10 dead of television characters who shocked fans through the story

(This article contains major spoilers for season 2, episode 2 of “The Last of Us” and for 10 older programs dating from 1975.)

Shocking viewers nowadays are more difficult for various reasons, and this is true for characters’ dead, even. The public can be overturned by leaks and rumors on the Internet – or, in this age based on IP, by source equipment. Millions of “Game of Thrones” observers were struck down when the red wedding episode was broadcast on HBO in 2013; The millions of readers of George RR Martin were not.

But for the many viewers of the HBO series “The Last of Us” who did not play video games, the Sunday episode was probably a huge shock. (The episode, the second of season 2, is taken from events in the continuation of the video game The Last of US Part II, from 2020.) As when Rosalind (Diana Muldaur) came across the elevator stem in “Law”, or when Omar (Michael K. Williams) was assassinated by a child in “The Wire”. It was in some ways as a step back.

It remains to be seen how Joel’s death will change the complexion of the show, but it will be fundamentally different without him. While we are thinking about how it could take shape, we are looking back from the shocking deaths that have changed everything.

‘CRUSH’

Season 3, episode 24 (Airdate: March 18, 1975)

Retrospectively, he should not be so shocking for someone from the army to die in wartime. But the public in 1975 was not prepared for the news that the former commander of the 4077th Mobile Army Hospital did not return home. Of course, it had been announced that McLean Stevenson (who played Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Blake) left the series, but the wait was that his character would simply be released, given admitted farewells, and that would be it. But suddenly, in the last scene in the third season final, Radar (Gary Burghoff) announced that Blake’s plane had been shot: “There were no survivors,” he said. With this, the mood of the show went from the sitcom to the dramatic.