A Death in the Limelight: Difference between revisions

** Joyce's death could count in a sort of drawn-out way. Having previously been mostly "Buffy's mom," in season five she gets a subplot where she has to undergo surgery to remove a brain tumor. Then we finally have an episode where she's well again, gotten out of bed, and even begins dating a nice (though never-seen) man. The episode ends when Buffy gets home, [[Mood Whiplash|smiles at the bouquet of flowers said guy has sent, walks into the living room... and finds Joyce's pale,]] [[Funny Aneurysm Moment|unmoving body on the couch]], leading into the [[Crowning Moment of Sadness]] episode "[[Something Completely Different|The Body]]."

* Lt. Joe Carey on ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'' was a recurring character in the first ten or so episodes, but then he fell off the radar. Near the end, they brought him back for a spotlight episode just to provide [[Wangst]] when they killed him off.

* In the ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' eponymous [[Lower Deck Episode]] "Lower Decks", Sito Jaxa, one of the cadets from "The First Duty" who was reprimanded for unauthorized flight activity, was shown to have stayed on the straight and narrow and become an ensign on the Enterprise. She's then sent on a dangerous mission by Captain Picard...but doesn't survive.

** There was a story planned for ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Deep Space Nine]]'' that would have involved her turning up alive in a Cardassian prisoner camp, but obviously, said story never made it to the air. As far as canon's concerned, she's dead.

* In "[[Desperate Housewives]]", the episode where Martha Huber dies begins with saying how much she wanted her life to be exciting and to be famous, and at the end, she was famous for her horrific murder.

* While [[Law and Order SVU|Alex Cabot]] occasionally had episodes in which her legal case was bigger than the investigation, the absolute crowner was "Loss", at the end of which she dies. (No, [[Not Quite Dead|not really]]. She goes into Witness Protection.) And as one of Alex's main roles on the show was to have [[UST]] with Olivia Benson, this episode was also a crowner of [[Les Yay]].

* Claude on ''[[Degrassi High]]'' plays this trope completely straight; he had appeared in a couple episodes in the first season (though he did have a significant amount of screen time in them) before [[Driven to Suicide|committing suicide]] near the end of Season 2.

* An episode of ''[[The Mentalist]]'' had the minor character of a medical examiner take an active part in an investigation which is something the character never did before. He intentionally put himself into the limelight because he needs Jayne to help him. He is dying of cancer and wants to kill himself but needs a law enforcement officer to witness the suicide so there is no need for an autopsy.

== Webcomics ==

* Mosp from ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' died almost immediately after she was given her own week-long arc detailing her backstory.

* ''[[Homestuck]]'' did this for several deaths in a row, giving characters lots of screentime in a flash page right before killing them. First "Kanaya: Return to the core" gave Eridan and Feferi a lot more screentime than they're used to and dove into developing Eridan's character for pretty much the first time ever, just before Eridan murdered Feferi, and himself getting killed soon after. Not much later, "Equius: Seek the highb100d." was nothing but Equius and Nepeta getting the most screentime and character development either had ever had, and was shortly followed by both of their deaths.

 

* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' used this trope in Season Six's episode "'Round Springfield". Bleeding Gums Murphy, the jazz musician who Lisa met in an early episode in the first season, faded into the background quickly (showing up here and there in crowd scenes for a while) and was almost forgotten until he appeared in the hospital in this episode. There, he tells Lisa his whole [[Belated Backstory|previously unrevealed back story]], about how he was a successful jazz musician who made a guest appearance on the Cosby show, and doing a saxophone duet with Lisa. Lisa goes off to school and wins a talent competition, and then returns to the hospital to be told Bleeding Gums has passed away. This occurs in the middle of the episode, and the rest of it revolves around Lisa's quest to arrange a tribute to him. After she succeeds, Bleeding Gums Murphy's ghost appears in the clouds in a parody of ''[[The Lion King]]'' ([[James Earl Jones|Mufasa, Darth Vader, and the CNN announcer briefly interrupt]]), and they have one last saxophone duet over the end credits before Bleeding Gums heads off for his afterlife date with Billie Holiday.

* The ''[[Justice League]]'' episode "The Terror Beyond". Beforehand, Solomon Grundy was [[The Brute]] and [[Dumb Muscle]] with no motivation beyond greed. In this episode, Grundy's backstory is revealed, and he's given a very sympathetic motivation to fight alongside the good guys. Naturally, he dies fighting Icthultu and many tears are shed over him.

* Nabu was introduced in Season 3 of ''[[Winx Club]]'' as Layla's love interest [[Shallow Love Interest|...and that's all]]. However, the final episodes of season 4 focused on him a lot, showing his sheer badassery, to the point of beating one of the four [[Big Bad]]s all by himself. Shortly after that, he performed an [[Heroic Sacrifice]].

* In ''[[South Park]]'', Kenny, although always part of the main cast, barely had any effect on the plot up until "Kenny Dies", after which he is killed off ([[Death Is Cheap|for a season]]).