10 Predictable TV Show Deaths We All Saw Coming

Warning: This list contains spoilers for many character deaths from popular TV shows.

Summary

• TV shows have character types inherently at risk of dying, like parents and mentors, to drive plot complications.
• The challenge for showrunners is to make impactful character deaths, even if the audience can predict them.
• Some TV shows, like
  Game of Thrones
  , face the dilemma of needing to keep key characters alive for long-term arcs.

There are some deaths in TV shows that no one saw coming, and others everyone saw coming from a mile away. Certain TV character types are always in danger of being killed off because of the ways their deaths inherently drive plot complications: parents, mentors, etc. In other cases, the story might set up a character’s death or even necessitate one, leading to a process of elimination where the audience determines which character the story doesn’t need for future seasons.

TV shows where no one is safe — allegedly — face a built-in problem that the story does need some characters to survive to carry long-term arcs. Therefore, a show’s audience might be able to figure out who is doomed based on which arcs are finished or the fact that the show is coming to an end and no longer needs the character alive. However, familiar narrative arcs can feel mishandled if they end the wrong way. The challenge faced by showrunners is to make forgone deaths impactful regardless.

10 Hershel Greene (Scott Wilson)

The Walking Dead (2010-2022)

The Walking Dead has long been based on the cast constantly shifting due to characters dying and being replaced by others. The show must kill off a main cast member every once in a while — usually two to three times a season — to remind people how dangerous the setting is. In season 3, Hershel narrowly avoids death when he is attacked by a walker and the group amputates his leg to prevent the contagion from spreading. Hershel is then killed by the Governor in season 4, while Maggie is now his only surviving child.

Despite being older and losing a limb without getting proper treatment, Hershel manages to adapt and endure for the sake of others. However, the show was always more likely to save the younger characters involved in ongoing romances and friendship storylines when Hershel would have sacrificed himself to protect his daughters. People could work out that Hershel was one of the characters most likely to die next when the show previously killed off Dale, the main cast’s previous father figure.

9 Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey)

Game Of Thrones (2011-2019)

Game of Thrones famously advertised itself as the show where main characters could die, but Cersei is still one of the lucky ones who makes it to the final season. However, by the time of the controversial final season, pretty much everyone else is closing in on her. Cersei had long operated by being completely ruthless and never compromising, which didn’t leave her with many allies. The moment Daenerys arrives in Westeros, everyone else flocks to her with the goal of taking down Cersei.

Where Game of Thrones went wrong is in promising a highly satisfying death for Cersei, likely at Jamie or Arya’s hands.

Heading into the finale, it’s clear that Cersei is going to make it that far but will be killed off once the show ends and with it, the need for a villain. Where Game of Thrones went wrong is in promising a highly satisfying death for Cersei, likely at Jamie or Arya’s hands. Cersei does die in the finale — people got that much right — but in the general destruction of King’s Landing, rather than in a grand act of revenge.

8 Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox)

Lost (2004-2010)

Some Lost deaths are shocking, others less so. Going into the final season, it was likely that some of the major characters were going to die. Other regulars meet gruesome ends throughout the series, with a handful of characters remaining to take the story to the finish line. However, of the surviving main characters, Jack was one of the most likely to die due to his long-sustained heroic characterization.

From the beginning, Jack is the group hero who always goes to extreme lengths to save lives. If he were not the main character, Jack could have died saving another Flight 815 survivor from drowning in the fifth episode. Jack launches himself into danger, which is why taking on the Man in Black and helping everyone else escape feels like the forgone conclusion to his arc.

7 Vander (JB Blanc)

Arcane (2021-Present)

For those who were familiar with League of Legends going in, Vander was an unattached character who isn’t a part of the conflict in the other characters’ futures. For those who weren’t, the basic trope is that the parent/mentor figure will be killed off because the story can get more mileage out of Vi and Powder/Jinx having to survive without him. When he is captured by Silco only a couple of episodes into the series, everyone can probably guess that he won’t be among the survivors of the ensuing conflict.

However, there are still some surprises in store, as the Arcane season 2 teaser seemingly confirms a Vander theory. The long-held prediction is that Vander will become Warwick, a monster created through agonizing experiments in League of Legends who hunts in the alleyways of Zaun. However, Warwick’s characterization of remembering little about his life before still suggests that Vander as Vi and Powder knew him is still dead.

6 Hank Schrader (Dean Norris)

Breaking Bad (2008-2013)

In terms of when the episode before Hank’s death cuts off with Todd, his uncle, and their men cornering the DEA agents, there was one of two ways it could go, and people were likely to guess the grimmer option. However, Hank’s death had long been the perfect final straw in the story that would bring things to a gut-wrenching end. Breaking Bad foreshadows this very thing happening when Hank is severely injured midway through season 3 and Skyler declares that Walt’s involvement in the drug trade brought this upon them.

Before the final season, Walt’s son has yet to discover the truth while Skyler is still under his thumb. Flash forwards starting at the beginning of the season hint at Heisenberg’s downfall, the question being what event would finally push Skyler over the edge and destroy Walt’s relationship with his family. They would never forgive him for causing a death in the family and, given Hank’s line of work, he was always in the most danger.

5 Jackie Taylor (Ella Purnell)

Yellowjackets (2021-Present)

On paper, Yellowjackets is a survivalist story about a group of high school girls stranded in the wilderness who are driven to ritualized cannibalism. However, there are many more layers to the show than that, with different timelines cluing the audience in about what took place during the main story. Many had been predicting Jackie’s death since early in the series; when it did happen, it was a strange combination of everything that had been foreshadowed and a total surprise.

Yellowjackets’ first episode shows Jackie’s necklace worn by an unidentified girl who is killed and eaten by the others. When it was established that Jackie was the necklace’s owner, it seemed to imply her death. However, Jackie does not die in a tiger trap as is depicted in the Pilot, but freezes to death and is consumed in a feeding frenzy by the others. As it turns out, the necklace was not foreshadowing Jackie being the girl in the opening scene, but her becoming a symbol of the group’s cannibalistic practices.

4 Vision (Paul Bettany)

WandaVision (2021)

WandaVision’s reality-bending sitcom format is used as a vehicle for a story about Wanda’s grief, which is undermined by Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. However, her grief is undone by their being a living version of Vision. Other than his growing suspicions about the world she has created for them, it seems like Wanda is just as happy with this vision. The problem is that she is actively causing harm to other people to maintain their reality.

WandaVision had to end with the Hex dissipating and Wanda letting Vision go again.

WandaVision had to end with the Hex dissipating and Wanda letting Vision go again. Either the government agents would have found a way to defeat her, or she would have done so voluntarily. If neither of those things happened, the assumption is that they would have called in other Avengers because they couldn’t just let Wanda keep imprisoning a town. The practicalities of the show’s plot and its major themes point to Vision’s second death — albeit with another version of him escaping.

3 Maarva Andor (Fiona Shaw)

Andor (2022-Present)

One of the most basic motivations for a protagonist is that their parent dies, and they are on a mission to either avenge that parent or uphold what they believed in. Andor actually subverts this trope as Cassian’s adoptive father has already been killed by the Empire at the start of the story, but he is still not ready to join the Rebellion. However, Maarva then asserts that she wants to fight the Empire and falls ill shortly after Cassian leaves Ferrix.

It’s obvious that Maarva is going to die before the series’ end to contribute to Cassian’s characterization in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. What’s interesting is that this is just part of why he joins the Rebellion; the Narkina 5 prison break also doubtlessly influenced this decision. Maarva’s death was predictable, but it is still framed in a way that makes it interesting. For one thing, she is surrounded by characters who are likely to die in Andor season 2.

2 Erwin Smith (Daisuke Ono/J. Michael Tatum)

Attack On Titan (2013-2023)

Attack on Titan had a lot to gain from Commander Erwin’s death; a lot of drama comes from characters climbing the ranks of the Survey Corps after their superiors are dead. Erwin hints at this very event when he names Hangë his successor as the Scouts’ commander. In addition to driving Levi’s arc by forcing him to live up to his commander and friend’s legacy, the show teases what the Survey Corps will be like when Hangë is leading them.

Granted, Attack on Titan spends a lot of time on Erwin’s own arc and the meaning of his death. Erwin desperately wants to know the truth about the Titans but accepts that his first duty is to the soldiers under his command. Levi also suggests that his decision to save Armin rather than Erwin was to let the latter rest in peace, rather than keep fighting a terrible battle. Attack on Titan uses Erwin well in his own right before launching into the era of Hangë leading with Levi at their side.

1 Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn)

Stranger Things (2016-2025)

Eddie’s death in Stranger Things is suitably epic, but not surprising. It is a weighty moment because it shows the culmination of his character as he saves other characters. However, Stranger Things season 4 part 2 hinted at Eddie’s death as he becomes a suspect in several murders in Hawkins, and moments from his final guitar solo made it into the trailer. With the town of Hawkins after him, there were few places left for Eddie to run, leading to his final sacrifice.

Additionally, Stranger Things tends to kill off liked side characters within the same season that they are introduced. The pattern established by Barb, Bob, and Alexei combined with the progression of Eddie’s tragic storyline made his fate a certainty. However, unlike some TV character deaths that were completely predictable, Eddie’s sacrifice is generally considered to have been executed well and done justice to the character.