Vote for 2016’s Most Shocking Moment
It’s time for the Yahooies, Yahoo TV’s second annual reader-voted awards honoring the best — and sometimes worst — of 2016. Each day through Dec. 16, we will announce the nominees for one category, with an accompanying poll. The winners will be crowned Monday, Dec. 19.
The nominees for Most Shocking Moment are (SPOILER ALERT for all shows pictured above)…
Norma’s Death (Bates Motel)
Yes, yes, we’ve seen the movie, we knew Norma was going to die, but we didn’t know when, or how, or by whose hand, or that it would come with a full season of A&E’s fantastic Bates universe series still to unfold. Then there’s the fact that the crazy but oddly endearing Norma had finally found a brief moment of happiness with Sheriff Romero, and that post-death, Norman dug up her corpse and is treating the body like it’s a still-living version of his smother. So, yeah, shocking. —Kimberly Potts
Spector’s Attack on Gibson (The Fall)
For 11 minutes at the start of The Fall‘s Season 3 finale, we listen to Paul Spector, a confessed serial killer who’s been claiming amnesia about his crimes for the last five episodes, talk with Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson. The conversation is hypnotic. Slow and deliberate, it’s everything we’ve waited to hear: he reveals the earliest expressions of his sordid fascinations; she lectures him on why it’s time to end the charade, grow up, and accept responsibility for his actions. When the interrogation is halted, Gibson gets up to leave and tracks her with a chilling stare. Then he pounces on her like a caged animal with a chance for one last meal. The audience gasps, because we too let our guard down, and this is our hero — with her perfect golden locks and perfectly tailored suit — getting brutally beaten just as we think she’s won. —Mandi Bierly
Cersei’s Revenge (Game of Thrones)
The music should’ve tipped us off. That haunting, sparse piano playing as very few words were spoken. Cersei didn’t appear anxious about her trial at the Great Sept of Baelor. Instead, she looked satisfied — because she’d secretly positioned barrels of lethal wildfire underneath the Sept, where the High Sparrow, Margaery and Loras Tyrell, and other nobles waited. There would be no trial, because that wildfire erupted, decimating everyone and everything in the near vicinity. A Lannister always pays her debts. —Kelly Woo
Elliot Gets Shot (Mr. Robot)
Up until the closing moments of the Season 2 finale, we weren’t sure whether Tyrell Wellick was a real person or another manifestation of Elliot’s unsteady mind. But then he goes and confirms his corporeality by putting a bullet in the hacker hero’s gut. Say what you will about Tyrell, you can’t accuse him of throwing away his shot. —Ethan Alter
Crazy Eyes Kills the Little Boy (Orange Is the New Black)
Over the course of four seasons, we’ve learned quite a bit about what Suzanne’s life was like outside of Litchfield, but not the exact reason why she’s now inside Litchfield. The answer arrives in a gut-punch moment when an unsupervised (and unapproved) playdate with her young pal, Dylan, ends with the frightened boy plunging off a fire escape. In the blink of an eye, the childlike Suzanne is confronted by a very adult consequence. —EA
Claire Loses the Baby (Outlander)
The Sassenach and her great Scot never seem far from harm’s way. This season alone, Claire was poisoned, jumped in an alley, shunned sexually by her husband who was suffering from PTSD after being raped, and almost died of boredom at a series of frivolous fetes she was forced to attend with gossipy shallow French women. Just when things seemed to be turning around, Black Jack reappeared in their lives, and set in motion a series of extremely unfortunate events that a) made Jamie break his promise to not fight him and b) stressed Claire’s body out so much that she lost the baby. Book readers knew the 411, of course, but everyone else was likely caught off guard, given that the season opened with a pregnant Claire heading back to the future. —Carrie Bell
Vote now.
Related:
Vote for 2016’s Most Painful Death
Vote for 2016’s Most Infuriating Plot Twist
