Tuesday Top Ten: Most Regrettable Deaths in Pop Culture

In true English major fashion, I read several books over Christmas Break.  I found myself opening more books on Christmas morning than I did my entire fall semester (only kidding...except for you, Health book.)  After reading Christopher McDougall's Born to Run, I found myself inspired to run five miles a day in The Woodlands (not as impressive considering half the people in the book are running 50-100 mile marathons in intense weather conditions).  After reading Free Darko's The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac, I found myself inspired to write more about my favorite sport in the future.  And after reading Stephen King's The Green Mile, I found myself inspired to write about the deaths in pop culture that I regret the most.  I know, in true English major fashion...

(*DISCLAIMER: If you don't want to read spoilers for 24, 3:10 to Yuma, Dexter, Alias, Rocky, or Lost, then don't read the rest of the incredibly well-written and compelling post.)





Honorable Mention:
-David Palmer from 24 (although you're still in his good hands with his Allstate commercials)

-Charlie Prince from 3:10 to Yuma (because you know you'd rather see Ben Foster starring in a sequel/spin-off as this great character than seeing him co-star with Jason "I Love Lionsgate" Statham in The Mechanic.)

-Elisha Cuthbert's career (one word: Captivity)

10. Arrested Development

  

The show that spawned and revived the careers of some of the greatest comedic minds of the past ten years was murdered by Fox before its time.  The reasoning?  Ratings.  From every highbrow joke to the plucky theme, this show was in a class of its own when it came to sitcoms (and yes, I'm including Sanford and Son, as well.)  Lately, I've been worried that one of my favorite new shows, Community, might fall to the same fate despite being one of the best written comedies in the past few years.  Rumors of an Arrested Development movie have been in circulation for the past twenty-three years.

9. Michael Vaughn - Alias

 

I stumbled upon Alias several years after it had already ended while I was on summer hiatus from another JJ Abrams show, Lost.  The first couple of seasons were riveting, with great writing and good acting that could only be rivaled by a show like Lost (at this point, even I'm not sure if I believe half the things I say about my old favorite show).  However, things started to tumble after an incredible second season finale and I think Abrams desperately wanted to find a new angle to the show that was slowly becoming stagnant during the next few seasons.  And while Vaughn's death was a move that was bold and dramatic, I slowly lost interest with the newly introduced replacements.  Ben Affleck didn't help the show much either by getting Jennifer Garner pregnant for the last season of the show...just another reason to hate him.

(Editor's Note: When I wrote this, I wasn't aware that they bring him back to life...coming from a show related to Lost, I should have known I would be made a fool for jumping to conclusions..  In my face.)

8. Apollo Creed - Rocky IV

 

Let's forget the fact that Apollo's death resulted in one of the greatest montages in cinematic history, or possibly my favorite quote of all time, but hone in on how seeing Apollo die when I was a kid nearly traumatized me to the point of catatonia.  The guy represented America!  Even the fact that Apollo's death was necessary to bring Rocky out of retirement is regrettable because after his eventual defeat of Drago, Rocky 5 was greenlit, bringing a less-than-motivational brain damage/Tommy Gunn storyline.

7. Nick Drake

I've touched upon this before: in high school I was led to believe that Nick Drake was an up-and-coming musician that would rival Iron & Wine for the rest of my life.  His haunting "Pink Moon" is still one of my favorite songs.  But at a lake house trip the summer after high school, my friend Austin hit me with the sad reality that he died in the early 1970s, only further proof that I am living in the wrong decade.  Drake was right though, there was a pink moon coming.

6. Doakes - Dexter

Anytime the first two seasons of Dexter needed a breath of fresh air, either in the form of comic relief or intriguing storyline, Doakes was there.  While he mainly served as a major foil to the darkly dreaming Dexter, Doakes was seemingly more than that with his quick-talking, no-nonsense persona.  Many of his greatest quotes are unprintable for Charging Interests, but believe me when I say that he was an explosive character.  While his demise in the second season was slightly predictable and mostly warranted in order to keep the show going, it's disappointing to see the same cop-chasing-Dexter storyline with Quinn, a far lesser character than the (almost) immortal Doakes.

5. Rita - Dexter

Season four of Dexter was my personal favorite, seeing as the Trinity Killer was one of the greatest villains ever created.  John Lithgow's chilling portrayal earned him several much-deserved awards.  However, to truly cement his status as one of the best bad guys, he had to do something that would really shock the audience, which he did by killing Rita in the season finale.  I still remember being shocked watching the episode live back at my parent's house, well before Julie Benz would agree to be in the laughable No Ordinary Family.  However, this death makes the list mainly because of the shock value that it caused and not because I find it particularly regrettable, seeing that Rita was never my favorite character.  As my good friend Cale put it, "The only thing I regret about Rita's death is that it took four seasons for it to happen."

4. Michael Myers - Halloween II

Although Rob Zombie's Michael Myers also died in his updated version of Halloween II, both of his contributions to the Halloween series were mainly regrettable so I'll focus mainly on the original sequel.  (One time when I was in Oklahoma I started to watch the first Zombie Halloween with a girl I liked.  After the first thirty minutes we decided to stop watching due to the sheer grossness of it.  Several episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark soon followed.  In related news, we never dated.)  In the original Halloween II, the final standoff has Michael getting shot in both eyes and set ablaze in a gas leak set off by Dr. Loomis.  Despite Michael valiantly trying to walk it off (half of the reason why he made the list was so I could post the above still frame), he collapses and seemingly dies.  A completely Michael Myers-less Halloween III: Season of the Witch followed and I'm still not entirely sure if it was released as a horror or a comedy.  The movie was so terrible that Nicholas Cage couldn't resist making a movie of the same name.  I swear, sometimes Charging Interests writes itself.  Luckily, producers wised up and resurrected Myers for another eight movies before Rob Zombie did his best to kill him for good.

3. Every Attractive Female on Lost













I'm not sure why, but if you were a woman or a minority living on Lost island, you're days were more numbered than the prisoners from The Green Mile.  It seemed as if every month another cute girl on the island was finding themselves six feet under.  First it was Shannon, followed by Ana and Libby, then Nikki, Juliet, and finally Sun.  Yes, everyone may have died by the end of the show, but if you were a girl and your name wasn't Kate or Claire, then you might as well have walked into the jungle and begged for the Smoke Monster to come destroy you, Tom Jane from The Mist-style. 


2. Mr. Eko - Lost

Speaking of Lost, how disappointing was it that Mr. Eko was the one character that wasn't brought back for the final "sentimental" season?  Apparently Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje wanted three times the amount of money that they were offering him to return, which if true is supremely disappointing, seeing that he was one of the best characters on the show back when it made more sense (if any sense at all).  Apparently, the actor originally left the show because he wanted to return to London after his parents' deaths, leaving the writers to ditch their much more grandiose plans for the stick-wielding priest.  Mr. Eko's promise was ultimately unfulfilled and the only way to get your fix was to watch Adewale in GI Joe.  I didn't see it either.  It's also interesting to note that Adewale's character in Oz, Simon Adebisi, also died before his time.

1. Otis Redding

I had a hard time putting real people on this list, feeling pretty low that I would compare fictional characters' deaths with real-life death.  In the big scheme of things, I do know that pop culture is just trivial and people like Nick Drake should be honored before fictional people like Apollo Creed.  that being said, Otis Redding was the inspiration for this list and I had to put him at number one.  At the ripe age of twenty-six, Redding was able to establish himself as one of the premiere voices of the 1960s.  He died in a plane crash just three days after his most well-known song, "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay", was recorded.  If Redding had lived, there is no doubt that he would have continued to be one of the greatest singers of the 20th century and I would have at least three more hours of cool music to play when I jog.  We were born to run, you know. 

-PB - credit to Twhitt and Nick for the song.

The Cross

(Thanks to My Morning Jacket for helping me create this video)

Christmas has come and gone quicker than Michael Haywood's stint as Pittsburgh's head football coach, but the bowl season still gives us a chance to feel like we are living in a perpetual holiday world, especially considering ESPN uses a variation of "The Christmas Song" for Bowl Week.  I know Nick's list proves he is not a fan of traditional Christmas carols, but if I were to make a list of greatest Christmas songs, Andy Williams' classic would definitely make the cut (right behind Otis Redding and The Eagles).  However, there has always been a part in the song that I have never really understood, and it's "There'll be scary ghost stories..."  Now, if my inaugural post didn't show it, I'm a fan of all things scary, but unless the Smith family has just been missing out for all these years, I don't think Christmas is the time or place for scary stories (unless you spent the past Christmas Eve like I did by watching Silent Night, Deadly Night.  Not recommended, but I do recommend the original Black Christmas).  But in the spirit of the lyrics, I want to tell you one of the ghastliest moments of my life.

I went with some friends to my lake house (The Hydra) for New Years.  After we had set off a few fireworks (mainly Ty shooting Roman Candles directed at our friend Ken), we started a fire by the lake and sat down around it, deciding that this was the best time, if any, to tell ghost stories.  Little did the rest of the group know that I had snuck down a can of Color Flames, which is a sand-like substance that you can toss into the fire, changing it's color.  Think Are You Afraid of the Dark, because Lord knows that's what I was going for.  Anytime I tried to make the story seem more terrifying, I would throw the Color Flames into the fire for effect.  So without any more intro...I give you "The Tale of the Forbidden Cross."

(Color Flames)

I was a wide-eyed sixteen year old kid and was one of the first of my basketball buds to get their driver's license.  Without question, I was letting it go to my head and I thought that I was the coolest thing to ever hit The Woodlands, Tx (even if Danny Amendola was destined to make the NFL and Win Butler from The Arcade Fire lived there once).  My first car was a jet black 2000 Ford Explorer that my mom had driven for five years.  I took that thing everywhere, from the local Jack in the Boxes to a secret sand beach that a few of us found near a creek.  Taking adventures through the town was my forte and it was only a matter of time  until one day I heard about "the cross." (The actual history of the cross is subjective and I apologize in advance if I am in the wrong for treating a memorial cross like a haunted landmark.)

The original houses in The Woodlands were built in the 70s in a part known as Timberlakes-Timberridge.  Near the back of the neighborhood is a noticeable drop in the road that is frequently flooded and unsafe for houses.  However, there is a back road in the area, surrounded by towering, menacing trees and free of lights, houses, and people.  The nearly two-mile road is desolate and empty, with frightening things such as creaky bicycles and dilapidated pianos known to show up without warning on the side of the road.  There is no hint of civilization on this road, except for one man-made sign.  It's here that a man hung himself in the still of the night.


I gathered a group of six of us to head to the cross in my Explorer late one night to check it out.  One of the girls even joked that she was bringing a baseball bat because you never know what could be lurking in the dark woods.  I told her there was nothing to worry about.

When I rolled the car to a stop on the dark and lonely road, my friends were already thoroughly spooked.  Thinking I was so suave, I played the Halloween theme song on my iPod into the abyss (I was trying to impress one of the girls, probably.  Didn't pan out).  As I turned the ignition off, one of my friends bolted from the car to check out the cross in a challenge of masculinity.  However, he stopped dead in his tracks when a shadowy figure emerged from the woods.

(Whoosh.)

Terrified, the girls in the car sat in trepidation while the figure dressed in all black with a white mask walked slowly to the car, revealing a crowbar from his sleeve.  As he reached the passenger side, he tapped on the window with horrified precision.  Everyone in the car was with petrified with fear.  So much so, in fact, that no one noticed that a second man in black rush the other side of the car and begin to shake it ferociously.  One of the girls in the car tearfully exclaimed she was about to dial the police, but I told her that we could get out of there.  I fumbled with my keys, scrambling desperately to try to get the car to start.  This time though, my faithful Explorer was betraying me, refusing to start in the most inconvenient moment.  The group looked outside the car desperately, unsure of our next plan as our masked menacers terrorized our car.  And with one blink of the eye, they were gone, vanished beneath the car.

"I'm calling the cops," my tearful friend shrieked from the very back of the car.

"Don't do that," I said, opening the car door in a seemingly brave attempt to confront the dangerous duo.  My friends yelled at me to shut the door, but I refused, simply giving one of the monsters a helping hand to his feet.  I looked at my friends, who must have assumed I was about to join the two in a slaughter of the helpless passengers.  It wasn't until they removed their masks that the group finally realized what they had hoped for all along; two of my best friends and I had schemed the entire scare up.  Despite several moments of severe hostility directed at me, my friends hastily agreed that the practical joke was one of the most incredible plans we had ever devised.  My darkly dressed partners in crime jumped in the car and we were ready to drive off.  But much to my horror, my car wouldn't start.

(Whoosh.)

The Ford Explorer, the same car that had accompanied me for countless adventures, had actually died mere feet away from a haunted cross the memorialized a dead man.  Was it a coincidence?  We were now stuck in a pitch black hell, with no one within shouting distance to hear our cries.  I'd like to say we lived in an age where cell phones weren't used, but that's a lie that I'll conveniently leave in there for the story's sake.

Out of boredom, a few friends decided to walk down the path the led past the cross in an attempt to find the noose where the man hung himself.  I stayed behind, hoping against reason that someone would finally drive down the chilling road in the middle of the night.  I sat on the hood of my car for what seemed like an eternity, the crescent moon the only thing allowing me to see five feet in front of me.  About thirty minutes later, as I sat in the car talking to the girl I was failing to impress, a Godsend appeared out of nowhere in the form of a dilapidated truck with a broken headlight.  At first I was hesitant to flag the car down, knowing very well that the sketchier the car the more likely that it would be the last thing I saw.  However, the car came to a screeching stop right in front of my open hood, knowing exactly what I needed.

"Need a jump?" the voice from the car asked as I jumped out of the car.  The one headlight shone brightly in my face, disabling me from seeing the man in the car.  When he finally emerged, it was almost exactly what I had imagined--an old, mustached man with a trucker hat and a jean jacket.  He looked rough around the edges and from the look of his tired eyes, I could tell he had seen some things in his life.  I nodded and he immediately went to work.  Within a few minutes, the Explorer was up and running and the man simply shook my hand with an icy grip before disappearing into the night.

"Hey guys!  We're good to go!" I called into the woods.  My friends slowly walked back out into the road one by one, their arms folded to hide from the cool, windless night.  One of the initial tormentors looked at me like he had just been scared out of his shoes.  I gave him a quizzical look before he finally pointed behind him into the trees.  I followed his hand about fifteen feet high in the trees before I saw it.

The noose, gently swaying in the still moonlight.

(Whoosh.)

I looked back at the taillights of the car, looking very much like The Mothman.  I had to wonder, was the car that just helped me a Godsend, or a warning to stay away from Below?

(Whoosh.)

(Only about 1% of this is fictional.)

-PB - a good recommendation from my boy Kollin