10 TV Shows That Went Too Far (In Completely Unexpected Ways)

Look, it happens to the best of us—no matter how great a show is, if it’s one known for pushing the envelope, prodding the boundaries of good taste, and needling at the censor’s nerves, there will always be some moment which goes too far.

Maybe this will be enough to turn off audiences wholesale, with viewers deciding they’ve had more than their fair share of misery and downbeat twists. This was the case for both Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead, which saw viewers leave by the droves after particularly brutal episodes.

Maybe it’s just par for the course, and viewers will simply write it off as a bad week for the writer’s room, or a lesser effort in a long running show’s oeuvre. In any case, there are always going to be moments which are just a touch too much for audiences, but most of the time we can at least see them coming.

After all, Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead weren’t exactly the cheeriest shows on the box before their respective most shocking moments.

However, sometimes shows take it too far in new and utterly unexpected ways, completely blindsiding even the most seasoned viewers and critics and leaving everyone reeling in their wake. Those are the instances we’re spotlighting today—the times that shows not only pushed things too far, but did it in a way no one saw coming (for better or worse).

Dexter was never a show worried by the boundaries of good taste—being based on the (admittedly clever and original) premise of a “serial killer who targets other, worse serial killers” means that idea of staying sanitized is thrown out the window fairly early in development, after all.

But after years of the show developing the tender, tragic connection between Dexter and his adopted sister, no nonsense cop Deb (who is none the wiser to his murderous past times), the series picked the weirdest way to throw away seasons of character development and screw up the dramatic tension of Dexter attempting to hide his secret form the only person who’s judgement truly mattered to him.

Yep, you guessed it—like Game of Thrones before it, Dexter had Deb reveal she harboured secret sexual feelings for her brother, and thus an uncomfortable and wholly unexpected incest subplot reared its head and made a mess of the potentially promising season wherein Deb discovered Dexter’s secret double life.

Their dynamic never really recovered in the eyes of fans and critics alike, and the show’s decline continued until its roundly reviled series finale two seasons after Deb’s dramatic revelation.