Mrs. Landingham – “The West Wing”
Most of the time, when Aaron Sorkin’s masterpiece of a political drama went to life-and-death stakes, it felt a bit manufactured and phony (as when Mark Harmon’s secret service agent and beau of Allison Janney’s C.J. was killed in a cheap and craven way), a leftover from an era of network TV drama that modern audiences are increasingly too sophisticated for. But then there was the death of Mrs. Landingham (the late Kathryn Joosten). The second (and probably greatest) season of the show was starting to reach a dramatic peak: the staff knew about President Bartlett’s MS, which he’d concealed from the public, a copu in Haiti was being weathered, and a tropical storm came to the city. But then, at the end of the penultimate episode, “18th & Potomac,” Personal Aide to the President Charlie Young (Dulé Hill) gets a devastating phone-call: Dolores Landingham, the President’s no-nonsense executive secretary, had been killed in a car crash, hit by a drunk driver while driving home her new car, the first she’d ever bought. Its randomness could feel artificial, but it’s so beautifully written and performed, and leads to such a powerful aftermath with finale “Two Cathedrals” (the greatest thing the show ever did) that it feels entirely organic, and we’re not sure we ever got over it.
Dr. Kutner – “House”
As with most medical dramas, death was a fact of life on “House,” even if its Sherlockian hero and his team tried not to let it get them down. But the procedural was capable of making it devastating when it wanted, and when Kal Penn’s Dr. Kutner exited the show, it took a bold approach that few network dramas, or even cable shows, would try. The actor was leaving the show to go and work at the White House (maybe the best reason any actor has ever left a show), and the fifth season episode “Simple Explanation” sees Kutner fail to show up for work. Olivia Wilde’s Thirteen enters his apartment and finds him, dead of a gunshot wound to the head, evidently a suicide. House (Hugh Laurie) and others attempt to suggest that the death might have been murder, but the truth proves to be inescapable. The character had always been an upbeat, likable figure, and the show had never hinted at any problems like this, which some dismissed as clumsy storytelling. But unfortunately, too many of us know that depression and suicidal tendency isn’t always advertised on the surface, and have had to go through what the surviving characters struggle with here. As the title of the episode hints, there is no easy explanation for something like this, and it’s a surprisingly mature and ambiguous approach for a big mainstream show (albeit tainted a little by a poor coda at the end).
Shane – “The Shield”
Far more so than most cop shows (we’re not really counting “The Wire” as a cop show, right?), “The Shield” was a show that knew how to hurt — unsurprising, given that the pilot featured its ostensible hero killing a fellow police officer. And it was that willingness to go the distance that helped it pull off a final episode that’s generally deemed to be among the best ever. And it’s that finale that includes the show’s most wrenching ever death. Shane Vendrell (the incomparable Walton Goggins) had, over seven seasons of Shawn Ryan’s show, consistently been Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) right-hand-man, even as his recklessness, racism and general fucked-up nature put them in bigger and bigger trouble. But his season five murder of one of their Strike Team colleagues, Lem (Kenny Johnson) would slowly put him in Vic’s sights, and he ends the show on the run, threatening to testify against his former friend. Pursued by the cartel and the cops, and with Vic striking an immunity deal, Shane ends up out of options, until he takes the most heartbreaking one possible: he kills his wife and young son with drug overdoses, then shoots himself. For all the darkness of the show, the murder-suicide seemed like new territory, and in his death, Shane finally gains some kind of victory over Vic, who’s torn apart by the deaths.
Lance – “Cucumber”
The most recent moment on this list, and one from a show that deserved to be watched by more people, “Cucumber” (and spin-off “Banana”) marked the return to TV of Russell T Davies after he masterminded the return of “Doctor Who,” and served as a sort of spiritual sequel to his breakthrough show “Queer As Folk.” In broad strokes, it tells the story of a mid-life crisis being suffered by Henry (Vincent Franklin), a gay man in Manchester, long-settled with his boyfriend Lance (Cyril Nri) but still uneasy about his sexuality. But the show’s highpoint came with its sixth episode, which took the focus away from Henry and focused on Lance, tracking almost his entire life, while also picking up his life in the aftermath of his break-up with Henry, and his faltering courtship of his nominally straight colleague Daniel (James Murray). It’s a fascinating, borderline experimental hour of television (up to the point of including a cameo from the ghost of a character from “Queer As Folk”), that goes to an unexpectedly heartbreaking place near the end when Daniel, overtaken by self-loathing, attacks Lance and kills him with a golf club (something the episode tipped would happen at the beginning, but still shocks utterly). It’s playing in dicey territory — the trope of the tragic gay man — but the execution makes it work. “I’d wanted to write a death that feels like a death… in order to tell a death, I’d have to tell the whole life,” Davies said. And he pulled it off.
Lane – “Mad Men”
The most novelistic, and perhaps the best, of the shows of the second Golden Age of Television, “Mad Men” sometimes felt like lots of little tragedies wrapped in one great big tragedy (with the occsaional happy ending too), and few tragedies were as potent as that of Lane Pryce. As played by the great Jared Harris, Lane was a somewhat fusty British executive brought to Sterling Cooper after the company was acquired by PPL. Torn somewhat between the patrician Old World of the UK and the exciting possibilities in New York, he starts to flourish after joining his new friends in starting a new company, becoming a named partner in Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. But over time, his marriage hits trouble, his love for Joan Harris (Christina Hendricks) is never requited, and he hits money troubles, causing him to embezzle from the company, and Lane ends up with his back against the wall. His fraud is uncovered, he’s fired, and he ends up taking his own life in his office (though only after a failed attempt in the unreliable Jaguar that his wife has bought on money they don’t have). Harris’ pitch-perfect performance, and the elements of tragicomedy that were never far from the surface of even “Mad Men”’s most serious moments, makes his passing land with an enormous impact, and his absence is a palpable pain for the rest of the series.
Obviously, these are far from the only shocking TV demises to have made an impact on our fragile psyches over the years. Beyond this, we nearly included British spy series “Spooks” knocking off its best-known actress in the second episode, Dee from “Battlestar Galactica”’s sad self-inflicted end, the early exit of Wild Bill Hickok in “Deadwood,” the drowning of Lisa (Lili Taylor) in “Six Feet Under”, and the death of Pearl Nygaard at the hands of husband Lester (Martin Freeman) in the opening episode of the first run of “Fargo.”
At opposite ends of the spectrum, you also had Sybil in “Downton Abbey” and Tara in “Sons Of Anarchy,” Marissa’s exit in “The O.C,” the early rug-pull reveal of the death of Danny in “Bloodline,” John Locke’s death in “Lost,” a number of kills in “The Walking Dead” but most notably poor Lori, Brody’s end in “Homeland,” Doyle in “Angel,” Jimmy Darmody in “Boardwalk Empire,” Patti’s suicide in “The Leftovers,” Thack’s failed operation in the second season of “The Knick,” Annelise in “The Americans,” John Goodman’s Creighton in “Treme” and Shayla in “Mr. Robot.” Any others? Let us know in the comments.