A lot happened this year in entertainment, from writers' strikes to blockbuster concert tours (hi Bey and Tay!) to Barbenheimer and AI in the creative space. That's not even taking into account everything that happened on television this year — some of the best reality shows and our favorite scripted dramas offered up seriously shocking scenes this year that left us gob-smacked long after their seasons' ended.
Why did Succession diehards dub one Succession season 4 episode the "greatest episode of TV ever")? What was going on with Shauna's terrifying pregnancy cravings on Yellowjackets? What was the true nature of Archie, Betty, Veronica and Jughead's friendship on Riverdale? And what was "Scandoval"? This year's TV schedule was jam-packed with some truly astonishing moments.
We break down the most shocking TV moments of 2023; it goes without saying but just in case: SPOILERS ahead!
The most shocking TV moments of 2023
Succession: Logan Roy dies
Okay, sure, the mere fact that Logan Roy (Brian Cox) died wasn't itself a surprise — the HBO hit is called Succession after all, so it was only a matter of time before the King Lear figure at the center of this Shakespearean family-business saga took his mortal leave and left his kin reeling with equal parts grief and ambition.
No, rather, it was the how, where and when of Logan Roy's death that really shocked: in season 4 episode 3, abruptly passing away from natural causes on a private jet far from Connor (Alan Ruck), Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Roman (Kieran Culkin) and Shiv (Sarah Snook).
After four seasons' worth of tension and tumult, it was jolting to see the larger-than-life Logan meet his end in such a conventional way and genuinely heartbreaking to watch the usually warring Roy children cease fire to say a final goodbye to their father over a cell phone.
Vanderpump Rules: Scandoval
It wasn't just a public cheating scandal — it was a pop-culture phenomenon. When word hit that Vanderpump Rules personality Tom Sandoval had romantically stepped out on his fellow series star and partner of nearly a decade Ariana Madix with their co-star and friend Raquel Leviss, Bravo viewers got reality drama of epic proportions.
As Vanderpump Rules season 10 neared its end, the Pump Rules fandom waited with bated breath as more and more damning details about Sandoval and Leviss' clandestine affair were revealed — the matching lightning-bolt necklaces! Even celebrities like Jennifer Lopez, Amy Schumer and Chris Pratt started weighing in with their own shocked reactions.
Though it was undoubtedly a time of great personal strife for the TV trio, "Scandoval" reinvigorated the long-running Bravo series, accrued lucrative side gigs for the participating parties and have us all counting down the days until Vanderpump Rules season 11 premieres with even more romantic drama. (Mark your calendars for January 30.)
Yellowjackets: Shauna eats Jackie's ear
We can understand the weirdness of pregnancy cravings. We can also understand the desperation of being starving whilst stranded in the wilderness. What we can't really wrap our heads around, however, is eating the ear straight off the frozen corpse of your dead BFF, which is exactly what young, pregnant Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) horrifyingly did to Jackie (Ella Purnell) in the Yellowjackets season 2 premiere.
As you might remember, Jackie froze to death in the drama's season 1 finale. In the months since, Shauna has been keeping her best friend's body in a shed, visiting Jackie's corpse regularly and imagining conversations with her late pal. After Jackie's frozen ear falls off, Shauna pocketed the body part... before eating it in the final moments of "Friends, Romans, Countrymen," a harbinger of all of the creepiness and, yes, cannibalism to come this past season.
You: Rhys' real identity
The Netflix psychological thriller, centered on Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley), a bookstore manager–turned–serial killer, is always one to leave viewers guessing. You season 4 was no exception.
The show's final season saw Joe leave the California suburbs for London and assume the fake identity of an English professor named Jonathan Moore. It's through another university professor that Joe/Jonathan meets the mysterious author Rhys Montrose (Ed Speleers).
Or does he? It turns out that the Rhys Joe had been talking with the entire season is a hallucination, a Fight Club-style alter ego that Joe cooked up in his own mind to deal with his murderous impulses. Plot twist!
Barry: the eight-year time jump
Joe Goldberg isn't the only TV killer who adopted a new identity this year. In episode four of the Barry season 4, Bill Hader's actor–slash–assassin Barry Berkman escapes from prison and hightails it to Sally's (Sarah Goldberg) house to convince her to flee Los Angeles with him.
We then shockingly jump eight full years into the future where we catch up with the couple, now living off-grid under the aliases Clark and Emily and with a young son, John (Zachary Golinger). Barry's Clark is a religious stay-at-home dad and Sally's Emily is a waitress struggling with depression due to their isolation and paranoia over hiding their real identities.
In a black comedy that has felt perpetually tense and taut over the course of four seasons, the time jump was a particularly unsettling and anxiety-inducing stretch, perfectly setting up that equally shocking finale.
Riverdale: that finale four-way
Not to be outdone, Riverdale — the zany Archie Comics-inspired drama that ran on The CW from 2017 through 2023 — employed its own surprising time jump in the show's final season. But where Barry only opted for an eight-year flash-forward, the teen series remarkably jumped a whopping six decades in the future for its series finale, fittingly titled "Goodbye, Riverdale."
We see Betty (Lili Reinhart) in her 80s and, after finding out that Jughead (Cole Sprouse) has died at age 84, she asks her granddaughter to transport her back to her younger days in Riverdale one last time.
In a dream, she's brought back to her high school graduation day, during which viewers find out the show's core four — Betty, Jughead, Veronice (Camila Mendes) and Archie (KJ Apa) — had actually been engaged in a romantic four-way relationship throughout their senior year. It's a fittingly bonkers plot point from a series that was built on them.
The Great: Peter III dies
Okay, yes, we're very well aware that Peter III was a real-life Russian emperor and we already knew that he died young at the age of 34. But Hulu comedy series The Great, starring Nicholas Hoult as the aforementioned monarch and Elle Fanning as Catherine the Great, regularly played fast and loose with historical accuracy over its three seasons. So, we thought maybe, just maybe, Hoult's Peter might be able to avoid this fate.
Alas, the show pulled a Succession and killed off its male lead early on in The Great season 3. Though the history books have much mystery about the real-life royal's death, with some claiming he was assassinated by his enemies, The Great had Peter tragically fall through an iced-over lake and freeze to death in episode 6.
The Fall of the House of Usher: the acid orgy
Netflix horror drama The Fall of the House of Usher was packed with gasp-worthy moments and gruesome deaths, but the one that stands out the most from the miniseries happens in The Fall of the House of Usher episode 2, "The Masque of the Red Death."
Prospero "Perry" Usher (Sauriyan Sapkota) decides to host a masquerade party for the rich and famous at the old Fortunato warehouse, where a saucy orgy is meant to be signaled by the setting off of sprinklers. However, when the sprinklers go off, it's not water they're spraying but acid and toxic chemical waste, burning off the flesh of the 80-some-odd partygoers on the dancefloor below, including Perry himself.
It's a brutal, bubbling death for all but one — Frederick's wife, Morella, is the sole survivor — and a clue as to just how far this gory show was prepared to go.
Jury Duty: Ronald finds out
This wasn't so much a shocking TV moment for us viewers, as we, along with James Marsden, Mekki Leeper, Edy Modica and the rest of the paid actors on the jury stand, were completely in on the ruse against our sweet mark, Ronald Gladden. However, Ronald got the biggest shock of his life when he discovered the court-room documentary he thought he was participating in was actually a reality hoax series for Amazon Freevee.
In the season's finale episode, entitled "The Verdict," Ronald and the rest of the world got a behind-the-scenes tour of how the trial was staged and exactly how the production team, cast and crew managed to pull of such an epic bamboozling.
Even more surprising: a second season of Jury Duty is reportedly in the works. Given the sheer popularity of the first edition, they're going to have to find someone really unsuspecting this time.
