10 TV Deaths We All Saw Coming (That Still Left Us Stunned)
3. John Locke - Lost
When Lost started experimenting with the "flash-forward" structure in the fourth season, they kicked things off with the lead character, Jack, at an unnamed characters funeral. It wasn't until the final scene of that season where we find out that it is the series' most enigmatic and complex character, John Locke, in that casket. We thought the cliff-hanger would end once they revealed who was in the coffin but it just created more questions about how he ended up there. And when his death finally arrived and we knew it was coming, it was just gut-wrenching.
In a similar fashion to Chuck McGill, Locke was a character who thrived on social interaction but often succumbed to loneliness and isolation. His death was the same. After leaving the island, the only place he felt like he belonged, Locke was strangled in a dark, dingy flat by Ben Linus, a contrast to the tropical sun he had spent the series basking in. Lost could reveal the identity of the person in the casket because the death wasn't designed to shock, it was to put a cap on the tragic arc of John Locke.