10 TV Characters Who Died Too Early

10. Stringer Bell - The Wire

Stringer Bell (Idris Elba) will always rank highly in debates about The Wire's single greatest character, given how fantastically he skirted clear of typical gangster conventions.

As intelligent as he was ambitious, Stringer served as the second-in-command to drug kingpin Avon Barksdale (Wood Harris), and thanks to Elba's masterful performance, it was tough to imagine the show without him.

But sadly, Stringer's time prematurely ran out at the end of season three, when his lofty plans to unseat Avon from his own empire spectacularly backfired.

Ultimately, Avon caught wind of Stringer's plot and set him up to be gunned down by Omar (Michael K. Williams) and Brother Mouzone (Michael Potts).

Though in fairness it's a terrific death scene, a sliver of the show's magic was unmistakably gone for those final two sans-Stringer seasons, because many fans begrudgingly wanted to see his Machiavellian scheme play out in full.