It was a sad day when BBC drama Last Tango In Halifax  killed off heavily pregnant Kate (Nina Sosanya) in a car crash last year, just after finally marrying partner Caroline.

At the time, the show’s writer Sally Wainwright said that it was a ‘myth’ that lesbians always get killed off and that “people get killed off all the time”.

Wainwright also explained that it was a “narrative” decision, which caused further backlash from the show’s fans as they didn’t feel like Kate’s death added anything to the plot.

Many criticised the trend of killing off lesbians on TV – known mockingly as ‘Dead Lesbian Syndrome’ – the running joke in the queer female community is that if there’s a lesbian in a show, you can almost guarantee that she’ll be offed by the end of the season.

Wainwright said:

It was a shock. I didn’t realise how attached the audience had become to that relationship and to those two characters.

Of the criticism, she said: “I found it hard and I regretted it. I do think I made a mistake. I wished I had found a better story.”

Davies said:

It might be one of my least favourite things that you ever wrote, partly because it was off-stage… I think you were trying to make the point that death is random and off-stage, but it had the effect of it being an off-stage death.

It’s really unfortunate that you walked slightly into the world of those lesbian deaths, that extraordinary numbers of lesbian characters end up being killed off.

What people miss is that Caroline is alive and the heart of the drama and she’s a lesbian as well, but it’s tough getting criticism.”

He added:

You know, I could have told you that you were going to have that flack! [When I found out] you were doing that story… I gasped! Because I know the gays quite well, I thought ‘oh my god that’s going to be trouble!’

I’m kicking myself [for not warning you].”

Wainwright added:

I was on the cusp and wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do. You worry afterwards if you could have worked harder or if it was a lazy choice because those were the criticisms.”

The fourth season of the show is expected to air later this year, so look out for more Last Tango In Halifax then.

One of the most common tropes when it comes to television is ‘Dead Lesbian Syndrome’. Dead Lesbian Syndrome is what happens a show decides to kill off one of its lesbian characters – the running joke in the queer female community is that if there’s a lesbian in a show, you can almost guarantee that she’ll be offed by the end of the season.

That’s why it was so sad when BBC drama Last Tango In Halifax was yet another show that decided to kill off a lesbian. Kate was killed in a road accident, not long after her and her wife had gotten married and at the time, the show’s writer Sally Wainwright said that it was a ‘myth’ that lesbians always get killed off and that “people get killed off all the time”. Wainwright also explained that it was a “narrative” decision, which caused further backlash from the show’s fans as they didn’t feel like Kate’s death added anything to the plot.

However, speaking at the Hay Festival in Wales, Wainwright seemed to do a 180 on her previous comments, clarifying that she actually regrets killing off the character.

Also read: It’s a Myth That Lesbians Always Get Killed Off, Says ‘Last Tango in Halifax’ Writer

The Last Tango In Halifax writer told DIVA Magazine that

I was very sad to do [kill off Kate]. I wrote another ending but it didn’t work. At the time, I thought it was the right choice, but I do actually regret it now.”

Wainwright also spoke of the difficulty she had in getting Last Tango In Halifax on TV screens. At first, both the BBC and ITV turned down the show based on the pilot episode and it wasn’t until the BBC realised that the show could appeal to those over the age of 50 that they agreed to take it on.

The older audience of the show is something that Sarah Lancashire, who plays Caroline in the show, also spoke about, saying that their portrayal of lesbian characters has helped women come out:

I’ve never had a response quite like it to be honest. I still get letters now from people in this country and in America who are women who have come out later on in life and have very complicated and tragic stories in a sense. I didn’t realise when I started to play Caroline that she would have this extraordinary impact. It is a strange thing. There are very few pieces I’ve done in my working life that I could say I’m proud of, but Caroline is certainly the one I’m most proud of. Sally… did absolutely brilliantly to demonstrate same-sex relationships between women by normalising it, without sensationalising it or making it titilating. For me, it was the first time I’d ever seen that done on British television.”

The fourth season of the show is expected to air later this year, so look out for more Last Tango In Halifax then.

Ask a group of queer, pop culture conscious women and they will tell you that the biggest trope to affect lesbians (after the ‘lesbians sleeps with a man’ trope) is that TV lesbians always seem to get killed off. It’s so regularly witnessed in the media that TV Tropes has dedicated an entire page to it, having dubbed it ‘Dead Lesbian Syndrome’. TV Tropes also notes that LGBTQ people are at a higher risk of suicide. However, many of the cases of dead lesbians that we see on television aren’t because the characters took their own lives and instead are down to common killers such as [SPOILER] Naomi Campbell in Skins who died of cancer.

Dead Lesbian Syndrome is one of the reasons why queer women instruct each other not to get suckered into a show based on its lesbian characters because they will most likely be bumped off in the name of a ‘hard-hitting emotional storyline’ or just because the show’s creator wants to further someone else’s character progression. It’s incredibly unfortunate that that needs to be said but given how often it occurs (American Horror Story, Pretty Little Liars and The L Word have all taken part in the trope) it probably makes sense.

The latest show to join the Dead Lesbian Syndrome Squad is Last Tango in Halifax. In an episode that aired just a few weeks ago, the show dramatically killed off pregnant lesbian Kate not long after she’d married her partner Caroline. Unaware of the trope but now suffering the backlash is Last Tango in Halifax writer Sally Wainwright who has now said the following to DIVA Magazine:

“I think that’s a myth! People get killed off all the time. I got an email from Russell T Davis the day after saying, “I once killed off a gay character and everyone was really upset.” I got an email from another friend saying, “Oh Sally, what have you done? There are few enough lesbians as it is!” I don’t think it’s…I don’t think people think, “I’ve got a lesbian character, I better kill her off.”

It was a really big decision and it was a decision that…I’m still not entirely sure I made the right decision over but… [pauses]. I implore people to see what happens next and see why we did make that decision. When you see what happens next, I think we did make the right decision. It becomes increasingly emotional, the performances with the people left behind become increasingly magnetic and extraordinary, actually.”

Sally Wainwright

Wainwright also confirmed that it was for storyline purposes, “It was a narrative decision, it was a storyline decision”, which perhaps adds further insult to injury.

One problem that queer women have with the Dead Lesbian Trope is that it’s a case of ‘why us?’ Every TV viewer accepts that death is an inevitable storyline that’s going to crop up because that’s life, that’s what happens and that’s what TV shows are attempting to portray (albeit in an overly dramatized way) but it’s unfortunate that the victim of those deaths more often than not is a queer woman.

Many would also argue that using the Dead Lesbian Trope is ineffective because it’s just that – a trope. Tropes are eye-rolling, seen it all before things; they lose their emotional gravitas when you’ve used them over and over again. It’s like a fairy tale that always ends in ‘and then they lived happily ever after’ except we aren’t children anymore, there are no happily ever afters for TV lesbians and the fact that they keep getting killed off hurts LGBT representation.