3. Dan Stevens - Downton Abbey
Far be it from the folks over at Downton Abbey to toy with the idea of death; in the show's short history spanning across just shy of a decade in the early 20th century, we've already lost Lady Sybil, William and even the unborn son of Lord Grantham and his wife (I still can't look at Miss O'Brien without feeling complete disgust). However, the show pushed a whole new boundary when its central character and Lord Grantham's immediate heir, Matthew Crawley is killed in a bloody car accident. So why does this fall under the category of "brutal?" He had just met his newborn son in the hospital and was cheerful as could be as he swerved out of the way of an oncoming truck. Stevens, who had fulfilled his three year contract, had decided to take on other challenges and has since enjoyed a theater career in New York among other ventures. In hindsight, too, the idea to kill off Matthew Crawley now was risky but brilliant. The character most central to the original plot, the sole heir to Downton unless Lord Grantham and his wife are to give birth to a son in his lifetime, and who just had a son of his own with Lady Mary - who will now become the heir apparent in his father's place - was gone, adding a fresh new perspective to this now global phenomenon of a series.