23 of the Most Shocking Character Deaths in Television History

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[Warning: Spoilers ahead. Yes, some of these episodes aired years ago, but others are from more recent — very recent — history.]

For fans, TV characters sometimes feel like old friends. That’s why their death often hits hard — even in the fictional world they live in.

Over the years, several hit shows have killed off major characters at the peak of their popularity, for various reasons. Maybe an actor was ready to leave; perhaps the storytelling necessitated it; maybe the writers were following the original source material; or, in some cases, there was some bad behavior going on behind the scenes.

Whatever the reason, fans are often hit hard by the departures, especially given that the series itself isn’t finished. Here, we’ve rounded up 23 of the most shocking deaths in television history. From Henry Black’s heartbreaking and tragic journey home in M*A*S*H to Glenn Rhee’s brutal end at the hand of Negan’s bat Lucille on The Walking Dead to Logan Roy’s death on an airplane in the fourth season of Succession and Joel’s brutal ending on The Last of Us, every one of these deaths packed a serious punch. Read on for more. (This story first published in 2023 and has been updated.)

• Joffrey Baratheon, ‘Game of Thrones’

  

  It wasn’t a happy wedding for King Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) after all. Thrones made a series-changing move, with Joffrey getting poisoned at his own wedding feast. Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) is falsely accused and arrested, but the true perpetrators were later to be revealed as Lady Olenna Tyrell (Diana Rigg) and Lord Petyr Baelish (Aiden Gillen).