Written by Eliza Mohan. Published: January 17 2026<\/p>\n
(Photo:
\nHulu)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Television
\ncharacters come and go, some fade out, and some are struck down
\non-screen. There are a variety of reasons why characters are killed
\noff, and even more ways that the deed is done, but some character
\ndeaths really stick with you. Some character deaths hurt like hell,
\nbut you know they had to happen for the show to go on and for the
\ncharacters to grow. The ones that you just can\u2019t shake, though, are
\nthe ones that feel unnecessary within the context of the show and
\ndisconnected from the plot, whether it’s because the actor left or
\nthe writers made a poor decision. Here are 5 TV character deaths
\nthat feel completely unnecessary.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
*Spoilers for
\nThe 100, Veronica Mars, The Vampire Diaries, Killing Eve, and Buffy
\nthe Vampire Slayer.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
1.
\nLexa from “The 100”<\/p>\n
No list of \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n 2. Few series \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n 3. “The Vampire \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n 4. When Lexa \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n 5. Speaking of \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Written by Eliza Mohan. Published: January 17 2026 (Photo: Hulu) \u00a0 Television characters come and go, some fade…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[146,85,46,411],"class_list":{"0":"post-243805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nundeserved character deaths would be complete without Lexa
\n(Alycia Debnam-Carey<\/a>)
\nfrom CW\u2019s “The 100”. A fan favorite character who first appeared in
\nSeason 2 of the hit series, Lexa was a groundbreaking character for
\nthe queer community as she sparked a romance with the lead
\ncharacter Clarke (Eliza Taylor<\/a>),
\nthereby confirming her queerness and Clarke\u2019s bisexuality. As the
\nyoung leader of her people, Lexa was fiercely strong and capable,
\nwhich made her death all the more shocking. Moments after reuniting
\nwith Clarke, Lexa was killed by a stray bullet to her stomach. In a
\nshow where characters can be stabbed straight through by a spear
\nand survive, this felt like an affront to the LGBTQ viewers who
\nfelt seen by Lexa\u2019s strength.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nLogan from “Veronica Mars”<\/p>\n
\nhave tarnished their legacies quite like “Veronica Mars”. “Veronica
\nMars” originally ran from 2004-2007 before it was abruptly
\ncancelled, only to return for a crowd-funded movie in 2014 and a
\nfourth (and, so far, final) season in 2019. After 4 seasons of
\nbuildup saw the titular Veronica (Kristen Bell<\/a>) and her
\nreformed bad boy boyfriend Logan Echolls (Jason Dohring<\/a>) tie
\nthe knot, Logan is suddenly killed off-screen by a bomb left behind
\nby a killer who had already been brought to justice. His death is
\ndeeply shocking, and it serves no narrative purpose, adding a sour
\nand depressing final note to the series as Veronica drives off,
\nseemingly forever alone. Logan went through years and years of
\ncharacter development and growth to get to the point he reached in
\nSeason 4, and the idea that he will never reap the rewards of that
\nwork is too dark of a thought for a teen detective show from the
\nearly-2000s.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nEnzo from “The Vampire Diaries”<\/p>\n
\nDiaries” is quite familiar with character deaths, but killing
\nsomeone off without even a hint of resurrection is a rarity.
\nUnfortunately, this was the case with the vampire Enzo (Michael Malarkey<\/a>),
\nwho became a consistent character in the later seasons of “The
\nVampire Diaries”. Enzo becomes even more relevant when he falls in
\nlove with the witch Bonnie Bennet (Kat Graham<\/a>), a
\ncharacter who was infamously mistreated and deprioritized. Their
\nrelationship makes it feel like Bonnie is finally allowed to be
\nhappy and that someone sees her for the incredible person she is.
\nThat is, until Enzo gets his heart ripped out by a humanity-less
\nStefan (Paul Wesley<\/a>). Stefan
\nis ultimately forgiven, and Enzo is treated like an unimportant
\ncasualty even as his death gives you a sense that Bonnie lost her
\nsoulmate. Enzo\u2019s death was clearly an attempt to raise the stakes,
\nbut the emotional consequences clearly ran deeper than what was
\nexpected.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nVillanelle from “Killing Eve”<\/p>\n
\ndied on “The 100”, it caused a reckoning as audiences realized how
\nmany lesbian characters are killed off without a second thought.
\nThat\u2019s why it was so disappointing when, years later, Villanelle
\n(Jodie Comer) was killed off in the series finale
\nof “Killing Eve”. Much like the other entries on this list,
\nVillanelle was finally happy, as she found her ending in the arms
\nof Eve (Sandra Oh), the woman she had hunted (and
\nbeen hunted by) for all 4 seasons. The two had found safety in each
\nother despite their violent instincts, which made it all the more
\ndisappointing when seasons of slow burning between the two women
\nended in bloodshed as Villanelle was shot and killed. This death
\nproved that it will take a lot more than a trend for LGBTQ women to
\nbe treated fairly on television.<\/p>\n
\nAnya from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”<\/p>\n
\nlesbian character deaths on TV, Tara (Amber
\nBenson) from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” certainly makes
\nthat list. However, it was ex-demon Anya\u2019s (Emma Caulfield
\nFord) death in the series finale that felt like a true
\npunch to the gut. Anya was a part of the ensemble cast from Season
\n4 to Season 7, going from demon to human to demon and then back to
\nhuman over that time. She was unceremoniously killed off the last
\nact of the finale, providing nothing new to the episode other than
\na bad taste in your mouth.\u00a0<\/p>\n