Television in 2014 has been full of jaw-dropping moments that shook us to our core. It’s rare to call a TV show truly shocking and unpredictable in this day and age but this year gave us several moments that no one saw coming.
Here’s a list of eight shocking scenes we watched this year:
1. Veep becomes POTUS
The third season of the HBO comedy Veep mainly focused on Selina Meyer’s campaign as she runs for president. But let’s face it, nobody expected her to actually win due to her incompetence as well as her team’s unreliability. So imagine our surprise when we see her becoming POTUS by the end of the season.
2. Scandal kills off a teenage boy
It’s not every day that a drama show kills off a teenage character to shake the story up. The president’s son dies in the third season finale from meningitis setting up a whole story arc for the fourth season and giving us something to talk about during the show’s hiatus. That was quite a bold move from Scandal’s creator Shonda Rhimes.
3. The finale of How I Met Your Mother
How I Met Your Mother ended on a very controversial note because of the shocking twists during its finale. Ted Mosby finally meets the mother and they live a few happy years until the mother dies and now he’s looking to go back to Robin, which is why he’s been telling this story all along. Some people liked the finale, other hated it, but surely everyone did not see any of this coming.
4. Will’s death on The Good Wife
This was one of the most secretive deaths in the past few years. Absolutely nobody saw it coming. Even after he was shot, everyone expected him to suffer from an injury rather than dying. The last 10 minutes of the fifth season’s fifteenth episode are one of the most heartbreaking and shocking moments on television.
5. Frank Underwood ruthlessly kills Zoe Barnes on House of Cards
Frank has always been capable of going to extreme measures in order to get what he wants. But there’s no way we could have expected him to push journalist Zoe Barnes in front of a train in public. Nobody thought of it mainly because we were still in the first episode of the second season.
6. Homeland’s brutal fourth season
This season of Homeland has been full of shocking moments; in the second episode, we see Carrie contemplate drowning her baby in the tub. Later, she seduces a young boy in order to use him for her operation. Not to mention the boy getting shot in the head, Saul’s kidnapping and terrorists attacking the American embassy. This season has been extremely unpredictable.
7. Oberyn Martell getting his head smashed on Game of Thrones
If you’re a normal human being, I’m sure your jaw dropped or you gasped while watching this scene. After a long fight that suggests that he got the upper hand, Oberyn gets his head smashed during the last minute leaving us very unsettled and a bit disgusted by this violence.
8. Beth’s death on The Walking Dead
This was one of the fastest death scenes on TV; it all happened so quickly that you can barely wrap your head around it. After her death, everyone’s heart got broken especially that half of the season’s plotline was to get Beth back to safety.