11 Grim TV Moments You Won't Watch Again
Vampire parasite through the eyeball? Thanks, Guillermo Del Toro...
Television shows can be a jarring investment. So much of your weeknights - whether binging or going old-school week-to-week are occupied by fictional characters you're pleased to on spend an hour with that they've become almost as much a staple of as your actual family.
So when characters die, go through traumatic experiences or grieve, you feel it. A longstanding but ultimately untrue urban legend claims that New York City suffered a water shortage after the finale of M*A*S*H because no one wanted to miss the closing minutes when they aired. Similar rumours fly around Cheers and other popular shows.
Appointment television may be a dated term thanks to Netflix and other streaming services, but the emotional investments we put into a show are still very prevalent. So much so that the "no spoilers" complaint has all but ruined watercooler office talk.
But moments of intense emotion or downright gruesomeness are best left visited only once. We're glad we saw it, but we'd rather not relive it. Here are some of the most difficult.
11. Warren Mears Meets Dark Willow - Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Buffy was a landmark for television - a show that centered around a powerful female heroine who could hold her own, a show, that toyed with expectation and a show that had a sincere, heartfelt lesbian relationship (and landmark onscreen kiss) onscreen. That being said, it was never a show known for its violence. The vampire effects were intentionally silly, just vague explosions CGI dust. Other creature designs were played for laughs more than scares.
Warren Mears, the de facto leader of the evil trio of demented teens deadset on bringing down The Slayer, is the rare exception to the rule. After a failed assassination attempt on Buffy hits best friend/amateur Witch's Willow's love Tara with a stray bullet, it represented a turn in tne and cruelty the show had yet to explore. Willow, at this point representative of all that is good in humanity, almost instantly abandons it, succumbing to her worst temptations and sending her on a path of vengeance that could potentially end the world.
Mears certainly deserved his fate, but his unsympathetic torture and sudden flaying while tied to a tree is both gorier than expected while still being precisely the kind of violent act the show needed at the time: Buffy was through screwing around. Things were getting serious.