with the biggest of surprises when Zoe got tossed in front of a moving DC Metro car. For a show that definitely likes to take its time (remember that multi-episode arc about franchising BBQ restaurants?), this lightning-quick murder didn’t exactly come out of nowhere, but was still shocking nonetheless. Anyone having doubts about Frank Underwood being a complete monster had some pretty irrefutable proof at that point, and we were only 14 episodes in. “How I Met Your Mother”