Why did Nicola Walker leave Unforgotten; why did Cassie Stuart die?

Why did Nicola Walker leave Unforgotten after the season 4 finale? Did her character Cassie Stuart have to die? If you are asking these questions in the wake of tonight’s finale on PBS, we more than understand. Losing the character at this point has to be one of the more sad and traumatic TV deaths in recent history — it’s not something that we wanted, and it’s absolutely something that will take some time in order to digest.

We do know already that there is going to be a season 5 coming; in that, you will see how the character of Sunny tries to move forward. We hope that there is at least some effort paid to remember this character — she was, after all, such an integral part of making this series what it was for so many years.

Let’s get back now to the matter of why Walker is no longer a part of the story. In a statement after the finale initially aired on ITV, here is some of what the network had to say:

“We would like to thank Nicola Walker for playing the brilliant role of Cassie Stuart in four series of Unforgotten which has become one of the best loved and most critically acclaimed police dramas on TV.

“Nicola and writer Chris Lang decided that Cassie’s story would come to an end last night, but that Unforgotten would continue, in series 5, with a new case, and a new ‘Partner in Crime’ for DI Sunny Khan.”

Just on the basis of that alone, it is fair to guess that Walker herself wanted to move on and do other things. We do understand that, as difficult as it may be sometimes to see it happen as a viewer. This tends to happen more often on British dramas than ones here in the United States, where performers are locked in to significant deals at the start of production. In Britain, there tends to be more in the way of flexibility.

How are you feeling about the exit of Nicola Walker from Unforgotten?

Be sure to share right now in the attached comments! Once you do just that, remember to stick around — there are more updates ahead and of course, we don’t want you to miss any of them.

Photo: PBS