SINGAPORE, Dec 28 — Last Monday, I was glued to the television watching the last episode of the fifth season of Homeland. And during the dying seconds of the finale, I distinctly remember my reaction: A sharp intake of breath followed by… “What the…?”
You see, Peter Quinn had died. Yes, in case you missed it — and having taken place a while back, this doesn’t count as a spoiler, okay? — the fan favourite super assassin played by Rupert Friend, who doubles up as a love sick puppy pining for Claire Danes’ Carrie Mathison, pretty much embraced the light that flooded the hospital room where he was lying in a coma suffering a brain haemorrhage.
As much as I loved Homeland, I was annoyed and enraged by this turn of events. What is it with TV shows that choose to kill off well-loved characters?
See you on the other side
While it can be argued that viewers didn’t actually see Peter die on-screen, the metaphor was unmissable — in his farewell letter that was passed to Carrie, he had written “Just think of me as a light in the headlands…”
The episode was followed by fans howling in protest on Twitter and the Internet, while Homeland producers have kept people in suspense regarding the next season by tweeting “RIP? Meh, nope” and “PrayforQuinn”.
This isn’t the first death to befall a fan fave this year. Consider how Game Of Thrones’ Jon Snow was brutally stabbed to death by his comrades in the Night Watch last June. (It still pains me to write this sentence, by the way.)
Despite the disbelief of fans that original author George RR Martin would leave him dead, actor Kit Harrington himself insisted, “I’ve been told I’m dead. I’m dead. I’m not coming back next season.” (Of course, we’d also like to believe his death was a ruse since his handsome, if somewhat blood-splattered, mug has been recently seen on the posters for Season Six next April.)
Snow’s death was so impactful that it reportedly generated 687,871 tweets and 10.43 million viewers tuned in for that final episode. Time magazine even deigned Jon Snow worthy enough for a sixth spot on its 16 Most Influential Fictional Characters of 2015 this month, topping Sadness from Pixar’s Inside Out and Christian Grey from Fifty Shades Of Grey.
On that same Time list was another character from cult hit The Walking Dead who also went down. In this season’s third episode, the popular Glenn Rhee (Steven Yuen) was seen descending into a pit of ravenous zombies, which caused panic attacks everywhere. Except he was seen very much well and alive a couple of episodes later.
Meanwhile, in the soap opera territory there was Grey’s Anatomy’s heartthrob Dr Derek “McDreamy” Shepherd. He had previously managed to live through the series’ famed histrionic scenes, such as a hospital shooting and a plane crash — but he apparently couldn’t survive a run-of-the-mill car accident. Yes, he was still dreamy to the very end, managing to save a couple of lives before a massive truck slammed into his car.
But all this collective carnage on the small screen begs the question: Is death the only option?
I’m out of here
As much as devastated fans may cry foul over the untimely demise of their favourites, it sometimes isn’t just the fault of the producers. Grey’s Anatomy showrunner Shonda Rhimes claimed she had no choice when sealing the fate of McDreamy as actor Patrick Dempsey wasn’t interested in renewing his contract.
“The decision to have the character die the way that he did was not a difficult one in the sense of ‘What were the options?’” Rhimes had explained after the episode, adding that the other choice would have been for Dempsey to exit the show by walking out on his wife Meredith Grey and their children.
“As painful as it was for me as a storyteller, because I never really thought that going to happen, the only way to preserve what felt true to me was Derek was going to have to die for that love (between Derek and Meredith Grey) to remain honest.”
Contract issues are a major reason beloved characters keel over. Think Matthew Crawley from Downton Abbey in the weep-fest Christmas Special of 2012, after actor Dan Stevens chose to leave the show. It’s the same reason another Downton favourite, Lady Sybil, died in childbirth in Season Three as actress Jessica Brown Findlay had only committed to three seasons of the series. Similarly, Will Gardner from The Good Wife was gunned down in Season Five as actor Josh Charles decided to pursue other projects.
An important character’s death could also serve as a way to reboot a show. This was the effect Nicholas Brody’s death had on Season Three of Homeland, which found itself mired in poor, recycled storylines. After his death, the series received praise for feeling fresh, compelling and relevant again.
A death, too, can be a great way to move a story forward as it did for Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Sarah Michelle Gellar’s titular character sacrificed herself in the finale of Season Five and executive producer Joss Whedon decided not to play the guessing game with the audience. He wrote on the show’s website after the episode aired: “Killed the girl. Girl comin’ back.” Whedon even went to the trouble of elaborating: “Just want to say again, finally, definitively, and in LIVING colour that BUFFY WILL BE BACK NEXT SEASON starring Sarah Michelle Gellar … How will we bring her back? With great difficulty, of course. And pain and confusion.”
It worked. It made audiences excited to tune in to see exactly how Whedon would manage the feat and the two-hour premiere of Buffy’s sixth season garnered 7.7 million viewers in the United States, the second highest viewership the show has ever received.
Unfortunately, sometimes all a character’s death manages to do is incense fans — especially if they feel that they have been misled. It also hurts the show’s credibility and ability to tell a good story without resorting to dramatics.
That was the case surely for Rhee’s fake death in The Walking Dead. While fans were relieved, it also caused a massive backlash as critics decried the fake-out, calling it a “cheap stunt”. After all, The Walking Dead isn’t like the soapsy Revenge, which depends heavily on well-worn tropes of fake deaths — for instance, Madeleine Stowe’s Victoria Grayson supposedly perished at least twice.
Real deaths or fake deaths, there is no running away from the fact that TV characters we’ve invested heavily in do get terminated. We can only hope the writers give them a befitting end. As for whether I’m watching the next season of Homeland, well, it would depend on Quinn’s survival, wouldn’t it? — TODAY
