As for his feelings on the matter, “I get killed a lot,” he joked, referencing the parts he played on Game of Thrones and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. “I like to die.”
Because, of course, Joel isn’t the first beloved character to meet an untimely end.
After nearly eight seasons of battling the survivor’s guilt from losing his entire family in a fire, it simply made sense for Peter Krause‘s Bobby Nash to be killed off on 9-1-1‘s April 17 outing.
“It didn’t feel arbitrary, because if you track the tragic arc of his character, of where he started, and how he came to LA looking for atonement, it just makes a kind of tragic sense for his character in a way it wouldn’t for another character,” showrunner Tim Minear told Variety of the decision. Plus, “Bobby’s death affects every single character’s story in a way that really no other character death would.”
And it’s far from the first onscreen death to leave fans floored and just a bit devastated. From Grey’s Anatomy‘s Meredith Grey (sorta) to Yellowstone‘s John Dutton, check out more stars who exited stage left from the small screen.