10 TV Characters NOBODY Expected To Die
1. Mara & Jackson Vendrell - The Shield
It's perhaps fitting that a series which started with one of the most shocking deaths in TV history also ended with not one but two.
While it didn't surprise anyone that cop serial The Shield's final episode, "Family Meeting," saw the volatile Shane Vendrell (Walton Goggins) finally meet a brutal end, nobody could've expected that he'd take his family down with him.
With his arrest for his various crimes imminent, Shane shoots himself in the head as the police breach his house, after which the cops discover his wife, Mara (Michele Hicks), and young son Jackson (Miles Greenberg), dead in the bedroom, their bodies staged to look "peaceful."
Shane's suicide note later reveals that he poisoned them before shooting himself, committing what's referred to by law enforcement as a "family annihilation" - murder-suicide which eliminates the entire family unit.
The series' creator Shawn Ryan later stated that the Vendrell family's demise was inspired by the similar murder-suicide of wrestler Chris Benoit and his family.