Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for multiple HBO shows.
Widely regarded as the home of premiere television, fantasy titans like Game of Thrones to criminally underrated dark comedies like Barry, HBO is also notorious for killing off important characters in jarring fashion at the drop of a hat, with no shortage of examples of iconic deaths that shocked us all.
HBO's propensity for mercilessly killing its characters off has led to some of the most unexpected, disturbing, and straight-up shocking deaths of all time. As such, it might be advisable not to get too attached to your latest favorite character in a great HBO show, as there's a fairly high chance that you might have to watch them die in spectacular fashion further down the line.
12 Ashtray
Euphoria: Season 2, Episode 8, "All My Life, My Heart Has Yearned For A Thing I Cannot Name"
One of HBO's most polarizing offerings to date, Euphoria has produced a litany of shocking scenes across a two-season run. However, while the show is notorious for its unflinchingly graphic depictions of mature subject matter, the teen drama's most jaw-dropping moment to date arguably came with the death of Javon Walton's Ashtray in the second season finale.
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Gunned down in a shootout during a SWAT raid, Fez's adopted "little brother" met his end in absolutely heart-rending style. Barricading himself into a bathroom before wounding an officer with a shotgun, Ashtray's actions had sealed his fate on paper. However, it didn't make the visual of the gun's laser sight lined up on his young forehead any less distressing, even with the camera cutting away before a single shot rings out.
11 Chelsea
The White Lotus: Season 3, Episode 8, "Amor Fati"
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- Showrunner
- Mike White
Anthology series The White Lotus may just have produced its most shocking season to date with the recent conclusion of the show's latest installment, which contains what is arguably its most jarring death. Aimee Lou Wood's Chelsea had swiftly developed into a fan-favorite character throughout her time on the show, something that meant her jarring fate landed with a considerable amount of emotional heft.
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Wood's charge met her end in the third season finale's deadly shootout, killed in the crossfire after her boyfriend, Rick Hatchett, murdered Jim Hollinger in a fit of fury. The White Lotus has featured several surprising deaths across three seasons, but Chelsea's tragic demise trumps the borderline slapstick ends of Tanya or Armond, courtesy of just how upsetting it comes across.
10 Niobe
Rome: Season 1, Episode 12, "Kalends Of February"
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Brought to life by Game of Thrones' Indira Varma, Niobe was the ill-fated wife of Rome's deuteragonist, Lucius Vorenus, left to care for their children while he was away at war. Incorrectly informed that her husband was killed in action, Niobe engaged in an affair with her brother-in-law and bore him a son. However, Kevin McKidd's charge duly returned home, forcing Varma's charge to the child off as Vorenus' grandson.
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However, with a war-weary Lucius transitioning back to some semblance of normal civilian life, it looked like Niobe's deception had actually worked, and for the best, to boot. Unfortunately, this made it all the more tragic when she found herself an inadvertent pawn in the plot to assassinate Julius Caesar, with Vorenus informed of the truth to lure him away from the would-be dictator's side. Confronted by her devastated husband, Niobe hurls herself from a balcony rather than face his wrath to conclude Rome's first season in shocking style.
9 Jimmy Darmody
Boardwalk Empire: Season 2, Episode 12, "To The Lost"
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Boardwalk Empire
- Release Date
- 2010 - 2014-00-00
- Showrunner
- Terence Winter
WHERE TO WATCH
While Terence Winter has maintained that Michael Pitt's Jimmy Darmody was always meant to die at Nucky Thompson's hands, the seemingly rushed manner of his death in Boardwalk Empire's second season finale still felt notably sudden. Nucky's one-time protégé, the period crime-drama had initially positioned Pitt's intense charge as an integral character during its early goings.
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However, after their relationship duly soured, Jimmy found himself being gunned down by his former mentor to put an end to his schemings. Informing Steve Buscemi's charge that he "died" during his service in the First World War, Darmody is finished off brutally with two bullets to the face. It's never been expressly confirmed why Pitt left Boardwalk Empire so abruptly, but Darmody's fate remains one of HBO's most surprising character deaths to this day.
8 Lucerys Velaryon
House Of The Dragon: Season 1, Episode 10, "The Black Queen"
Following in the vein of its predecessor, Game of Thrones, spin-off prequel, House of the Dragon, concluded its debut season with a shocking character death that would likely have come completely out of left field for anybody unfamiliar with George R.R. Martin's source material. This took the form of Lucerys Velaryon, torn to shreds by Vhagar along with his dragon, Arrax, in the season finale.
1 Small Lucerys Detail Makes His Fate So Much Worse
The upsetting fate of Prince Lucerys Velaryon is made far more tragic by a small scene with Jacaerys in House of the Dragon's season 1 finale.
Even for viewers who knew what was coming, the show provided a stunning twist on Fire and Blood's canon by having the character die in what appeared to be an accident; in Martin's version, there's nothing unintentional about Aemond's involvement in Lucerys' death. In any case, Velaryon's gruesome slaying marked the show's most shocking moment to date in blockbuster style.
7 Janice Moss
Barry: Season 1, Episode 8, "Chapter Eight: Know Your Truth"
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- Showrunner
- Alec Berg
Led by a standout Bill Hader performance, Barry served as one of HBO's most consistently underrated offerings throughout its four-season run. Unsurprisingly for a show about a hit man, the first season featured a high body count, but everything appeared to have worked out for what seemed like a relatively upbeat conclusion for the central characters by the time the finale rolled around.
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Tragically, that made the horrifying loss of Paula Newsome's Detective Janice Moss all the more jaw-dropping, a moment that would have seismic ramifications for the show moving forward. Despite Barry's attempts at a fresh start, Hader's charge was forced to murder Moss on a getaway with their respective partners after she surmised his identity, concluding the first season with a stunning cliffhanger death for the ages.
6 Wallace
The Wire: Season 1, Episode 12, "Cleaning Up"
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- Showrunner
- David Simon
From Stringer Bell to Omar Little, HBO's acclaimed crime drama The Wire set a new bar for shocking and unexpected character deaths on television across a five-season run. However, there's an argument to be made that it never produced a demise that trumped the end of young drug dealer, Wallace, in the first season's penultimate episode. Brought to life by a baby-faced Michael B. Jordan, Wallace was marked for death after turning police informant.
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It's the harrowing manner of Wallace's final moments that makes his death one of HBO's most infamously unexpected ends, with Jordan's young charge betrayed and murdered by his own friends, Poot and Bodie. Ignoring Wallace's tearful pleas for mercy, the two execute the young man without any remorse. The Wire garnered a reputation for some of television's bleakest moments, but few come close to trumping this character's stunning end.
5 Logan Roy
Succession: Season 4, Episode 3, "Connor's Wedding"
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- Showrunner
- Jesse Armstrong
The prospect of Logan Roy's looming death cast a perpetual shadow over the entirety of Succession's four-season run, speaking volumes to the shocking nature of his eventual demise that it still left the audience's jaws on the floor when it eventually arrived. Casting the Roy family into disarray, Bryan Cox's ruthless charge finally bowed out after suffering a heart attack on his private plane.
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In the end, despite his reputation as a seemingly omnipotent figure, there's nothing spectacular about the manner of Logan's end; something that somehow renders the final moments of one of the most important men on the planet all the more shocking. The final season had appeared set for an epic showdown between Logan and his children, only for the showrunners to yank the rug out from beneath its viewers in jarring fashion.
4 Adriana La Cerva
The Sopranos: Season 5, Episode 12, "Long Term Parking"
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- Showrunner
- David Chase
As with many iconic crime dramas, the charming and colorful nature of The Sopranos' crime family frequently lures viewers into forgetting that these individuals are actually violent, amoral criminals. As such, the harrowing moments where our purported protagonists highlight the extent of their true, sinister nature can often come across as indescribably shocking, with Adriana La Cerva's appalling death in season 5 serving as a prime example.
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Chris' fiancée signed her death warrant the moment she became an FBI informant, but her fate still comes across as one of the show's most jarring and disturbing moments. Tricked into getting into a car with Silvio and driven deep into the woods, audiences can literally see the harrowing moment Adriana realises that she is going to die. Drea de Matteo's character is then dragged screaming from the car, before Silvio executes her offscreen as she desperately crawls away on her hands and knees.
3 Ned Stark
Game Of Thrones: Season 1, Episode 9, "Baelor"
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Game Of Thrones
- Release Date
- 2011 - 2019-00-00
- Showrunner
- David Benioff, D.B. Weiss
WHERE TO WATCH
While Game of Thrones became renowned for a willingness to kill off significant characters at the drop of a hat during the show's run, this state of affairs arguably didn't begin in earnest until it delivered its most shocking moment in the first season's penultimate episode, "Baelor." Despite his purported main character status for anybody unfamiliar with George R.R. Martin's novels, there would prove to be no last-minute reprieve for Ned Stark
Setting a new bar for jaw-dropping deaths on television, Sean Bean's character lost his head before a baying crowd as his daughters watched in horror. Killing off the purported main character of the burgeoning show before the first season had even ended came completely out of left field for new viewers, highlighting in sharp relief that absolutely no one was safe moving forward.
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