Television in the year 2014 was full of heartbreak, wonderful laughs, failed reality shows and lots of head scratching choices.
One show was able to kill off a main character to the surprise of pretty much everybody. A few shows jumped into the future leading to even more twists. And then Viola Davis took off her wig, makeup and said nine of the most-shocking words we heard all year. It was a good year in TV.
But not every shocker was a twisty death or scripted surprise! Read on the best (and in some ways worst) shockers of the year in TV. Please note, these are in no particular order.
"Why is your penis on a dead girl's phone?", How to Get Away With Murder
ABC promoted the shocking twist—they weren't kidding—but they didn't tell us that Viola Davis would be delivering that shocker after breaking down TV barriers and shattering taboos by removing her makeup, fake eyelashes and wig.
Basically everything, Game of Thrones
While there was no Red Wedding this season, we got the Purple Wedding, Bye Joffrey (Jack Gleason)! And then Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) murdered Tywin (Charles Dance). And Shae (Sibel Kekilli) betrayed Tyrion. And then Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) assaulted Cersei (Lena Headey) Basically our jaws were on the floor all season.
Josh Charles' Exit, The Good Wife
Raise your hand if you saw it coming? That's what we thought. The Good Wife killed off Will Gardner (Josh Charles), one part of its ongoing love triangle, effectively changing the show and its main character, Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies), forever. The episodes after Will's shocking murder nabbed Margulies another Emmy and made us cry buckets of tears. We hated to see him go, but man, death did The Good Wife wonders.
Frank Underwood deals with his Zoe Barnes problem, House of Cards
Who saw that coming? And in the first episode?! Zoe Barnes (Kate Mara) and the train conductor certainly didn't!
Valerie Cherish rides again, The Comeback
Fewer things have made us happier than the return of Valerie Cherish (Lisa Kudrow) close to 10 years after the cult-hit series wrapped its first and then only season. News of a comeback for The Comeback started bubbling in early 2014 and we were watching Val on our TVs again in November. Best comeback ever.
The finale, How I Met Your Mother
OK, so…yeah. They did that with Ted (Josh Radnor), Robin (Cobie Smulders) and the Mother (Cristin Milioti). We were shocked. You were shocked. Have you come to terms with it yet?
Pretty much the whole season, Homeland
Oh, where to begin with the epicness the totally revitalized fourth season has thrown down. Maybe Carrie (Claire Danes) almost drowning her baby (Poor Franny!) in the premiere? Or how about Carrie seducing "the boy" aka Aayan, the big bad Haqqani's nephew? Oh, then there was the time Saul (Mandy Patinkin) was kidnapped and held hostage by Haqqani, after he put a bullet in Aayan's head? Nope, not done yet. Haqqani then took over the American embassy that one time. NBD. Finally, the Showtime hit was able to pull off the impossible: keeping Damien Lewis' surprise return as Brody completely under wraps.—Tierney Bricker
Selina Meyer takes the throne, Veep
Can your show still be called Veep when the vice president unexpectedly becomes the president?
Diamond Dan, The Mindy Project
Chris Messina dancing on The Mindy Project gives us life. His secret stripper past and subsequent dance moves were such a pleasant surprise for Mindy Lahiri (Mindy Kaling) and viewers everywhere. Relive them now.
Bye bye, everybody, Sons of Anarchy
We knew the final season of Sons of Anarchy would be a bloody one, but the penultimate episode featured not one, not two, but THREE major deaths. They went there. (And we haven't even mentioned that major death in the finale.)