(Obvious spoilers ahead.)
While fans wait for a definitive answer on whether Glenn made it out alive of the throng of walkers surrounding him on The Walking Dead — it definitely didn’t look good — we can perhaps glean a little bit of hope from these examples of TV characters who returned from the dead. This is not a definitive list of all the people who have been brought back from the television abyss — there’s literally hundreds — but here are six TV characters that fought off the icy clutches of the reaper’s hands.
Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Before Joss Whedon pumped out ensemble-driven superhero films, he crafted ensemble-driven TV shows like Buffy and Firefly. In the former, Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar), a vampire slayer, ends up falling in love with vampire Angel (David Boreanaz), despite the obvious factors that should keep them apart. In the second season, Angel’s alter-ego, Angelus, is unleashed after a love-making session with Buffy lifting the spell, restraining his former malicious self.
Angelus then attempts to summon the world-eating demon Acathla, and in the season finale, Willow (Alyson Hannigan) manages to restore Angelus back to Angel — but it’s too late. Buffy has to kill Angel and send him to Hell in order to vanquish Acathla. It’s a tear-jerker of a scene, but Angel manages to return to Sunnydale in season three. Not to be outdone, Buffy also dies at the end of season five, but, of course, is later brought back to life.
Kenny (South Park)
One of the running jokes in Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s satiric animated series is the many deaths of Kenny. In almost every episode of the show’s earlier seasons, Parker and Stone would find new and creative ways to off the beloved, unintelligible character. He’s seen death by gunshot, boomerangs, and even an elevator. But, in season nine, Kenny is supposedly killed off for good when he succumbs to a battle with muscular dystrophy. The kid with the orange parka is not seen for much of season 10, but he returned during the Christmas episode, and just like his previous deaths, an explanation for his return is never supplied.
Brian Griffin (Family Guy)
We knew the end was near for one of the characters on Family Guy weeks ahead of time, but Brian’s life came to a grisly and shocking conclusion in 2013 when he was run over by a car while playing street hockey with Stewie. With the family standing by, we watched Brain take his last breaths in one of the most touching moments in the show’s history. Since Brian is one of the vital components to Seth MacFarlane’s animated series, a fan outcry demanded he be returned to the show. Able to procure his previously destroyed time machine, Stewie goes back in time to save Brian from the car and prove that his love for the family dog — while not always evident — was eternal. Thanks, Stewie.
John Locke (Lost)
One of the many heartbreaking moments on Lost comes when Ben (Michael Emerson), a member of “The Others,” murders John Locke (Terry O’Quinn) while they’re off the island. Ben kills Locke to recreate the conditions in which the Oceanic Six first arrived on the island, with Locke’s body taking the place of Jack Shephard’s (Matthew Fox) father, Christian.
When they crash-land back on an island, Locke’s body is mysteriously resurrected. Alas, it was not meant to be, because later we discover that the Smoke Monster was inhabiting his form all along and Locke really did die at the hands of Ben. Locke’s body is found intact, and a proper burial is performed. It was tough to see him finally go, because he was the spiritual mascot of the survivors as well as the island. In the end, though, he was not alone in the afterlife, which is a minor consolation.
Bobby Ewing (Dallas)
One of the first rules of great fiction writing is never — never! — make an entire narrative thread, with its innate twists and turns, a dream. It’s not satisfying on any level to learn that all the work you put into watching a film or series (it is work) turned out to be nothing more than a fantasy by one of the characters. Dallas broke this cardinal rule when Bobby Ewing (Patrick Duffy) was killed by his lovelorn sister-in-law, Katherine (Morgan Brittany). This development was thrown into the trash, though, when audiences discovered that the entire ordeal of Bobby’s death and a whole season of the show were nothing more than a dream dreamt by his wife, Pam (Victoria Principal). Poor form, Dallas. Poor form.
Tony Almeida (24)
Throughout much of 24‘s run, Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard) played both professional dissenter and enabler to Jack Bauer’s (Kiefer Sutherland) maverick anti-terrorism techniques. While they didn’t always go at things in the same manner, their mission was the same: Save the country. In the fifth season, Tony’s wife is murdered in a car blast and he later learns that Christopher Henderson (Peter Weller), Jack’s mentor and former head of the Counter Terrorism Unit, was involved in his wife’s demise.
Almeida attempts to kill Henderson, but the villain turns the tables, doses Almeida with a lethal injection, and Tony apparently dies in front of Jack. In season seven, we discover that Tony is still alive and firmly embedded with a group of terrorists, his death faked by Henderson and his men in a plot to turn him. While he changes allegiances several times in the season, in the end, it turns out that he simply wanted revenge for the death of his wife.
