Top 20 Exact Moments We Fell Out of Love with a TV Character

On “Weeds,” Nancy Botwin’s husband dies suddenly, leaving her without enough money to keep up the suburban life she and her sons have become accustomed to. In order to maintain her lifestyle, she enters the drug trade. However, what starts out as a way to keep her family secure inevitably ends up getting them in danger. Nancy marries Peter, a DEA agent, for her own purposes despite her sons’ feelings, and ends up using Peter to take down her competitors in the business. Her remarriage marks a turning point for the show. Most antiheroes get into crime for an alright reason. But, once they become obsessed with power, things really go south.

This Netflix series follows a group of siblings bound together by a shared birthday and a host of different superpowers. Allison Hargreeves, also known as the Rumor, has the power of mind control. Season 3 sees the previously good-natured Allison turn hateful, power-hungry, and careless. The consequences are deadly. Her impulsive murder of Harlan Cooper turned viewers against her, and started her down a path many still can’t understand. How far she goes is drastic and hard to digest. It also made us look back at some of her past behaviors through a new, less forgiving lens.

Nobody would ever claim that Ted Mosby is the perfect man but, early on in “How I Met Your Mother”, his antics were more charming than downright cringeworthy. All of that changes when we meet Natalie, Ted’s ex whom he reconnects with. Let’s not forget, though, that he broke up with her over the phone three years earlier… on her birthday. After only a few short weeks of dating again, he decides that she’s not the one for him and plans to end the relationship once more… on her birthday. This was a totally heartless move on his part, especially for someone who claims to be such a hopeless romantic!

One of the survivors of the ill-fated Flight 815 has a tougher road than many of his fellow castaways. Michael comes into the story as a sympathetic character, a father to a young boy named Walt. But, after he is kidnapped by the Others, they use his love for Walt against him. Things come to a head when he betrays his fellow survivors and shoots Ana Lucia and Libby dead. He ultimately trades their lives for his and Walt’s freedom from the island. Michael’s attempted redemption arc in a later episode didn’t do much good either.

In season 6, Eric Forman puts his girlfriend, Donna, on a bus to begin her college career while he stays behind to help look after his ailing father. But, as the bus pulls away, Donna’s still on the sidewalk. She says she can’t leave him behind. Eric’s ecstatic, and so is the studio audience. But viewers are still divided on the twist. The thought of Donna giving up a promising education for her boyfriend still doesn’t sit well with many today. It just seems so out of character. She would later end up going to college, but this decision ultimately skewed a disposition we once thought we knew so well.

Up until season 3, Andrea Harrison’s character development from frightened survivor to badass zombie killer was one of “The Walking Dead’s” storytelling triumphs. Then, the Governor thing happened. The Governor leads the town of Woodbury with an iron fist. He kidnaps Andrea, and within a few episodes, they enter a romantic relationship. From then on, she’s on a course for destruction that sees her making some pretty foolish choices. She acts as a peace broker between her fellow survivors and the Governor’s minions, which leads to more conflict, and ultimately, her death. Viewers were upset to see the character reduced to a clueless pawn when she’d grown so much.

We are all Carrie when she asks Miranda how long she’s been unhappy in her marriage. So much of Miranda’s story has been about finding happiness with her husband. She doesn’t seem to even process the gravity of her own affair. It’s not just surprising that she’d end her marriage this way, it’s really annoying. It also doesn’t help that the person she cheats with, Che Diaz, is a highly controversial character, and Miranda’s husband, Steve, is almost universally beloved. There’s something to be said for the trials of marriage. However, Miranda’s affair with Che feels underthought and underbaked.

In season nine, the show’s original final season, the Conner family won the lottery and ditched their humble beginnings. But, the one constant was the bickering in Roseanne and Dan’s marriage. That changes when Dan goes to California to take care of his sick mother and falls in love with her nurse. Once he finally comes clean, we feel as betrayed as Roseanne does. It’s a well-acted scene, but it’s hard to swallow that after all the years of Dan being a dependable and loving husband and father, he does this. Maybe it’s for the best to write this one off as one big fever dream.

Fans were left shocked when the mystery identity of the eponymous blogger was revealed in the series finale. Yes, it makes no sense given how Dan Humphrey has behaved throughout “Gossip Girl’s” six seasons. But more than that, it makes him come across like a total sociopath. If he is Gossip Girl, that means that Dan is responsible for some of his best friends’ worst secrets being leaked. His reasoning doesn’t even make sense. If he wanted to get closer to Serena, why did he spend several years trashing her in his blog? It’s a twist alright but the jury’s pretty much unanimous about whether it’s a good one.

Rachel Berry clawed her way from high school outcast to Broadway sensation in record time. However, once she lands the role of Fanny Brice, the very same one that made her idol, Barbra Streisand, famous, it’s not her talent that blows it for her. It’s her ego. When she decides she’d rather be on TV, she leaves the stage behind. The problem for many viewers is that they wanted Rachel to finally be humbled and each time it felt like she was finally going to learn a lesson, the show let her off the hook. By season 5, everyone had had enough.

After entering the picture in season 3, Ed Helms’ buffoonish director of sales was polarizing for many viewers. His immaturity was pretty evident, even for a Dunder Mifflin employee. Over the course of the next few seasons, however, he underwent significant character growth and became a valued ensemble member. Yet, in the final season, Andy alienated fans and his coworkers when he abandoned his girlfriend, Erin, who already had abandonment issues, to sail the Caribbean with his brother. This reminded viewers of the callous and selfish guy he was when he was first introduced. Even a hasty attempt to win back some of his goodwill in the latter half of the season failed to rectify the damage.

He may be a serial killer, but Dexter Morgan has a soft spot for his adopted sister. And after six seasons, we learned just how much of a soft spot she had for him. Debra Morgan was a character who brought out the human side of Dexter. But in the sixth season, she realized she was in love with him, kicking off a bizarre turn of events in a show that was no stranger to bizarre turns of events. Murder was one thing, but this was a bridge too far for many viewers. Debra’s devotion to Dexter before was adorable, if sad. Adding this unnecessary layer only made it incredibly disturbing. Thankfully, it didn’t last too long.

Head coach Ted Lasso treated his coaching staff like family. Among them was Nate Shelley, his protégé and assistant coach. However, Nate quickly grew jealous of Ted, and it all boiled over in this penultimate season 2 episode. In a shocking and heartbreaking turn, Nate betrayed Ted by leaking news of his anxiety attacks to the press. It was a rare moment of viciousness from a character we’d come to love. Nevertheless, just like all things on “Ted Lasso,” the fallout ultimately concluded on a gentle note. Despite the betrayal and hurt, Ted and Nate eventually reconciled, although the incident made fans completely second guess the show’s central theme of kindness.

The columnist at the center of this HBO comedy set in New York City often left us scratching our heads. Carrie’s ongoing will-they-won’t-they relationship with Mr. Big made for some rich drama, but it also hindered our understanding of her character. The most egregious example of her self-serving behavior came when she broke up with Aidan, whom the show made out to be a near-perfect guy. He was sweet, handsome, and attentive, qualities that stood in contrast to Big, who could be cold and infuriating. Aidan even forgave Carrie when she cheated on him with Big. So when she abruptly decided to end their relationship, it didn’t make any sense. Suddenly, Carrie’s hopeless romanticism just seemed ridiculous.

If Lorelai Gilmore wanted anything, it was to see her daughter attend an Ivy League school and not become the spoiled rich kid her parents envisioned. Well, as it turns out, those two things might go hand in hand. Having grown up believing she was inherently exceptional, Rory’s response to a rotten internship experience was to impulsively steal a yacht and then act indignant when forced to take accountability. Her decision to drop out of Yale was the culmination of a series of bad choices driven by a bruised ego. Now, we can cut her some slack due to her young age, but as any fan would tell you, Rory lost some of her shine after this incident.

“Shameless” threw so much at Fiona Gallagher, handing her the unofficial responsibility of sole parent over her multiple siblings. Given her circumstances, we forgave her when she occasionally went off the rails. In a show full of characters constantly going off the rails, Fiona’s missteps kind of felt earned. However, in season 4, her actions took a more troubling turn as she cheated on her boyfriend with his brother and ended up in possession of narcotics. Her youngest brother, Liam, accidentally ingests the drugs she carelessly left out, resulting in his hospitalization and Fiona’s arrest. Watching her grapple with overwhelming guilt was moving, but it was the natural conclusion to a series of really dumb decisions.

Hindsight is 20/20. Ross Geller was a lovable, if somewhat goofy, paleontologist who spent the whole series pining after Rachel. Even when he was marrying another woman. But when the two were broken up – or on a break, depending on who you ask – and Ross slept with someone else, a lot of people started to see he wasn’t all he was cracked up to be. Then, on top of that, he almost expects her to be grateful for his efforts to keep the affair hidden. Ross continuously digging his heels in over the semantics may have launched a catchphrase, but it also really made him look like a jerk.

Prior to this season 6 episode, Spike, the vampire was a fan favorite. The forbidden romance between him and his slayer, Buffy, was fraught and teased out for most of the series. However, the dynamic took a darker turn in this particular episode when Spike makes aggressive advances towards Buffy, before pinning her to the floor. If their relationship wasn’t doomed before among the fans, this incident seemed to seal the deal for many. Despite the show’s array of frightening monsters from hell, this was perhaps the most unsettling moment across all seven seasons. Actor James Marsters, who portrayed Spike, found the scene so difficult to shoot that he vowed never to do anything similar again.

Dr. Alex Karev arrived at Seattle Grace Hospital as a cocky and generally unlikable intern. Over the next 16 seasons, we witnessed his transformation into a caring and loving partner to Dr. Izzie Stevens. After Katherine Heigl, the actress who portrayed Izzie, exited the show, viewers had to adjust to Karev’s tumultuous romance with Dr. Jo Wilson. However, all of that progress was undone when Karev abruptly left Jo via a letter. Not only did he depart without a proper goodbye, but he also reunited with Izzie, who had left him years before and had been raising his secret children the whole time. Even fans of Karev and Izzie’s relationship thought it was an unfortunate mishandling of a key character’s exit.

Witnessing the conclusion of HBO’s epic fantasy series was bittersweet for us all. Jamie Lannister’s character development was all but undone by his decision to die with his sister, Cersei. Daenerys Targaryen, on the other hand, always bore a bit of her family’s darkness. Instead of taking us on that ride with her and delving into the corrosive nature of hatred, the show chose to fast track her descent into a snarling madwoman. In the penultimate episode, audiences watched in horror as she ordered her army and her dragons to ravage the city of Kings Landing. We were always destined to fall out of love with Daenerys, but the rushed final season made it impossible to really process that loss.

Which of these characters were ruined for you forever? Tell us about it in the comments.