Outer Banks wasn’t the only show that killed off a major character in 2024 — and many of those fictional deaths still have fans upset.
Season 4, which premiered in November, got off to a good start by channeling it’s focus onto JJ (Rudy Pankow), who has been beloved by viewers since the Netflix hit debuted in 2020. By the finale, however, fans were left reeling when JJ was ultimately murdered by his biological father, Chandler Groff (J. Anthony Crane).
“When I first found out JJ was gonna risk it all and not make it, I understood it. And the risks got bigger and bigger, and the stakes got higher and higher,” Pankow explained to Netflix’s Tudum in November 2024. “His death really does set up the future of OBX with the question, what is worth it? And when someone that close to you is gone, how do you navigate that?”
One month earlier, Kelly Monaco wrapped up her run as Samantha McCall on General Hospital. Monaco recalled her time with the show ahead of the news.
“I was, like, a die-hard General Hospital fan. That was my dream; I was like, ‘General Hospital all the way!’ So, I was thrilled when [then-ABC daytime president] Brian Frons said they would create a role for me,” she told Soap Digest in 2023. “Sam came onto the canvas only having herself and her brother, always taking care of someone and never being taken care of. I think the biggest evolution for her is starting from being a really lonely, scared woman and becoming a woman who is still really independent, but is protected by family and friends and love and relationships and loyalty, and she never had that before.”
She concluded: “Now she has a family and kids. She came in bent and broken, and I feel like there’s a lot of her that’s still broken, but she’s constantly sort of putting the Rubik’s cube together. All the pieces don’t fit perfectly yet, but it’s certainly not broken anymore!”
