You'll Never Recover from These Seriously Devastating TV Character Deaths

Nina Sergeevna Krilova from The Americans

By the time Nina was killed in the fourth season of The Americans, she had become one of the show’s most sympathetic and dynamic characters. The distressing sequence depicted the Russian officer as she was marched to a sterile room and shot in the back of the head. Nina’s death felt sudden and informal—the audience had just about as much time to brace themselves as Nina did.

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The More You Know

  • For a long time, TV producers were hesitant to kill off main characters. The drama/comedy show M*A*S*H, set during the Korean War, broke through that barrier in "Abyssinia/Henry," when Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake's plane was shot down.
  • The Mary Tyler Moore Show: Valerie Harper almost didn't get the part of Rhoda because she was too "attractive." Apparently the producers had someone more "unkempt" in mind.
  • Married... With Children (and Modern Family): Ed O'Neill's characters on both shows can be seen reading the same newspaper.
  • The popular kids' show Sesame Street has been teaching kids lessons about numbers, vocabulary, and kindness for 50 years.
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