Television writers love a good gut punch, and nothing rattles an audience quite like losing a character they just started to love. Some shows wait years to pull this move, letting fans settle into false comfort first. Others don’t wait at all, cutting down a fan favorite before the credits even roll on season one, a choice that can define a series for years afterward.
1. House of Cards – Peter Russo (Image Credits: Wikimedia)
Corey Stoll’s Congressman Peter Russo was arguably the emotional center of House of Cards’ debut season, a recovering addict trying to claw his way back to respectability while Frank Underwood quietly used him as a pawn. The angry letters and emails he receives depress him and cause him to lapse into his old habits as an alcoholic and drug abuser, which eventually leads to his neglecting his children. That slow unraveling made Russo feel more human than almost anyone else in Washington’s cold corridors.
Frank ends the arc with brutal efficiency. Frank Underwood drives Russo back to his apartment, shares a brief chat with him in the car before Russo falls asleep, then removes all traces of himself from the car and guides Russo’s finger to the ignition, starting the car, before exiting the garage, closing the door behind him, leaving Russo to suffocate. Stoll’s performance earned real recognition too, since he received a Golden Globe nomination in 2013 for the role. He briefly returned in season four, but only as a hallucination in Frank’s mind, which only underlined how much the show had lost.
2. Arrow – Tommy Merlyn
2. Arrow – Tommy Merlyn (Image Credits: Flickr)
Colin Donnell’s Tommy Merlyn was Oliver Queen’s anchor to his old life, the wisecracking best friend who gave the CW’s brooding vigilante drama some much needed warmth. He was Oliver’s best friend and, along with Laurel Lance, the third corner of a love triangle that just wasn’t working. Rather than simply resolve that romantic tangle quietly, the writers went for something far more permanent.
Malcolm ended up inadvertently killing his own son during his plan to destroy the Glades, when Tommy was impaled on a concrete reinforcement bar in a building collapsed by Merlyn’s earthquake machines. The death landed so hard that the show closed out its freshman season by killing off Oliver’s best friend in particularly heartbreaking fashion, dying while protecting Laurel and holding Oliver’s hand. Tommy occasionally resurfaced in flashbacks and hallucinations over the years, but he stayed dead for seven whole seasons, a lifetime in the Arrowverse, where death is rarely permanent. That absence spoke volumes about how much the show missed him.
3. Stranger Things – Barb Holland
3. Stranger Things – Barb Holland (Image Credits: Flickr)
Shannon Purser’s Barb only had a handful of scenes in Stranger Things’ first season, yet she became one of the most talked about characters on television that year. Barb Holland, the quiet and loyal best friend to the show’s protagonist Nancy Wheeler, wasn’t initially expected to be a central figure. Her low key loyalty and awkward charm made her instantly relatable in a way flashier characters weren’t.
Her exit was as abrupt as her rise was unexpected. The teenager was dragged into the Upside Down and quickly killed by the creature, and the show barely paused to acknowledge it before moving on. That silence backfired spectacularly, since a “Justice for Barb” movement came together after the character was killed, and seemingly forgotten by the town by the end of Stranger Things season 1. The backlash was so significant that it shaped an entire subplot the following year, and Purser herself later earned a Primetime Emmy nomination for outstanding guest actress in a drama series, the only actor to be nominated for that particular trophy from the show.
4. You – Guinevere Beck
4. You – Guinevere Beck (Image Credits: Flickr)
Elizabeth Lail’s Guinevere Beck wasn’t just Joe Goldberg’s obsession in You’s first season, she was effectively the show’s narrative engine, the person whose diary entries and inner thoughts Joe twisted into justification for his stalking. Audiences spent ten episodes watching her navigate a relationship she didn’t realize was a trap, which made her the show’s most sympathetic figure by far. Her arc ends in devastating fashion once she uncovers the truth about the man she’s been dating.
Joe kills his partner, Guinevere Beck, in the final moments of season 1, after she discovers his hidden box of stolen keepsakes from his previous victims. Her death took place off-screen, and Joe framed Dr. Nicky, Beck’s therapist with whom she had an affair, for her murder. Lail has returned in flashbacks and hallucinations across later seasons, including a brief appearance in the show’s 2025 finale season, but Beck as a living character never came back, and the show spent much of its remaining run trying to replicate the chemistry it lost when she was gone.
These four losses share a common thread. Each show found something special in its first season, whether it was a wounded politician, a loyal best friend, or a doomed love interest, and each time the writers decided the story mattered more than keeping that character alive. The shows survived and, in some cases, thrived long afterward. Still, longtime viewers of House of Cards, Arrow, Stranger Things, and You tend to agree that something shifted the moment those characters left, a reminder that the best character in a series isn’t always the one who gets to stick around.
