Best of 2014: ‘The Walking Dead,’ ‘Sons of Anarchy,’ Bones,’ ‘Castle’ among Most Surprising Moments

One of the reasons why this is a golden age in TV is because of the investment. You spend so much time with these characters that when something disrupts the equilibrium, your mind starts to melt a little bit. We don’t feel like movies can even come close to this, mostly since sometimes in modern cinema now you are paying more for spectacle than story.

Now that we’ve said all of this, let’s move into today’s great category for the CarterMatt Best of 2014 Awards: Most surprising moment. This is one that was really fun for us to compile, since there were about 20 strong candidates for all walks of time, and we had to narrow it down to just fine. We got a chance to be nostalgic, but most of all have fun picking some of the shows we really enjoyed the most.

As with all of our other categories, voting here is open for two weeks, and with the results coming on Christmas Day! At the bottom of the article, you can see where to vote for some of our other favorites.

Bob becomes Bob-B-Q, “The Walking Dead” – Bob was never a character we anticipated being alive forever. With that being said, this ending was still somewhat shocking thanks mostly to the way that he was killed off more so than anything else. The fact that #BobBQ was a trending topic on Twitter after Gareth and company got a hold of him is reason enough for this moment’s inclusion.

Castle getting kidnapped before marrying Beckett, “Castle” – Fans expected a great wedding on the season 6 finale, and instead got one of the most polarizing twists in show history. We did eventually get a wedding, but we still do not know who captured Rick and held him hostage for months … or why.

Jax kills Unser, “Sons of Anarchy” – The power of “Sons of Anarchy’s” final season came mostly via emotional stock. You knew that many of the big moments that we saw were probably going to happen, but you were still so enthralled, you could not turn away. This is one we didn’t see coming, and we legitimately felt like Unser, despite his terminal cancer, was going to outlive them all. Had he not pushed so hard on taking Gemma, he probably would have.

Sweets dies, “Bones” – Usually, shows (especially network ones) tease big deaths, and give you a sense that something is happening. “Bones” gave us nada. Unless you were studying press releases carefully, you had no idea what was happening to Lance in the season 10 premiere. Still, we are reeling from that.

Tyrion Lannister kills Tywin, “Game of Thrones” – If you were coming onto this show without book spoilers, you can go in many directions here: The death of Joffrey, the trial by combat, or even that Cersei – Jaime love scene were all surprising and disturbing in their own right. This one to us takes the cake, mostly because of its setting (the toilet) and also that so many others in King’s Landing had already died.