Sometimes the hardest part of having a favorite TV show is watching a great character meet their (usually untimely) demise. But these final moments with beloved characters can also be fantastic, memorable, even poetic when the character gets a proper send off. Everybody wants to go out in style… or at least have a scene where another character cries over the loss of their character while audiences at home hopefully do the same.
However not all TV characters are given the luxury of a proper goodbye. Here are a few characters who were cheated out of sharing their final breaths (no pun intended, Charlie from Lost, who had a beautiful tearjerker of a death scene) with the world.
(Beware, this post will include spoilers about characters in TV shows who have died. But if you continue reading and haven’t realized that by now you have no one to blame but yourself.)
10. Charlie Harper on Two And A Half Men
Even though we all knew it was coming, how great would it have been to get Charlie “Tiger Blood” Sheen back for a death scene? He was literally the main character on the show and the season nine opener showed the audience his funeral. It was funny for sure, but the funniest part is the image that Rose paints the guests at the funeral of Charlie’s body exploding when he was hit by a train and implying that she may have helped gravity out when it came to his fatal fall. That would have been hilarious to see.
A character this big not having a death scene is really just too bad. If his exit from the show had been planned, it’s pretty certain that the Two And A Half Men gods would have created a death scene to remember. (But being replaced by Ashton Kutcher’s gotta be nice, at least for the fans.)
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10 Comments
Wow…first off, aside from two shows, you seem the think TV began in 2000 or so. And then you include Tony Soprano because YOU think the ending was about him being killed. The ending didn’t imply that at all.
The Sopranos had an open ending which could EASILY be interpreted as Tony being killed. Just check out this epic essay on the very topic:
http://masterofsopranos.wordpress.com/the-sopranos-definitive-explanation-of-the-end/
Just because YOU don’t subscribe to that doesn’t mean that the theory isn’t valid. It’s hard to write when you’re typing from a high horse. :)
Also, Matt Fielding from Melrose Place!! He left the show in the first episode of the sixth season but his death was noticed in the first episode of the seventh season while all the characters were waiting his comeback!! He died in a car accident when he was on his way to Melrose Place.
The best of all was that Amanda inherited Matt’s secret diary with all the embarrassing secrets of all the Melrose Place’s people!!
You could say the majority of the characters in Lost; as when they meet together at the end they have all ‘died’ either on or off the Island after the events of Jack’s Death. So most of the ones who appear who we didn’t see die on the Island all technically died offscreen.
Starburns didn’t die, I’m afraid. He showed up at the very end of season three, with what was, I believe, a How-to on faking your death of some kind.
The Jill Tracy episode of Scrubs was my one of my favorite episodes but Laverne’s death was a lot more sad and heartbreaking than hers
Great list, suprised Leo McGarry from West Wing wasn’t included though. The way the show dealt with John Spencer actual death was really moving
Tony Soprano didn’t necessarily die; for all of you people quoting the master of sopranos article here’s another article for you which sums up the final scene (and the episode) pretty well:
http://www.avclub.com/articles/made-in-america,89671/
Starburns’ death on community was not so much inspired by Breaking Bad as Law and Order. The entire episode (Titled Lupine Urology in reference to L&O creator Dick Wolf) was a very dead-on parody of L&O. The means of conveying Starburns’ death was a style parody of the abrupt endings of all the L&O shows over the years that always have something heavy thrown at you before a silent fade to black that’s supposed to make you think. It’s one of my favorite episodes, but I heard it got a bit of grief from folks who don’t watch episodic TV.
Walt Lloyd. Where the hell did Emerson come from?