Joss Whedon

Joyce Summers

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Buffy had always been a show that had death all around it and that was what separated it from the “teen drama” tag for so many years. But in the middle of the fifth season, in an episode titled “The Body,” Buffy returns home to find her mother, Joyce, lifeless on the sofa. A terrifying thought for anyone to imagine happening in their real lives. The episode had about a six minute scene with no cuts of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s grief as she tried to awaken her mother. This would be the only Buffy episode ever with absolutely no action scenes, music or a villain. It was more shocking than when Buffy died herself at the end of that season. An episode so powerful that I wouldn’t even watch it again on a rerun.

Hoban “Wash” Washburne

Firefly & Serenity

I realize that I’m basing this off of a movie and not a TV show, therein kind of breaking my own rules. But it was a film that tied up the series, so I’m going to count it. At the end of Serenity, Wash landed the ship against impossible odds and then was killed by a Reaver harpoon when you thought everything would be okay. A complete shock that had even the most diehard Browncoats’ jaw on the floor.

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http://media.gunaxin.com/fifteen-shocking-deaths-television-history/91757