The mightier the villain does not always mean the mightier the hero. Here are 26 fictional characters who met their demise thanks to an unassuming foe.
[Ed. note: This story was originally published in April 2016 with the headline “26 unexpected assassins,” but we discovered a Mandela Effect situation in regards to our claim that Frankie Muniz’s character provided a fatal blow in 2006's Stay Alive. We maintain our disbelief that the visor-wearing Swink managed to survive Countess Bathory’s attack and save the actual hero of the movie.]
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I love the Janis/Richie scene. The look of shock on his face second after being shot is brilliant.
Richie Aprile also produced one of the best Sopranos lines ever:T: “I thought I told you to back the fuck off Beansie.”
Richie: “I did. Then I put it in drive.”
That second season is just fucking brilliant. So many memorable moments.Later that same episode I love Tony coming facing-to-face with Livia again and when she wants a hug randomly in the middle of her self-indulgent tangent and Tony looks dazed and shocked and can only say “what??”
Honestly, each of the Big Bads in the first four seasons of The Sopranos (the Liv/Jun tandem in S1, Richie Aprile in S2, and Ralph Cifaretto in S3/S4) were brilliant in their own special ways: Liv heaping on guilt while pulling the strings on behalf of Corrado (who even then was sliding into insanity), Richie being the total liability who didn’t understand how things had changed since his day, and Ralphie being the loose cannon that got results…but would occasionally kill a dancer at the Bing, get Chris-tuh-fuh on harder drugs, and whack a beautiful innocent creature because your nephew was an idiot.(Then you get the Class of ’04 and the emergence of Janice, but that’s another story.)
My favorite was early on:
Jewish guy: For two years, 900 Jews held their own against 15,000 Romans. They chose death before enslavement. The Romans? Where are they now?
Tony: You’re fuckin looking at them, asshole.
It’s a mixture of “Sweetheart, how could you?” and “I’m going out at the hands of a WOMAN?!”
He hadn’t been that shocked since he found out Tony had given away his prized leather jacket to his maid’s husband.
Da jaaaaaackkkket
Ralphie had a pretty shocking death too.Which character was better, Ralphie or Richie? Not in a moral sense, but in a character richness, part of the cast sense.
I’d say it was a tie, because Ralph burned twice as long while Richie burned twice as bright. But you can’t deny that they both posed their own special liability to the DiMeo family.
I’d go with Ralphie. He was a sick, twisted, awful person especially for what he did to Tracee and their unborn baby but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find him to be funny and charismatic. Richie was so rigidly old school and quick tempered and easily offended like when Tony wouldn’t wear the jacket that I always just found him completely unlikable. Especially for what he did to Beansie for no reason other than feeling disrespected.
It seems strange to me that Ralphie has impregnated people on multiple occasions, given what we learned about him later on in the run.
And could there be a better name for an actor playing a gangster than “Joey Pants?”
Ralphie. I remember that “Day in the life” episode about that young Stripper, where he forced the girl into a toilet stall threesome, and then he said: “What, are you gonna cry about it?” (Also worth mentioning: the other guy saying “Watch the braces.”)Never wanted anyone to die that much from then on. Guy was a perfect shit heel.
“I have to start taking care of you for the baby. If it’s a boy, we’ll name him Ralph after me. If it’s a girl, we’ll name her Tracee after you, this way she can grow up to be a c*ck-sucking slob just like her mother.”Just a terrible human being. But like I said in another comment he was charismatic. And a good earner which is really all Tony *should* care about as the boss as messed up as that is. But he let it get personal first with Valentina and then with Pie Oh My. And also with Janice too I suppose.
There have been few characters whose death pleased me as much as Ralphie after what he did to that girl (and Pie-Oh-My, for that matter!). Seriously, fuck that toupee-wearing prick.
Loved the decapited head slipping out of the toupee, Ralphie was literally good for a laugh to the very end.
And when Christopher was surprised to learn he wore a toupee, Tony said “You’re so high on scag, you wouldn’t know if he had your mother’s muff on his head.”
So satisfying. I loved Janice as a character.
I loved the little smile that crossed Tony’s face when he looked at the body.
I need to rewatch Sopranos. Haven’t seen it since it originally aired, but what a classic show.
Also the fact that she is reading a magazine called New Jersey Bride is F’ing priceless
God, Lindsey was the best. He’d thought himself Angel’s great rival, was convinced it’d end with them going at it and he’s less afraid of death and going ‘No…not YOU…Angel…ANGEL is supposed to kill me!” Really, the idea he was just too beneath Angel’s notice to bump off was hysterical.
It actually pissed me off that Angel had Lindsey whacked like that. My understanding was that Angel and Lindsey had an understanding with each other, so the idea that Angel would have him murdered so dispassionately, shocked me and made me see Liam in a whole new light: a disappointing coward.Never recovered from it. Fuck Angel.
That’s just it, Lindsey thought they had that understanding but he didn’t grasp that Angel (a guy who has literally been to Hell and back) doesn’t consider some lawyer a great mortal enemy to respect and such. He had more on his plate taking out the Circle and fighting off the Partners unleashing Hell, Lindsey was just a minor concern. That’s Whedon, the master of upending the expected cliches of the genre.
Oh, for me it’s not even about the fact that Lindsey had built himself up to be more important than he was. I get that Angel had better things to do, it’s just that he made such a big to do about being honorable, and fighting the good fight, but it turned out he was less honorable than Wolfram and Hart (who after all had honored every one of their deals.)I also think Xander should have been lynched for telling Buffy to “Kick [Angel’s] ass for me!” in Buffy’s season 2 finale leading to her killing him and being traumatized. Gile’s snuffing Ben while he couldn’t move to get at Glory was also bullshit. Really, all the good guys in the Whedon-verse are such self-righteous assholes.
Wasn’t the point of the Giles snuffing Ben thing that Giles didn’t consider himself a ‘good guy’ and he wanted to prevent Buffy from having to make that choice so she could stay morally good.
Who cares about his reasoning? It was wrong. If you have to kill an innocent person to get at your target, then you’re effectively making yourself a part of the problem.
That’s kind of the point though, he allready sees himself as a bad guy because of his ripper days that he’s not seeing it as a ‘good guy killing a bad guy’ he’s seeing it as a ‘badguy killing a worse guy’From an objective point you can argue weather it’s right or wrong, but that doesn’t really matter as much as the charecter’s thoughts being consistent.
The entire point of saving Dawn was that she was an innocent person caught up in supernatural circumstances. For the purpose of the story, Dawn and Ben were effectively the same thing: Two artificial humans made to serve a purpose they wanted nothing to do with. Why did Giles fight so hard to protect Dawn, only to turn around and snuff Ben at the first opportunity? Because Ripper is a hypocrite and his cause is shit.
“Why did Giles fight so hard to protect Dawn, only to turn around and snuff Ben at the first opportunity?”Has it been a while since you saw the episode? Before they went to fight Glory, Giles was arguing – hard – that they must consider killing Dawn to save the world, that they might have no other choice. His killing of Ben was completely in line with that (and he probably would have killed Dawn if he had been up there at the end instead of Buffy).Hell, Buffy herself made the same decision in ‘Becoming part 2’ – and tried to in ‘Selfless’.
Ah, I stand corrected then. Giles not only executes his prisoners, he’ll also stick’n’twist the kiddies if circumstances demand it. Remember when he rebelled against the council and its Ends justify the means mentality? Remember how it was lauded as a good thing? It’s really sad that he ended up becoming just as bad as his predecessors.I’d like to remind you though, that I’m not saying that Giles is tonally inconsistent: I’m saying he’s a terrible person.
The point was to show that despite the black and white morality a series with world-devouring evil types implies, the good guy/bad guy duality isn’t really how the world works. Giles’ and Angel’s pragmatism in those scenes isn’t supposed to be clearly “good” or “bad,” but a shade of gray. And in Angel’s case it showed that he was at least partially morally compromised by the position Wolfram & Hart put him in, which was kind of their goal from the start.
If protecting the people you care about by making the difficult choices makes you a terrible person I hope the world is full of them. Giles is a pragmatist and without him the Scoobies would be dead a hundred times over.BTW when he rebelled against the council it was because the tradition of making the slayer powerless was archaic, eroded important trust between slayer and watcher, and Buffy had already proven the abilities it was supposed to test. That wasn’t a repudiation of “ends justify the means.” That was him telling them that they were out of touch.
I also recall in Season 7’s “Lies My Parents Told Me,” Giles asks Buffy if, knowing what she knows now, she would have made the same choice to save Dawn then. Buffy herself agrees that she would, if necessary, let her die.
Because Dawn didn’t keep turning into a psychopathic god and killing people? He was doing it in a ‘what needs to be done’ fashion because if he didn’t, Ben would go back to being Glory and kill Buffy, or Buffy would end up having to kill Ben.
What is your alternative that Giles should have done here? Let Ben go, then have the world wiped out by Glory? Cause that was kind of the alternative.
Was it? How do we know? People change all the time. In that show, we already had three examples of murderers becoming allies: Anya, Angel, Spike. Andrew too, later on. If you Jack Bauer all your potential enemies, all you’ll be left with are your actual enemies.Besides that, punishing people for things they might do is apparently a bad thing, as was recently hammered into me during a discussion I had about how people would realistically behave if inhumans were real, a couple weeks ago on these boards.
“Besides that, punishing people for things they might do is apparently a bad thing,”
No shit, Giles was being bad when he killed Ben, he explicitly calls himself out for being a bad person when he does it. He says Buffy is a hero and he isn’t. And that’s why he’s the one to kill Ben. Because he’s not a hero, he’s a bad person and he’s doing a bad thing. It’s the entire point of that scene. You’re not supposed to look at Giles in that scene as a hero doing good.” Glory will reemerge and make Buffy pay for that mercy, and the world with her. Buffy even knows that, and still she couldn’t take a human life. She’s a hero, you see. She’s not like us.”They could not spell it out any more.
You’re not supposed to look at Giles in that scene as a hero doing good.Cool, I don’t. Why do you keep reinforcing a point we already agree on? Going to sleep now.
I guess I’ll ask the question people seem to be circling in this argument: given everyone’s agreement that Giles is…let’s just say “morally ambiguous” and let the individual parishioner place him on the higher or lower end of that spectrum…is that a feature or a bug of the show for you?I for one think it made for interesting television and shows how Giles’ whole approach to Watching was “Take a load off Buffy and you put the load right on me,” which in the next season he figures is actually holding her back.
That was favorite scene of whole series, to be honest. Giles laying bare that it not as simple as good and evil, that difficult choices have to be made, that he will go to these lengths to protect Buffy… and you not see any of it coming until those last four words. Terrific writing by Whedon.
“The world needs bad men. We keep other bad men from the door.” — Rupert Giles
Um, dude, Ben was kind of participating in and helping Glory out at the end. You could day it was Glory’s influence or losing his mind, but Ben’s deal? We don’t know what Ben’s deal is at all, except for that he can turn into a petty, angry, virtually-indestructible god who just lost the only thing she values.Glory wasn’t gonna do anything but kill Buffy’s people and probably make life as miserable for humans as possible.
And we also saw Ben summon a demon who killed crazy people, to cover up for Glory. He was not innocent.
so you’re saying glory could have had a change of heart? c’mon,guy.
Ben wasn’t innocent. He had switched sides to actively help Glory.
Wait, Ben is Glory?
You’re saying Ben and Glory are connected?
Wait… there’s some connection between Ben and Glory?!?
Is everyone here VERY stoned?
“Innocent person?” Be was no innocent. Remember when he summoned a demon that fell from the sky, then went around killing mentally ill people, almost killing Buffy’s mother (who thought the demon wasn’t real, just a hallucination caused by her brain tumor? Ben summoned that demon, thus causing the deaths of several actually innocent people, just to cover up for Glory.He was no innocent. His death was well-earned.
If you have to kill an innocent person to get at your target, then you’re effectively making yourself a part of the problem.This is true in our world. In a world where a malevolent god can bodily coexist with a human, the moral calculus is different.
All those examples you give are exactly the point.
1) Angel isn’t a squeaky clean hero. He’s a redeemed villain. Expecting him to play by the complete book of hero rules is a mistake and Lindsey had it a long time coming.
2) Agreed that Zander is a total douche there. In his defence he’s also a teenage boy who happens to be jealous, scared and genuinely angry about Angel murdering people he cares about (Miss Calendar.) He never really repairs a relationship with Angel but does with Buffy. I guess all the characters get second chances in the show. Willow and Buffy both kinda threaten the whole world at certain points with their behaviour.
3)I really think you missed the point with Giles. He is SPECIFICALLY the right person to murder Ben because nobody else will. He sees what needs to be done. Realising that none of the “good” characters will do, he kills an innocent. You’re upset that a character who has a history of demon worship can see the big picture enough to kill an innocent and thereby save the ones he loves and the entire world.I think it’s worth pointing out that this idea of honest nobility is a very modern concept. A Greek hero murders (and sometimes rapes) their way across the world. The heroic actions are leavened with crimes great and small. Most Arthurian type heroes only show honour to other nobles. When it comes to peasants, much like samurai, they were pretty quick with a sword if someone crossed the street a little too slowly for their liking.
All right. I don’t like it, but that is a good response.
This is why I couldn´t get into the Iliad. It starts with one of the heroes whining that another of the heroes has stolen hs sex slave. No one is arguing that no one should have sex slaves.
If you’re a Utilitarian philosopher, all of the actions you criticized were the correct moral choices. Perhaps morality is not as cut and dried as you believe….
Not that Xander was doing it for noble motives, but Buffy would have needed to kill Angel regardless.
The Xander thing really gets me, too.
This is why I was happy that Buffy actually called him out on it in season seven when Anya became a vengeance demon again.
Gile’s snuffing Ben while he couldn’t move to get at Glory was also bullshit.
Nope. We knew who Giles was (The Ripper) before that. It only fits that he’d be the one to come in and do that knowing Buffy couldn’t bring herself to kill an innocent.Had that been the show’s series finale, it would have been a perfect fit.
It’s important to note Angel actually gave Lindsey one last chance to be a good guy.In the finale Angel asks Lindsey for help with killing the Circle. Lindsey agrees (because he’s had a raging boner for Capt. Forehead since the pilot), and then Angel asks him “why?” Why
join the good guys in their final stand? Lindsey says something like “it’ll be fun” and Angel turns away from Lindsey (toward the camera) and has this expression like “that was the wrong answer, dude”Anyway, I loved that moment, among many others. The moral? Watch Angel.
I love when Angel referred to him as “The Tiny Texan.” Also, that sign he put on his pickup…
“I’m glad we didn’t have to be immature”…”COPS SUCK”
At the time, I didn’t see the point of Lindsey being killed. I’ll have to rewatch the episode, because I still don’t. It certainly pissed me off. Most of the characters I liked ended up dead, in fact!
Don’t get me wrong, I would have loved to seen Lindsey redeemed, but it fit the morally gray tone of the series. However, Angel was tying up loose ends and Lindsey was a loose end.Just the fact that it was Lorne who did it was the killer.
It was just so tragic how Lorne, the only character of the main cast who hadn’t really succumbed to the darkness, was just broken by his experiences working for Wolfram and Hart, and then the final straw comes as Angel asks him to commit murder by betraying someone who was in fact working with them at the time, no matter how untrustworthy he was. The final “goodnight, folks” is just brutal.
A while ago it occurred to me that an alternate interpretation of that scene was that Angel had been using Lorne as a hitman for a significant portion of S5. By the end of S4 Lorne was pretty firmly on the side of heroes, but once he joined W&H he really steered into his role more than the rest of the gang, and didn’t help a whole lot with the cases of the week. If his schmoozing and separation from the group and the spotlight was to get access to targets, it would make a bit more sense, and would fit with Angel’s chessmaster characterization he ends the series with. Lorne’s not much of a warrior/fighter, but when no one expects you to be packing a gun and silencer, you don’t really have to be.Of course, cold-blooded murder is very anti-Lorne (“it’s unsavory”), and straight-up betrayal of a (temporary) ally is what finally broke the camel’s back – “One last job.”
My heart fucking broke for Lorne in that scene. It was cruel of Angel to ask him to do it, and I don’t blame Lorne for walking away afterwards.
It’s been awhile since I’ve seen the show, but Lorne got crapped on quite a bit as a I remember. The only ones that didn’t really treat him awful were Cordy or Fred and, well…
It’s such a great move that Angel made in Season 5, but every time I think about it, I just say: these guys are f—king stupid, they’re going to be inside WR&H all the time? They’re gonna do all this work in person and not through subordinates (poor Fred)? That’s a suicide pact, and they don’t really acknowledge it.Of all them, Lorne has the least logical reason to do it – which makes it sting the most – but from the beginning, he claims to be jumping right in for the venal pleasure of being with the movers and shakers… I should hate the writers for this, and for claiming that they’d let one of their brains get altered, but S5 is so entertaining, I can’t feel very bothered about it.
The first few episodes of the season showed that they couldn’t use subordinates. Too many of them poisoned by the (evil) culture of WR&H, or trying to gain more power for themselves. At the same time, Team Angel had to keep them around to keep things going. (The staff could be trusted for the small things, but not the important ones.)It wasn’t emphasized by the show, but the power from that office was there, and it was going to be used. The choices were for Angel, et. al. to try to mold it into a tool for good, or let someone else inherit the reigns who would definitely use it for evil.Early in the season, Angel was actively trying to bankrupt the firm, by killing the evil clients and not making money. I think it was Eve who pointed out that instead of letting the power dribble away (to keep it out of evil hands), maybe Angel should take a shot at using it to tackle the problems that were too big for anyone else.
Yup, it was almost the exact opposite of Giles killing Ben.Giles knew Buffy wouldn’t be able to bring herself to kill an “innocent” so he stepped in to clean up.Meanwhile Angel was too preoccupied with larger threats to take care of Lindsey, so he asks Lorne (who knew it had to be done but hated it) to do the thing for him.Doesn’t Lorne also tell Angel straight up “After this I’m done.” Before we fully know what was asked of him, but that line hits hard in the aftermath as well.
This thread is the best. People still arguing about Buffy/Angel is one of my favorite things about AV Club.
It’s a great early example of internet culture. The random troll who decides they’re a key part of some famous person’s life suddenly shocked to learn they have no idea who he is.
I’d throw in the Witch King of Angmar, the deadliest of the Nazgul, so proud of himself, taking out numerous warriors and a king, dismissing his latest attacker as an idiot as “no man can harm me.” He ends up stabbed in the leg by a hobbit and then the attacker pulling off the helmet. “I am no MAN” and stabbing him in the face.
It’s a good ironic death, but Pippin Merry and Eowyn are hardasses in their own right, and perfectly suited to kill a cocky cock like that.Also, the avclub has grossly misread the themes of Lord of the Rings. It’s not luck that destroys the Ring – the Ring (like Sauron) brings about its own destruction by its own evil power. The books are more about the shortsightedness and internal discord of evil than its power.
It took me years of re-reads (so, like, before I was 14) before it hit me that the Hobbits were the best ringbearers, because they were the slowest to be corrupted by it. It took one viewing to notice that Peter Jackson missed pretty much every theme. I would also describe Gollum as 2/3 crackhead.
And it’s a testament to how evil the Ring was, that even Frodo is corrupted in the end. He bears the Ring for three whole books and breaks right before he can do it.
It probably didn’t help that the damn thing gets stronger the closer to the goal they get.
There is a moment in the second book where he watches the Witch King and the army leave Minas Morgul and thinks to himself that he needs to hide because he didn’t have enough power to stand up to the Witch King, yet. To me that pretty much says that by then the Ring of Power was affecting Frodo; he was waiting until the time was right to claim the power.
Me thought Jackson made it pretty explicit that Hobbits were best ring bearers because they were unambitious and prized comfort instead of riches or glory. Me pretty sure Gandalf says that out loud at one point.
Elrond points it out just before the Council, doesn’t he?
Yeah, I never read the books and got that pretty clearly from the first movie.
Plus no ring of power had been created for the Hobbits. Men, elves and dwarves were all susceptible.
Someone (maybe Jackson?) pointed out that, in the books, pretty much everyone (besides Boromir and Saruman) turns down the Ring easily. Gandalf and Galadriel *say* they would be corrupted, but they aren’t very tempted. Neither are Aragorn or Faramir. And Tom Bombadil plays with the Ring like a toy.The movies could be heavy handed, but at least *everyone* was tempted, with a measure of regret as they turned it down. Just that glint in the eye, and dryness of the mouth, that made it clear that these characters would not be safe if given the Ring for any amount of time.That’s why it is nonsense when people say they could have used the Eagles to fly the Ring to Mount Doom. These were among the most powerful beings in Middle Earth, and the Ring’s influence increases with the wearer’s power. If they decided to use the Eagles, Gandalf the Grey would be talking about how his cloak is white because the Eagle shat on him after eating Frodo and flying away to use the Ring for itself.
That, and Sauron would have seen Eagles coming mile away and send Nazgul and who knows what else to stop them.
He completely missed the theme of new growth replacing the old; why were Théoden and Denethor so much younger than they should have been? Why did he direct it as an action film first and a horror film way down the list? The Nazgul were not Stuka divebombers; they made you so terrified that you dropped your sword and ran. Directing that would have taken much more skill. Etc. Also no idea why Minas Tirith, Osgiliath, and apparently all of Mordor were so tiny, when all it took was a change in CGI to make them much larger. Minas Tirith was a seven-tiered city, not a seven-tiered castle.
Jackson made three entertaining, well acted adventure movies out of the books, and I don’t exactly fault him for losing the soul of the novels in the process. His angsty, conflicted Aragorn makes sense as the protagonist of a nine-hour movie franchise, even if the “real” Aragorn is much more focused on his duty. It’s like that for most of the characters – Jackson adds a level of uncertainty (or straight-up petulance) that makes them more “relatable” to a 21st century moviegoing audience but also undermines the novels’ calm but doomed early-English worldview.What’s so refreshing about the books (to me) is how the clarity of their moral universe contrasts with the sadness of their material universe. The characters are constantly in the shadow of the past and also the future, but their response is to soldier ahead, acknowledging that the world will be changed (probably for the worse) even if they manage to save it.
Nicely put.
Jackson’s biggest goof, IMO, was discarding the book’s perfectly fitting, anticlimax of an ending. After nearly three books, Sauron’s end comprises one short paragraph, where he rises up as colossal shadow in the sky and reaches out a gigantic arm as if to seize the opposing army, only to be blown away on the wind. It could have worked on film, but instead we got that stupid eye, which looked like Kang from the Simpsons.
Merry, not Pippin, but otherwise, agreed.
Tolkien’s solution to the “no man can harm me” conundrum in The Return of the King is cleverer than Shakespeare’s in Macbeth. Discuss.
Tolkien came up with it specifically because he felt Shakespeare cheated on the prophecy. The Ents are also his take on the “when the forest moves against you” bit.
Does that mean that Nazgul #1 was a thane before he became a king?As I said elsewhere, I found the first LOTR movie to be so unremittingly awful that I never bothered with the others. In other words, if Jackson wasted half an hour of screen time on the Nazguls’ tragic back stories (egged on by Sauron’s three weird sisters, and their ambitious wives, they fell prey to the lure of the nine rings), I don’t want to know about it.
Or Homer’s in The Oddessy.
As I recall (it’s been a long time since I last read The Odyssey), it wasn’t a “no man can harm me” situation so much as a “No man is causing problems” – “If no man is causing problems, what are you bothering us for?” situation.
…for Eowyn was from her mother’s womb untimely ripped.
I don’t agree, and neither does Tolkien. There’s nothing shortsighted about the evils of the two great tyrants of Middle Earth (Morgoth and Sauron), and the Ring itself wielded its terrible influence very slowly and patiently. So often in Tolkien’s stories, the bad guys were better organised and more patient than the good guys…Furthermore, Tolkien himself wrote that Gollum’s fall might have been Illuvatar himself stepping in and tipping the scales with a bit of an otherworldly push, and if a little push from the God of all Gods doesn’t count as “luck”, I don’t know what does! The fact that the fate of Middle Earth hinges on Gollum tumbling backwards into the lava is as much about chance and the unknowable as it is about being corrupted by greed and evil.EDIT: Good point about the Witch King’s ironic death though. But it’s Merry, not Pippin!
I dunno, it seems pretty shortsighted to send every single orc in Mordor to confront Aragorn at the Black Gates. Especially since we’ve already established that Mordor pretty much impenetrable. Aragorn, pretending that he has the ring and is coming to get Sauron, forces Sauron into hasty action, taking advantage of his greed and his low opinion of men.
Sauron just couldn’t never understand that his enemies would try to destroy the ring instead of using its power, because he was all about power himself. He thought the entire time that Aragorn had the ring and that he had to destroy him before Aragorn could use the rings full potential (which, by the way, is never explained. We know nothing about the ring’s power beyond making lesser individuals invisible)It was just something that never even crossed his minds. He only realizes it when Frodo claims the ring in Mount Doom, and then it’s too late.
I love the visual in the movie where you can pretty much see the Eye go “OH SHIT” when that happens.
Actually, it was Frodo who was responsible for Sauron’s downfall. He explicitly tells Gollum, One Ring in hand, “If you touch me ever again, you shall be cast yourself into the Fire of Doom” — and that’s exactly what happens. Big “oops” there for the ring for not realizing that Gollum might be holding it when the moment arose.
I always took that ending as a commentary on the dangers of obsession (I also like AVClub Med’s description of Gollum as 2/3 crackhead, which sounds about right – kept just enough wits about him to secure his final fix). His euphoria at recovering the Ring trumped everything else.
Thank you. I thought Gollum was a great portrait of addiction.
I shouldn’t say “shortsighted,” but it comes up frequently in the books that Sauron sowed the seeds of his own ruin. There are multiple instances where characters are saved by the squabbling of orcs. There’s the scene where Shelob literally impales herself. Gollum’s role in the endgame is based on his own obsession with the Ring, even if the book is mum about why he falls.I think the juxtaposition of the heroes’ calm, dutiful worldview and the “limitless hate” of the villain’s is the thing that sets LoTR apart from lesser fantasy.
I always read the destruction of the ring by Gollum accident as a very obvious statement on the benefits of kindness and forgiving vs. the cost of obsession and anger.I don’t remember which book it is, but there is a very explicit discussion about why the good guys did not kill Gollum, despite the danger he posed. I believe Gandalf actually has a line about sparing him for a role he has yet to play.I also was enough of a book nerd back when the first movie was released to be like “Ok, if they’re not wielding ancient magical swords from the barrow downs, specially created to hurt dark things like the lich king, because we skipped all the Bombadil stuff, then how the hell is Merry supposed to wound him in RotK?”
It’s never explained what swords Aragorn gave to the Hobbits, so they could still have been some ancient swords from Arnor.
I think he uses the knife that Galadriel gave him. Doesn’t he? I’m probably making that up.
I think there’s an extended cut scene that shows Merry getting the dagger with the Sam line lamenting that he got rope, which I was disappointed by since book Sam is so excited about elven rope.
“Many live who deserve death. Shall I be the one to give it to them? Shall you?” Etc.
Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it. And he is bound up with the fate of the Ring. My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many – yours not least.
That guy was a real jerk. He had it coming.
Surely the best Middle-Earth example would be Smaug? Built up as a big badass the whole book, then gets killed by Laketown archer #2.I guess it’s not as apparent in the movies though, since they flesh out the Bard character beforehand, whereas the book basically introduces him then and there, then barely mentions him again.
OTOH, fuck Tolkien for naming a character “Bard the Bowman”. Decades of D&D hence have made that the most confusing name ever.
Two different naming conventions. D&D takes the class name from the filidh of Ireland, while Tolkien was using a fairly common Anglo-Saxon/Scandanavian first name for the character.
That was really annoying in the movie. Giving Bard a big heroic backstory where he is fated to kill Smaug and blah blah blah ruins the power of the event. It was another of Tolkein’s ‘a little person in the right place makes all the difference’ touches (which becomes a main theme in TLotR) – turning Bard into Aragorn 2.0 takes all that away.
Agreed, and I’ll remind us all of Eowyn’s book quote because like everything else about her arc, it’s better than the movie:”But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Eowyn I am, Eomund’s daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.”
I’m such a nerd. Seriously, chills, just reading that.
ALL of the arm-hairs. All of them.
Well anyone living in a world with prophecies should know that exact wording is crucial, so its on him really. Things that make prophecies are usually assholes who enjoy fucking with people, you should expect ironic twists.
It’s Ultimate Spoiler Week here at AV Club!Just kidding most of these are pretty old, but still this is basically Spoilers: The Article.Janis killing Richie was so fucking awesome. Totally unexpected, but also totally within character. Might’ve been my favorite moment of Season 2. Btw I stopped after that season so don’t say anything else about The Sopranos, please. I managed to not learn how Omar died on the Wire until I finally watched it 2 years ago, so hopefully I can do this too.Also let’s all remember that what happened in that Deadwood happened IRL.Other notes:
– You just HAD to include Return to Oz, DIDN’T YOU?
– Bane’s death in TDKR was the lamest fucking scene of the entire movie. God that was dumb.
I like TDKR, but Bane’s death is why I let the slander slide.
I liked it too. But that was just soooooooooooo stupid
I really love the way Hardy says “you’ll just have to imagine the fire”, and then Catwoman ruins the moment.
I always thought it was nicely poetic that Bane, who was absolutely devoted to Talia, decides to disobey her orders just once and is instantly killed because of it.
That’s one hell of a spin on it. I think Zack Snyder could use you for PR.
Hey, now I know defending DKR isn’t the most popular stance around here, but there’s no need to associate me with Snyder. I have feelings, you know.
When I saw that movie,there were bellylaughs at talias death acting.
God, no kidding. That was elementary school play-level death right there. Uhhhhhhh…(sudden collapse).
Yea, I like that. Also, by that time we’ve learned Bane is not at all the monster he appears to be, but a man of honor and integrity who is capable of decency and tenderness but who was horribly twisted by a cruel society. I felt sorry for him – he was never given a chance to be what he could’ve been, and then he’s dispatched in a nearly-anonymous way so quickly he doesn’t even realize it.
Exactly how old was she supposed to be? And she’s on the board of a multi-billion dollar company? It was as believable as Katie Holmes as badass DA.
It’s a really great quote and I get that Bane ultimately dies by fire (cause those Bat bullets must REALLY be explosive to the human body).Still, what a waste of a character.
CHARACTER WHO INSPIRE GIMMICK COMMENTER CAN NEVER BE CONSIDERED WASTE
It’s like they just got bored of the character.
I know that Nolan wanted to invoke The Dark Knight Returns with his title, but since he used one with the exact same initials, it’s just an invitation to confusion, wondering “huh Bane wasn’t in TDKR he wasn’t even created until 1993, seven years later” then finally realizing it’s that other TDKR.
I think the accepted convention is DKR = Returns/comics, TDKR = Rises/movie. When I was a young comics nerd in the 90s, we all called it DKR.
Although teeeeechnically only the first “book” is DKR and the series was actually “The Dark Knight,” if I recall. But every collected edition uses DKR, so it’s canonical in the same way we accept the US Magical Mystery Tour as a proper Beatles album.
Yeah, they could have just listed the show and maybe the assassin in the headings. With the victim there too, there’s no way to even browse for the shows you’ve seen without getting a dozen other shows ruined.
Yeah, not having the work listed first is a serious slip.
They don’t care who’s toes they step on!
*whose
hey I’ve been drinking give me a break
The AV Club
I ain’t got shit to do today. Girlfriend works until seven and she’ll be shot by the time she gets home. Her kid is out all day. Guess who’s gonna get high and play videogames until about 4 and then start cleaning house?
“I clicked an article all about spoilers and was mad to see spoilers!” is quite the hill people have chosen to die on these days.
The Dark Knight Rises was such a fucking mess in the last 30 minutes or so. Completely bastardizes Bane’s character and the whole theme of anarchy for a stupid twist about revenge involving a stupid fucking character out of left field no one cares about in the slightest all just to call back to the first movie. Bane’s death was such a fucking joke. You know it’s bad when the audience is under the impression he isn’t dead because there’s no way he could die in such a stupid manner.
I guess it’s ‘out of left field’ if you’re not familiar with the comics (or the 90s cartoon). As soon as they started talking about “Ra’s al Ghul’s child”, I thought it was very obvious that, duh, of course Marilon Cotillard’s apparently extraneous character must be Talia al Ghul, and that the movie tried to play that for a twist seemed just silly.
Fair enough.I will say that knowing the twist on a repeat movie doesn’t make anything better in the slightest for me. The ending 30 minutes with Talia, Bane’s death and the bomb chase I just find ridiculous.
Eh, I don’t find it any more ridiculous than the previous two hours, which was mostly a bizarre right-wing rant against Occupy Wall Street that sounds straight from Fox News.
I think that’s reaching.
Remember when Bane’s mercenaries had guns, but deliberately either threw down those guns or ran towards the cops (who only had batons) and started using those guns as bludgeons instead of…as guns?Good times
There’s no good story reason for her to be Talia al Ghul. Sure, someone had to trick Bruce because…. I dunno, I guess it wouldn’t have worked without it? But Bane could have operated on his own without any League of Shadows connection other than “This guy got kicked out for being too ruthless wow!” Instead, he was ultimately a lapdog.Having her be Talia is mostly fan service, I guess, but from a cinematic standpoint, it made an already unwieldly, messy ending even more complicated.
I thought the theme(s) of Rises were pain and redemption.
yeah but his name was Robin.
The way Bane died in TDKR was a total mistake. The whole movie is building to a climactic fight between Batman and Bane and it ends with an offscreen blast from a gun. So anticlimactic.
ME AGREE. HE SHOULD HAVE DIED AT RIPE OLD AGE, FROM EATING TOO MANY COOKIES!
Now that’s the way that I wanna go out.
We got two pretty good fights already. I liked the misdirection.
I hadn’t even remembered what happened Bane until I read this article. Now that I do, I remember that I thought it was stupid. I didn’t really care for the endings of any of Nolan’s Batman movies, though.
Yeah…this article was ill-conceived. I got as far as about the Wire entry and then noped down to the comments. People here are decent enough to mark their spoilers…. right?
hahahahahaha
The thing about Janis killing Richie is the after-scene that was cut from the filling. You know, Janis stumbling into the corner and rubbing one out furiously until she squirted in her panties! The censors thought that might be a little rough for the average TV audience.
Tony Soprano was Kaiser Soze.
Q shot Bond once.
“Pay attention!”
Well, that makes sense. Expected assassins don’t tend to be very good at the job.
NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH—
*pfft* *pfft*
I’ve assassinated many careers BROTHER, though in the business we call that “burying”. It’s what happens you know, DUDE. Though many people have tried, my career has never been assassinated. The only one who even came close was Vince McMahon but that Mr. America GUY showed him what’s what I’ll tell you what.It’s good to be the Hulkster BROTHER
Henry Thomas Cloak & Dagger
How about Jeoffrey from Game of Thrones? It’s not hated uncle Tyrion who does him in or a vengeful Sansa or Arya. Nope, it’s the little old lady who didn’t want her grand-daughter marrying a psychopath.And of course, how Robert survives a full-scale war and ends up killed by a boar to set the whole mess in motion.
Well, the boar had an assist from the super-strong wine Cersei provided for him.
And provided to him by that stupid Lannister boy he kept berating. That’ll teach him to send him after a non-existent breastplate stretcher.
“‘Lancel Lannister’, gods what a stewwwpid name!”
Marc Addy got his mouth round some fucking beautiful dialogue. I once got cut up in traffic whilst mailing season 1 and called a woman “a Dothraki whore” in his voice
I dunno if you could call the Queen of Thorns some kind of little nobody or underdog. She’s a mover & shaker.
Also wasn’t it heavily implied that Robert was poisoned?
True but with so many folks wanting Jeoffrey dead (including some of his own family), that she’s the one who took him out was fun. Not to mention the genius in that he dies thinking it’s Tyrion.
Poisoned, no. Just given extra-strong wine so that when he faced off against the boar, he was too drunk to move quickly to avoid it’s tusks.
No, she’d already shown herself to be smarter and tougher than Jeoffrey.
Kenard was the first person I thought of, so I’m glad he came in at number one.
Also, man, Lorne. His “Goodnight, folks” is absolutely heartbreaking.
Made even more heartbreaking with the knowledge that Andy Hallett passed away just four years later at age 33. That line gets me every time.
Darth Vader and Palpatine?
You could look at that both ways. Maybe yes in that Sidious thought his apprentice would never backstab him (which is stupid as (a) he’s trying to kill his son in front of him, (b) he previously asked said son to kill his dad and take his place and (c) they’re members of an order of evildoers for whom backstabbing is not only encouraged, but part of the job description), but also no given that said unexpected backstabber is a seven foot cyborg who kills people at the drop of a hat.
In fairness, he was pretty caught up in the moment what with electrocuting Luke and all.
He looked like he was having so much FUN.
#2 evil guy vs. #1 evil guy. I think it would take a storm trooper to qualify. Or Jar Jar.
Emperor stewed and eaten by Ewoks.
Star Wars-appropriate one is Boba Fett killed by hole in ground.
Technically it’s Han, by accident.
Well, even that pretty shitty. Okay, killed by Han Solo, no shame in that. But killed by blind guy flailing around by accident and knocking you into hole in ground?
Fucking Kenard, man. It was a great touch how this larger than life figure was not only gunned down by some little pisspants while buying smokes but that in the end he was just a tiny blurb in the newspaper, no different than any of the other causalities of the game and they even put the wrong toe tag on his corpse at the morgue.
Also a shot on the overall newspaper story of that season, the paper had no reporters with the street knowledge to know how huge a deal this was.
That’s true, which shows how disconnected they were from the police since obviously anyone working in Baltimore PD had known Omar Little and his brother for years. That also just shows how disconnected the Scott Templetons of the world were from the city they were supposed to be covering.
Is the newspaper story as heavyhanded and terrible as I remember it being, or should I rewatch Season 5? I hated the newspaper stuff and the fake serial killer stuff so much when it aired that it’s the only season I’ve never rewatched.
I’ve only seen Season 5 once, but I’ve rewatched a lot of clips on youtube over the years, and there’s so many unbelievably great moments from Season 5, just like the rest. My take on “the worst” Wire season is thus:There needed to be at least 1, if not 2, extra episodes. Simon claims they didn’t have the need per se, but two events occur too rapidly within the episodic time-frame. First off, McNulty fakes a strangulation in the same episode he finds out it’s possible. His sharp decline into insane alcoholic just comes on too fast for the audience, even though I don’t think it’s particularly unrealistic when someone like that falls off the wagon.Second, Templeton’s story just develops too fast. Again, I don’t think it’s as unrealistic as it once felt – there’s a lot more stories about fabulist journalists being found out (Pierce!) – but it’s just too fast for the audience. We have an expansive cinematic vocabulary for corrupt police and politicians, but when the only movie featuring journalists anyone’s ever seen is All The President’s Men, it takes a lot more to ease us into a story about a newspaper, let alone a corrupt reporter. Plus, most of the story, about layoffs and such, was way more banal than what most of us experience in real life (my mom works for Sears corporate, and that place is batshit; my uncle also used to work for the Chicago Tribune, and even his trials and tribulations were more exciting than Gus’).But you put those two-three glaring errors aside, and it’s still just a beautiful season. You could surround Bubbles’ (sorry, Reginald) story with the worst television on the planet, and it would still be worthwhile to sit through.
I’ve watched it again. It’s still pretty bad.
But then the lore on the streets paints an entirely different picture and gives him a death scene worthy of a Greek hero. In one world he’s a legend, in another he’s reduced to a literal footnote.
And that’s why The Wire remains so damn genius. The streets don’t care much about politics, major news or such, they’re their own world with own heroes and rules and screw the “upright” public if they don’t know what’s going on right under their noses.
He would be happy with the Greek hero comparison.
The Romans called him oMars, but the Greeks called him omAres.
CW has given us a few:Sara Lance, highly trained operative for the League of Assassins, shot dead off of a roof by a roofied Thea Queen.Lexa, the leader of an entire clan, shot by a random bullet by her own advisor.Isabel Rochoev in the middle of a “you’re going to pay rant” gets her neck snapped by Nyssa just because she’s damn annoying.
That The 100 death was an accident, thus not an assassination/murder.
The Tommy Darmody one was a good wrap up, but I’m not sure if I necessarily liked that ending for Boardwalk.
I liked everything *but* that part.
It did make thematic sense however, as Nucky’s greatest sin (giving Gillian to the Commodore to further his own ambitions) ended up killing him in the end.
Everything did come full circle. I think my problem with it deals with the fact that I didn’t want the show to end just yet (cutting AR out of that final season was the saddest thing ever)
Thing is, though, the real-life Rothstein did die in 1928, so if they wanted to stay somewhat period-correct they had to get rid of him.But it did give us a great ending for Lucky Luciano: going from the man utterly mortified when AR called him, able to tell he wasn’t wearing pants, and knew that the Darmody woman Charlie had slept with was Jimmy’s mother, into the king of all mob.
Luciano’s rise is one one of my favorite things about the final season. The assassination of Masseria was exquisite. I hope Vincent Piazza can get a role as good as that again.
Vincent Piazza stars in: Vincent’s Pizza! Coming this fall on CBS!
NOOOOO not CBS
With Mike Piazza as the landlord!
oh shit, better title:
Piazza’s Pizza!
Two Guys, a Girl and a Piazza Place
Come on, nobody would ever name a TV show something that dumb
(It’s still not the best execution scene in Boardwalk Empire, because that’ll always be Richard Harrow’s kill-streak.)
Now I’m sad because well… Richard Harrow :'(
With a close second being Al Capone smoking a stogie whilst firing a machine-gun in the exact same episode.
Harrow’s last scene fucking wrecked me for the rest of that evening.
I said my piece in the finale review. To lazy to dig it up.
Is it wrong that I would have had it end either with Nucky getting arrested or him having a heart attack on the boardwalk?
Those are all plausible options! The Tommy killing Nucky route they went with probably just sounded more interesting as well as plausible.
What if he had a heart attack on the Boardwalk while reading a British Sunday newspaper?…Empire News
What if he had a heart attack on the boardwalk while jacking off behind the newsstand as he looked through a bunch of porno pics of various underage girls (I mean like really underage…12 or 13). Totally believable but wrong side of the censors.
Almost everything about the last season of BE was a mess. To think it wrapped up early so they could make Vinyl. And then Winter gets kicked off that, sorry, leaves due to artistic differences or whatever the line is. Pfft.
I cant’ remember the exact ep but a great bit on an episode of Burn Notice where this mastermind operative, a chess master shown to be a step ahead of everyone is gloating to Mike about making him do what he wants when he’s suddenly stabbed in the back by his own underling. “The problem with guys like you is you’re so busy being ten steps ahead that you miss what’s right in front of you.”
I vaguely remember thatThen again, I feel like that happened at least once per season.
I think that was Brennan who was stabbed by Dead Larry, but I can’t be sure.Edit:If we are thinking of the same thing, it was in the episode Out of the Fire from season 4.
Yeah, I’m reasonably sure that’s it. I can picture Tim Matheson saying that line.
I don’t know who I hate more: Kenard or Lil Ze. Kenard was a little shit who killed the best character in TV history. But Lil Ze was one evil little bastard.
Kenard was a little sociopath too just like Lil Ze. There’s a really brief scene of him holding a cat and lighter fluid. Torturing animals is supposedly one of the tell tale signs of a future serial killer. He’s gonna be 10 times worse than Marlo when he gets older.
Kenard gets The Crown. Michael robs him at a poker game, goes to war, and the cycle continues.
No, no Michael and Dukie break Randy out of that group home and go take Bug to the amusement park any time they want! Then they travel the country solving mysteries.
Lil Ze really was a monster. That kid gunned down nearly a dozen people in the hotel, cheerfully laughing like he was watching cartoons. And as an adult, he was fine with murdering small children if he felt they double crossed him. Torturing animals might push Kenard to #1, but Ze would be close behind.
Ze gets points for being partly real.
God, Catwoman killing Bane like that was such a bad idea.
Any Return to Oz reference is A-OK by me. That movie is my entire childhood.
wow you had a terrible childhood
Of course, he was menaced by wicked witches, of various directions!
Another GOT one: John Arryn, the Hand of the King, an experienced warrior and politician used to handling the literal backstabbing of that court, ends up being done in by his own wife who’s nuts enough to believe she’s doing this for her “grand love” for Littlefinger…who of course could care less about her.
Tyrion gutshooting his father on the privy for saying whore one more goddamn time.If this has been mentioned 100 comments earlier, please disregard. If it hasn’t, shame on you.
Sheesh maybe watch your tone and don’t gloat when you’re at gunpoint (Crossbow-point). Don’t know that Tyrion would have gone through with it if Tywin did not keep pushing and pushing.
Can’t blame the old man for pushing so hard and often: older men’s bowels are tricky.
And shitting gold isn’t easy!
The title of my autobiography!
I literally gasped, threw the book down, and paced back and forth in shock after reading that part. I usually give the show a lot more slack then others but they fucked that scene up and it really, really upset me.
I presume you mean Lady Arryn’s death?
Well, that combined with the reveal that Littlefinger and Lady Arryn are pretty much behind everything that’s happenend. In the show they just kinda casually mention it and it’s never brought up again.
That probably goes hand in hand with the show’s inconsistent characterization of Littlefinger.
The sopranos had a few notable shocking kills.Ralphie’s death was a huge shock to me. He was a scumbag who deserved to die many times, but he dies for possibly killing a horse.The most devastating one was Sil and Adriana. I’m so glad they panned away on that one. The shot of her crawling on her hands and knees to get away was terrible enough.Edit: Although these were more killing below ones weight class. So not really relevant to the article. Sorry about that.
There’s a sense of romance and honor in living by the sword and dying by the sword, but what you offer is a different and much more unsettling category: killing *below* your weight class.
“What are you a vegetarian? You eat beef and sausage by the fucking carload.”
Paulie and Christuhfuh killing that waiter. When that happened, it was a pretty clear indication that it couldn’t go on much longer. (Also killing below one’s weight class).
That horse was responsible for one of the few cute scenes of the show when Tony visited her in her barn and that goat showed up.
weirdly, Sil’s c-bomb really shocked me. It seemed to make it all more real.
Agreed.
The dialogue for that scene was definitely changed in the final edit of the episode. What Sil was originally supposed to say was “I really want to fuck your cunt, but I have other orders”. That makes a lot of sense to me.
Penelope…the one thing you missed in the Adriana killing is that she mistakenly thought that she was going to get horror-fucked, she wasn’t expecting to die. She had cum about 6 times and the crawling away was just for effect.
“Always so RUDE, that one!” Rosa running over Vee had me in stitches – I had to rewind and rewatch that scene over and over. For me, one of the most satisfying final moments of a show EVER!
…mom?I don’t mean that as an insult or anything. My mom just did that too.
It was almot too satisfying. Like a delicious bruce bogtrotter chocolate cake, so rich and delightful.
…who never forgave Nucky for turning his mother into a teenage pimp and died at Nucky’s hands.
I believe the writer may want to rework that sentence.
Because none of it is factual? Or makes any sense?edit: after re-reading it like 4 times I finally get what he was trying to say. The structure is super awkward and the use of “pimp,” which is wrong, just adds to the confusion.
I’m almost impressed that they screwed up so badly, truth be told…..
He must’ve been really tired when he wrote it. I have notified him
I stumbled over it, as well.
I always think I watch too much tv and then I see a list like this and I have seen one of these things. One. And it was good. A good finish for Lorneytunes.
So, that means you haven’t seen The Wire, Orange Is The New Black, Fargo, The Sopranos, Justified, or Deadwood? I’d say you’re not watching enough TV.
Shh, let me just have my moment when I can feel all faux-superior(like a certain element of my social set who don’t watch tv or use the internet to do so…HORRORS!))…okay that is done.
Shouldn’t Jack McCall and ‘Wild’ Bill Hickok be attributed to history instead of Deadwood?
Man, if I were David Milch I’d sue the shit out of history for plagiarism.
Batman vs. superman / my soul
Woh…spoiler warning. Damn!
Scarlett O’Hara shooting the Union soldier is up there for me.
I guess I should’ve known this would be dense with spoilers by definition … it’s my fault, really.
no, it’s not your fault (it’s not your fault, etc), because this article COULD have been about unlikely superassasins in action spy movies and such. I came here expecting stuff along the lines of The Long Kiss Goodnight, not a comprehensive list of every major climactic surprise death of the last fifteen years of cinema and television.
I’m imaging you read every entry, increasingly disappointed. “Damn it, another spoiler! When will it end?”
…remarkably few of which are assassinations.
How about when Michael killed Libby and … Uh …. Michelle Rodriguez on Lost? Like, how does that guy even get a jump on Michelle Rodriguez?
Remember when Walt killed Ben? lol
The smoke monster killing Mr. Eko was…unexpected. Also, stupid. I know the dude wanted off the show and all but, not like that.
Anytime anyone on lost got a dui it was like “start the death clock”
Why did Mr Eko wear the same torn shirt the whole time he was on the island? Wasn’t there anything in his size in any of those suitcases?
Some comic book ones
And I will put downSPOILERSJust for warning.The Golden Age: Dynaman, the seemingly unbeatable super-strong madman is stabbed in the back by Liberty Belle.Rodreick Kingsley, the original Hobgoblin, taken out by upstart Phil Urich.The Red Skull shot dead by a still alive Bucky Barnes.
Squirrel Girl beating Dr. Doom
Was going more for actual deaths.
And Galactus.
And don’t forget the time that Luke Cage bitchslapped Doctor Doom to collect $200.“Where’s my money, honey?”
But…Kingsley isn’t dead! He sent a decoy to die in his place.
Roger Stern established the twin
Atom and Green Arrow kill Darkseid in “Rock of Ages”
Speaking of that Batman movie, the bat suit was pretty weak if a little ass blade could penetrate it. At least in BvS, they finally made it bulletproof.
You heard it here first folks, @GuyIncognitoII:disqus thinks Batman vs Superman is the best movie ever!
In TDK Fox remade the suit to be lighter and faster and have Bruce able to turn his head but at the cost of being more vulnerable to knives and gunfire.
Eh. Real-world body armor that stops bullets is pretty vulnerable to knives too. It’s not as simple as as an Armor Class.
Bulletproof and knife proof are two totally different characteristics. Like how modern body armor can potentially stop up to .50 cal, but not a crossbow or well-driven combat knife.
Donnie’s killing of Dr. Leekie leads to one of the most wonderfully bizarre scenes of ‘Orphan Black’, where he and Alison, after burying Leekie’s body, have sex on top of the freezer where the corpse had been stored moments ago Watching that really made me re-think Helena’s status as the deranged clone.
I love how much Donnie loves Alison. He’ll do pretty much anything to be her hero.
Nolan surprised zero viewers when Catwoman showed up and killed Bane. Nolan surprised many viewers when tens of thousands of Gothamites did not grab anything that floated in a mass wave of trying to escape the city anyway.
I’ve seen the movie (or parts of it) several times and I can’t remember the scene really. That movie, especially the last third, is a hot confusing mess
I was a little upset Bane ended up being a heavy at the very end of DARK KNIGHT RISES. (A film where there are MANY issues.) Although he does play the twist well enough I don’t believe a man like Tom Hardy and the character he portrays would go so far into his role to help someone else out.And then he just dies. Plus Batman doesn’t tell Catwoman what she did was the wrong thing to do despite being in a bad predicament at the time. I know we were at the climax at this point in the film but…Batman doesn’t kill and he shouldn’t condone it.
Yeah it wasn’t a clever twist of fate at all, just lame.
I was going to suggest that maybe since time was of the essence, Batman probably felt he didn’t have time to waste lecturing Catwoman, but then I forgot that Batman spent like ten minutes babbling to Jim Gordon not long after anyways.
I think Batman had given up the “no killing” rule at that point. He had clearly mortally wounded Bane in that fight.
Might be one of those things. “Yeah, I don’t kill, but somebody had to do it. That was almost my ass! Again!”
I’m of the opinion that Nolan was realizing that he really didn’t want to be tied into a franchise at the point of TDKR. He had just done Inception, a few other films inbetween the Batman films, and he was over it. Somehow I have never seen the first 20 or so minutes of TDKR, despite having seen all the rest of it at least 10 times. I’ve come to conclude that Nolan is a good director AND writer when he just does what he wants. He was done with the Bat and producers and studios just flat out said “we want this!!!” and all of the sudden it was Joel Schumacher all over again. But, ya know, stylized and gritty. But I also got to see trips through Pittsburgh, so take that as a bonus or minus.
Bale’s Batman may not kill, but he isn’t going to lose it if someone happens to die. At the end of Batman Begins, he refuses to rescue Ra’s al Ghul. It’s a rather chicken shit loophole to his “no kill” policy in that his refusal to act directly led to a death.
Something Wild—Jeff Daniels kills Ray Liotta. We knew it had to happen, just didn’t think Charlie was really up to it.
Ray Liotta was INTENSE in that movie
Another King death that fits (even if later books decided to undo it) is Trashcan Man accidentally bringing down Randall Flagg and all of his followers, in a move based on Gollum bringing down Sauron. Though the scene works much better if you just ignore the stupid “hand of god” bullshit.(And I will say I didn’t actually have a problem with the way the Crimson King went down, probably because he never was an actual character but just an offscreen presence; however, the way Flagg himself died for apparently good in the final Dark Tower book, that was stupid, especially as it merely served to try and make Modred seem to be a severe threat when he ultimately ended being pathetic himself, just serving to drive Roland completely into despair before the end by killing the loyal animal who was his only remaining friend)
The Trashcan Man taking down Flagg in The Stand was poetic. Everything about the last 3 books of The Dark Tower was a rush to put it in the can yet stretch it out 4 more books. Mordred was created to basically do nothing and go nowhere and got eaten by wolves. Oy served to be a cut rate Pikachu to earn a death only slightly less cheap than Jake and Eddie’s, I suppose? Father Callahan went out like a champ in spite of being a totally unnecessary addition to the group. But at least he was recognizable as opposed to “Whodat” Danville.I have a lot of strong not-good feels about the mangled end to the Dark Tower series. I’m going to try to leave it at that. No promises.
You can completely ignore the Hand of God thing since Trashcan Man was already driving around with an increasingly unstable nuclear warhead in the bed of his truck.
And now I’m sad about Andy Hallett again.
I know. 🙁
Agreed.
why not just call this article “Spoiler Warning”?
Thank you so much for remembering The Long Goodbye. I feel like nobody does, and not only is it one of the best film noirs made after 1960, it’s a strong candidate for the best film in Robert Altman’s catalogue. At least, in my book, it’s side-by-side with McCabe & Mrs. Miller and The Player (also a great neo-noir). Nobody bring up Nashville though, because that film stinks, and I should know…I made shitty student films in college.
Seriously. I watched it on Netflix once on a whim and found myself asking, “why doesn’t anybody ever seem to talk about this?”
The last thing you can say about killing a man, is that it’s brave.Yes. I have a Hulu subscription and watched 11.22.63.
what if he’s a bigger man than you?
Never mind then. Kill him.You can eat him if you want to.
well see there you go, if you eat his heart you gain his courage!
With City of God, that scene isn’t just Otto witnessing his father’s murder, it’s the usually pacifist Ned having his first kill. But Ned shot Otto’s father (the guard) to protect Carrot, because the guard pulled his gun on him. Ned may not have been trying to kill the man, but he did deliberately shoot him.The Runts screaming “A Soviet attack!” while gunning Ze down was creepy. Dude’s body was riddled with bullets afterwards.
Fireworks. They are, after all, the silent killer.
Just ask Jason Pierre Paul
How is Aaron Stanford vs. Michael Bailey Smith from ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ not on this list? I don’t much like the movie, but that scene is incredible, and the definitive ‘punching above his weight class’ sequence, literally and figuratively.
Barrigan was not a friend of Costigan’s. They never met.
Yeah Anthony Anderson’s character who Barrigan kills moments later was a friend of Costigan’s from the academy. Maybe they got em mixed up.
Except Anthony Anderson’s character Trooper Brown gets a mention in the write-up, too, and unless there is some deleted scene that shows Costigan and Barrigan even meeting, it’s actually pretty easy to keep the two straight. Costigan and Brown are seen being chummy in the academy, as are Sullivan and Barrigan. Their respective friendships are even depicted in parallel scenes (Costigan and Brown running laps, Sullivan and Barrigan playing rugby) to establish the connections. After Costigan goes undercover his buddy Brown joins Sullivan’s unit, as does Barrigan—that’s why they’re both in the building with Sullivan in the first place, and Brown lets Costigan go because of their prior friendship in the academy. I know you know all of this, but it seemed like an odd thing for the writer to get wrong.
Sorry for mixing that up, guys. I’ll have an Editor fix it!
love how mad this makes people, dan.
Dudley Smith offing Vincennes in L.A. Confidential? I mean Smith is one mean motherfucker, but it is pretty unexpected (it’s not in the book either, although anyone who read it would know Vincennes was a dead man the second he confided in Smith.)
I was so surprised by that scene. Great movie
It was certainly huge shock, but it not really count as “above weight class,” given that Dudley was criminal mastermind.
Josh Brolin, not James, was in No Country for Old Men, and in The Departed Barrigan was Sullivan’s friend, not Costigan’s. Other than that, greaaaaat.
Alan Rusbridger – the man may look like Harry Potter, but he killed one of the Dark Lord Murdoch’s chief henchthings, The News of the World.
As amazing as the season one finale of The Flash was, I think everyone saw Eddie dying to thwart Thawne coming a mile away.Still, the acting in that episode was top notch. Moist eyes were not limited to Jesse L. Martin.
Wtf, I did not realise that it was Tommy Darmody that shot Nucky, man I feel dumb.
Surely Eddie Thawne could have just said “I’m getting a vasectomy tomorrow!” and the same thing would have happened? Surely there was no reason for him to actually kill himself?Also Mr Wint & Mr Kidd from Diamonds are Forever – they usually walk right up to their target and kill them with no-one being suspicious of them until its too late
No mention of L.A. CONFIDENTIAL?
Is there any more unexpected assassination than that of Nicky Santoro in Casino? His own crew whack him in the middle of a voice-over!
As Christina Ricci said in Opposite of Sex, “Me can’t die! Me narrator!”
Maybe the assassination of Tommy Devito in Goodfellas?
To Live and Die in LA has a pretty good one, not sure how they stacked up weight-wise though.
Poor Gollum. He was so sweetly filled with joy as he fell into the lava with his Precious.
who never forgave Nucky for turning his mother into a teenage pimpIs that what happened? Jimmy was mad at Nucky for turning Gillian into a pimp?
“Damn Nucky, my mom is a stone-cold pimp!”
*Gillian pimp slaps Jimmy, takes a sip from a gold pimp chalice*
It didn’t make any sense! How would Tommy have known all that? And Nucky took care of the kid…no one knew Nucky killed his dad and his mom got shot by that polish dude. I fucking hated that half assed ending. It seemed desperate to tie everything together in a show that was never really about neat endings.
Dude, Gillian told Tommy everything. It’s right in the finale.
When he was like 4? Or was he a grown up? Either way, I just don’t buy it. He spent more time with Richard than with any of his real family. And he was a baby! I remember like 4 things from that age. But, full disclosure, I’m in the nfl so a lot my memories are shakey
She sent him letters from the institution. It’s why he came to New Jersey in the first place, to see if Nucky was as bad as Grandma Gillian said he was.
Kind of disliked Bane randomly getting killed like he did, same with Liam Neeson in the first one (No you actually do have to save him if your creed is to mean anything Bats), Jokers end in the second one worked, except…god dammit Heath.Never read the Dark tower series in it’s entirety, was that a satisfying conclusion to people who did? It seems kind of terrible in that summation.
It wouldn’t be a Stephen King book without a terrible ending
Stephen King always has problems sticking that landing…
Perhaps…but he really nailed it with Revival. That book had one of the most unsettling endings I’ve ever read. Shivers
It doesn’t count, because he didn’t actually kill him, but Sid the Squid in Batman the Animated Series is my favorite example of this. The Joker’s rage at being robbed of his one goal and the general reaction of this mild-mannered toadie killing Batman are just perfect.
Eyy, remember me, Benny Blanco from the Bronx?
Saw “Carlito” in the theater and the first time someone referred to him as just plain old “Benny Blanco,” a woman in the theater added in a monotone: “…from the Bronx.”I don’t even think she was trying to be funny. But I cherish the memory….
The guy I saw the movie with actually called that one – I didn’t notice, but he pointed out a guy walking down the platform all messed up looking (as Benny had been after the beating he took from Luiz Guzman) in the long shot of the train. Of course it’s Guzman who sells Pacino out for trying to ditch the life and leave him behind.
Tomas and Combo ought to have been number one. Possibly Hector also, but that wasn’t quite unexpected.
Pretty sure it was Josh and not James Brolin in No Country For Old Men
I love when Rachel sees a battered Bob in Justified and asks what happened, and Raylons response is “Bob is a badass that’s what happened.”
Agreed so i dug up the exact quote:Rachel: What happened ?
Raylan: What happened is Bob’s a tough son of a bitch.’Justified’ had a lot of great qualities but the dialogue had to be right up there.
Any Wire viewer who didn’t see Omar’s death coming as soon as he stepped in that convenience store is bad at interpreting narrative.
He just wanted some newports
I guess he already had plenty of Honey Nut Cherrioes at home.
People upset about Omar’s death and/or how it happened are on the list with people who don’t like The Wire’s second season as deserving a special level of pretentious you-just-don’t-get-it scoffs and scorn.
How about Doctor Watson’s wife being a secret assassin on Sherlock? Sure, it’s a dumb, dumb twist but she is an unlikely assassin.
Ugh. Don’t remind me.
It’s no surprise that Altman’s ‘The Long Goodbye’ is listed as one of the favorites, (if not THE favorite), hard-boiled detective story of people who don’t like the genre. It was not a fan favorite upon its release in 1973 and Leigh Brackett’s script never displayed any understanding of what made the hard-boiled detective story such a lucrative market in decades prior to the 70’s.
bracketts script was kind of the point though. the whole rip van winkle aspect to the story: marlowe no longer has a place in 70s california.
More in the vein of adding my own contribution to this list, I would say that Bullseye managing to kill Elektra in the comic books fits the bill. In the run-up to the issue that he kills her, Bullseye was mainly characterized as a pathetic loser – someone who Daredevil had beaten so badly, so many times that it actually drove Bullseye insane, walking down the streets of New York experiencing the hallucination that everyone he sees is Daredevil. Elektra, on the other hand, was characterized as too cool for school. I imagine that if you polled 100 random readers of the comic book during the run about which of those two characters would win in a fight, 99 of them would have told you Elektra would.
“My name…<-chk-chk->…is Horris!”
In the book, when they are at the Black Gate, stymied at entering Mordor, Gollum offers another route. Suspicious, Frodo warns Gollum that if Gollum tries to seize the Ring, he Frodo will order him to cast himself into the fire. As Frodo does this he appears to be a vast and awesome presence.The movie leaves this out. I’ve always wondered why. Thematically it seemed to make more sense if in some tiny sense Frodo’s great wound wasn’t just the morgul knife, but his wielding the power of the Ring, if only over the pathetic Gollum.
I know it’s the knife wound that’s supposed to be what Frodo never entirely recovers from, but it’s always felt to me as if it was just as much the whole experience of carrying the Ring for so long. The way it just drained the life out of him, to the point where he literally could not walk, because the spiritual weight of it had grown so great, and finally broke his will and corrupted him before he could complete his task. Everyone who succumbs to the temptations of the Ring suffers for it—Boromir dies a bloody (if heroic) death almost immediately after he tries to steal it, Gollum, who’s been utterly miserable and deranged since he murdered his friend over it, also dies immediately after betraying Frodo and stealing it back, and both Frodo and Bilbo are spiritually scarred after wearing it.
Tolkien himself basically said that it was at least a valid interpretation that Frodo ultimately failed.
And it’s not his fault! It was literally an impossible task and it was a sustained miracle that he got as far with it as he did.
Of course, Frodo put on the Ring, just as Isildur did.
In So I Married An Axe Murderer – his wife’s actually NOT an axe murderer!
Welp, now I have to watch Justified and Deadwood again.
I have a problem with the use of the word ‘assassin’ in this article.
Ugh, Janice.
She was lost in the scraggly woods but she’s okay now.
Seconded on the “ugh.” God how I loathed her. One reason why I’ve never gone back for a second viewing of Sopranos is her.
For as awful as she was, it was almost worth it to see how Tony had her so completely and utterly figured out time and time again. He knew exactly how she was going to react to a situation before she did.*Edit: One of my favorite examples is in one of the later episodes when she and her daughter were on the carnival ride that broke. After the incident, they’re having dinner at Tony’s, she rubs her neck and he totally recognizes what’s happening and says “Leave it alone Janice”.The very next scene- She’s wearing the neck brace as Bobby is going to shake down the carnival owner.
What about in that episode of Firefly where Nathan Fillion dropkicked Andrew Bryniarski into the ship’s thrusters? That was pretty cool…
I preferred the pilot when the Alliance dude was holding River at gunpoint, Mal walks in and just shoots him before letting him finish a sentence and he and Jayne quickly pick up his corpse and toss it off the ship.That was right around the time when I knew that yes, Firefly was 100000% the show for me.
Constable Bob killing Yolo was one of the high points of “Justified” for me. And Justified is my favorite TV show of all time, so that’s sayin’ something.Drewbacca!Drewsitania!
The way that Bob just absorbed that beating and remained defiant and let that rage build up until he could go fucking spider monkey…oh my god, I love Bob so much.
Me too. And I love the fact that, after everything, Raylan may have joked around with and about Bob, but he always respected him.
Eh, I don’t think he respected Bob at all at the start from they way he used and abused him early in the season (Raylan is our hero, but hes also kind of a dick), but he sure as hell did after that. The “underestimate him at their peril” seemed to be half ruefully directed at himself. And in the endgame of the final season, he relied on Bob again because he did trust and respect him now.
Constable Bob is a prime example of never underestimating your opponent. I’m sure Patton Oswalt loved being able to get all badass for once.
Although I question the author’s interpretation of the scene. Bob ultimately was able to kill Yoohoo, sure, but the beating before that was no rope-a-dope. Bob was just straight up getting worked over. I suspect that if you asked Bob under sodium pentathol, he’d admit that he didn’t know he had it in him (ROAD WARRIOR fantasy scenarios aside).
Lindsey/Lorne provides a perfect subtitle for this inventory: “You don’t kill me! [Insert perceived threat here] kills me!” I love that scene (although it makes me sad for Lorne). Lindsey has at this point embraced his role as antagonist, but he thinks he’s a Big Bad when to Angel he’s a half-notch above a MOTW. Poor Lil Lawyer.
I don’t know. There’s sort of an implied admission that Lindsay is actually more than that when he’s really the only member of Team Angel other than Illyria who actually manages to dispatch all of the enemies Angel sends him after without losing/being fatally wounded/needing a last second save. Then Lorne has to basically shoot him while he’s relaxed, off-guard and thinking no enemy is around. Not arguing that Angel’s plan to take out Lindsay isn’t sound, mind you. Taking him out by surprise is much more effective than a frontal assault on him… especially when Angel knows his forces are going to be deplete after the end battle, if any are left alive anyway.
Lorne heard him sing.
I also love how very, very cold Lorne is. Terrific exit for a wonderful character. RIP Andy Hallett.
I’m glad I never saw “The Long Goodbye” – The book is my favorite Chandler after “The Lady In The Lake” – because that ending completely destroys the whole point of Marlowe and Lennox’s relationship.
how so? i’m a fan of both, but i like the movie ending homage to ‘the third man’ better.
Should add Live and die in L.A. The way William Petersen’s character dies…HOLY SHIT.
“Now everyone knows William Petersen’s character dies in that locker room at the end of To Live and Die in L.A. but what this clip presupposes is… what if he didn’t?”https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Kudos for Fargo season 1, but if you were going to use anything from Fargo, you should have called on the Ed & Peggy Blumquist from season 2! I mean, the two (together and separately) of them turned the tables on murder attempts on at least FOUR occasions during the course of the show. A humble and non-assuming butcher and a flighty hairdresser who obsessively collects magazines and dreams about Hollywood. Come on!
Peggy and the Butcher effectively take down a criminal empire, however accidentally. It’s so great.
In a comment for one of the Season 2 eps, I called him “Ed Blumquist, Accidental Badass.”
Where’s Courtney Love? I was surprised she could kill someone…In Revenge (2011).
A…A…ANGEL KILLS ME!
Thomas “Babe” Levy and Christian Szell, Marathon Man
Some great choices here. I like the gonzo Winter Kills where a couple of cherubic looking tweens blowing bubble gum presage immediate death to those in the vicinity….
No Go-Go?
Yubari? I’d say that was a pretty even match.
Well, Uma Thurman is 5’11 and had a Hanso, and Chiaki Kuriyama is 5’4 and was dressed like a schoolgirl. Still, I admittedly misunderstood the theme which involves a littler or smaller-status character actually murdering a bigger or larger status character. And, yes, I realize the headline is “KILLING above your weight class,” but it’s Monday.
This a fairly spoiler-riffic Inventory. Thankfully you didn’t list any pop-culture whackings of from anything I’m currently working on (Breaking Bad, the last 4 episodes of this season’s Walking Dead).
Stephen King should literally go to prison for what he did to the Dark Tower. Actual jail.
Ka is a wheel.
What about Sam killing that White Walker?
Sam The Slayer!
What about Reggie Jackson and Queen Elizabeth II?
Technically Reggie Jackson was taken out by Enrico Palazzo, which I think still qualifies.
Justified was pretty good. The Constable had said several times he had killed, or something, before but it might be understandable to have thought he was either lying or blowing up some accidental killing into something else. Still I think there was some sense it might be real even then. And Mikey’s loyalty was so strong I think even Duffy was kind of moved.And “Return to Oz” might be about the freakiest film, or one of, that was often shown to kids. I mean okay I recall “The Peanut Butter Solution” as very bizarre, but I’m not sure it was as disturbing. So unless maybe “Wizards”, as it was animated, was shown to kids at times RtO is high up there.
Kagemusha is another Kurosawa film with a good unexpected assassin.
How about the time that the Care Bears joined forces to kill Hitler? Or maybe I’m thinking of a weird dream I had once instead.
I’ll have what you’re having.
Jesse killing Gale.
I don’t think Gale was above Jesse’s weight class. Jesse was much more of the criminal than Gale.
Within the organization, Gale was more important than Jesse. Walt was the only reason Jesse wasn’t dead already. Gale was going to replace Walt, which would make him a vital cog in the group. He was also the better cook/chemist. To your point, he was naive about his own security, but so was Jesse. I was mainly commenting on the surprise that Jesse could actually assassinate him in cold blood.
Would Tio Salamanca fit here, taking out Gus? I realize that Tio used to be a complete badass, but he was a wheelchair bound guy who had even lost the ability to even speak…yet he still managed to take out Gustavo Fring in the most unexpected way possible.
Nice one, yeah.
Hell I’d go with Walt killing Mike. I know it’s Walt’s show, but Mike should have been a step ahead of him.
Agrred. Usually he was, but Mike was on the run.
Rollo Tomasi.
“a reminder that Moss was doomed from the start, no matter how well he could hold his own against Chigurh.”I thought the gang was a metaphor for the coming drug war, that would wipe out Moss, Tommy Lee and all of that generation?
Also, for what it’s worth, Gollum did save Frodo in The Two Towers, so there is that.
Hey AV Club, how the hell did James Cromwell blowing away Kevin Spacey’s character in LA Confidential miss the cut??
Probably because that character was far from a nobody or punching above his weight class. He was arguably the most dangerous person in the entire film, and was proven to be brutal and merciless basically throughout when you realize how many strings he was pulling.
Having read the quartet, he’s apparently the most dangerous man in L.A.
“Have you a valediction boyo?”
Silent Bob and Azrael? I mean he was a fucking demon.
It might not fit the category exactly, but on Dollhouse when Mellie was attacked by Hearn, and was pretty much doomed, until she was activated as a sleeper agent and promptly killed him. It was not only a totally badass moment, but I think most people would agree that it was the moment the series found itself and stopped being a weird acting exercise for Eliza Dushku. And, yes, I had to look up the character’s names. It’s been a long time since Dollhouse.
No Arya Stark?
The show has been grooming her into a killer since her days with Syrio. If she’d stabbed the Mountain in the back of the skull in Season 1 sure.Now she’s literally a member of a supernatural assassin cult
He’s not quite an “assassin,” but I have to say that I’d probably watch “Blacklist” if it didn’t require me to believe James Spader as some kind of badass.Every time I see a promo shot from that show it looks like they forgot to photoshop in the actual star over the stand-in.
The only thing Janice ever did that was worth her being in the show. Didn’t make the rest of her appearances worth it.
Jack McCall and Wild Bill HickokI mean, technically…
Yeah but none killed fity men in WW2 like Hanks dad…
Brainwashed Rahne Sinclair kills and eats her father, Reverend Craig after he makes the mistake of standing in such a way so as to make it appear he has wings? No?
That rock thing should fight the rock thing from never ending story
Lisbeth Salander?
I’d also add the random jackal that kills Cat in Halo: Reach. Taking out a Spartan with one lucky shot like that is like General Patton getting killed by a bee sting right before taking Berlin.
Oh, please. The entire end sequence of that game was god awful.You wonder, how they’re going to kill these characters that they’ve been building up as badasses for the entire game off, and then all of sudden their “main character buff” runs out, and pop, pop, pop, each of them, save the last guy dies from a situation or from wounds that they’ve survived earlier in the game.Lazy, lazy writing.
Fucking Kenard.
Hey, a Needful Things reference!
Header Image: The Martian’s alternate ending.
Jack McCall taking out Wild Bill is the first thing I thought of. Damn that was amazing. That said Bill’s put down of Jack’s face is like one of those put downs I’ll never forget. Any time I see a guy with that kind of facial hair I think of it.
random but the Joker killing Alexander Luthor Jr. of preCOIE Earth-3 at the end of Infinite Crisis fits here. Alex was the big bad cosmic threat but by the end was done in by The Joker’s acid flower, and a gunshot. (no explanation given to Alex’s corpse’s different appearance in ’52’ though)
People underestimate Bob at their peril
I know he didn’t have much of a problem killing people, but Walt shooting Mike in Breaking Bad fits too – he usually didn’t do it himself and up close like that.
Yes, and no one (least of all Mike) would have expected that Walt would be capable of taking Mike down.
How about Avatar and Blackwolf in Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards? Blackwolf had all his magical mojo at full power. Avatar says “Here’s a trick mom showed me when you weren’t around”, pulls a gun, and caps him. Classic!
Ugh, now I’m getting peeved about TDKR again. Great Job, A.V. Club!
Charlie and Ethan, Lost
Sidelined for being too emotionally invested (and likely because he’s such a noob), has-been rocker Charlie Pace didn’t get to go with the castaway badasses when it was time for the heroes to defend the beach against their first enemy, the creepy Ethan Rom. After a grueling fight where lead hero Jack is losing the upper hand, it’s meek lil’ Charlie out of nowhere with the save, shooting Ethan dead-bang in the rain!Also (and obviously) Butch and Vincent Vega, Pulp Fiction.
I don’t think anybody saw that coming…
Ethan will forever go down as that character I keep forgetting is dead because he ALWAYS showed up in flashbacks
FYI on The Departed, it’s the Massachusetts State Police, not the Boston PD.
It’s good to see Billina the chicken finally given the respect she deserves.
I didn’t see any mention of the original El Mariachi made for $7000. Because of the small budget, director Robert Rodriguez had to be very creative in showing how a quiet mariachi musician became a killer out of necessity. The big Hollywood follow up with Antonio Banderas was nowhere near as interesting..
Anyone mentioned the little kid who [spoiler] kills Pike in The Wild Bunch?
The scene from Angel was amazing. Totally unexpected and out of character. Lindsey saying “You don’t kill me, Angel kills me!” and Lorne, who eventually learned to fight but mostly not, having to straight-up murder him. It really had a lot to say both about the end of petty evil and how far Angel was willing to go. A great, and sad, ending in a finale full of them.
I can’t believe I’m making a post about Stay Alive, but…The Frankie Munoz character survives because he falls into a wild rosee bush, which was established as a way to repell the Countess (and is a tiny bit of authentic folklore in a shitty movie), but it’s shot as a fakeout.I’m going to go drink, and hopefully now I’ll forget that small detail from a shitty movie aeons ago.
I’m disappointed in this board— I came here because I got an alert about badass Bellina the Chicken and there’s barely any discussion about her. Come on AV Club, you can do better than this.
I still maintain that one of the bravest things terminator: the Sarah Connor chronicles ever did was killing Derek the way they did.
One moment he’s walking down a hallway and then BAM. Bullet through the brain pan. No build-up, no big showdown. He was just dead, and killed by “water delivery guy” of all terminators.
Of course, then they had to go and undercut it with that bullshit cliffhanger, but I guess network tv just wasn’t ready to take that kind of risk back in 2009.
Ummm … guys? “Wild Bill” Hickock’s demise was not exactly a surprise.
I think Carlito’s way is the only movie where a Pacino character is murdered.
I’m surprised Gus Fring and Hector Salamanca aren’t on this list. How much more unexpected can you get? The guy was in a freakin’ wheelchair.
James Brolin was in No Country For Old Men? Did they use the anti-aging software on him?
Man, Andy Hallett played that entire finale perfectly. His dislike of killing, his resentment of Angel using him that way, his understanding of why it needed to be done…just perfect. And Lindsey’s incredulous reaction was the icing on the cake. So well done. R.I.P. Andy.
Omar Little’s death was just fucking brilliant. If I had been in David Simon’s position, I’d have killed a character like Little similarly. Just too damn frustrating, but in a (very) good way.Richie Aprile’s death was also memorable. Actually, the last two episodes of that season are, in my opinion, beyond incredible. Many hated Janice, specially in the last two seasons, but she was hilarious and a great addition to the show on season two.
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That’s not unexpected! He told everybody! Repeatedly!
I must kill…the queen…
Not to mention:Cufflinks, a bus, a steamroller and a marching band — and Victor Ludwig.// “It’s so horrible… my father went the same way….”
Good thing Enrico Palazzo was on the scene!
Hey look! There he is!!
And the rocket’s red glare / Buncha bombs in the air / Gave proof to the night / That we still had a flag
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Spoiler: Lori is a camgirl
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Littlefinger never knew what hit him.
“If I take off that mask, will you DIE?””It would be painful…””You’re a big guy.””…For SANSA.””I’m not hearing a negative.”
“I got the idea from this warlord who enslaved me once.”
ME WAS ALSO EFFECTIVE IN ATTACKING BOX OF GIRL SCOUT COOKIES THIS MORNING. THERE WERE NO SURVIVORS.
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“I am going to the Lordy, I am so glad,
I am going to the Lordy, I am so glad,
I am going to the Lordy,
Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah!
I am going to the Lordy.
I love the Lordy with all my soul,
Glory hallelujah!
And that is the reason I am going to the Lord,
Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah!
I am going to the Lord.
I saved my party and my land,
Glory hallelujah!
But they have murdered me for it,
And that is the reason I am going to the Lordy,
Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah!
I am going to the Lordy!
I wonder what I will do when I get to the Lordy,
I guess that I will weep no more
When I get to the Lordy!
Glory hallelujah!
I wonder what I will see when I get to the Lordy,
I expect to see most glorious things,
Beyond all earthly conception
When I am with the Lordy!
Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah!
I am with the Lord.”-Charles J. Guiteau
Nobody expects the Spanish assassination!
Antonio Cánovas del Castillo was certainly surprised.
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That’s part of it, though—Bane was the main antagonist for most of the movie, and just gets dropped like a loose end before the climax.
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I heard she didn’t even like Gladiator.
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Hey! Show respect for a man with a thermos sized penis who bangs a friends wife!
You mean me? How’d you know?
Because ALL you do is go on and on about your enormous cock?
Are you still watching Vinyl? Do you think Xavier is Joebriath?
I didn’t see last night’s, but yes I do. Am I far off?
I don’t know. Although I vaguely recall the Midnight Special appearance, I knew nothing about him until you mentioned him.As a kid I thought that MS performance was “off” but I felt the same about Bowie and his glass box miming in the Pennebaker film.
It reminds me of Phantom Of The Paradise and the rock star that gets killed by a neon lightning bolt, for some reason.
Ah, good ol’ “Beef” and Phantom of the Paradise. His ‘spit take’ of “What was that!” when the Phantom wakes up in the locked room and freaks out is an all time great clip.
You’re talking about Beef BROTHER!
Don’t you need friends first?
But got $140 million. Making him the highest paid porn star by $139 million.
I’m rich BROTHER. Check again
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It crawled under him for warmth
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“This sentimental motherfucker just cost us money.”
I know the fifth season was mostly garbage, but that scene almost made it all worth it.
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I wonder why lines that like that appeal to us. What are they, after all, but a bare claim to authority? A power fantasy for those of us without it?
Don’t give us those Manson lamps.
I’d have to say yes. Casual violence and cruelty are the simplest mechanics for expressing power over another. No matter how nice you are, it hits ya right in the ole reptile brain. We might never DO something like that, but it’s fun wish fulfillment.
Because they own.
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Hell, who didn’t want to bang Catwoman?
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I think I liked Bunk’s reaction to Omar’s deaths the best.
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That’s because you and all the other MARKS were too busy booing Roman Reigns DUDE
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Was he begging for forgiveness though? I could have sworn that Eko had no qualms about what he had to do to survive and made it known to “Yemi”.
I believe Benny Blanco was from the Bronx…
Watch “Things to do in Denver When You’re Dead”. Steve Bucemi plays the killer that you would never be intimidated by, who ends up killing most of the cast. Should be on this list.
Don’t have anything to add except fuck Kenard. I’m glad Michael beat the shit out of him.
Fuck Kenard