10 TV Shows Where The Villain Kills The Hero
6. Too Old To Die Young
Truly virtuous characters are in desperately short supply in Nicolas Winding Refn's savage thriller series Too Old to Die Young, though over the course of the show viewers are likely to be won over by cop protagonist Martin Jones (Miles Teller).
He's plenty troubled, but largely trying to do the right thing as an instrument of the law.
He's by far the closest thing the show has to an outright hero, so in typically subversive Refn fashion, the filmmaker decides to have Martin be brutally killed two episodes before the end of the series.
Martin ends up being captured by the show's antagonist, gangster Jesus Rojas (Augusto Aguilera), where he's mercilessly tortured for three days before being decapitated and dismembered by Jesus with a machete.
Despite the lack of graphic violence on display, it's a highly nauseating sequence due to the evocative sound design and sheer fact that Martin doesn't stand a chance to fight back - he's absolutely helpless to change his situation.
This is Refn brilliantly toying with audience expectations - there's no Hail Mary moment where Martin is rescued by another character.
He dies horribly, the perspective shifts to another character, Yaritza (Cristina Rodlo), for the remaining two episodes, and it ends without much being truly solved at all. Jesus lives, the cycle of violence continues, and Martin's death goes unavenged - bleak isn't even the word.