8 Great TV Characters Who Die At The Beginning

It is not unusual for TV characters to go out in a blaze of glory, whether blowing their brains out on a rooftop in London to seal their final scheme, or riding headlong into traffic after accepting they have become the very thing they sought to destroy and have nowhere else to go.

But some shows have barely got their stories straight before they're knocking off cast members left, right and centre. In fact, certain series seem to make it their mission to ensure the maximum possible body count each episode before the credits roll (looking in your direction, Game Of Thrones).

While sometimes this is warranted to keep the action alive or provide a realistic suspension for our disbelief – especially when dealing with zombie hordes or murderous biker gangs – some pretty epic characters have been claimed before we've had a chance to really get to know them. What exploits did they yet have to offer? What skills were they saving for a rainy day? Alas, we may never know.

So let's honour their memory, reminisce about the good times, and detail what made these eight TV characters great before they were mercilessly slaughtered at the very beginning.

Arrow spinoff The Flash hit the starting line in 2014, with Grant Gustin as the titular Flash, or Barry Allen to his friends. Now deep into its eighth season, the show has travelled the multiverse, bringing in heroes and villains from across the DC canon, most of whom have more than got their dues.

However, the Flash needed some initial villains to fight off on his way to becoming the fastest man alive, meaning certain characters saw considerably less time on the show than they deserved. And the first of these (and first real supervillain) was Danton Black/Multiplex, a cloning researcher turned metahuman with the power to duplicate himself at will.

Firestorm's nemesis and a member of both the Secret Society of Super Villains and the Suicide Squad in the comics, Multiplex had so much more to offer that would have carried well across the show. Unfortunately (for him, for us, for everyone), he fell to his death during his final confrontation with the Flash, in season one's second episode "Fastest Man Alive", when he refused to be saved by the speedster.

Yeah, we got some cool bullet-time shots between him and Barry, as the latter learned to control his powers, but this is hardly a substitute!