‘Desperate Housewives’ and ‘Walking Dead’: Fans react to deaths

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Spoiler warning: This post contains important plot points from Sunday night’s ‘Desperate Housewives’ and ‘The Walking Dead.’

The Grim Reaper was working in prime time on Sunday when two major characters on two different series met their untimely ends. On ‘Desperate Housewives,’ the nice guy plumber, Mike Delfino (James Denton) was shot to death; on ‘The Walking Dead,’ Shane the unstable deputy (Jon Bernthal) got killed twice (once as a human, once as a zombie).

Neither death was totally unexpected. Word of Mike’s death came late last week when executive producer George Perkins was forced to reveal the plot development while on the witness stand during the trial between former ‘Housewives’ star Nicollette Sheridan and series creator Marc Cherry. And fans of ‘The Walking Dead’ comic books have known that Shane has been on borrowed time for quite awhile.

But knowing death is coming does little to blunt the effect when it actually arrives. And fans mourned openly online in the hours after the deeds were done.

Despite the fact that ‘Housewives’ is ending forever in just a few weeks, fans were totally unforgiving of the decision to off Delfino, who has been with the show since the beginning.

‘So they killed Delfino on Desperate Housewives.The goodlooking plumber with the heart of gold a 9-yr old kid.I officially hate the show now,’ Chachi Chatters said.

Seana wrote, ‘Dear writers of Desperate Housewives: of all the people you could have killed off, you pick Mike Delfino? Not impressed. At all. #badcall.’

ChirpTeam wrote, ‘Cannot believe Mike Delfino was the one to die... honestly, don’t the writers KNOW THAT HE IS ONE OF THE MOST LOVED CHARACTERS?’

And fan Bernadette T. Reed seemed to take it all extremely personally when she tweeted, ‘Mike Delfino dead on his front porch with a huge bullet in his chest ! Terrible! I am in shock all day now! everyone will KNOW this horror!’

Meanwhile, death is a regular occurance on ‘The Walking Dead’ (there was another character death last week) and fans seem to be taking Shane’s offing in bloodthirstier stride.

Fan ‘Dorian Gray’ started with a request: ‘Dear Walking Dead writers: After a successful run taking out Dale and Shane I ask for the hat trick next. Get rid of the bald woman, please.’

Brunswick wrote, ‘So they kill off Dale last week, I get it, but now you kill off Shane? The mom and the wife are still alive? Lame.’

But heel though he may be, Shane does have at least one fan. Jocelyn Sandoval tweeted, ‘Last night was the worst- my baby Shane died... walking dead broke my heart </3’

‘Walking Dead’ showrunner Glenn Mazzara was on twitter himself last night, adding: ‘SO many tweets from mind-blown #thewalkingdead fans. Wish I could answer them all but I need to avoid spoilers for our fans worldwide.’

In prime time there are only two constants: death and ratings.

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-- Patrick Kevin Day