It’s safe to assume that most main characters on television are going to have to deal with some pretty serious stuff. Even if a show only runs for a season or two, television becomes more interesting if the characters in a show have significant hurdles to overcome. While this might be more important for dramas than comedies, it certainly isn’t exclusively something that characters in serious shows have to deal with, as comedy shows tend to need conflict and some sort of drama, too.
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While some TV protagonists can overcome the various issues that come their way and emerge from their shows in a better position than how they started, not all are so lucky. The following main characters all ended up in a worse place than where they started, whether because of their faults or bad luck (or, sometimes, a bit of both).
As endings will be detailed, the following list contains spoilers.
1Selina Meyer from ‘Veep’ (2012-2019)
Veep’sa political satire with a cast that’s mostly filled with characters who are as mean-spirited as they are incompetent. The series centers on Selina Meyer and her staff as they land themselves in scandal after scandal. Meyer herself begins the series as a Vice-President before achieving the presidency briefly, only to lose it again well before the show ends.
By the end of its seventh and final season, Meyer has burned bridges with just about everyone in her life in her pursuit of power. Her worst fear even comes true, when a flash-forward in the finale reveals that news of her death in 2045 is overshadowed by the passing ofTom Hanks. It’s a tragic ending for the character, but viewers probably won’t feel sorry for Meyer after all the misdeeds they witnessed her do.
2Angel from ‘Angel’ (1999-2004)
The title character fromAngel’sundoubtedly had a full-on life. He’s a vampire cursed with having a soul, wrestling with his violent nature while also feeling regret over what he’s done. He goes through a lot during the first three seasons ofBuffy the Vampire Slayer, and so moves to Los Angeles for five seasons of his own show, theBuffyspin-offAngel.
Unfortunately, a change in scenery doesn’t stop misfortune from coming Angel’s way. Most of the people he gets to know end up dead or out of his life by the show’s finale, with Angel himself last seen facing down almost certain death right before the end credits roll for the final time. Being a hero isn’t easy, asAngelmakes perfectly clear.
3Dexter from ‘Dexter’ (2006-2013)
While Dexter’s fate in the original series ofDexterisn’t as bad as it could’ve been, it’s certainly a far from happy one. The infamous serial killer who targets serial killers was never going to get away with the things he did, with much of the thrill of the show coming from the anticipation of things eventually falling apart.
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They don’t so much implode by the show’s eighth and final season; more just fizzle out. Still, Dexter is forced to live a solitary life as a lumberjack, and has lost several people he was close to by the show’s end, including his girlfriend and half-sister. Things are considerably less despondent for him in season 1, making his ultimate journey and destination downbeat.
4Tony Soprano from ‘The Sopranos’ (1999-2007)
All things considered, Tony Soprano endedThe Sopranosin a better place than most of its characters. Unless you’re certain the show’s infamous final scene represents Tony dying, he survives and lives to fight (and scheme) through another day, all the while the majority of his friends (and some of his enemies) have met violent ends.
That doesn’t mean he ends up in a good place, though. If he survives that final scene in the diner, he’s going to be facing a far more uncertain world than he had to deal with during the show’s earlier seasons, as he has fewer friends than before, and arguably more peoplewho will one day want him dead.
5Jerry Seinfeld and his friends from ‘Seinfeld’ (1989-1998)
It’s not too bold a claim to say thatSeinfeldis ashow about bad people. Jerry and his friends do some pretty terrible things throughoutSeinfeld’snine seasons, withsome actions being borderline criminal. Even if they’re not physically hurting people, they’re often selfish and hypocritical, but within the show’s heightened reality - and because they often suffer consequences for their actions - such behavior can be surprisingly funny.
Their greatest comeuppance is in the show’s controversial finale, which has the four friends tried in court for the various misdeeds they committed throughout the show’s duration. The last they’re seen, they’ve been sentenced to a year in prison, with the final scene being Jerry performing standup in the prison cafeteria.
6Vic Mackey from ‘The Shield’ (2002-2008)
The Shieldis about a squad of police detectives who frequently take the law into their own hands and are unafraid to do corrupt things if it means getting ahead. They’re headed up by Vic Mackey, who’s the most cutthroat of the lot, seeing as he’s happy to murder a fellow detective in the first episode for his own self-interests.
Mackeyends up with a fate worse than deathby the end ofThe Shield… at least by his standards. He’s very much alive and physically well off, yet he loses all his friends, alienates himself from his family, and is forced to work a desk job instead of patrolling the streets freely like he once did. For a character like Mackey, it’s hard to think of a less appealing fate.
7Jack Bauer from ‘24’ (2001-2014)
Jack Bauer has it rough right from the opening episodes of24. He’s a counter-terrorism agent whose life is constantly in peril, with his high-intensity job becoming more stressful when his daughter and wife are kidnapped by terrorists who are also planning to assassinate a presidential candidate Bauer is forced to protect.
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Bauer tends to prevent most catastrophes, but there’s almost always someone that’s sacrificed along the way. At other times, Bauer’s actions cost him a piece of his psyche, meaning that even though he survives all eight seasons of24(plus the 2014 ninth season/spin-off), he’s become a truly broken man by the time the dust settles.
8Spike Spiegel from ‘Cowboy Bebop’ (1998-1999)
To be fair, the main character ofCowboy Bebop, Spike Spiegel, isn’t exactly in a great place when the show begins. He’s a perpetually unlucky bounty killer with a traumatic past, and seems to have begrudgingly accepted the fact that his life isn’t quite all he wanted it to be.
Yet things undoubtedly get worse for Spike as the series builds towards its dramatic finale. He pursues revenge above all else, and seems to die from the wounds sustained in a dramatic battle in the show’s closing moments. Even if he somehow survives, things still aren’t all that great for him, given most people he knows have either died or parted ways with him.
9Shinji Ikari from ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion’ (1995-1996)
Neon Genesis Evangelionis an iconic sci-fi anime series that’s concluded several times. The original show ran for a single season and ended in a very abstract, unconventional manner. It had a follow-up movie calledEnd of Evangelionthat had a greater sense of finality, but still felt unconventional. Then theRebuild of Evangelionseries came along, which was partly a remake of the original show, and featured a more optimistic - and comprehensible - ending.
The last of those is the only truly positive one, because neither of the others is particularly great for the main character, Shinji Ikari. Ending aside, he also goes through so much trauma that it’s hard not to imagine he’s in a worse place than he was at the start of the show, given how drastically the things he sees alter his outlook on the world.
A show that was destined to end with its protagonist’s downfall,Breaking Badwas more so about the journey than the destination. Walter White is a mild-mannered chemistry teacher/family man at the beginning of the show, but begins to transform dramatically after he’s diagnosed with cancer.
Fearing for his family’s finances when he’s gone, Walter turns to making meth. More than money, he experiences power from it, and eventually builds a meth empire. It all comes crashing down due to its uncontrollable greed, leading to numerous deaths, including Walter’s.Over on spin-off showBetter Call Saul, Jimmy McGill experiences a similar fall to grace, though it’s not quite as violent or life-ending.
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