10 TV Characters You Never Expected To Be Killed Off

Television can evoke powerful emotional responses from audiences in several different ways. The tearful goodbye, huge shocks, and cameo appearances can all get the job done, but when done right, is there anything stronger than a good death scene?

While movies allow viewers to build connections to characters over a short stretch of time, you could argue that those connections with TV characters can be much stronger, since there is so much more time to grow them. Sometimes someone you've been watching on screen for a lot of years can die right in front of your eyes, and it can sting.

Even if you can see it coming, even if the direction of the story has been clear for some time, a good death scene can truly take you back. But what about the ones that come completely out of nowhere? 

Chief characters you would have thought the writers had no business killing off, background characters who shouldn't have really even been on the radar for something so big, or those long since removed from the narrative and brought back for the sole purpose of dying have all come as major shocks to the small screen over the years.

Over the course of 30-plus seasons since debuting in 1989, almost every recurring character on The Simpsons has had at least one story focus on them. Hell, season 23 even saw Jeremy Irons take centre stage to voice a dish rag, but for some characters, it has taken a lot longer than others.

Despite having appeared in the very first episode of the show, Larry the Barfly was only ever a background character until season 35 when the shocking decision was made to kill him off.

Several characters have been killed off on The Simpsons, from Maude Flanders and Bleeding Gums Murphy, to Fat Tony and Mona Simpson, but with Larry having such a small impact on the show, no one could have seen this one coming. In fact, it was so out of the blue that certain members of the audience have actually been quite upset by it.

In his death, Homer, Moe, Lenny, and Carl realised they knew about Larry even though he thought of them as his best friends, and they were brought together somewhat by a trip to scatter his ashes. TV shows often use the death of a character when in a slump of sorts, and The Simpsons has been in such a slump for a few decades now, but no one could have seen them using such a background character as Larry Dalrymple.