Spooks was a British espionage series that ran for ten series, from 2002-2011. It was a intense and sometimes brutal series about a group of officers working for “Section D” of MI5, and highlighted their efforts to deal with all manner of threats, both foreign and domestic, that threatened the United Kingdom.

Generally speaking, Spooks featured three or so main field agents who did most of the action work, along with a variety of analysts and support workers back at their headquarters (“the Grid”) all working under the direction of the Head of Section D.

Possibly because Spooks ran for so long, its cast rotated through different iterations, with most characters lasting only a couple of series. It quickly evolved into an “anyone can die” sort of series, so a lot of those characters met violent or otherwise tragic ends. And even those who lived often left the show under somewhat traumatic circumstances.

I recently binged the whole show. With nearly 20 major character departures in 86 episodes, it became quite a common feature to see our regular characters shuffle out of the series.

In trying to rank them, the main question for me was what criteria to use. How brutal the character’s end was? How brutally-presented the scene (not always the same thing)? How heart-breaking it was to see a beloved character leave, for whatever the reasons?

All of those things factor into my ranking, but ultimately I’m just going to for how well the scenes work as bits of television drama. That includes factors like how significant the characters were to the series, how impacting their farewells were for me in the audience, and how well the departure scenes themselves work in terms of storytelling.

The other thing to mention is that I’m only including here members of members of Section D of MI5 that appeared regularly, or (in the case of one character) in at least two episodes. So that means none of the other recurring characters, like CIA officers, antagonists, or love-interests, or CIA officers who were both antagonists and love-interests (which really was a thing).

This list also doesn’t count the characters who feature as part of the team in the show’s final episode–Harry, Erin, Dimitri, and Calum–who never technically “departed” the series. I also haven’t watched the Spooks movie that came out a few years later (For the Greater Good). I’ve read that at least one regular character from the TV series met their end in that film, but even so I’m not counting it as a character departure either.

Oh, given the nature of this post, just about everything from here on in is filled with massive

Spoilers!

So continue at your peril.

Before we get to the actual countdown though…

Dishonourable Mention:

Juliet Shaw

Played by Anna Chancellor

I mention Juliet Shaw because she comes so close to technically satisfying my criteria for selection on this list. She’s a character who had something like 15 appearances in the show, including every episode of Series 4. She also works for Section D under Harry Pearse’s command, but only for one episode before she is promoted to National Security Coordinator, and becomes, effectively Harry’s boss.

Her departure from the show happens over time. She narrowly survives an assassination attempt at the start of Series 6, winding up in a wheelchair even when she returns to work. After only a couple of appearances that year, she comes back for a final episode in Series 7 when its revealed that she is a leader of a conspiracy whose aim is to suppress America’s military power, a cause she is so committed to that she’s willing to to murder Ros Myers, one of the series’ stars, in cold blood (more on that below). She then goes on to escape and is only mentioned one other time, as far as I know, before fading out of the series forever.

It felt like a story thread that would have been fun to resolve at some point, but the show decided to never go there. This is not the first time that something like this happened, unfortunately (also see below). So we’re not officially ranking Juliet Shaw here since she was only a member of Section D for one episode, and she didn’t really have a departure episode, she just stopped appearing.

Anyway, now that that’s out of the way…

19. Sam Buxton

Played by Shauna Macdonald

Sam Buxton is the only character on this list who never actually had a departure scene. She was a regular presence on the Grid for all of series 2 & 3–an appealing and capable presence who also made a number of critical mistakes. She’s last seen in at the end of the third series helping to deal with the latest crisis, but then when field agent Danny Hunter is tragically killed, there is a throwaway comment that Sam has been put under sedation, apparently emotionally overcome at what has happened. Sam is never seen or referred to in the series again–not even at Danny’s funeral in the next episode.

I read somewhere that Sam is transferred to GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) but I don’t know where that information comes from–as far as I can tell it’s not in the series.

18. Beth Bailey

Played by Sophia Myles

Departure scene: Series 10, Episode 1 (sort of)

Beth Bailey was a late addition to Spooks, showing up as a private security contractor whose paths with Section D before joining the team. She had a bit of a rocky start as her past caught up with her on her first mission, but new Section Chief Lucas North. However, she was later decommissioned when Lucas’s replacement (see below) found her unsuitable–basically Erin Watts had higher standards than Lucas did, which, considering Lucas’ personal problems, is not hard to imagine.

Beth’s last episode is the final episode of Series 9, but at the end of it she was still part of the team. She’s kicked off MI5 in between seasons, which is explained in a couple of lines of dialogue in the next episode (the one referenced here)–all in all, a pretty inglorious way for a regular character to be written out of the show. But it rates higher than Sam Buxton (see above) simply because her departure is in fact referenced on screen.

17. Tessa Phillips

Played by Jenny Agutter

Departure scene: The Lesser of Two Evils (Series 1, Episode 6)

Tessa Phillips was a senior operative in Section D, but always seemed to have her own agenda. It’s revealed through the only year of episodes that she featured in a regular (Series 1), for instance, that she has numerous non-existent agents on the books so that she can collect their money. When she is exposed, Harry fires her.

That makes for a reasonably decent departure from the series, but it’s obvious that her story is not over at this point. She goes on to appear one more time (IMDb says she appears twice more but I didn’t notice her in the first instance), at which point she makes all sorts of trouble for Section D and basically directly leads to the death of an asset that Tom Quinn is working with. She then goes on to flee out of the country, never to be seen or heard of again.

Like Juliet Shaw above, it makes for a disappointing non-ending to a hanging story thread.

16. Connie James

Played by Gemma Jones

Departure scene: Nuclear Strike (Series 7, Episode 8)

In many ways, both Juliet Shaw and Tessa Phillips were villains, or at least antagonists–but neither of them really compare to Connie James, the most full-blown Section D traitor the show ever featured in the regular cast. She had become disillusioned with Britain and threw her lot in with the Russians, eventually causing one of the other character departures listed below.

But unlike Juliet or Tessa, we got to see the end of Connie’s story. Not only was she caught, but she was then brought back by the team in order to help track down a nuclear bomb before it could be set off in London. In the end, the team found the bomb, but since it could not be diffused, the only way to stop the destruction was for Connie to disable to the nuclear aspect of the device. The bomb still went off and killed Connie, but without causing any widespread destruction.

It was a decent story but I cannot list it more highly for a few reasons. Connie hadn’t been on the show for all that long, she was never that likeable, and the storyline with her being outed as a traitor and then brought back to help the team made her death pretty obvious.

The scene itself was fine; it just wasn’t particularly interesting.

15. Lucas North

Played by Richard Armitage

Departure scene: Series 9, Episode 8

Lucas joins the show at the start of the sixth series, playing a long-term member of Section D who had spent eight years as a prisoner in Russia. He rejoins the team, and even becomes the Section Chief following Ros Myer’s final departure (see below). For quite a while, he comes across as a cool, capable and heroic, albeit troubled, operative.

But in his last series Lucas completely falls apart as his troubled past comes back to haunt him, and we eventually learn he isn’t Lucas North at all, but another guy named John Bateman who stole the real North’s identity shortly before he joined MI5 in the first place. He turns out to be completely mentally unstable with absolutely blurred lines of identity, who becomes so obsessed with a former lover that he ends up betraying his team and becoming an outright enemy.

In his last scene, he confronts Harry Pearse on a rooftop after his lover has been killed, and upon realising that all his efforts were for nothing, decides to kill himself and jumps off the building. The sequence is reasonably well directed, but it’s hard to make real sense of the character–his psychology or his actions. And he had become so unlikeable, that by the time we got there I just glad to be rid of him.

14. Ruth Evershed

Played by Nicola Walker

Departure scene: The Message (Series 5, Episode 5)

Ruth is, quite frankly, one of the best characters in the whole run of Spooks. But in the middle of Series 5, she abruptly left the Grid when she took the blame for something she hadn’t done and faked her own death, all in order to save her boss (and unrequited love) Harry Pearse from trouble.

Ruth’s departure was a little less dramatic than a lot of the others (she didn’t die, after all), but it was still meaningful and affecting. The only thing that undercut it was that she was such a compelling character that it was hard to believe she wouldn’t make a return appearance someday.

And surprise surprise, that’s exactly what she did a couple of seasons later, then staying on for the rest of the series. That was fine, of course, because it meant that we had Ruth back. It just keeps her from being higher on this list.

Ruth later returned to the series, but at the time this appeared to be a permanent write-off.

In Series 10, Ruth left Section D again, this time to take a job with the Home Secretary as a security advisor. But she didn’t leave the show–she continue to be a major player, and ended up working with Harry and the team is just about every episode. The final series of Spooks came to an end with Ruth’s tragic death, just after she and Harry agreed to leave the service together. But since that was the last episode, I can’t really count it as a departure from the series. If this were a countdown of Spooks‘ best characters, Ruth would be a lot higher. If it were a countdown of Spooks’ most tragic deaths, it would probably be #1. But for a list of the most dramatically interesting departure scenes, it sits here.

13. Ros Myers

Played by Hermione Norris

Departure scene: Infiltration (Series 6, Episode 8) and then again in Series 8, Episode 8 (by which time the episodes were not titled)

Ros Myers is interesting as she has two (and arguably three) completely distinct departure scenes in two different episodes. The first time was at the end of Series 6 when she was brutally executed (by lethal injection) by the treacherous Juliet Shaw (see above). But then she was miraculously survived when it was revealed Adam Carter had switched out the deadly syringe with something that only simulated death. She was then given the opportunity to flee instead (necessary because she had gotten herself into quite a lot of trouble before her supposed death).

However, that departure only lasted a couple of episodes, and at the start of Series 7, it was revealed she was working for Harry Pearse again, as an undercover agent overseas. Due to the crisis of the week she returned to London and the Grid, taking over as the Section Chief following the death of another character who will be mentioned somewhere down this countdown. She held this position for the rest of Series 7 and all of Series 8, when she died for reals attempting to save the Home Secretary from a building that had been rigged with massive explosives.

All of these scenes worked quite well, and Ros was a very important character to the show, but she doesn’t rank more highly than this because both of the ways she was written out of the show felt derivative of things that had happened already to other characters. Ros was the third character to have to leave behind her life with MI5 because of complicated legal and security reasons, she was the sixth character to be killed off (by the way I’m counting them anyway) and she was the second of those to die attempting to save people from a bomb. So while the scenes worked fine, it was all a bit same-same for this show, and thus, not my favorite.

Her most affecting departure was actually her fake execution at the end of Series 6, a sequence which worked very well because neither she nor anybody else in the room knew it was going to be fake. You really saw both the courage and the vulnerability of the woman in that sequence–but of course, you can’t call that a real departure, since she came back to life in the next scene.

12. Ben Kaplan

Played by Alex Lanipekun

Departure scene: The Mole (Series 7, Episode 7)

Ben was a freelance journalist who hooked up with Jo Portman for a night in order to get information about what MI5 was up to. Later, he helped Adam Carterand the rest with a hostage crisis, and ultimately ended up joining the Section D as a Junior Case Officer, a role he served in until the end of Series 8 when he was abruptly murdered by Connie James, a traitor in his own organisation.

Ben’s death was shocking and tragic. He was young and likeable and had a life and a career ahead of him, and was mercilessly murdered (via bladed garrotte wire) by a character who wasn’t all that sympathetic to begin with, even before she was revealed to be a mole for the enemy.

But Ben’s death was also kind of pathetic–sad, but he was clearly out of his depth. The scene itself was less about Ben than it was just a plot device to set up how bad Connie is. It was a good scene, but primarily there for the shock value than the character.

11. Danny Hunter

Played by David Oyelowo

Departure scene: The Suffering of Strangers (Series 3, Episode 10)

Danny was one of the original Spooks characters. He wasn’t the first member of Section D to be get killed in action, but he was the first one who had been an important, long-term cast member. He spent most of his last episode as a a prisoner, alongside his colleague Fiona Carter. When the episode’s villain was determined to kill one of his captive, Danny purposely goaded him into shooting him, saving Fiona’s life (for now, anyway–see below).

It’s a good scene, and Danny gets a good final moment–finding a way to help save a colleague without the script resorting to anything that doesn’t feel plausible or grounded. And it was the first time that a hero we had really gotten to know was killed in action. But as effective a moment s it is, it’s just not as dramatic or wrenching as some of the entries higher on this list.

10. Tariq Massood

Played by Shazad Latif

Departure Scene: Series 10, Episode 2

A Section D technician who replaced Malcolm Wynn-Jones (see below), Tariq was young, intelligent and enthusiastic. He spent most of his work time on the Grid, but when he was attempting to figure out who had stolen a briefcase filled with classified information, he took his work home with him, continuing to scan CCTV footage throughout the city in order to find the thieves.

His search bore fruit, and he did discover something important…but unfortunately he was being monitored, and his communications were cut off. Before he could get somewhere to report it, a passerby quietly poisoned him, and he died on the street.

It was a good scene–a little predictable, just because otherwise why were we following Tariq as he went home at all? But it still worked in terms of delivering an impending sense of dread and tragedy. Tariq’s death is in a similar category as Ben’s (see above) and Colin’s (see below), but it’s distinct in that it ends up serving as a meaningful plot point in a longer term story–the mystery of what is going on goes over the entirety of the last season of the show.

9. Colin Wells

Played by Rory MacGregor

Departure Scene: Gas and Oil Part 1 (Series 5, Episode 1)

Colin was a master of gadgets and computers who served with Section D from almost the very beginning of the series. He was typically back at the Grid or in the van during ops, but that wasn’t enough to keep him out of trouble. When a conspiracy of businessman, politicians and MI6 officers launch a brazen attack to take over the country, they capture Colin and execute him, almost as boast about their power and control.

It’s a really heart-breaking sequence–from the moment Colin is captured, it’s clear to both us and him that he doesn’t have much of a hope of surviving. The episode moves forward to the miserable moment when his captors string him up and hang him. It’s cruel but devastatingly effective as a piece of drama. I think I put it above Ben Kaplan’s death (see above) which was similar in some ways, because Colin had been around for longer, and his impending death was more drawn out, and came with a greater sense of dread.

8. Adam Carter

Played by Rupert Penry-Jones

Departure Scene: New Allegiances (Series 7, Episode 1)

Adam Carter was the show’s second Section Chief, taking over from Tom Quinn (see below). His main difference to his predecessor was the fact he was married to a fellow agent, and even had a son at home. Adam started off as a great character, with the right mix of passion and professionalism to be believable in his role but to keep things interesting. But after the death of someone close to him (see below) Adam became increasingly unstable, and spends the next two series in a state of (understandable) psychological breakdown.

I kept waiting for him to fall apart right out of the service, or even to step down in order to take care of his son. Instead, he’s killed in action at the start of Series 7 in a scene that is exciting, but for these characters in a way that’s almost mundane: he drives a car with a bomb in it away from where it will cause civilian harm, and ends up killed in the blast. It’s sad because he almost makes it out alive. We even see him scrambling out of the car–but it’s not enough. It’s exactly the sort of thing that Adam might have survived in another episode; it’s just that this time, he doesn’t. It’s a well done scene which gives the show a helpful burst of realism, and it is all the more meaningful because of it.

7. Tom Quinn

Played by Matthew Macfayden

Departure Scene: The Sleeper (Series 3, Episode 2)

The show’s original lead character, Tom Quinn was similar to Adam Carter (above)–a dedicated agent with a strong passionate streak. He comes under immense pressure at the end of the second series, framed as he is by an old enemy, driven to brink of absolute despair, and becomes a public fugitive. Amazingly, after an inter-season cliffhanger, he was able to turn the tables and come back from the edge and even resume his old position.

Thus it was all the more shocking when in the very next episode do we see that Tom’s “recovery” has been far from complete. While running an operation that involves an activated sleeper agent, he comes under a massive crisis of conscience. He puts a huge operation in jeopardy when he becomes unwilling to endanger the sleeper’s family. It comes to such a head that his whole team stands against him, and Harry has to stand him down from duty.

Tom was the show’s first major character to be written out (although not the earliest one to be included in this countdown–see below), and as such it was quite startling. It ended up being pretty unique in the (eventual) history of the show, with Tom being the only “good guy” to be written out of the show this way–in disgrace, but not dead and not forced to relocate out of the country or whatever in order to avoid some terrible fate.

I guess that’s not totally true, since that description also fits Beth Bailey (see above, waaaay above), but Tom scores much better because his departure had a whole episode devoted to it, and not just a couple of lines of inserted dialogue.

Tom actually makes a cameo appearance in the show’s final episode, where we learn his crisis of conscience doesn’t prevent him from doing an off-the-books murder job for Harry when the victim really deserves it.

6. Malcolm Wynn-Jones

Played by Hugh Simon

Departure scene: Series 8, Episode 1

Malcolm is Spooks‘ original technician and data analyst–present from the show’s first episode and featuring ultimately in more episodes of the series than anyone else other than Harry Pearse himself. And he’s totally unique on this list as the only character who freely and utterly chooses his own departure. He isn’t killed in action, he isn’t fired, he isn’t forced to leave for the greater good or for his own protection. He simply chooses to retire.

But it’s excellent. It comes after a particularly harrowing adventure where Malcolm manages the rare feat of talking down a hit man assigned to murder Ruth Evershed’s stepson. Malcolm’s retirement is well-deserved, and it’s nice to see someone go out peacefully for once.

Malcolm ends up reappearing the in Series 9 a couple of times, where he continues to display unflappable intellect in the face of danger.

5. Zoe Reynolds

Played by Keeley Hawes

Departure scene: Persephone (Series 3, Episode 6)

Another original member of the team, Zoe’s departure is all the stronger because it comes relatively early in the show, before such things became commonplace and repetitive. On what should be a routine mission to infiltrate the Turkish mafia, violence breaks out and an undercover police officer is killed. MI5 comes under public scrutiny, with the primary question whether the missions purpose was to provoke one member of the mafia to kill another (thus leading to the officer’s death). A whole episode is devoted to the trial.

Of course there are all sorts of political things going on behind the scenes, and in the end Zoe is found guilty and sentenced to ten years in prison. Ultimately, Zoe is persuaded to fake her own death and leave the country forever.

There’s something of a coda to this story in the following episode, when Danny Hunter (see above) breaks protocol and decides to tell Zoe’s fiancé Will where to find her (in spite of his own unfulfilled feelings for Zoe). Danny receives a postcard at the end of that episode with a picture hidden inside of the couple smiling together–giving Zoe perhaps the unequivocal happy ending that anyone got from all ten years of the series.

4. Helen Flynn

Played by Lisa Faulkner

Departure scene: Looking After Our Own (Series 1, Episode 2)

Danny Hunter was the first major member of Section D that we saw killed in action. Tom Quinn was the first major character of the show to leave under any circumstances. But neither of them have the earliest departure on this countdown–that ignominious distinction belongs to Helen Flynn.

Is Helen a regular character? She appeared to be, showing up for two episodes as a junior administrative officer. But when she got assigned an undercover mission with Tom Quinn, her inexperience led to them both being exposed and caught. When Tom didn’t give up the information their captors wanted, Helen earned one of the most shocking deaths that the series ever delivered. First, her hand was shoved into a deep fryer, then her face, and then she was shot in the head.

It was brutal, it was appalling, it apparently resulted in all sorts of complaints to the BBC, but it set the stage for the intensity of the series to come.

3. Zafar Younis

Played by Raza Jaffrey

Departure scene: The Virus part 1 (Series 6, Episode 1), though arguably also The School (Series 6, Episode 10)

Poor Zaf. The field agent who joined after the death of Danny Hunter (see above) died one of the show’s most brutal deaths, and almost got the most epic departure scene out of any character on this list. He was infected by a deadly plague, kidnapped by mercenaries, and then managed to get ahold of a grenade and hold his captors at bay so that Adam Carter could escape and track down the “Patient Zero” of the disease.

Knowing that this was the character’s final episode, I was fully expecting, maybe hoping, that once Adam was free and clear, he would let go of the grenade and allow himself and the mercenaries (all infected with the virus) to be blown to bits.

Unfortunately, nothing so amazing happens. Zaf gets taken away, with his apparently dead body found in the next episode. But then you find out that’s not him, and the question of whether Zaf might still be alive is teased over the whole rest of the series. But finally in the last episode of the year, it’s revealed that no, Zaf is in fact dead, that he was actually tortured to death sometime later.

I guess it’s a plausible sort of thing to happen in the life of Section D–it makes sense that the fate of their comrades might not always be so clear and easy, and the news is used in that episode to motivate the actions of some of the other characters. But it still feels kind of anticlimactic, and like wasted story potential.

2. Fiona Carter

Played by Olga Sosnovska

Departure scene: Syria (Series 4, Episode 7)

Fiona was the wife of Adam Carter (see above), and a major part of Section D after the departure of Zoe Reynolds. She was an interesting character, both a dyed in the wool spy and a loving mother to her young son Wes. Fiona’s death comes toward the back half of Series 4, after a situation involving her murderous first husband Farook, whom she had previously believed to have been executed. Farook attempts to kidnap her and take her back to Syria. Fiona injures him and attempts to escape, but is shot in the process, dying in her husband’s arms as she makes him promise to take care of their son (have a look a few slots above to see how that worked out).

Fiona’s death is one of the most consequential of the whole series. Of course this shakes up the dynamic of Section D, but then this happened with every departure on this list. More directly, it caused the slow breakdown of Section Chief (and ostensible lead character) Adam Carter. Adam struggled directly with Fiona’s death over the course of the rest of Series 4 and all of Series 5, and could be inferred to have a lingering effect even beyond that.

Mitigating all this is the fact that Fiona hadn’t actually been in the show for all that long, so for the audience her loss isn’t as strongly felt. But it’s clear, not just from what came afterward but right there in the episode, that her death is going to have a devastating impact on the team.

1. Jo Portman

Played by Miranda Raison

Departure scene: The Book (Series 8, Episode 3)

Jo was one of my favorite Spooks characters, an aspiring journalist who proved her smarts and was then recruited by Adam Carter to the team. She had a near-death scene at the end of Series 6, when she and Adam had been captured, and she requested that Adam euthanise her before their enemy could resume his torture.

But even though it looked like she’d died, she survived and came back to work after Adam himself had been killed in action (see above). Jo continued to serve until she took part in a mission to stop a group of fanatics that have taken a bunch of hostages, including her boss Ros Myers, who was undercover at the time. Thanks to Ros’ cleverness, Jo was able to penetrate the room and most of their enemies. But the last one, their leader, threatened to set off a bomb which kill everyone. Jo wrestled with him and attempted to hold him at bay, but unable to get the detonation switch out of his hand, Ros Myers was forced to shoot him. The bullet went through the terrorist, killing him, but killing Jo as well.

It’s a contrived situation, of course, especially with the little knowing nod between Jo and Ros, but it’s very effective. Jo was a survivor–someone who had overcome seemingly endless trauma and but never stopped believing in the cause that she fought for. Her death was heroic and courageous, and came at the end of an episode that wasn’t particularly about her, that didn’t in any way telegraph that this was going to be her farewell. It was surprising, heartfelt and meaningful, and as such is, after consideration, my favorite departure moment for a Spooks major character.

There you go! After binging this whole series over the last few weeks, it was good to get at least one post out of it!