10 Exact Moments We Knew TV Characters Were Doomed To Die
5. Shane Kills Lem - The Shield
One of the most shocking TV moments of the last 20 years was the sudden death of Detective Curtis "Lem" Lemansky (Kenneth Johnson) in The Shield's season five finale ("Postpartum").
Manipulated into believing that Lem was going to implicate the rest of the Strike Team in their Money Train heist, a desperate Shane (Walton Goggins) covertly meets up with Lem and drops a grenade in his lap, killing him.
This was the moment where fans knew the ever-dubious Shane had gone too far, and that when Vic (Michael Chiklis) eventually found out, there was going to be hell to pay.
But as it turns out, Vic never gets to avenge Lem's death, as in the series' final ever episode ("Family Meeting"), a cornered Shane shoots himself in the head, but not before also killing his wife and young son in a murder-suicide.
We all knew Shane's fate was sealed the moment he killed Lem, but just about nobody expected him to implode quite so decisively.