10 Final TV Seasons That Killed Off Most Of The Main Characters

As a television show draws to an end, its scriptwriters find themselves confronted with the need to tie up any loose narrative threads for their main characters, in order to provide a fitting conclusion and a satisfactory sense of closure. There’s arguably no tidier way to conclude a character’s narrative arc than by killing them off, a tried and tested method of storytelling that lends an inimitable air of finality to proceedings. Accordingly, the final season of a television show presents a prime opportunity to kill off its main characters like no other.

While a host of standout shows killed their main characters early in proceedings and still went on to find great success, many of the best television shows ever conceived prefer to save the most prominent character deaths for their last season. Steadily building to some of the greatest series finales of all time, these fatality-loaded final television seasons have served as an unforgettable vehicle to bring their respective shows to an organic conclusion while killing off most of the main characters to boot.

10 Lost (2004-2010)

Created By Jeffrey Lieber, J.J. Abrams, And Damon Lindelof

Widely regarded as one of the finest and most influential offerings in the history of television, Lost swiftly gained a reputation for a willingness to suddenly dispatch main characters with little to no warning. A fantasy show with a heavy emphasis on mystery element that kept audiences guessing, Lost concluded an explosive six-season run with a final outing that saw long-serving cast members and integral recent main character additions bumped off in merciless fashion.

Elizabeth Mitchell’s acclaimed charge Juliet Burke was the first big name to go, followed by the heartbreaking demise of Daniel Dae-Kim’s Jin-Soo Kwon and Yunjim Kim’s Sun-Hwa Kwon in a flooding submarine. Indispensable fan-favorite Sayid Jarrah died for a second time after being resurrected when he sacrificed himself in a fiery explosion, while even the show’s long-time antagonist The Man in Black found himself caught up in Lost’s ruthless final character cull.

9 Oz (1997-2003)

Created By John Fantana

One of the best HBO original series of all time and notorious for its brutally graphic depiction of incarcerated life, prison drama Oz reflects the unforgiving nature of the environment in which the show is set with an unashamedly murderous final outing. By the time the HBO series’ sixth season rolled to a close, numerous prominent main characters had been dispatched in one gruesome form or another.

Eamonn Walker’s Kareem Saïd was the first to go, before long-serving Oz cast member, Ernie Hudson’s Warden Leo Glynn, was murdered for asking too many questions under the orders of corrupt corrections officer, Adrian Johnson. The show rounded matters off with the demise of J.K. Simmons’ despicable Aryan Brotherhood leader Vernon Schillinger in the series finale Exeunt Omnes to cap one of the most violent conclusive installments ever seen on television.

8 Game of Thrones (2011-2019)

Created By David Benioff And D.B. Weiss

Arguably television’s most preeminent example when it comes to killing off main characters left, right, and center, the climactic season of HBO’s epic fantasy drama Game of Thrones decidedly did not disappoint when it came to the final death tally. Depicting the final showdown against the White Walkers and the battle for control of King’s Landing, Game of Thrones’ main characters dropped like flies as the divisive eighth season played out.

In addition to the demise of long-time supporting main cast members in the vein of Sandor Clegane, Jorah Mormont, and Lord Varys to name but a few, Game of Thrones‘ final season also saw the deaths of series mainstays Jaime and Cersei Lannister in the bowels of King’s Landing. This all came before Jon Snow tearfully dispatched Game of Thrones’most powerful remaining character, the newly despotic Daenaerys Targaryen, to round matters off with a staggering final kill count.

7 Blake’s 7 (1978-1981)

Created By Terry Nation

A low-budget offering from the BBC that has subsequently attained cult classic status, the space opera television showBlake’s 7 is notable for featuring one of the more deadly final seasons in television history. The show began its fourth and final season by bumping off a cast mainstay in Jan Chapelle’s telepathic charge, Cally, a jarring development that proved to be a portentous sign of things to come.

1981’s final season of Blake’s 7 also saw the demise of the show’s titular character. Gareth Thomas’ Roj Blake was killed by Paul Darrow’s Kerr Avon after the latter suspected him of betraying the crew to the Federation, but that was just the headline of the show’s jaw-dropping conclusive episode. Federation agents arriving in the aftermath of Blake’s death proceed to gun down various integral cast members, concluding with a cut to the credits interspersed with gunfire that almost certainly represents Avon’s demise.

6 Spartacus (2010-2013)

Created By Steven S. DeKnight And Sam Raimi

Running from 2010 to 2013 on Starz, Spartacus was one of television’s most consistently underrated offerings, if not the most historically accurate. The sword-and-sandals drama also features one of the bloodiest final seasons in television history with 2013’s War of the Damned. Depicting the heartbreaking collapse of the titular character’s slave uprising, a veritable laundry list of the show’s core characters hit the dust in typically brutal fashion as the Starz series came to a close.

In addition to the heroic death of the show’s eponymous lead protagonist and numerous supporting cast members, War of the Damned sees a host of the show’s mainstay characters meet their ends. Spartacus’ right-hand man Crixus and his lover Naevia both die in harrowing fashion during the final season, while Spartacus prequel star Gannicus finds himself captured and crucified after the rebels are ultimately defeated in the climactic battle.

5 Vikings (2013-2020)

Created By Michael Hirst

Inspired by the sagas of the legendary Viking, Ragnar Lodbrok, Vikings is one of the most successful and long-running historical dramas ever made. Running for six acclaimed seasons between 2013 and 2020, the show’s final season ties up an array of loose narrative threads by killing off a considerable number of main characters. This came of little surprise to anybody familiar with Vikings, a show notorious for killing off its acclaimed main character, Ragnar Lothbrok, in just its fourth season.

Katheryn Winnick’s long-serving shield maiden Lagertha was the first to go, bowing out after being mortally wounded by a delirious Hvitserk. Her son, Bjorn Ironside, would follow soon after when the show resumed following its midseason finale, with his wife, Gunnhild, hot on his heels. Vikings season 6’s ending sees Harald and Ivar the Boneless also meet their ends fighting during the invasion of Wessex, concluding one of the deadliest final seasons television has ever witnessed.

4 The Young Ones (1982-1984)

Created By Ben Elton, Rik Mayall, Lise Mayer, And Alexei Sayle

Given the gloom and doom associated with death as a narrative concept, the lighthearted nature of a sitcom means that they aren’t typically television shows that need to kill off their main characters. As such, the BBC’s 1980s hit The Young Ones is a notable anomaly in the sense that the underrated British sitcom doesn’t just kill off one character in its final season, but instead does away with the entire core cast in one fell swoop.

In keeping with the show’s irreverent tone and offbeat humor,The Young Ones concludes with the four main characters perishing in a farcical bus wreck during the series finale, Summer Holiday. The quartet is last seen falling to their deaths in comical fashion after crashing a double-decker bus into a billboard advertising a Cliff Richards concert, before plunging over the cliff face hidden behind it.

3 Sons of Anarchy (2008-2014)

Created By Kurt Sutter

Kurt Sutter’s Hamlet-meets-Harley-Davidsons crime drama Sons of Anarchy was never afraid to kill off integral characters throughout its acclaimed seven-season run. The deaths of former SAMCRO leader Clay Morrow and Jax’s love interest Tara Knowles in the show’s penultimate season were seismic narrative developments in themselves, but Sutter saved his most shocking character demises for Sons of Anarchy’s climactic chapter.

Before the series’ jaw-dropping conclusion saw Jax finally meet his end beneath the wheels of a semi-truck, Sons of Anarchy’s final season proceeded to kill off as many main characters as possible. “Juice” Ortiz was viciously murdered in prison, while Bobby Munson also met a violent demise, courtesy of the season’s chief antagonist, August Marks. Throw in the deaths of Katie Sagal’s Gemma Teller-Morrow and Dayton Callie’s Wayne Unser at the hands of a vengeful Jax, and it’s remarkable that anybody was left standing by the time the credits rolled.

2 The Umbrella Academy (2019-2024)

Created By Steve Blackman

Following three well-received seasons of television, positive reviews for Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy largely fell off a cliff with the show’s fourth and final season. This likely had something to do with the controversial decision to conclude matters with a seemingly lazy piece of script writing, an irredeemably gloomy ending that saw every single Umbrella Academy main character on the show die in a world-ending event dubbed “the Cleanse.”

In an effort to fix the show’s countless broken timelines and remove the potential for future apocalypses, the main characters took the unenviable decision to sacrifice themselves for the good of the universe.The Umbrella Academy season 4 concludes with every single main character wiped from existence, leading to a deeply unsatisfactory ending for what was once one of Netflix’s most promising television shows in the eyes of many fans.

1 Rome (2005-2007)

Created By John Milius, William J. MacDonald, And Bruno Heller

While the historical drama Rome was originally envisioned to run for longer than two seasons, the HBO show made up for a shorter run time by killing off as many of its main characters in the second and final season as possible. Chronicling the aftermath of Julius Caesar’s assassination and concluding with historical developments in Egypt, Rome’s climactic season saw the death of one-half of the show’s leading duo, as Kevin McKidd’s Lucius Vorenus apparently died during the final episode.

McKidd’s stoic soldier wasn’t the only notable casualty of Rome‘s final season. Prominent cast members in the vein of Cicero, Cassius, and Brutus all found themselves on the chopping block as the narrative progressed, even before the death of James Purefoy’s Mark Antony. A key main character on the show since Rome’s beginning, Antony kills himself with the help of Vorenus following Cleopatra’s purported suicide after the Battle of Actium. By the time the final credits roll, Ray Stevenson’s iconic Titus Pullo is one of Rome’s few main characters left standing.