The Western genre is best-known for gunslinging heroes vanquishing fiendish villains who are set up to die from early in their stories. However, particularly in modern Western TV shows, there’s plenty of death designed to shock and surprise us, too. The Wild West takes few prisoners and shows no mercy to those caught in the crosshairs.
While some of the best Western TV villains of all time met especially shocking ends of their own, many of the most harrowing death scenes in the genre involve victims far less deserving of their fates. Over the past two decades, the revival of TV Westerns has cranked things up a notch, normalizing graphic acts of murder.
It’s true that tragic hero deaths have always been a part of Westerns, since the days when John Wayne was among the biggest draws in cinema. But some of the most jawdropping death sequences in the genre have taken place on the small screen, whether in classic Western TV shows or more recent releases.
Although TV Westerns are about far more killing, there’s nothing quite as affecting as the sudden death of a character who still had their life ahead of them. Few other genres bring home the nature of mortality quite like the Western, immersed as it is in the wilderness of the outermost American frontiers.
Jack Dutton
1923
The death of Jack Dutton in 1923’s second season is as jolting as it is befitting of the character. As loyal and caring as he is, Jack never quite lives up to the task of looking after the Dutton ranch, but he certainly doesn’t deserve what comes to him during a seemingly innocuous ride to meet his great uncle Jacob.
Upon meeting Clyde, a henchman of Donald Whitfield, the tycoon who’s entered into violent competition with the Dutton, Jack carelessly brags about his prowess with a firearm. Just like that, he’s gunned down in an instant. Jack Dutton doesn’t go to the train station in 1923’s finale, but his instantaneous demise is still the show’s most heartstopping moment.
Michael Halsey
Dark Winds
Even three seasons in, the neo-noir Western crime thriller still manages to surprise us, as Michael Halsey’s death in his jail cell at Navajo Police Station demonstrates. Multiple characters have an interest in wanting Halsey dead, but, in theory, no one can touch him while he’s in jail.
Tribal police chief Joe Leaphorn returning to the station to find Halsey’s throat slit is a shock none of us could have predicted. Dark Winds season 3’s fourth episode is full of inventive plot twists, but this unexpected death tops the lot.
Whitey Winn
Godless
Netflix’s Western miniseries Godless is an underrated addition to the genre, not least because of its epic final gun battle in La Belle, the town where most of the show is set. It’s quite the bombshell when town deputy sheriff Whitey Winn, a fearless gunslinger in his own right, is fatally wounded by a knife right at the start of the battle.
As the blow takes his last breath away, it also leaves us gasping for air in disbelief. Whitey was set to be a key factor in the defense of the town. His death served to pull the rug from under the women of La Belle, stacking the odds even more against them, with their eventual victory over the Griffin gang even more remarkable as a result.
Wild Bill Hickok
Deadwood
Deadwood is a period Western series full of shocking deaths, so it’s hard to pick one of them out as an especially showstopping moment. But the sudden assassination of famed lawman Wild Bill Hickok in the show’s first season is the first such death, which sets the tone for everything that follows.
Wild Bill meets his end in one of the Deadwood episodes generally considered a masterpiece, not least because of how his death scene plays out. As Bill sits at a table in one of Deadwood’s saloons, his poker rival Jack McCall creeps up behind him and shoots him in the back of the head.
We see McCall first as a blurred figure in the distance while Hickok’s face is the focus of the picture, before the perspective switches deftly to the perspective of the killer. The fact that this killing happened in real life makes Deadwood’s reenactment all the more impressive.
Lily Bell
Hell On Wheels
Having survived a potential murder at the beginning of Hell on Wheels season 2’s finale episode, fan-favorite character Lily Bell ought to have been in the clear. But not when Thor “the Swede” Gundersen is around, whose sadism knows no bounds.
The Swede’s brutal strangling of Lily is shocking for several reasons, but its harrowing visual rendering is foremost among them. Cullen Bohannon’s grief when he discovers what’s happened to the love of his life is equally difficult to stomach. Hell on Wheels is a TV Western everyone should watch, but it’s not for the faint-hearted, as this scene proves.
Dewey Crowe
Justified
Justified is one of two shows to have made Walton Goggins’ legend, and his character Boyd Crowder’s cold-blooded murder of his longtime ally Dewey Crowe illustrates exactly why. Boyd distracts Dewey – and the audience – by having him look at a picture of his grandfather with fellow Harlan County miners.
The blood spatters on the glass picture frame almost as soon as we hear the gunshot, and see Dewey fall. As destructive and untrustworthy as Boyd Crowder is, we would never have expected such a callous, heartless act committed against one of his own. Dewey’s killing is one of the biggest jump-scares anywhere in the Western genre.
Roarke Morris
Yellowstone
Out of all the killings committed by Dutton ranchers down the years, Roarke Morris’ Yellowstone death is the show’s most horrifying moment. Roarke’s death sentence was written the moment Rip Wheeler saw him flirting with his long-term partner, Beth. But we could never have predicted he’d go the way he does in the season 4 premiere.
While Roarke absentmindedly fishes in a river, Rip walks up to him with a cooler box, asking him if it’s his. When he opens the box, a rattlesnake jumps out at Roarke, instantly administering a fatal bite to the face. Roarke’s death is slow and torturous, and Yellowstone takes the time to show it to us, for good measure.
Ab Richards
The Rifleman
The best TV or movie role in Chuck Connors’ career, Lucas McCain is a true hero of the Western genre. So, it came as a complete shock to audiences when, at the beginning of The Rifleman episode “Deadly Image”, McCain appeared to shoot an innocent man dead in cold blood.
As it turns out, the man who did the killing was, in fact, McCain’s mustachioed doppelganger Earl Bantry – also played by Connors. But to unsuspecting viewers, it appears for the world as though McCain himself has gone rogue and turned into a murderous villain. This scene is among the greatest plot twists in the history of the Western genre.
Zell Blacknick
Gunsmoke
James Arness secured his Gunsmoke role with John Wayne’s help, and Matt Dillon is the closest thing in any TV show to the Duke’s big-screen Western heroes. That’s why it comes as such an agonizing blow when Dillon reveals, with immense shame, that he’s gunned down his old friend and deputy, Zell Blacknick, in the Gunsmoke episode “The Round Up”.
Matt Dillon is an all-American hero of the Old West, whose enormous kill count is supposed to feature only the most villainous elements of society. But his thoughtless shooting of Zell Blacknick is a bitter pill for fans of Dillon and his show to swallow, proving that even the best of us are liable to make deadly mistakes.
Branch Connally
Longmire
If Walt Longmire is the best Western sheriff on TV, then Branch Connally is a serious contender for the best deputy. When Branch confronts his own father, Barlow, about his crimes, then, we assume that this courageous act will lead to a rewarding plot conclusion which confirms his growth into a potential successor to Longmire as county sheriff.
Indeed, things appear to be heading that way, until Barlow distracts his son with a clay pigeon. After the split-second cocking of a rifle, the camera immediately cuts to Walt Longmire hearing a gunshot echo across the valley. This clever cutaway fills us with dread, as we speculate about the consequences of that gunshot, and prepare for the inevitable casualty.
The most shocking death in TV Westerns isn’t the most graphic. But it’s an unforgivable act of filicide that’s all the more horrifying because it’s left to our imaginations.
