Bleakest soap exits

[DRW50]

The idea is often that all soaps (or all dramas) are about misery and no one can be happy. But there can sometimes be an especially stark ending for a character, one that stands out (for better or worse).

I don't think this is the same as one of those threads along the lines of something that made you cry, because it may be a scene you've never actually watched, or something that you remember, but didn't provoke a big response.

I thought of this thread mostly because of a Brookside (perhaps the most brutal of all soaps) episode I watched last week, from 1986, where one unlucky in love character, Heather, left the show. She had been involved in several unhappy relationships, but let herself fall in love with a man she couldn't quite trust. She eventually learned he was a heroin addict. After several failed promises to get clean, she threw him out, only to learn a few days later that he'd overdosed and finally died in the hospital. She began to blame herself for not loving him enough, for judging him, and nothing her friend could say would change her mind. She decided to go live with her mother, unable to look her friend in the eye, or say anything to him, and after stopping for just a second, to question what she was doing, she drove off into the night.

Another one that I usually think of, although I doubt I'll ever actually see it, is Lee Randolph on Another World, who was slipped acid, broke up with the man she loved because she didn't want him to be burdened by her, and was driving home when she had a bad flashback. She was killed.

It sounds a little like a bad Dragnet episode but I still think it's a harsh way to kill off a heroine. I guess it was cautionary.

[Scotty]

Reminds me of when Daniel Colson suffocated Jen Rappaport with a plastic bag around Mother's Day after she found out that he was a closeted bi-sexual. And just before that, Dena Higley said basically that Jen would exit in a "fun way."

And you can't forget about Gabrielle being murdered next to a bathroom toilet.

[DRW50]

I guess it was fun for Higley...

The OLTL I always think of is Grace Davison dying of exposure for an entire week, as JFP tried to shame viewers for not accepting her Rappadavisons.

And Dr. Joplin committing suicide, which was even more horrifying because the people in that story who did the worst things were all but given a parade.

[soapfan770]

I'll try to not include any deaths here lol:

I hated Alan-Michael's 2007 exit of GL. Alan framing A-M for embezzlement, saying he did it because he loved his son, and A-M agreeing with the plan and agreeing to leave town. UGH.

Iris left sitting in jail like that after being set up on AW was pretty bleak for such a fascinating character. What a terrible end to be thrown under the bus for a returning character who didn't even last after a year.

Not really an ending, but I always hated whenever Carly had to leave town on ATWT (usually due to West's maternity leaves). First she left town after her sister caused to miscarry her child, then she was blackmailed into leaving everything behind for a mysterious reason, then she wound being being ran out of town and presumed murdered, then she abandoned her family after running off with Simon after committing theft, and finally left for rehab.

[DaytimeFan]

Speaking of Gabrielle Medina...I always thought her first exit was quite bleak, in an oddly glamorous way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxsXX4dHAmk&feature=player_embedded

[Scotty]

I had forgotten about Grace's death....that was an awful way to go.

Same for Dr. Joplin.

And probably the most bleak, somber, yet endearing death I can remember on OLTL was when Megan died. That was just plain sad...

[DaytimeFan]

Similar to the exit for Gabrielle that I've just posted...Iris Cory's 1994 exit was bleak...but I also found it sort of glamorous and defiant. She takes one look at Rachel as she's being lead into her cell and declares "Life is too short for regrets!"

I just loved that line, bleak though it was.

[DRW50]

The Iris exit was very sad, especially since she was never mentioned again.

I hated the miscarriage story with Carly. Maura having to play that while she was in her last trimester, and it just seemed so downbeat. The only positive was that Rosanna left town with no one (aside from Scott).

Robin's 1998 exit on GH was also very harsh, aside from a scene with Alan. I never really understood why - love or hate her - a popular and longtime young heroine would be written out as a pariah.

[P.J.]

Wow...I guess I really wasn't paying attention to GL, I'd completely forgotten how A-M was written out.

Carly's Montana/presumed dead arc wasn't a maternity write out for Maura. (it was Sage's 2003 birth, and she was only "presumed dead" for maybe an episode.) Getting kidnapped to the Hell Spa in 2002 was. She didn't have another maternity leave until 2007.

But I agree---Carly was always written out on the brink of tragedy. She couldn't just go visit some unknown relative for a couple of months.

I'd have to say Jenna's death on GL was the saddest. She had two small children and spent like an entire episode trapped in an autowreck with Buzz begging her to hang on.

I keep meaning to ask some OLTL fan....did some mother really kill her daughter and leave her on a swing? Or did they just make up a weird headline "Todd" was proud of?

[DRW50]

I didn't know that was Alan Michael's exit. He should have just went on the run from Marina.

Jenna's death at least had some touching scenes where she said goodbye to her friends and family (and...Alex), although it was sad.

I thought Selena's exit was very miserable, fleeing town after being beaten up over her past.

[BingCherry]

I remember a time in the '90s when OLTL had one depressing death after another; Cassie's baby, Beth, Sloan, Luna. I believe this all might have been in a 18-month span.

[DRW50]

They were.

We should include poor Lee (not a lucky soap name apparently) on OLTL, accidentally killed by her own daughter, then back twenty years later only to be killed off again.

[JellicleCat]

I don't know whether you would count it as an exit since the whole show exited, but I think the end for Luke on As the World Turns is the first one that comes to mind for me. I hate that the very last image of him we'll ever see was of him sitting sad and lonely on the couch with only little sister Natalie by his side. It left a bitter taste in my mouth, and I'll never forgive JP or CG for that.

[Quent]

How about Steve Andropolous from ATWT? For two years, he was the hero half of the show's front-burner couple (Steve/Betsy), was the focus of most of the plot lines, had the biggest wedding in the show's 54-year history....and he exits by being caught selling drugs abroad and spends the next twenty years in a Greek prison?

[AmandainNC28655]

What about Julia Barr's exit that didnt happen on AMC. One day Brooke was there and then poof...she was gone. For a character who had such a rich history on All My Children, to not be given an exit, etc was just downright blah. Also, Beth Ehler's character Taylor on AMC. She was seen at the Fusion party with Tad and then kicked her shoes off and left, never to be heard from or seen again. Also, Bobby Martin never came down from that attic.