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***Major spoiler alert***

All great TV shows have an episode or a string of episodes that destroy you emotionally and completely change the landscape of the show’s universe. You’ve invested time (in some cases, lots of time) and dedicated yourself, and for those of us who love a really good story, these kind of episodes can be pretty devastating.

Probably the most controversial decision in any story, whether that’s written, on film, or spoken, is a central character death. When done really well, the character is someone who’s death is going to dramatically change the storyline, their fellow characters shifting into new plotlines as a result. It can be a really powerful tool to both move along a storyline, but also to write tragedy in a real way that viewers can relate to and learn from.  Typically these aren’t the characters you root for something to happen to – like a villain – but someone you really love and is loved by the others in the story.

Often, a character’s death can signify a change off screen – the actor wants to leave to pursue other interests, has been fired, has a conflict with another project. Those deaths are still powerful and move the show along,  sometimes causing change that is so dramatic that the show either suffers or totally reinvents itself.  But you still kind of know that it wasn’t the original intention for the character.

The most deeply moving character deaths are those that aren’t expected and written with intention. That happen out of nowhere and are a true tragedy within the story. A death that didn’t have to happen, that was an accident, an illness, a twist of fate. That is when the character death can impart lasting changes on both the other characters and the audience. A necessary but brutal event to pivot the story in a different direction and explore the aftermath, how it changes the characters forever.

Enter the Kingdom Arizona Episodes, as I like to refer to them. The end of Season 3, and probably one of the top most devastating character deaths out of all the shows I’ve seen (and I’ve seen a lot).  At this point, you’re deep into the Kingdom world, 37 episodes, and the characters are so well written that they feel real to you.  You know them, you root for them, you feel their pain. And then BAM. Your world and theirs is turned sideways by a death, in a situation so quick and out of left field it leaves you stunned.

But let’s back up a bit. From the moment I started Kingdom, I’ve had a real love/hate relationship with Alvey Kulina. I want to like him, I do like him, but then he goes and does or says something stupid that makes me want to punch him in the face. Seems like a popular feeling. He’s got so much going on in his head, but somewhere in there is still a man who’s trying, who’s surviving, and who’s attempting to have a better relationship with his younger son, because the relationship with his older son is precarious and damaged.

Nate Kulina, given all of his life circumstances, is succeeding in life but has a secret, one that he finally spills to his older brother at the end of Season 2. Nate is gay, and knows that being out in the fight world isn’t going to be accepted well, and this translates to continuing to hide the secret from Alvey.

Jay Kulina, coming off of an absolutely horrific death in Season 2, has seemingly gone straight edge at the beginning of Season 3. Working in real estate, no drugs, less drinking, living with his girlfriend, Amy, and their baby daughter. He’s trying to be better for Nate, knowing he needs him.  But Nate knows that Jay’s a ticking time bomb, being pushed into a career and a life he’s not meant for, and he’s proven right.  Jay turns back to drugs, Amy leaves him and takes their daughter – which I hate her for btw, you could move out and not away – and spirals into maybe an even deeper hell than in the second half of Season 2.  He’s older now, with responsibilities, and he just keeps sabotaging himself with the need to avoid feeling anything.  So much so, he’s missing out, again, on what Nate needs.  As a natural protector and caretaker, the guilt there must be terrible.

So we enter the final four episodes of Season 3, and the series, with Jay slowly returning to the gym and weaning off the drugs (sort of), Nate happily in a relationship with Will, though it’s still a secret to Alvey.  And what I’ve been waiting for the whole time happens – we finally get a glimpse into what makes Alvey the way he is.

Alvey, Jay, and Nate head to Tucson after Alvey receives a call that his mother has attempted suicide at a parking garage.  Jay goes along to keep Nate company, but he’s also playing cat and mouse with Alvey and Alvey’s morphine.  They seem closer, but being 2 sides of the same coin, both are suspicious of the other.  As Alvey tries to figure out what’s going on with his mother, Nate and Jay have what will be their final days together, and together with their father, though no one knows it yet.  The calm before the storm, the beach as the water pulls back into a forming tidal wave.

What I like the most about these episodes is that Jay and Nate finally get more insight into their father’s relationship with his own parents as well.  In Episode 3×06 we learn that Alvey’s dad owned a bar in New York, and pushed a teenage Alvey into fighting his bar patrons who had tabs they couldn’t pay.  You start to see how much his body has taken, from such a young age.  The first night in Tuscon, as Jay and Nate convince Alvey to cheat and eat a slice of pizza (and not good pizza, from the looks of it), he admits that when was 15, he found his mother after a previous suicide attempt.  And that his father had found her as well after an attempt.  The look of understanding and connection from Jay is monumental.  I think it’s the first time he really sees what his father endured in his own childhood and how that made him the man he is now.  And it clearly makes Jay think both about his own drug addiction and the pain his father is in, returning the stolen morphine to Alvey later that night.

In Episode 3×09, the final day, before everything changes forever, the Kulina men train together in the morning before Alvey goes back to the hospital to see his mother. Jay and Nate spend the afternoon together, and Nate secretly calls Amy, asking her to call Jay. Alvey’s mother decides to ban him from the hospital, and this changes the course of their plan, to leave the following morning instead of when originally planned. As expected, this leaves Alvey confused, hurt, and angry about his mother and how she manipulated him.  Further cementing the evidence that Alvey is the way he is in many ways because of his parents – his paranoia, inability to trust or open up, and it makes sense. Not surprisingly, he wants to drink.

Alvey, Jay, and Nate end up a spot called “The Cowboy Palace”. One of the things I love and identify with most about Jay are his sharp observation skills. He notes the bouncer, the gun the bouncer carries, partially because Jay’s done the same job in the past, and partially because this is who he is.  Except in the deepest depths of being strung out, he is always noticing the details, picking up on unspoken vibes and reading people’s emotions.

Alvey quickly goes from kind of drunk to definitely drunk, making a rude comment about the waitress that Jay can’t abide by. It’s one of my favorite small moments of the entire show, and I’ve written about it previously, so I’m going to quote myself: “It’s a quiet moment in a loud scene, but it’s really touching, and I think the real Jay, underneath the haircuts (few better mohawks have existed), the clothes, and the defenses, comes out and speaks his truth.” Jay’s deep respect for women contrasts Alvey’s crude comment, and while the two are so similar in many ways, this is one topic on which they are not very similar at all.

Jay heads to the bar to chat with a local, Luanne, who is both older and divorced. But she provides a perspective that Jay needs. Luanne doesn’t know Jay’s background, but suspects it due to the damage to his  ears, and respects it but doesn’t idolize it. Jay plays his lines and Luanne is intrigued but doesn’t give in easily. I fully believe that a person needs to leave their surroundings to get a different perspective on their life, a problem, a relationship. And had things turned out differently that night, I think Jay would’ve returned to Venice with a more enlightened, positive perspective on his life and the future ahead.

As Jay convinces Luanne to dance, Nate decides its time to tell Alvey his truth. On the one hand, Alvey has been trying to communicate better, listen more. On the flip side, his mother just banned him from his hospital room after she attempted to commit suicide. And he’s wasted. Probably not the best time. But Nate also is benefitting from the perspective shift of being in a new place, and doesn’t read a situation to the same level that Jay does.  Alvey is making a speech about sticking close to family, because that’s all you have.  And you can see how that prompts Nate to finally tell Alvey he’s gay. Because he needs his dad to know the truth. If they are going to stick together and really be family. Jay’s pulling himself up and out of his deep hole, it’s time for Nate to move on as well. Let his relationship with Will be really real.

Alvey is so drunk he literally can’t take it in when Nate tells him the truth.  He thinks he’s joking, and let’s be real, that’s a pretty expected reaction. And the alcohol prohibits him from keeping in what he really thinks.  Given time, I do believe Alvey would’ve acknowledged and accepted who Nate really is, but it is the truth that in many cases, it does take time for parents to adjust. I can’t fault him for that.

And here is where the world goes sideways. Nate, also fairly drunk, stalks out of the bar in a rage.  Jay, seemingly the least drunk out of the three, quickly follows.  He worries about Nate, but he also knows the bouncer outside might intervene. All of Nate’s anger comes spilling out, and this is something we’ve seen before in a previous episode where Christina almost gets hit by a car. He has a short fuse in high stakes situations, and with drinking involved, less likely to contain it well.

It happens so fast, Nate and Alvey arguing and pushing each other around outside, Jay telling the bouncer he’s got it under control. Jay getting between the two to break up the fight, the bouncer shouting that he’s calling the police. The bouncer gets involved and approaches Nate from behind – always a mistake, especially with someone inebriated and angry. It takes just two seconds for Nate’s training to kick in and bring the bouncer down, and the bouncer’s own reaction is just as fast. He shoots Nate twice, at close range. Within five seconds the entire Kingdom world is turned upside down.  Jay’s holding his shirt to Nate’s gunshot wounds and screaming for someone to call an ambulance, while Alvey holds Nate in his lap, in shock. Nate is dying, and fast.

It isn’t until 3×10 that the news is confirmed. Nate is dead. A series of short bursts of flashbacks wrap up what happened that night in Tucson. The cops arrive, Jay has a hold of the gun, losing his mind while Alvey can’t take in what’s happening. The bouncer in the background, his face showing the weight of what he’s done.  Jay being handcuffed after releasing the gun.  Alvey and Jay back at Alvey’s mother’s house, trying to figure out what to do next, Jay covered in Nate’s blood.  Jay asking what Alvey said to Nate.  It’s done brilliantly, as Alvey trains for the Legends fight, his guilt and grief breaking through his concentration every few minutes.

It’s never shown who calls the shooting in, but I like to think it’s Luanne.

And who is at fault? I’m not sure you can really say. What happens is a chain of events that could’ve taken the slightest turn at any moment in the decades before. Alvey’s parents being different, maybe he would’ve been different. Maybe never having to go to Tucson. Maybe not going to that bar on that night.  Nate could’ve died after the beating he received in Season 1, changing the trajectory of the story from the start.  What if the bouncer hadn’t gotten involved? What if he never carried a gun? What if instead of being shot, Nate and Alvey’s fight spills into the street and one or both get hit by a car? What if Jay had stepped in between at the last second and was shot instead?

It’s a terrible, terrible accident and a tragedy that is played out in some version every day across the world. A split second decision takes a life in the matter of moments. And there’s nothing you can do to change it.

Knowing that Nate’s death was planned and written with Nick Jonas’ consent confirms my belief that Byron Balasco wrote Nate’s death with true intention for the larger story. It is the death that makes the most impact.  When you look at the Kulinas, statistically speaking, Alvey, Christina, and Jay are more likely to die, from substance abuse, a fight, a reckless night. Any one of those characters dying would have a massive impact on the show. But Alvey and Jay have a strong, innate sense of survival. They fall down and get back up, again and again, but never really learn from their mistakes. Nate’s death carries the heaviest weight, because losing him can create incredible change in those around him, particularly his family, more than any other character on the show. To be better, to do better. He’s young, with his future ahead of him, and in their own ways his family really tried to support him in that. And that survival instinct that is so strong in Alvey and Jay, is not as present within Nate. He isn’t wired the same way, to notice the same things, to put self-preservation above all else.

So Jay returns to Venice with immense grief, that of a brother and a pseudo parent, a perspective shift happening in him that no one could’ve predicted. He would give his life for Nate, and in his deeply perceptive mind, he knows he has to make his life even more worth it now, to live his life for his brother. One of Nate’s final acts was calling Amy, and maybe its the gesture to reconnect Jay and his daughter. Alvey returns to Venice as a parent who has lost his child, the guilt he carries about their final interaction something he will never totally shake. Christina comes to reality, finally, and sees that the son she had the more tenuous relationship with is the one that may change her life more than anyone else.

Life can be cruel. The saying “only the good die young” is a truth in many ways. The losses that hurt the most are those who go too young, their futures senselessly taken away. All of the possibilities of who that person could become, what they could do in their lives dissolve and that loss of hope is what hits hardest. You question everything you know and believe to try to find an answer, and there just isn’t one.

The greatest lesson we can take away from Kingdom, and the tragic but impeccably crafted death of Nate Kulina, is this: you don’t know when it’s going to be your last moment or your last moment with the ones you love. Say what you need to say, do what you need to do, don’t wait because that chance may never come again.

Live your truth, and there will be no regret.

PS: Netflix interns, if you are reading this, this is why we need a Season 4.  To see what comes after Nate is gone.

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