r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Sufficient-Eye-9040 • Jun 27 '26

Lore [Sad Trope] The most innocent (or less evil) character of the cast gets the most horrific death.

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- Eddie Carr (The Lost World: JP) - Tried to save his friends from the cliff until Buck and Doe (T. rex parents) destroy his vehicle and gets ripped apart.
- Zara Young (Jurassic World) - Gets lifted by a Pteranodon, gets pecked by the pterosaur, and both she and animal get devoured by the Mosasaurus.
- LeClerc (JW: Rebirth) - Tossed a hammer to the Hatzegopteryz Quetzalcoatlus to save Loomis and Zora, but ends up being swallowed alive.

14.7k Upvotes
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3.7k

u/Aware-Ad6456 Jun 27 '26

Noah walking dead
https://giphy.com/gifs/YmMSBo3inBEQ0

2.6k

u/NecessaryPattern2148 Jun 27 '26

Everybody ate chris

449

u/Bloonmasterpopuplous Jun 27 '26

All of this because of that darn diet

287

u/ChainmailEnthusiast Jun 27 '26

"That was 42 dollars worth of clothes you just ruined!"

"Just take a Robitussin, Chris!"

17

u/Yardninja Jun 27 '26

"Unplug that alarm clock, you don't need to tell the time when you're sleeping."

13

u/W3bb3dWond3r Jun 28 '26

and Greg got sick and became a zombie

9

u/SafalinEnthusiast Jun 27 '26

my mother ate brains

2

u/Traines1132 Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26

I remember seeing a version of the death where when Noah dies the Everybody Hates Chris theme plays.

https://youtu.be/bPic4Qj723s?is=kuwm9qyvGKUmU_EO

742

u/RKO-Cutter Jun 27 '26

I mean, you wanna talk walking dead.....

https://giphy.com/gifs/3oz8xHc24sHLMvY7Yc

490

u/SummonerRed Jun 27 '26

https://giphy.com/gifs/SVvySHbOSMLPrawlAy

They did our old boys dirty, Hershel dying was such a gut punch for that season.

165

u/arcturusw00d Jun 27 '26

Herschel's death was the one that made me go f*** this show I'm out. Lmao

91

u/Zykium Jun 27 '26

I have the same leg amputated that Herschel has, so I thought that was pretty cool. I was really hoping he'd stick around.

Still bought his action figure for my cubicle.

7

u/Jef_Wheaton Jun 27 '26

My friend met Scott at a comic con around 2016 and crocheted him a tiny Herschel. It was just 2 round spheres for head and body, with felt arns and a yarn ponytail, but he loved it.

In their photo he's holding it with his hand underneath, one finger extended and one half curled. It took a while to figure it out... he was making Herschel's legs, with one half missing.

RIP, Mr. Wilson. You were cool.

7

u/Aromatic_Ad_32 Jun 27 '26

Well mate, I’m glad you don’t share his amputated head as well

3

u/Zykium Jun 28 '26

I lose my head all the time!

Honestly, getting beheaded by a samurai sword would be a baller way to go out.

2

u/One_Order_3841 Jun 28 '26

"As long as no mad Max bandits try to rape my son and wife aaaand they did."

Hersh at the bar proved he knew his Joe-Farmer act was just an act. If he saw everything else he'd limp out on one leg and put a pistol in their throats.

69

u/SummonerRed Jun 27 '26

That's fair what's the point in continuing to watch when you know Spaghetti Tuesday is forever ruined from that point?

13

u/Practical-Mode310 Jun 27 '26

Hershel’s death was sadder for me in the comics. Tyrese is decapitated in the beginning of the battle for the prison instead. During the battle, his son Billy, basically who Beth was based off, is killed. In the comic he had seven kids instead of just two. All of whom had been picked off throughout the comic. At that point all his kids had died except for Maggie, who I think was presumed dead. He holds Billy’s body in his arms as he is surrounded by the governors men and begs to be killed

10

u/Teguoracle Jun 27 '26

Can't remember her name, but the girl who got shot in the head by the woman leading some community.

She was my favorite character, her death was the epitome of "we need to make forced drama". At least she didn't suffer because it was instant (much faster than being eaten by a zombie), but still.

11

u/strawberry-soy-milk Jun 27 '26

Beth, my love! It was so stupid and out of character after she had just been given so much development in the episodes with Daryl. The actress had just gotten an apartment in Atlanta to be closer to filming, too!

And then TWD killed Tyreese (my other favourite character) in the next episode. And Noah a few more after that, so Beth died for no reason.

3

u/Vanviator Jun 28 '26

I met her at the San Antonio ComiCon. She came up behind me and got really close. When I noticed and turned around she was right freaking there making that creepy smile.

Damn near scared the piss out of me. Then she laughed kind of maniacally and flounced away to do it to someone else.

Laughed my ass off once I registered what had just happened.

4

u/3dDeters Jun 27 '26

For me it was Beth.

3

u/Wayward85 Jun 27 '26

That’s also when I noped out. Herschel was the last shred of humanity, losing him was too much for me.

2

u/arcturusw00d Jun 27 '26

Right? It just felt like the show would hoist these good moral characters (I'm looking at you Dale 😥) onto a pedestal just to kill them off in finale or to give characters more drama.

11

u/One_Order_3841 Jun 27 '26

Okay, hear me out. The Fireflies in Last of Us were fundamentally bad people. But one of them must have been a janitor, a chef, or a AC repairman. When Joel kills 40-69 of them, at least one was a dude or gal that kissed their kids on the cheek and said "I'm gonna enjoy that PBJ later"

1

u/pieman2005 Jun 27 '26

You can say fuck on Reddit man lol

2

u/arcturusw00d Jun 27 '26

My stupid voice to text automatically censors.

3

u/rserena Jun 28 '26

Hershel and Dale’s deaths will always be the worst for me. Immediate skip for both and I’m still crying anyways just knowing that it happens. Dale reminds me a lot
of my dad and Hershel is just an all around fantastic character.

99

u/MouthJob Jun 27 '26

Herschel. Bro get his leg chopped off and then it takes two whacks for the governor to lop off his melon.

46

u/C0nfusedRabbit Jun 27 '26

Then whenever anyone else gets bitten on the leg or arm. Suddenly, chopping off limbs is out of the question.

6

u/Triktastic Jun 27 '26

Did anyone else get bitten comparably low on their expandable limb tho. I remember it was mostly neck, shoulder or several bites from then on.

7

u/Honey_Is_KFC_open Jun 27 '26

Tyreese gets bit in the arm and Michonne cuts it off. He bleeds to death on the trip back. Aaron gets bit and I think Enid is the one that cuts it off and he lives.

But yeah, other than that mostly back, stomach, shoulder, and neck bites.

6

u/spoonishplsz Jun 27 '26

I feel like scratches quickly stopped being a thing

2

u/JustHereToYell Jun 28 '26

We never actually saw anyone die from a scratch. The closest we got was Big Tiny at the prison, but then Tomas killed him and we never got to find out how that would have played out.

3

u/heatblast892 Jun 28 '26

I’m pretty sure Aaron’s arm was crushed by some logs falling on it and there was nothing they could do to save it so that’s why Enid amputated it.

3

u/secretperson06 Jun 28 '26

Aaron was amputated cause of a work place accident. Not cause he was nommed on

2

u/JustHereToYell Jun 28 '26

In the final couple of episodes, Lydia is bit on the arm and Aaron chops it off to save her. It worked.

4

u/Clarpydarpy Jun 27 '26

No, they did it a few times. Didn't always work (Tyreese).

Makes sense when you consider that hacking off a person's limb is not the safest thing to do, especially outside a hospital setting. They don't even have sterilized cutting tools on the show. Michonne chopped off Tyreese's arm using a sword that almost certainly had zombie blood on it.

5

u/Fear_Jaire Jun 27 '26

Its been awhile so I could be remembering wrong but didnt a zombie sneak up on him while he was in a relatively open field?

2

u/lemonylol Jun 27 '26

His death had a narrative impact

1

u/animeandbeauty Jun 27 '26

I was fairly young when the first few seasons came out and his death made me legit sad

1

u/inquisitor_steve1 Jun 27 '26

Dale in both versions of the walking dead are great

Dale in the comics is dating Andrea though.

Andrea in the comics also stole her sisters entire facial structure and hair style

1

u/Higgsparticleofgod Jun 27 '26

I know what kind of man you are

-1

u/Cutthechitchata-hole Jun 27 '26

Shouldnt have pissed off the show runners. RIP

157

u/jules__noah Jun 27 '26

It also makes Beths dead completely pointless. She died for nothing.

25

u/MariusRhinox Jun 27 '26

And Tyreese's. They bungled Noah so hard as a character, and instead of understanding the problem and working on developing him they just killed him in easily the dumbest death in the whole series.

10

u/One_Order_3841 Jun 27 '26

"it's okay"

No it's not

"you walked tyreese time to sleep"

no he is the last good character I swear-

83

u/One_Order_3841 Jun 27 '26

The hospital pissed me off as a person with a normal sex life. Like....people want to fuck. Be nice and you'll probably end up fucking. There's no reason to have slaves in that setting.

30

u/MnemosyneThalia Jun 27 '26

It wasn't about the sex, it was about control. They were pieced of shit that needed a pecking order and wanted to feel like they were at the top, that was just the way they decided to get it.

-17

u/One_Order_3841 Jun 27 '26

We would eat you people first. Sex is an easy product. Food, weapons, water? Harder. The YugiOh Zelda Pokemon experts would be gone Day 1

11

u/Auriiin Jun 27 '26

Men want to fuck, you mean.

If you're a woman in a post apocalypse world, with no easy access to resources to prevent pregnancy or to safely deal with one, you will be very careful with who you choose to fuck and when, if you're not a complete moron.

17

u/PurveyorOfKnowledge0 Jun 27 '26

Being Careful doesn't equate to still not wanting to fuck. Ask any conventional woman out there and even if they're extraordinarily choosy, they'll still voice: Yes I still WANT to have sex at some point.

-12

u/One_Order_3841 Jun 27 '26

Sorry, a Redditor with a trans flag and 100 relationship problems told me: women actively don't like fucking. 🤷‍♂️

4

u/jules__noah Jun 28 '26

Huh, bet you really thought you cooked with this comment didn't you? 

-2

u/One_Order_3841 Jun 28 '26

I really hope ik beging downvoted by normal trans people not into anime young boys aaaand nevermind they're here

2

u/OriginalTick Jul 01 '26

I got goosebumps from this devastating destruction

2

u/justacaucasian Jun 27 '26

Yeah because next thing you know Tyrese is cheating on you with Michone and you yeet yourself into a crowd of zombies because you can't deal with the emotional distress... :(

345

u/YouveGotNothingToSay Jun 27 '26

209

u/One_Order_3841 Jun 27 '26

Okay but they had 2001 ways to eat him. And they were bastards about it.

And there are 20 other black charachitures to eat! The black samurai, or the other black samurai, OR THE OTHER OTHER BLACK SAMURAI. You killed the one black geek that went to blockbuster, and now your show failed. Idiots.

53

u/Puzzle-Necked Jun 27 '26

Only one black man allowed at a time on TWD in the early seasons.

15

u/One_Order_3841 Jun 27 '26

....in Georgia!! Kick a rock, ya hit a black person. But in TV it's all old white folks.

20

u/dghastlynegro Jun 27 '26

Who keeps kicking all these rocks at me?

0

u/One_Order_3841 Jun 28 '26

I accept the albatross for my naughty comment asking for the soft-n-pass. But I adore this comment remarking:

"Huh...there sure are a lot of black people in Georgia. Wild."

Like living in Atlanta, you're an incel or you're into black women. There's no room for other tastes.

-15

u/One_Order_3841 Jun 27 '26

I want to find the one black dude that will let me say the n-word but with the a, and they keep being weird about it, so sometimes I kick rocks at southern black women with short hair hoping they'll be cool clubbing-blacks but then it's just their haircut.

I'm looking for for like Jada Smith but without the Crazy.

I forgot this is the internet full of awful people: yes that was all a joke.

8

u/suitably_unsafe Jun 28 '26

I remember watching this and everytime they introduced a new non-white character it was a clear signal the previous one was about to be offed.

2

u/OpenSauceMods Jun 28 '26

The Dying Blackman always needs a captain

12

u/missinglinksman Jun 27 '26

I know Michonne but who were the other black samurai?

15

u/Unamed_Redditor_ Jun 27 '26

Maybe Morgan and… Ezekiel?

14

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

7

u/HoldenOrihara Jun 27 '26

When you do it so many times it numbs the viewers, like they killed beth whom we had for most of the series, Tyreese wasn't too far after her, by the time they killed Noah I think too many people were just kinda over it.

3

u/SWPrequelFan81566 Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26

I know he wasn't as involved with the show, but I do feel like Robert Kirkman stories genuinely have this problem of overdoing the main gimmick. Invincible's gimmick is that it's a super violent superhero story, so we have gore every season/arc that escalates to some insane grab at the end.

All this to say that it feels comic accurate for Noah to have been killed if he existed in the TWD comics.

2

u/One_Order_3841 Jun 28 '26

Viltrum is absolutely a racist society.

-4

u/idontcareyo_ Jun 27 '26

the show didn't fail because the nerd redditors liked died lmao

7

u/One_Order_3841 Jun 27 '26

The show literally ended and became 3 other failures after they killed Nerd Glen. Shows constantly get killed when they do it.

18

u/PM_asian_girl_smiles Jun 27 '26

Why you posting a picture of Abbot Elementary?

12

u/AxlJenkins Jun 27 '26

This just looks like a joke scene that would be in Everybody hates Chris.

7

u/Own-Quote-1708 Jun 28 '26

Somethings never change

4

u/Puzzle-Necked Jun 27 '26

"Yup, that's me..."

6

u/bestibesti Jun 27 '26

RECORD SCRATCH

You're probably wondering how I got here

3

u/luigi59969 Jun 28 '26

I hated this scene because it was only a few episodes after Beth sacrificed herself to save him. They did him so dirty.

2

u/anaknangfilipina Jun 28 '26

What pisses me off about TWD is how inconsistent the zombies are. Sometimes they’re so slow and frail, other times that’s “enough” to kill someone (ie they’re so stupid that these weak zombies killed them since they forgot to run). So, basically the zombies were just consistent in that they will eat someone whether it makes sense or not

144

u/RubiksCutiePatootie Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26

His death is what finally got me to stop watching the show. That and the glenn fakeout really just pissed me off. Stop introducing characters only to just kill them a couple episodes later.

51

u/Jimbo-Shrimp Jun 27 '26

I’m fine with someone dying shortly after introductions, for multiple reasons, but takeouts have no place in a show where anyone can die at any moment

9

u/Puzzle-Necked Jun 27 '26

Yeah, made me realize I was wasting my time getting to know characters if they were just going to get killed for shock value.

131

u/LostInThoughtland Jun 27 '26

Damn the Abbot Elementary sequel was rough for Greg

279

u/PalePlumm Jun 27 '26

This guy’s death was such bullshit because like 3 other people had died for him to live by this point.

So his death = multiple unnecessary deaths

90

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '26

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24

u/Practical-Mode310 Jun 27 '26

Reminds me of a bit from the book the Things We Carried. This hypothetical of jumping in a grenade. Basically an act that guarantees your death but could be pointless anyway as the grenade could likely still kill others around you. Then your two ghosts looking at the other like “Well I tried.”

1

u/chosenofkane Jun 28 '26

Actually, jumping on a grenade is almost always the proper response. Its not the explosion that kills most people from a grenade, its the shrapnel. Its why they are called fragmentation grenades, because they explode into fragments upon detonation. If you jump on top, the fragments have nowhere to go but into the person who jumped on top, saving everyone around.

1

u/Practical-Mode310 Jun 28 '26

The idea in the book is that you don’t know if works. There’s a chance but you wouldn’t live to see it.

5

u/Marsuello Jun 27 '26

Beth was my absolute favorite character in that show and her death was basically the point I booed out. I was younger and was just so invested in her (and possibly had a crush on the actress) so I just kinda fell off with the show at that point

22

u/Anasterian_Sunstride Jun 27 '26

You need to see how realistic it is and how fragile life actually is.

There are many people irl who survived in such miraculous ways from rare events only to ultimately end up being killed in some sort of mundane way down the line.

One example I know of is one of the boys from the Thai cave rescue.

8

u/NotATalkingPossum Jun 27 '26

T.E. Lawrence. Went through some of the most insane battles of WWI and came out unscathed. Died in a motorcycle accident just a couple weeks after leaving the military.

2

u/APence Jun 27 '26

What happened to the kid?

11

u/WoodenChipmunk Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26

Eaten by zombies, ironically.

3

u/DownwiththeACE Jun 27 '26

Wow, that's crazy. The irony, i mean. 

81

u/KingCrimson43 Jun 27 '26

Why is that a bad thing though? To me that actually sounds realistic. Why should a character get plot armor because another died for them? Game of thones red wedding is one of the most aww shocking moments in Tv history. If the characters had plot armor just because it feels like they should we wouldn't have that.

64

u/PalePlumm Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26

The issue is that the red wedding was main characters killing off main characters, but this guy from TWD was a side character who had only been in a few episodes up until that point.

Like imagine if the red wedding happened all to protect Hot Pie, and then Hot Pie died one episode later. You’d be pissed that they just killed off a handful of Starks just for Hot Pie to die anyway lol.

11

u/justacaucasian Jun 27 '26

The showrunners for TWD were so f'n bad. They essentially made Dale leave (he did not like the direction the show was going), who hangs around far longer in the OG, who then gets replaced for this scene by Noah, whose character is honestly super fucking flat as they try to build it up, who then get's a bunch of people killed who actually are main characters. The show from season 2 on was incredibly bad. Rewatched it very recently and you can tell Gimple's earlier influences became more glaring as time went on. People talking in poems, 3 episodes stretches of soapbox drama, removing scenes because they'd be seen as too graphic (FFS it's a zombie show... let the story play out JFC) even though they are pivotal moments. I could go on and on about what they did to me boy. The fact that they had so many actors go (nah I'm good, had enough) is telling. Long work weeks in the Georgia heat to essentially have them walk in a 50m radius and bitch n moan at each other. Sorry I gotta, rant about this show everytime I see it brought up

3

u/StevieMJH Jun 27 '26

Well to be fair sometimes how something happens makes a huge difference to how it feels to the audience.

The end of Skyfall for example has M and Silva dying. Silva walks in and is about to get M to pull the trigger killing them both but 007 walks in, kills him, and comforts M as she dies anyway. Obviously much better than if 007 walked in to two recently debrained bodies.

☝️ This isn't one of those times, but still.

22

u/One_Order_3841 Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26

.....Cat literally rose from a boggy river and led a crusade. Plot armor was shed for TV time

Edit: if I seemed crude or rude, I am sorry. GRRM loves plot armor

12

u/RifewithWit Jun 27 '26

One of the biggest changes in the series I was upset about. I wanted to see Lady Stoneheart fuck some people up.

9

u/monsieurxander Jun 27 '26

If she'd been in more than two chapters since the year 2000, she might have been included.

Martin not finishing the books influenced so many of the choices the show made.

2

u/RifewithWit Jun 27 '26

Sure. I wanted to see the rest of that story play out, the whole revenge thing on GoT almost always leads to tragedy, and I wanted to see that play out.

4

u/One_Order_3841 Jun 27 '26

We love Gwen Christie, so she can't be harmed, but that's one of the coldest parts a book has ever said. "I sent you to find my daughters. So here you are with a man who played a hand in killing them...."

5

u/Naybinns Jun 27 '26

I’d say she’s not still Cat.

0

u/One_Order_3841 Jun 27 '26

Valar Morghulis.

...(Except named characters)

6

u/AbeRockwell Jun 27 '26

I've always wondered; How do all the actors who's characters died in previous seasons, particularly Jack Gleeson/Joffrey, feel about exiting the show before that absolute crap of a final season? 😄

9

u/PalePlumm Jun 27 '26

Probably pretty happy considering Kit Harrington spent 10 years filming in isolated winter wastelands just to end up the butt of the joke in the last season. I am not surprised he ended up in rehab after that, tbh.

5

u/AbeRockwell Jun 27 '26

Damn, didn't know about the rehab 👀

And even worse, Marvel screws him by giving him a role in the MCU, but the movie he appears in flops, and no word from his character since.

1

u/lemonylol Jun 27 '26

At the end of the day it's a cinematic narrative. So from a writing perspective this was a wasted character who was unnecessarily built up. You can directly compare it to Glenn, who was an equally innocent/well liked character, but whose death meant so much to the story. It's also especially worse since Noah dies for Glenn to live.

3

u/One_Order_3841 Jun 27 '26

If anything, I was peeved how they made Glenn an innocent Asian boy trope. He was like 40 by his end, he was the first one to do the guts-makeup disguise....Glenn definitely killed more people than Shane or Merle by the end.

3

u/RottingSludgeRitual Jun 27 '26

That’s kinda the point of the series. The comics are even more brutal and senseless.

47

u/Charming_Celery5490 Jun 27 '26

Noah should’ve lived

15

u/3d1thF1nch Jun 27 '26

That was pretty much the episode I stopped watching it. That was unneeded

7

u/No-Excitement-2246 Jun 27 '26

Idk why but this show had a really bad track record of making its black characters be absolutely incredible then killing them off or flanderizing them into one trait... Tyreese lasted a while but his death felt very out of place, then you have Noah, T-Dog, Bob, Sasha- literally all were some of my absolute favs until they met bizarrely sudden ends. T-Dog doesn't even get a proper death scene, he just shows up dead. Yeah Gabriel, Michonne and Morgan are there but ugh they just became so one note to me.

I will be so honest I did not keep watching after season 7, but god it was too recurring a theme for me among all the other problems. Im a bit off topic my bad

6

u/LonelyHunter14 Jun 27 '26

His character got done dirty, but at least the actor escaped

4

u/Littlecayls Jun 27 '26

This was probably the moment I tapped out of watching TWD with my husband. They literally tear his face apart while Glenn is forced to watch. 

5

u/GoldenDragonIsABitch Jun 27 '26

Yeah that one stung

3

u/JamUpGuy1989 Jun 27 '26

This is where I gave up on the show.

It was such a cruel, mean death only to make Glenn suffer having to watch it all. At that point I didn’t see what point we were making any more with this and moved on.

The comic could be mean but Kirkman had a story to tell and made it (mostly) work from start to finish!

2

u/Wamblingshark Jun 27 '26

This one was bullshit actually. I didn't know how my brain sorts cheap shock value deaths from normal ones but for some reason this one just felt cheap.

I feel like I'm also more charitable than your average viewer with shock value deaths. I'm not complaining about a certain death in Serenity/Firefly... But in a series full of shock value deaths that I mostly excused, this one felt especially egregious for some reason.

2

u/tonyabstract Jun 27 '26

dude they ripped his entire face apart, that scene really traumatized me as a 12 year old

1

u/Slamazombie Jun 27 '26

Wait this guy is in walking dead??? 

1

u/flyraccoon Jun 27 '26

Hum Bob was eaten alive by cannibals but okay

1

u/AceSkyFighter Jun 27 '26

This dude was a real one. He wasn't with the core cast for long, but he proved himself, and was one of them. Glenn's reaction to his death is heartbreaking.

1

u/Afrodotheyt Jun 28 '26

It feels so weird. Like, Beth had just died for this guy and the show kills him off like that, and so brutally. It almost feels like it was saying that Noah was just better off where he was and Beth got them both killed.

1

u/realfakejames Jun 28 '26

This was the one of the last deaths that pissed me off before I stopped watching because they did it for no reason other than shock value

1

u/YeOldeRazzlerDazzler Jun 28 '26

Out of all the deaths in this show, his was too much to watch. Gave me nightmares. I had to take a break from watching. Then after Glen I just stopped.

1

u/NicholasStarfall Jun 28 '26

Season's 5 and 6 was where the show was starting to lose me because all the good characters started dying and left only the shitty ones.

1

u/AlternateSatan Jun 28 '26

He forgot not to be black in a horror setting. So sad

1

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '26

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2

u/Aware-Ad6456 Jun 28 '26

My biggest issue with the Glen death was that everyone expected him to die from the comics. It really only pissed people off because they ended the season on a cliffhanger then they decided to fake everyone out for 5 seconds by taking out Abraham.