10 TV Shows Where The Villain Kills The Hero
1. Midnight Mass
Mike Flanagan's magnificent recent horror series Midnight Mass impressively blurs the lines between heroes and villains - there aren't any cartoonish, fist-pumping heroes, and even the terrifying vampiric force feeding upon Crockett Island is operating more out of banal necessity than malevolence.
The sure protagonist of the piece is Riley Flynn (Zach Gilford), a deeply troubled young man recently released from prison for killing someone in a drink-driving accident.
Riley returns to his hometown of Crockett Island just as the vampire - or "Angel," as Monsignor Pruitt (Hamish Linklater) believes it to be - begins to spread its infection.
A more conventional show would have Riley lead the island in fighting back against the vampire and its army of slaves, and while for a time that certainly seems to be the redemptive arc it's angling towards, that all comes crashing down in the shocking fourth episode.
At the end of episode four, Riley stumbles upon the vampiric creature feeding and is attacked, consequently being turned himself.
In the next episode, Riley attempts to make sense of his condition, and resolves that the only way to convince his love interest Erin (Kate Siegel) that he's telling the truth about the vampires is to show her the symptoms first-hand.
Riley ends up taking Erin out onto the lake just as the sun rises, causing him to horrifyingly burst into flames and quickly turn to ash. This confirms to a thoroughly traumatised Erin that his seemingly deranged tale of vampirism is indeed true.
While you can argue that Riley really killed himself, the vampire effectively signed his death warrant by turning him, and what followed was simply his causal decision to stare death right in the face.
Ultimately the show ends on a bittersweet, mildly hopeful note where the vampiric infection has been prevented from spreading to the mainland, albeit at the cost of almost everyone on the island.