Whenever a major character is killed/written off a TV show, it always feels like a personal attack on the emotional core of that show’s fans. It’s even worse when the showrunners try to argue that doing so is good for the show. But time and again, these creators have been proven right.
Sometimes, losing a major character doesn’t derail or sink the show. On the contrary, it launches it into a completely different, often better gear. These five TV shows are proof of concept. Some of them even owe their entire legacy to that exit that was supposed to wreck them.
1. Game of Thrones (After Ned Stark)
In recent years, Game of Thrones has been the poster child of shows that got even better after losing a major character. The dispatching of Sean Bean‘s Ned Stark in season 1 episode 9, “Baelor,” is the kind of thing that gets a show cancelled by fans, not celebrated. The guy had just one job after discovering that Queen Cersei’s (Lena Headey) children were bastards: keep his head down. He didn’t, literally, and when Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) took his head, it told viewers that this wasn’t the normal fantasy flick they were used to, where the main guy triumphs no matter what. Instead, everyone woke up to the fact that no one, no matter how important they seemed, was safe. In a way, Ned’s death prepared every viewer to expect the unexpected and made them more receptive to the heartbreaking events of the Red Wedding in season 3.
2. DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (After Hawkman and Hawkgirl)
Most fans of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow can barely remember the fact that the show started as a pretty standard superhero spinoff, complete with all the brooding and destiny talk that came with Hawkman (Falk Hentschel) and Hawkgirl (Ciara Renée). But once the pair got written off at the end of season 1, the show ditched the serious tone that frankly wasn’t doing it any favors. And thank goodness that they did. Freed from all that reincarnation baggage, it went completely off the rails in the best way possible.
We’re talking a giant demonic plushie named Beebo becoming a key character, a genetically engineered dinosaur joining the team, and an actual Bollywood musical episode in season 4. Essentially, the show stopped competing with other DC heavyweights like Arrow and The Flash, and carved out its own little corner of the universe. That’s why it developed such a fiercely loyal fanbase.
3. The Office (US) (After Michael Scott)
Compared to the first two major character losses, this loss came much later in the series, but it wasn’t any less traumatic. When Steve Carell, the guy who played the iconic Michael Scott, announced that he was leaving The Office, most people assumed that was it for the show. How would the creators replace a character that had basically been the heartbeat of the show for seven seasons?
What few people saw coming was the show becoming better at being an ensemble comedy once the main guy left. Without Michael breathing in most of the oxygen, characters like Dwight (Rainn Wilson), Erin (Ellie Kemper), and even Andy (Ed Helms) had more room to breathe. The show also became emotionally sharper, starting from Michael’s farewell episode, which is still one of the most heartbreaking episodes ever made on TV.
4. The Good Wife (After Will Gardner)
At the time, not many fans, or even most of the cast of The Good Wife, saw Will Gardner’s (Josh Charles) death in season 5 coming. The shocking and abrupt way it happened explains why it’s still one of the most talked-about TV deaths of the 2010s. Charles’ decision to walk away could’ve easily crumbled a show that was partly built on Will and Alicia Florrick’s (Julianna Margulies) messy history.
But the writers turned that grief into something that benefited the show greatly. Rather than rush to fill the sizeable hole left by Will’s death, they allowed the grief to fester. Alicia was forced to figure out who she was without Will’s shadow hanging over her, and Christine Baranski’s Diane Lockhart stepped up and became the beating heart of the show. That patience and craft on the part of the writers is why the back half of the series didn’t fall apart.
5. Person of Interest (After Detective Carter)
Detective Jocelyn “Joss” Carter’s (Taraji P. Henson) death in season 3 hurt mainly because she was the show’s moral compass. She was the one person keeping Reese (Jim Caviezel) from going full vigilante psycho, and reminding Finch (Michael Emerson) that there was still some good left in the world. Her loss, as painful as it was, allowed the show to become much darker and more ambitious.
Reese went on a revenge-killing spree that showcased a side of him he kept in check for years. The whole Samaritan storyline also picked up steam, and before viewers could blink, what started as a generic case-of-the-week show transformed into this paranoid, gripping thriller about surveillance and free will that honestly feels more relevant today than when it aired.
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