15 Worst TV Character Exits Of All Time, Ranked

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

A fan-favorite actor leaving their respective show before its conclusion is practically a longstanding staple of the television industry. Whether moving on over creative differences, contract disputes, or simply just the end of their character’s story, even the most prominent stars have exited big series. In some cases, actors leave TV shows at exactly the right time before a marked downturn in quality. But even in cases when actors leave a show for understandable reasons, it doesn’t mean their characters’ departure is handled properly.

Departing characters have died off-screen or been written out of a given series by other sloppy means, leaving a bad taste in fans’ mouths. These instances are often embarrassingly executed and feel like a disservice to both the absent character and the audience in how rushed or out-of-character they seem. These are the 15 worst TV character exits of all time ranked to the most frustrating and laughable of them all.

The initial protagonist of “The Vampire Diaries” is Elena Gilbert, a recently orphaned teenager living in Mystic Falls, Virginia. Played by Nina Dobrev, Elena began dating new student Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley) only to discover that he’s a vampire dating back to the American Civil War. As Elena becomes increasingly involved with the Salvatore brothers, she takes on sinister figures, including the villainous Kai Parker (Chris Wood). Kai curses Elena with a magical coma, sacrificing her waking self to save Bonnie Bennett (Kat Graham).

While the exit gave Elena a heroic sacrifice moment, the nature of it all felt forced and anticlimactic. Given all that happened to the character -– dying, rising as a vampire, and cured of her vampirism –- a magically induced coma felt like the writers were running out of ideas. The development leaves the door open for Elena to return, but the sleeping spell doesn’t have the emotional fallout that it should given her importance in the story. Dobrev eventually returned for “The Vampire Diaries” series finale. However, the handling of her character’s initial exit remains … well, quite bad.

Following a very public falling out, Charlie Sheen was fired from “Two and a Half Men” after starring in the first eight seasons of the hit sitcom. The Season 9 premiere revealed that Sheen’s character, Charlie Harper, was apparently struck by a subway train in Paris. It’s heavily implied that Harper’s new fiancée and longtime obsessive admirer Rose (Melanie Lynskey) killed him after she found him with another woman. However, Charlie eventually returns in the series finale … sort of.

Charlie Harper went out like a “Looney Tunes” character not once, but twice over the course of “Two and a Half Men.” On the first occasion, this death was handled off-screen while, in the finale, the character’s “return” involves a stand-in actor, never showing Charlie’s face before he’s abruptly taken out by a literal falling piano. Given how vocal and messy Sheen’s break-up with the show’s creative team was, of course he wasn’t going to be directly involved himself. But the manner in which Charlie Harper leaves “Two and a Half Men” does feel forced overall to both the show and character’s detriment.

Though there were several love interests for Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel) over the course of “Gilmore Girls,” few stood out better than Jess Mariano. Played by Milo Ventimiglia, Jess was the bad boy nephew of the town’s diner owner Luke Danes (Scott Patterson). Despite their differences, Jess wins over Rory’s affections with his deceptively sensitive nature and surprisingly intellectual interests. However, Jess seemingly leaves town for good to reconnect with his father Jimmy Mariano (Rob Estes), relocating to Venice Beach, California.

What makes Jess’ initial exit from “Gilmore Girls” so clumsily handled is that his departure was couched in a backdoor pilot episode. Not only does it remove Ventimiglia from the main cast but it throws off the entire flow of the season to devote an episode for a spin-off that was never ordered. Worse yet, the departure derails the building romance between Jess and Rory, placing her with a lesser love interest. Jess would make his return to “Gilmore Girls” in a recurring capacity in later seasons but the stink of his awkward exit still hung in the air.

“The Walking Dead” deviated from its comic book source material a long time ago but retained the broad strokes of humanity struggling against an overwhelming zombie apocalypse. This includes the show’s focus on small-town sheriff Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and his son Carl (Chandler Riggs). In the ninth season episode “Honor,” Carl kills himself after becoming infected, emotionally bidding his father farewell. The moment shocked longtime fans as Carl outlived Rick in the original comic books to the end of the series.

Carl’s death still feels like one of the odder departures in the series, especially as he was one of the show’s best characters. Rick’s son gets a more heroic send-off than many other characters in the series but killing him off never quite felt right. What was also more puzzling was that Carl didn’t appear in Rick’s own “Walking Dead” farewell like other dearly departed characters. A particularly forced death of a fan-favorite figure, Carl Grimes didn’t necessarily have to mirror his comic book counterpart. Still, the character’s death could have been less abrupt.

“The Rookie” is a police procedural that doesn’t shy away from the daily dangers faced by police officers in the name of upholding the law. One of the most eager-eyed officers to join the force at the start of the series is Jackson West (Titus Makin Jr.). Jackson is the son of Internal Affairs Commander Percy West (Michael Beach) and is the top of class in the police academy. However, the younger West’s idealism is challenged when he encounters everything from racist officers on the force to allegations that his father may have been corrupt.

Jackson’s arc is tragically cut short, along with his life, when he is shot and killed by crooks working for Guatemalan drug lord La Fiera (Camille Guaty). What makes the moment worse is that Jackson’s death is seen awkwardly through security camera footage. According to “The Rookie” showrunner Alexi Hawley, the heartbreaking Season 4 exit was informed by Makin Jr. quitting the series before filming on the season began. Whatever the reason, Jackson West’s murder felt as oddly detached as it was abrupt, starting “The Rookie” Season 4 on a weak note.

“Doctor Who” is one of the best TV shows of the 1960s and a staple on British television for generations. To deal with the periodic departures of actors playing the story’s protagonist, known simply as the Doctor, the series has the extra-terrestrial adventurer regenerate their physical form. The Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker) proves to be more acerbic than many of his predecessors and only lasted two seasons of the classic series. In the 1987 episode “Time and Rani,” the Doctor’s ship, the TARDIS, is attacked, resulting in his regeneration into his seventh iteration (Sylvester McCoy).

The circumstances behind this regeneration sequence are clumsily done, with McCoy wearing a cheap wig instead of Baker handing off his sci-fi role to his successor. This includes the regeneration being triggered largely off-camera, making the whole process feel rather abrupt in comparison to other similar sequences. Behind-the-scenes politics fueled Baker’s departure, culminating in him being fired two years into his four-year contract to play the Doctor. That sudden dismissal makes this regeneration a more awkward affair in the series’ lengthy legacy.

One of the standouts from the “Gossip Girl” main cast is Vanessa Abrams, played in the CW series by Jessica Szohr. Featuring a less overtly glamorous fashion style compared to the other characters in the show, Vanessa reconnects with her friend Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley) upon returning to New York. This childhood friendship has since evolved in serious romantic tension between the two teenagers, culminating in a relationship in the third season. After a falling out with Dan at the end of the fourth season, Vanessa relocates to Spain after having his manuscript published.

Ever the bohemian of the main “Gossip Girl” ensemble, if there was ever a character to run off to Europe beyond an impromptu vacation, it would be Vanessa. That said, Vanessa’s exit felt especially random and impulsive, leaving behind so much unfinished business with the other characters. Szohr briefly reprised her role as Vanessa in the series finale in a small cameo as the show’s titular anonymous writer’s identity is revealed. This served as a reminder that the character felt pushed out of the main ensemble’s lives to suddenly go her own way.

Alexis Meade on “Ugly Betty” is another character that felt like the creative team didn’t quite know what to do with in her final stretch of episodes. Played by Rebecca Romijn, Alexis is the sister of fashion magazine editor-in-chief Daniel Meade (Eric Mabius). Alexis is introduced swearing revenge on her transphobic father who opposed her gender-affirming surgery but a car accident results in her developing amnesia. After regaining her memories, Alexis pushes one of Betty Suarez’s (America Ferrera) friends down a flight of stairs, resulting in a legal battle that ends with her relocating to Paris.

A lot of Alexis’ behavior following her car accident recovery felt out-of-character right through to her eventual departure. Her pushing Christina McKinney (Ashley Jensen) down a flight of stairs felt like an especially forced development to set up her exit. Also, for being such a prominent transgender character, Alexis’ more erratic and antagonistic behavior does carry a discomfort to her representative qualities. A complex character that the show’s creative team never quite got a strong handle on, Alexis Meade’s sudden relocation to France felt like a hasty removal.

One of the biggest fan-favorite supporting characters in the adult animated series “South Park” is Chef, voiced by soul music legend Isaac Hayes. Chef works as a cafeteria worker at the main characters’ elementary school, often dispensing wisdom to the boys in the form of an R&B song. Often, this advice, while well-meaning, is inappropriate for the children’s age though it makes him more endearing and trustworthy to the kids. When Isaac Hayes abruptly left “South Park” in 2006, the creative team went to special lengths to signal his character wouldn’t come back.

In the episode, “The Return of Chef,” the titular character joins a cult and is brainwashed as a thin allusion to Hayes’ alleged involvement with the Church of Scientology. This change of personality is cut short when Chef falls from a rope bridge and is mauled by various wildlife. “South Park” goes out of its way to not only mock and discredit Chef but kill him as definitively as possible making the whole thing feel personal and petty. To further cast a pallor on the character exit, Hayes himself died two years after the episode killing Chef aired.

One of the more infamous behind-the-scenes feuds among shows on The CW was between co-stars Alyssa Milano and Shannen Doherty on “Charmed.” The two actors played sisters Phoebe and Prue Halliwell, respectively, who used their magical abilities to fight the forces of darkness, alongside their sister Piper (Holly Marie Combs). In the third season finale, Prue and Piper faced the villainous Shax (Michael Bailey Smith), an assassin working for the Source of All Evil. The fourth season premiere revealed that Prue died battling Shax, with the Halliwell sister last seen being thrown through a wall and her siblings unable to resurrect her.

In the years since Doherty’s departure from “Charmed” and the show’s conclusion, Combs commented that she found Doherty’s firing sick and twisted. Though Milano denied that she had the power to remove Doherty, the abrupt nature of Prue’s end felt like the product of behind-the-scenes acrimony. Prue’s death was an unusually dark moment for the show at the time and imagery of the character seemingly disappeared along with her. “Charmed” was never quite the same after it lost Prue Halliwell and, more specifically, never felt as good of a show.

The ’70s sitcom “M*A*S*H” is based on the 1970 film of the same name, which is in turn based on the semi-autobiographical 1968 novel by Richard Hooker. The story follows an American mobile army surgical hospital during the Korean War, moving as the battlelines shift to better attend to the wounded. For the show’s first three seasons, the unit is headed by Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake (McLean Stevenson). At the conclusion of the third season, Blake receives an honorable discharge and tries to return home, only to have his plane shot down, resulting in his death.

Though Stevenson was happy with the changes the “M*A*S*H” TV show made, he decided to leave to take his career in new directions. Though there has been no reported major bad blood between him and the series’ creative team, Blake’s death seemed excessively cruel. The show’s messaging about the immense human cost of war was already firmly established before Blake’s departure and the shocking development seemed extremely heavy-handed in its delivery. Even the cast was shocked and heartbroken about the creative decision to kill Henry off-screen when they learned about it during filming.

The 2014 dramedy “Jane the Virgin” was always a satire on telenovelas and their often over-the-top and intentionally overly complicated storylines. That said, the way that the show handled the departure of its original love interest Michael Cordero (Brett Dier) feels like an out-of-character bait-and-switch. Michael is a police officer who marries Jane at the end of the second season only to be apparently shot and killed the following season. It’s later revealed that Michael actually survived but suffered traumatic memory loss from the injury, leading to the relationship’s dissolution.

Killing off Michael is a reasonable development, though heartbreaking for anyone who preferred him as Jane’s romantic partner over Rafael Solano (Justin Baldoni). But bringing him back, having him suffer amnesia, grow apart from Jane, and have him immediately turn around and marry his neighbor feels especially excessive. This paves the way for Jane and Rafael to wholeheartedly become a couple for “Jane the Virgin’s” meta series finale, but the show already had an out seemingly killing Michael. Yes, the CW series intentionally leaned hard on its soap operatic elements, but how it dismissed its initial romantic interest felt a step too far.

The big source of romantic tension at the start of “The Good Wife” is between protagonist Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies) and her longtime friend Will Gardner (Josh Charles). After Alicia’s marriage implodes in the face of her husband’s public scandal, Will gets her a job at his law firm. The pair’s growing feelings for each other finally culminates into a coupling, though the relationship returns to the backburner the following season due to Alicia’s familial priorities. In the fifth season, Will is murdered in the courtroom by his current client Jeffrey Grant (Hunter Parrish) in a shocking twist.

“The Good Wife” series creators Robert and Michelle King described the cliffhanger as having no joy in this creative direction and that distinction spread to audiences. Will’s death does come out of nowhere and at a time when it feels like there was still so much left unresolved between him and Alicia. Charles would briefly return as Will in dream sequences but that only underscored his glaring absence from the show.

While “The 100” has always been a show with major character deaths across its seven-season run, the death of Lexa easily felt the worst. Played by Alycia Debnam-Carey, the character debuts in the second season as the head of a faction of human survivors on a post-apocalyptic Earth. Lexa leads her people to form a tenuous alliance with protagonist Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor) and her crew of survivors left on the planet from an orbital space station. This blossoms into a romance between the two, only for Lexa to accidentally be killed by her subordinate Titus (Neil Sandilands), who intended to murder Clarke for compromising his leader.

Lexa’s death was poorly received by audiences, particularly in killing off such a strong and prominent queer character so dismissively. The backlash surrounding the scene became so intense that “The 100” series creator Jason Rothenberg penned a thoughtful apology to fans for mishandling the moment. The controversy hung over the sci-fi series for years though Debnam-Carey returned to reprise her role in the finale as a vision witnessed by Clarke. Just like its protagonist, “The 100” was forever haunted by how casually it killed off Lexa, from which it never fully recovered.

As far as abrupt and out-of-character departures, the exit of Alex Karev (Justin Chambers) from “Grey’s Anatomy” really takes the cake. A fixture on the show since its series premiere, Karev was married to main character Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl) before her departure in the sixth season. Alex himself departs the show in Season 16, leaving behind his new wife Jo Wilson (Camilla Luddington). In letters to Jo and his colleagues, Alex explains that he reconnected with Izzie, learned that she had children via IVF, and decides to stay with her.

When Alex’s exit on “Grey’s Anatomy” was finally explained, fans weren’t buying it and certainly not how it was executed. Having Alex essentially write Jo a Dear Jane letter and suddenly bounce from both her and his friends in Seattle felt particularly brusque. The show couldn’t even bother bringing back Heigl, opting for a body double to stand-in for her character as Chambers made his farewell. “Grey’s Anatomy” boss Krista Vernoff never considered killing off Alex Karev, but it feels like that would’ve been a better way to send him off.