The biggest trend in finales this year is -- ulp -- child endangerment.
Shows from "Dexter" to "The Walking Dead" have made kids in danger the dramatic thrust of their finale storylines. "The Walking Dead" even killed a child -- not once but twice -- and had another suffer a ghastly, near-fatal gunshot wound to the gut.
FX's new "American Horror Story" didn't even wait for its finale to start dispatching kids, violently offing a pair of young twins in its first minutes.
Also read: 'American Horror Story': Where's the Terror?
Viewers will find out on Sunday's "Dexter" season finale whether Dexter's son, Harrison, will also perish at the altar of TV drama. Previews of the episode show bad guy Colin Hanks threatening to stab the toddler in the neck with a wooden sword. (Update, with a spoiler warning to those who haven't seen it: Harrison lived.)
No harm, of course, came to any actual children in the making of the shows. But whether harm could come to kids who watch them is an open question. (Assuming any parents are clueless enough to let their kids watch surefire nightmare-inducers.)
Many studies have linked violence on TV to actual aggression in children. But TV violence against children -- or at least so much of it at once -- is new territory.
Thou Shalt Not Kill a Child has long been one of the unspoken commandments of horror movies, to say nothing of TV shows. (Teenagers, especially sexually active ones, are fair game, as Wes Craven spelled out in 1996's "Scream.") Putting young people in danger is one of the cheapest ways to shock an audience -- but can also be a legitimate way to explore serious ethical questions.
A quick rundown of the recent kids-in-peril plots:
>> "Breaking Bad": Methamphetamine maker Walter White wins back his ex-partner, Jesse Pinkman, by persuading him that Pinkman's new mentor, Gus Fring, poisoned a child and tried to frame Walt. With Jesse's help, Walt has Gus killed, preventing Gus from following through on a threat to kill Walt's wife, son, and infant daughter. Only in the finale's last shot do we learn that Walt, in fact, poisoned the child himself. ("Breaking Bad" also killed off a child drug runner in the penultimate episode of its previous season.)
>> "The Walking Dead": Carl, the youngest in a band of zombie apocalypse survivors, is shot by a hunter at about the same time his young playmate, Sophia, disappears. The hunter leads the survivors to an idyllic farm communtiy that holds a secret: Its leader keeps zombies locked in a barn, in hopes of restoring their humanity. Shane, one of the survivors, goes with the hunter to retrieve medical supplies for Carl from a zombie-ridden school, then shoots and leaves him behind as zombie fodder. Later, Shane opens the barn door, instigating a mass execution of the zombies -- the last of whom turns out to be Sophia.
