Moral Event Horizon/Live-Action TV

"Female Changeling - "I want the Cardassians exterminated." Weyoun - "Which ones?" Female Changeling - "All of them. The entire population." Weyoun - "That may... take some time." Female Changeling - "Then I suggest you begin at once.""
 * In case his psychotic Machiavellian behaviour hadn't tipped you off, the TV version of House of Cards (British series) ends with the After this, the character is hard to see as anything other than sheer, concentrated evil. But stylish evil.
 * In the miniseries Holocaust, Erik Dorf crosses the Moral Event Horizon when he orders Karl Weiss tortured. He knows that Karl Weiss is the son of the man he once trusted as a friend, yet he still does it. Karl ultimately dies as a result of the torture. Before Dorf was sort of sympathetic, but after this, it became extremely hard to sympathise with him.
 * In the Korean Drama Shining Inheritance, Eun Sung's stepmother is first seen as a somewhat strict, money worried woman, but not so bad. Then, in several episodes she has  and   AND  . Oh, did I mention this all happened in 6 or so episodes? And the woman is still proud to live?
 * Also, until episode 15, Seung Mi, though not liked by a number of fans, didn't have a mob after her. Then, she this started several hundred conspiracies for her quick and painful death.
 * The Shield had always played fast and loose with the moral event horizon concept with Vic Mackey, what with him shooting a fellow cop in the pilot and all. But his decision in the second to last episode to betray his only remaining friend, Ronnie, by turning state's evidence against him and his cold proclamation that he would have no problem whatsoever LYING to Ronnie about his impending arrest, ultimately pushed Vic towards the point of no return for many fans.
 * Also of note, Shane Vendrell from The Shield had his own Moral Event Horizon moment when he murdered his best friend Detective Curtis "Lem" Lemansky, to ensure he did not turn against the Strike Team after being busted by IAD. Though the writers later tried to backpedal on this point of no return, by way of having Shane defend his actions by having Shane successfully own Vic's ass by way of lampshading Vic's own murder of a fellow police officer, for many fans it cemented Shane as the show's main villain for its final two seasons.
 * We all knew Martin Keamy from Lost was bad news from the get go, but he firmly crossed the line to Complete Monster in "The Shape of Things to Come", where he
 * If you think Locke's father hasn't crossed this by Season 3, "The Man From Talahassee" will obliterate that theory. He He also murders
 * The producers purposely used this trope with the Man in Black, saying that they meant his to mark him as irredeemably evil. Then the show offered his Freudian Excuse Start of Darkness flashback.
 * The last episode of Star Trek Deep Space Nine has the Female Changeling deal with Cardassian saboteurs by nuking Lakarian City; the resulting death toll is two million. When the Cardassian fleet learns of this, they perform a Heel Face Turn, and begin firing on the Dominion and Breen ships. How does the Female Changeling react to this?


 * Kodos the Executioner from The Conscience of the King had murdered half the population of a colony world, having convinced himself it was the only way to alleviate a famine.
 * Captain Ransom in Star Trek Voyager easily crossed this line when he started murdering aliens as a fuel source for his ship. I Did What I Had to Do is nowhere near a sufficient excuse, and the fact that he seems to realize this at some level is the only thing that keeps him out of Complete Monster territory.
 * I, Claudius is a series populated by devious conniving bastards who get away with some pretty horrible acts, but one of the worst dog-raping examples is provided by Praetorian Guard captain Macro when his predecessor Sejanus falls out of favor with the Emperor. Macro kicks off a bloody purge of everyone even remotely connected with Sejanus. Rome's streets run red, but the icing on the cake is when he orders the death of Sejanus's (very) young daughter. An officer reminds him that it's unlawful to execute a virgin. His response? "Well, make sure she's not a virgin when you execute her, now GET ON WITH IT!"
 * This troper remembers a female character rushing in to see Claudius and crying that the little girl was raped, and the boy forced to put on his 'manly gown' before being killed. Either way, it's a horrid fate for innocent children.
 * The fate of Sejanus's daughter is Truth in Television.
 * And a Real Life Truth in Television for the entire Roman Empire. Children were always raped before execution - even infants (and yes, entire families were executed regularly). Of course, this was a society where slave children were considered fair sexual game for their owners.
 * In Rome at that time, it was illegal to execute a virgin or a boy. Sejanus's daughter was raped, and his son forced to put on his adult-hood clothes, just so it would be legal to kill them.
 * Lampshaded when Claudius hears the news and suffers a Heroic BSOD, lamenting that Rome was "finished."
 * In Supernatural, the angels (minus Castiel) used to be Jerkass-personified, even if they were (arguably)well-intentioned. And there could be some (flimsy) rationale behind their motives as presented in the Season 4 finale. But they showed that Light Is Not Good in the season 5 premiere, when they  For what it's worth, Dean tells them to fuck off, each and every time.
 * The Trickster/
 * In All in The Family, David Dukes guest stars as a young man who, while posing as a police detective, wins Edith's trust as he comes into the house and describes a rapist that is terrorizing the neighborhood ... and it turns out that person is none other than himself! The live audience can be heard groaning as he crosses the MEH.
 * In a later interview, Dukes said it was hard to get the tone right for a comedy show. He wanted people to understand how things can turn very quickly and it wasn't going to be a funny experience.
 * In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, while Spike had previously killed hundreds of innocent people and tried to kill the main characters on several different occasions, it was his Attempted Rape of Buffy in "Seeing Red" that made a lot of people go, "Okay, now he's irredeemable." Even getting his soul back might have made things different in Buffy's eyes, if only a little bit, but it was hard for some viewers to accept.
 * This example is particularly interesting in that Spike himself saw it as a Moral Event Horizon; it made him realize that, without a soul, he was an amoral bastard who would hurt even someone he claimed to love. He didn't want to be a monster like that anymore; regaining his soul was his attempt to backpedal over that horizon, becoming a person with a conscience who would never hurt Buffy that way again.
 * Whenever a villain tortured a member of the Scoobie Gang, they tended to be seen as having gone just plain too far. Such as, and when in Angel,
 * Faith did what she did
 * The show, we should probably note, didn't actually show this event in a "crossing the moral event horizon" sort of way. Faith, in later seasons, comes back and is helpful to the team again. Even Wesley forgives her, sort of, eventually.
 * Speaking of which, Spike is treated as having crossed over. Well Faith tried to rape and kill Xander before having her head bashed in with a shovel. Dissonance much?
 * Word of God says that Angelus' murder of  in S2s Passion was important for the purpose of displaying how evil Angelus had become. Note that before that act, Angelus had murdered at least 4 people since being turned, but had not yet committed an offense so grievious to the audience (and the Scoobies) that it became a serious question as to whether or not it was even possible to redeem Angel, and even if it was would anyone (besides Buffy) want to do it?
 * Some might say that an over-arching theme of the show is that there is always a way around the Moral Event Horizon -- any evil can be redeemed given the will to try.
 * On Arrested Development the matriarch Lucille has gone back and forth on how much she really cares for her family. It was Michael's job to try and keep the family together and the company afloat, and a lot of it was done for his parents' approval. In the final episode, when Michael learned his son George Michael was missing he was prepared to leave an elitist party to go looking for him, and Lucille scolds him for considering it, saying it would be rude to the guests. Michael, realizing what kind of person she really is, said "I've made a huge mistake." and left the party anyway.
 * Samurai Sentai Shinkenger. Being a half-Gedoushuu who spends much of his time in his natural human form, Fuwa Juzo is subjected to many What Measure Is a Non-Human? topics, thinking he might make a Heel Face Turn (he even likes Genta's sushi). His sword Uramasa is made from his family who wanted him to stop being a Blood Knight that lives in slicing people with it. Then, when Akumaro tried to use his human emotions to use Uramasa to create a Hell on Earth, Juzo instead slices him off and reveals that he prefers to be a full-blooded Gedoushuu and doesn't care one bit for his family's pleads, all he wants is to use Uramasa to give him the pleasure of killing people. From that point on, he has cemented his place as one of the series' Complete Monster, willingly.
 * Juzo's successor in this role is Basco ta Jolokia from Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger. Again the twist is that the expected twist of him really being not so bad never happens. Though presented as a traitor and villain who'll stab anyone in the back to get what he wants, he typically has a human face, and he's a lot of fun to watch. So surely he'll show his former friends some mercy when just about to strike the final blow, or realize that there are more meaningful things than serving his own greed, right? Well, surprise: it turns out he's a traitor and a villain who'll stab anyone in the back to get what he wants. Including, which is the moment that really makes you hate the guy. With this, he's revealed as actually being the evilest bad guy in the series (Compare this to the actual Big Bads, where Oiles Gil just wants to prove he's competent, Damaras is a Noble Demon, Barizorg's brainwashed, etc. Would any of them pull something like that?)
 * In volume three of Heroes, you're being subtly led to believe that you've been too quick to judge Sylar. When Peter Petrelli, which makes you wonder, especially since  . You also get to see that Sylar was . He goes to  , whose father he killed, to plead for forgiveness and even goes through what seems to be a Love Redeems subplot with her. Then he randomly decides he's had enough of being a nice person and kills her all because of random soap opera shenanigans that barely have anything to do with her. At this point you concede the point the writers were trying to make - that is, that this man is not right in the head. You also want him to die.
 * Samuel Sullivan: Depending on whether or not you subscribe to A Million Is a Statistic, he either crossed it when he destroyed an entire town in a sinkhole or when, to regain the carnival's leadership after this depraved act, he pretended to surrender himself to Noah Bennet, then had Eli shoot up the carnival, killing Lydia (the only other carnie who knew he killed Joseph) and framed Noah for the whole thing. Samuel on other occasions had sinkholed a police station and a mansion but the people there were sufficiently "demonized" that those were Kick the Dog moments in contrast with the massacre of a town full of people.
 * In the Veronica Mars S2 finale, it is revealed  blew up the bus at the beginning of the season. This could have been forgiven but then he blows up the plane where Papa Mars supposedly was and just in case that wasn't evil enough, in an spectacularly absurd moment he is RetConned into being Veronica's rapist from S1.
 * Tory of Battlestar Galactica manages to talk Cally down from spacing herself and her son after learning that her husband is a Cylon... Only to take the baby, knock Cally unconscious and space her herself.
 * Tom Zarek is morally ambiguous character who is difficult to label as an outright villain, right up until
 * Cavil was already pretty evil when he, but in The Plan he crosses the line when   because he realizes he's developing sympathy for , which is undermining his hatred of humans. In other words, he crosses the horizon on purpose.
 * Let's not forget Cain. She always had a twisted sense of morality, but she completley went past the moral event horizon when she finds out her lovers a cylon, all but telling her crew to gang rape her ex-lover.
 * Gene Hunt of Life On Mars and Ashes to Ashes fame has probably crossed this line somewhere in his assaulting of suspects, liberal use of the Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique, and stitching up innocent people. Where and when, and indeed if he has is highly subjective depending on your view of criminals. Jim Keats, however, gets a pretty clear one in Season 3 when he
 * If Walter White of Breaking Bad didn't cross the line from Anti-Hero to Villain Protagonist in the episode "Phoenix", where he, then he definitely crossed it in "Full Measure", where he.
 * To be fair, in the previous episode Walter
 * And there were massively mitigating circumstances,
 * Unlike with most instances of this trope, he has not done a terrible thing and simply resigned himself to being evil. Instead, he is horribly conflicted about his actions in both situations, and is almost overwhelmed by his guilt. It depends on how forgiving the viewer is as to whether his guilt is enough. These moral complexities are part of what makes the show so compelling though, so if it were easy to designate a MEH, then the show would lose a lot of its appeal.
 * However, in Face off
 * In Firefly, viewers can usually tell when a villain is about to die horribly when they threaten Kaylee or River. Dobson threatened both of them in the pilot, and it did not end well for him.
 * And let's not forget in the final episode when Jubal Early subdues Kaylee by threatening to rape her.
 * Jayne comes very close to crossing it in "Ariel,"  He almost gets Thrown Out the Airlock by Mal, but
 * In "War Stories," Niska crosses the line when he kidnaps  and starts torturing them to death. This brings the wrath of the rest of the crew directly down on his head.
 * Made even worse when we realize  Complete Monster, indeed.
 * Quite a few people cross the line on The Wire.
 * Stringer Bell leads the pack by.
 * Walker is shown to be an all-around bastard, but crosses the Horizon when he.
 * Valchek counts. He orders an investigation into Frank Sobotka over a personal fued which ultimately leads to . Valchek doesn't seem particularly bothered when this happens, handwaving that "That's what happens when you lay down with gangsters."
 * Method Man's Cheese Wagstaff crosses it when he
 * The two main tormentors of Seira in Japanese drama Shokojo Sera, Director Mimura Chieko and the Alpha Bitch Maria. Seeing how they are counterparts for Miss Minchin and Lavina in A Little Princess, it was no surprise. Having a huge inferior complex for Seira's deceased mother who she was classmates with, Mimura Chieko absolutely despises Seira for being too much like her mother and often slaps her when Seira stands up to her when no one else does. She is brutally cold when telling Seira about her beloved father's death and does nothing to lessen the pain, letting Seira know right off the start that she could kick her out of the school (leaving the poor girl without any shelter or food) and does so eventually.
 * Just as bad (or possibly worse), Maria is a Rich Bitch who likes the fact that she has control over all her classmates. But when Seira comes into the picture, she takes every effort to make her life miserable for easily stealing away her popularity. When Seira loses her fortune, she delights in making Seira grovel on the ground, donating huge amounts of money to the school and thus gaining enough power to make Seira her own personal slave maid. She would also purposely spill soup on Seira and throw tomatoes at her when Seira was already at the lowest point of her life. And in a heartwrenching Hope Spot for Seira, Maria makes her believe that there was a slimmest chance that Seira could be Juliet, something Seira has dreamed of for the longest time. Of course, Maria gets to be Juliet and forces Seira to work extra hours in the kitchen, not allowing her a chance to even be in the play.
 * Not really applicable to the title character in Dexter, but for, definitely the murder of . Total violation of The Code.
 * Percy in Nikita has been a borderline Complete Monster since the series started, though many of his actions could be considered Necessarily Evil. However, he most definitely crossed the MEH with the recent revelation that.
 * In Sons of Anarchy, Jax Teller's attempt to create a permanent break with girlfriend Tara by  served as a Moral Event Horizon for many. Regardless of his reasons or if he begs for forgiveness in the future, it's hard to believe Tara could ever forgive him. Too, while fans may be able to accept a Jax who kills people, runs guns and sometimes drugs and generally walks on the wrong side of the law,   is an irredeemable act.
 * In series 9 of Spooks, we've been treated to watching  life falling to pieces as he tries to keep his shady past a secret in the face of ever-increasing blackmail from , but he crossed the Moral Event Horizon fully in episode 6 when he.
 * And if that's not enough, the next episode reveals  Not much chance of coming back from that...
 * Morgana in Merlin spent from a year away from Camelot in the company of her half-sister and returned as The Mole, having performed a Face Heel Turn in the interim. Over the course of the third season, her plots to bring down her have intensified in brutality, but it's not until Queen of Hearts that she crosses the line and ends up framing her servant and former best-friend Guinevere for witchcraft. Why? Because she had a dream that Gwen would one day become Queen of Camelot. Up until that point, fans were capable of some degree of sympathy for Morgana's Well-Intentioned Extremist views, but after seeing her smiling to herself as a terrified Gwen is hauled away to be burnt at the stake, the general consensus became: "the bitch must die!"
 * If the above indicent wasn't enough to convince all viewers, then Morgana's actions in the two-part season finale surely must have finished the job. For example,
 * Uther from that same series passed the horizon before the series even started. He committed the "Great Purge" in which he hunted down and killed anyone with magical blood, even drowning children of magical parents in fear that they inherited magical blood.
 * Degrassi is generally more concerned with redemption, though Rick even lampshades his own: "It's too late. I already shot someone."
 * In a 2-part episode of Sonny With a Chance, Penelope crosses this by, and for the icing on the cake,.
 * In season 3 of Ru Paul's Drag Race, Mimi Imfurst left a bad taste in everyone's mouth because of her melodramatics, whininess, inability to sew, and lack of professionalism but hoisting up India Ferrah despite her screams to be put down during the lip synch definitely cemented her scrappy status.
 * Eddie McDowd almost did cross this in the pilot episode when he almost killed a dog by causing the car it was hiding to explode.
 * In the Horatio Hornblower mini-series, Jack Simpson crosses the line by trying to murder the titular character and another midshipman during a raid. He was despicable before that, but shooting one of your shipmates in the head just after setting adrift the jollyboat that another one is lying unconscious in? That's just evil, even if they both survived. Especially as the latter case resulted in said shipmate being presumed dead by his friends, captured by the enemy, and imprisoned for what appears to be a couple of years.
 * Lex Luthor  in the Smallville episode appropriately named "Descent."
 * In the sequel series of Beverly Hills, 90210
 * In Chuck, The significance of this stems from the fact that up to this point, the audience was led to believe that she was  in order to get her father back, but this event and her dialogue during the act show that she's in it for the power and her hatred of Chuck for what is now essentially no reason.
 * Ed Peletier of The Walking Dead was certain nobody's favorite character, constantly abusing Carol and Sophia just to show his dominance. Nobody was sad when he was the first of the group to be killed off when the camp was invaded by Walkers and he was off sulking in his tent because Shane had beaten the shit of out him earlier in the day. However his Moral Event Horizon moment doesn't get revealed until the season two premier when Carol states that he was looking at his own daughter, suggesting he was ready to sexually abuse her as well.
 * crosses a MEH when he shoots  in the leg, leaving him to be eaten alive by walkers. If not that, then he's definitely crossed it when he
 * Frank Gallagher of Shameless is a morally reprehensible man who would rather pursue constant means of scamming people out of their money in order to feed his alcohol addiction, than to take care of his six children who are left to fend for themselves. He's done a lot of horrible things, including and . In the context of the show, however, even these actions are presented as things that he might still come back from. However, when he  that is an offense that would make him irredeemable in the eyes of many viewers.
 * Super Sentai
 * In Engine Sentai Go-onger, Big Bad Yogoshimacritein crosses the line when he, resulting in their deaths. He ended up shooting himself in the foot by doing this, however, as they hang on just long enough to destroy the source of his powers.
 * Power Rangers
 * In Power Rangers Samurai second season Super Samurai episode "Trading Places" the Monster of the Week Switchbeast goes around city and turns innocent people into various objects. The point of this plan is that unsuspecting humans will get rid of those objects, unaware that there are human souls in them. This would have resulted in a lot of people being killed (including Rangers, Bulk and Spike) if Mike and Emily didn't defeat Switchbeast. That was the entire point of Switchbeast's plan: to have as many innocent people turned into objects and would have been disposed and destroyed by unsuspecting humans. Usually Nighloks want to make misery, but this time they wanted to kill innocent people.
 * In the eyes of Dayu, Big Bad Master Xandred crosses this when he sets her harmonium on fire and attempted to have her memory erased. She even says "I knew you were evil, but this!"
 * Lightspeed Rescue's Queen Bansheera actually has four such moments, and it's no coincidence that she also has four minions, each much more sympathetic than her:
 * Her first is when Olympius, her son, ends up stuck in the local equivalent of Hell; she opts to leave him there for being useless enough to get stuck there in the first place, and seems to take perverse pleasure in doing it, too.
 * Then, to get her full body back, she drains the life from her Dark Chick, Vypra, in a horribly painful-looking way. Although some viewers were probably content with not having to put up with Jen Yen's acting anymore.
 * Her third moment is the most extreme. The Brute Loki is grappling with the Rangers, and he drops his bazooka, which lands at the Noble Demon Dragon Diabolico's feet. With the Rangers occupied, Bansheera takes over Diabolico's mind, with him resisting all the while, and has him pick up the bazooka and fire it at the Rangers. While they're dogpiling on Loki. She had previously convinced Loki to lead the assault by calling him her "favorite" subordinate, so this may actually have been a planned Uriah Gambit rather than just a crime of opportunity.
 * Finally, to round out the minion-screwing-over, she has Olympius (who got out of Hell after all and bizarrely remained loyal to the Queen) kill Diabolico (who had logically decided Screw This, I'm Outta Here after witnessing all of the aforementioned acts) and revive him as a mindless zombie, forcing the Rangers to kill him.
 * Venjix from Power Rangers RPM crosses this territory when he DESTROYS 99% OF HUMANITY. Also when  there are children among them and they don't even look a year over ten. Everything Venjix does qualifies for this trope.
 * While they are not as bad as Venjix,  crosses the line at some point, either it is when , or when   or finally when they.
 * Power Rangers Lost Galaxy's Final Big Bad Trakeena crossed it when attempted to attack Terra Venture escape pods with Stingwinger suicide bombers.
 * Recurring NCIS antagonist Ari crossed the MEH when he murdered, not to further any mission objective, but purely to cause pain to Gibbs and the team.
 * We later learn that Ari's father, Mossad Director Eli David, had crossed the event horizon decades ago when he deliberately raised his son to be such a monster. It turns out not to be the worst thing Eli has ever done, either.
 * Most of Walker, Texas Ranger villains are complete monsters and they tend to Kick the Dog half a dozen times before the episodes are over, but some villains really show their cruelty and cross the line. Examples:
 * Lazarus, vicious and merciless killer for hire from 4-part Story Arc is already shown as cruel and remorseless assassin, killing undercover cops in a lot of violent ways and showing no remorse for it, but he really crosses this line when he kills an innocent young boy off-screen and after that doesn't feel anything.
 * Johnny Blade from episode "The Lost Boys" just kept crossing the line: first he organizes the heist and kills a cop. Then he gives the gun to one of his accomplices and the same accomplice hides in his friend's house. After learning this Johnny threatens and innocent young teenager Jesse(the same friend who Johnny's accomplice hides the gun in his house and Carlos' nephew) to remain silent about his crimes and give him his gun back or else he will kill his mother. But he doesn't just stop there. Later Jesse is arrested and thought to have killed the cop and later Johnny kidnaps his mother and forces Jesse to take all the guilt guilt for his crimes and falsely confess or else he will kill his mother. But after Jesse does so, Johnny orders his lawyer and his henchmen in prison to kill Jesse, even after he took all the guilt and attempted to make his mother commit suicide. This was so evil, that judging from the look on his henchmen faces, they seemed disturbed by it. Luckily he is defeated and his accomplices are arrested.
 * Recurring villain Victor La Rue crosses this in all of his episodes: he attempts to rape Alex and in "The Trial Of La Rue" he takes the courtroom hostage, kills the judge, taunts Alex and his actions range from death threats for a sandwich, televising his crimes, terrorizing a divorced couple at a custody hearing, and killing people at random and worst of it is when he said that he would kill an innocent little girl.
 * Dan Scott of One Tree Hill murdering his brother Keith in cold blood, and then pinning it on Jimmy Edwards, who had taken a gun into Tree Hill High & ultimately killed himself. Much like the Spike example in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, this is notable as Dan feels the guilt of what he did & tries to attone for his actions.
 * Theon Greyjoy crossed the MEH in a recent episode of Game of Thrones when he
 * Jaime and Cirsei arguably crossed it in the first episode, when Cirsei convinced Jaime to push Bran out a window. Joffrey definitely did, when he was responsible for the butcher boy's death.
 * The episode in Season 2 where Tyrion and Bronn decide that getting Joffrey laid might take the edge off his charming personality, so they send two gorgeous girls to his bedchamber. What does Joffrey do? Forces one to beat the other bloody with a scepter while he holds them at crossbow-point. What the fuck.
 * Gatehouse crosses this in the third episode of The Shadow Line. When he was introduced, it was as an ambiguous and slightly sinister character, but definitely the lesser of two evils when compared to the obviously psychopathic Jay Wratten. But then he, and it's clear that he's in fact a very ruthless and dangerous man. He becomes the main antagonist for the remainder of the series.
 * Gatehouse crosses this in the third episode of The Shadow Line. When he was introduced, it was as an ambiguous and slightly sinister character, but definitely the lesser of two evils when compared to the obviously psychopathic Jay Wratten. But then he, and it's clear that he's in fact a very ruthless and dangerous man. He becomes the main antagonist for the remainder of the series.