12 Of The Most Unforgivable TV Deaths

TBD on whether Stranger Things has been ruined for me forever.

Photo-illustration: Kathy Hoang/BuzzFeed; Images: Netflix, CBS, ABC, HBO, 20th Century Fox Television, NBC

Before you continue reading, know that for obvious reasons, this whole post is riddled with spoilers for the following shows:

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
Euphoria
How I Met Your Mother
Jane the Virgin
The L Word
Orange Is the New Black
Scrubs
Stranger Things
The Wilds
You

Read on at your own risk! 

1. Chrissy Cunningham (Grace Van Dien), Stranger Things

Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection

In the words of the late Eddie Munson (whom I've bravely left off this list because if I’m being honest, his death did NOT hit the way I thought it would), “Chrissy, wake up. I don’t like this!” Never in my life has my jaw dropped (and remained Chrissy-level wide) for such an extended period of time. I know everyone involved in Season 4 of Stranger Things promised actual horror this time around but I don’t think any warnings would have properly prepared me for the brutal murder of poor Chrissy the Cheerleader.

The Duffer Brothers, now firmly established as my archnemeses, actually admitted that they also regret killing off Chrissy after seeing how much chemistry she and Eddie had together. But alas, they’d already filmed the now-iconic — and horrifying — death scene by the time they discovered the pair’s downright electric connection. Maybe the two are hanging out now in whatever weird Upside Down heaven exists in the Stranger Things universe. 

Watch Stranger Things on Netflix. 

2. Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti), You

Netflix

I know the whole point of You is that you (meaning me, in this case) are meant to feel incredibly complicated and conflicting feelings toward Joe Goldberg but I swear every time that sadly swoonworthy man murders someone, I take it as a personal offense. When Beck died, after Joe had already offed Benji and Peach…and Elijah and Ron, I was taken aback. I’d actually convinced myself he wouldn’t cross that flimsy, sand-drawn line. But I was willing to give Joe a second chance, you know, for Love. And I thought I made the right choice after Love made it out of Season 2 mostly unscathed (RIP Forty). But after meeting her fiery (and sure, some would argue well deserved) end in Season 3, I don’t know if my crush on Penn Badgley is enough to carry me through the next Loveless season. Also, am I the only one who expected a little more effort in the murder department from Love? Seriously, did you really think Joe wouldn’t get curious about what you were growing in the garden? Regardless, death by a poison you grew and intended for your husband, set to "Exile" by Taylor Swift (feat. Bon Iver), is just not something you get over.

Watch You on Netflix.

3. Ben Sullivan (Brendan Fraser), Scrubs

ABC Studios

We lost a lot of great side characters on Scrubs (as is the nature of every show centered around a hospital) but the one that really stuck with me was Jordan’s beloved brother and Dr. Cox’s best friend Ben (played by the egregiously underrated Brendan Fraser). One of the most heartbreaking aspects of Ben’s death is just how preventable it was, considering he’s pretty much constantly surrounded by spacey and mean, but well-intended doctors. Plus, the bait and switch episode wherein we’re led to believe, through the eyes of Dr. Cox, that Ben is totally fine despite avoiding checkups for his leukemia over the past two years, only to have our bubble burst when a birthday party transforms into a funeral…was completely unforgivable.

Watch Scrubs on Hulu. 

4. Linh Bach/Jeanette Dao (Chi Nguyen), The Wilds

Prime Video

Linh’s sudden death in the very first episode of The Wilds simultaneously brings the rest of the girls together and bursts their bubble with the realization that any one of them could meet a similar fate. Essentially, when Linh dies, things get real. What makes the demise of the P!nk-loving teen so tragic is the fact that her real identity goes unexplored for so much of Season 1 so we don’t get to know Linh until it’s too late. By the time Linh quite literally drops dead in front of the group, her fate has already been sealed for hours, because she pushed past a rough fall into the water on her way to the island. And so, after suffering internal bleeding, the double agent for the Dawn of Eve dies and is buried in a shallow grave, to the unsteadily sung tune of “Raise Your Glass,” as Jeanette Cho. For a show about surviving on a desert island, The Wilds really leans toward NOT killing anyone off, making Linh's death all the more upsetting, even though she was knowingly and willingly involved with the whole unbelievably unethical experiment. 

Watch The Wilds on Prime Video.

5. Bob Newby (Sean Astin), Stranger Things

Jackson Lee Davis / Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection

Look, I get it! The Duffer Brothers respect the genre and the genre dictates that the brand-new, beloved character of the season must die. That doesn’t make me any less upset over what they did to poor Bob Newby. Not only was this cutie an '80s tech whiz (hot) but he was also a total ride-or-die for Joyce Byers. Unfortunately, that devotion ultimately led to his demise, when Bob went all superhero detective mode to help the Byers escape from Hawkins Lab. There’s nothing worse than a fake-out reunion scene interrupted by a grisly death. Now, Bob getting decked by a Demodog seconds after smiling in relief at Joyce flashes before my eyes every time Stranger Things gives us a sweet scene. I squeezed my eyes shut in fear when Joyce and Hopper finally found each other in the prison this season... What can I say? I just don’t trust those darn Duffer boys. 

Watch Stranger Things on Netflix. 

6. Dana Fairbanks (Erin Daniels), The L Word

HBO

There are a lot of shows wherein you anticipate a few character deaths here and there, which undoubtedly softens the blow when said characters do kick that onscreen bucket. But even during Dana Fairbanks’ breast cancer diagnosis during Season 3 of The L Word, in no world was I anticipating her storyline to end in such a dramatic way. After being hospitalized with an infection, Dana’s best friend (and ex-girlfriend, you know how these things go) Alice is keeping a very on-brand bedside vigil and it almost seems like Dana is on the mend (maybe this was wishful viewing on my part). But after Alice steps out for quite literally just a few ill-timed moments (!!!), Dana is gone. Dana’s tragic and ultimately shocking death has stayed with me (clearly) through countless other series that kill off characters with reckless and often monotonous abandon. 

Watch The L Word on Showtime. 

7. Tracy McConnell (Cristin Milioti), How I Met Your Mother

Ron P. Jaffe / CBS / Courtesy Everett Collection

It’s not just that Tracy McConnell’s death is one of the biggest series finale letdowns in TV history (right up there with Game of Thrones, Jane the Virgin, and whatever the hell was happening in the last season of Lost) but How I Met Your Mother spent nine years encouraging us to (begrudgingly, at times) root for Ted Mosby in his chaotic and self-centered search for The One. And then they just kill her off and break Ted’s heart? In what universe is it okay to lead an audience on a nine-year trek that ends with the titular character’s death? The most painful part is that the realization doesn’t slap you in the face in that utterly cursed finale. It’s a slow burn from the second Ted chooses to run to Tracy’s apartment in Season 8, Episode 20, “The Time Travelers,” to deliver one of the most surreptitiously heart-wrenching speeches of the entire series, which ends with the undeniably doomed declaration: “I love you. I’m always going to love you. To the end of my days and beyond.” 

RIP Tracy. You deserved to be more than a sticky plot point Ted has to push past to finally get Robin back. 

Watch it on Hulu. 

8. Sabrina Spellman (Kiernan Shipka), Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection

My condolences to absolutely everyone who stuck with Chilling Adventures of Sabrina all the way to the end. We absolutely should have just turned it off after the Season 3 finale and called it a day. In the rudely rushed final season of CAOS, they kill not one but both Sabrinas (which makes her long overdue but overtly strange Riverdale cameo even more confusing) and barely bother trying to bring either one of them back, despite the Spellman family successfully and repeatedly (and, admittedly, sometimes unsuccessfully) resurrecting the dead throughout all four seasons. They have a Cain pit in the garden, for Lucifer’s sake! We now know, unfortunately thanks to Riverdale, that Sabrina Spellman is likely to come back from the dead in some capacity after Netflix no longer has their cancel-thirsty claws in the character’s corpse. But in the meantime, I’d like to lament about how upsetting the titular teen's death really was. 

First of all, death by ritual sacrifice at the hands of her aunts and friends feels unnecessarily cruel, even if it was the type of gratingly noble act Sabrina was prone to doing throughout the show. Second, CAOS spent all of 60 seconds at the two Sabrinas’ funeral! If you’re going to kill your main character (twice), at least let me see all the people she was constantly saving cry a little bit over her. And lastly, while I’m all for a bittersweet ending, was it a wise choice to have Nick basically kill himself so he could join Sabrina in her weird witchy white void of an afterlife? I think not. 

Watch Chilling Adventures of Sabrina on Netflix (if you dare). 

9. Poussey Washington (Samira Wiley), Orange Is the New Black

Netflix

I’m going to be honest here. I avoided writing about this one for as long as I possibly could because Poussey Washington’s death was so viscerally upsetting, I actually stopped watching Orange Is the New Black shortly after Season 4’s brutal ending (and based on Twitter at the time, I wasn’t the only one). The show just wasn’t the same without her. Samira Wiley is an actor I adore so much that I’ve made it through all of The Handmaid’s Tale (against my overall morale and better judgment) just for her far-too limited screentime. Poussey’s murder, at the hands of C.O. Bayley, was as relevant back in 2016 as it is today, a chilling and undeniably true fact that only further increases the impact of her death. 

Watch Orange Is the New Black on Netflix. 

10. Ashtray (Javon "Wanna" Walton), Euphoria

Eddy Chen/HBO

I get that Euphoria’s whole thing is being shocking and raw, but I did not think the show would go as far as to kill off Ashtray — even with all the major hints at his eventual death in the first episode of Season 2. Beyond the fact that he’s still practically a child who’s been mercilessly shoved into a very adult world, Ashtray’s death feels completely pointless. He doesn’t even get one meaningful moment to say goodbye to his brother (though neither of them was a man of many words so who knows how that would’ve turned out). RIP Ashtray, you sweet, little face-tatted prince. 

Watch Euphoria on HBO Max. 

11. Michael Cordero (Brett Dier), Jane the Virgin

CW Network / Courtesy Everett Collection

There are a lot of reasons I’ve never been able to get over Michael’s death in Jane the Virgin and yeah, some of them may or may not be related to my crush on Brett Dier. When it comes to the Jane the Virgin love triangle, I have always been (and forever will be) team Michael. He is almost (I already know you’re going to come for me about this in the comments but keep in mind my shoddy track record regarding my taste in fictional men before getting too worked up) the perfect man and he deserved SO much better. (Is this where I petition for a cowboy Michael/Jason spinoff?) After being shot by Sin Rostro on his wedding night, Michael embarks on a long journey of recovery that involves, among other things, some initially lukewarm sex with his new wife and a big career change. But just when things are beginning to look normal for the couple, Michael just suddenly collapses and dies. His death remains one of the most shocking plot twists of the entire telenovela-inspired show and yet it feels somewhat skimmed over throughout the rest of the season, which jumps in time three years after Michael’s untimely end and only gives us glimpses of Jane’s grief before thrusting her back out into the dating world. It felt like a brutally unfair ending for such an important character at the time and that feeling has only increased with the knowledge that Michael never really died. 

Except he did, didn’t he? I mean, sure, he comes back and attempts to be in Jane’s life. But even after he does get his memories back, he’s basically half-Jason by that point, and he and Jane have seemingly lost all sense of connection. So he’s sent packing back to Montana to live out the rest of his days as this hybrid being, before being carted out one last time with a pregnant fiancé in tow to highlight just how over Michael Jane really is. Ouch. All this to say, Michael pretty much did die on the floor of his LSAT exam room that fateful day and I will never, ever get over it.

Watch Jane the Virgin on Netflix. 

12. Honorable mention: Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink), Stranger Things

Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection

Can somebody PLEASE let me know whether or not Max is dead? I understand that clinically speaking, her heart stopped for over a minute. And I watched with horror when, for the second time, she was lifted by Henry/One/Vecna’s unseen forces into the air, only for her bones to actually start snapping this time around (which I’ll admit was accompanied by my loud shrieking in the moment, sorry to my neighbors). I have little faith in Eleven’s ability to bring Max back to life considering she just got her powers back; so the question stands, is Max dead? We probably won’t get an answer until late 2023 at the earliest (thanks, Duffer Brothers) so catch me blasting Kate Bush to cope with all this uncertainty until then.

Watch Stranger Things on Netflix.