Killers abound on TV dramas and thrillers, from the best fictional TV serial killers to those who find themselves wrapped up in murder mysteries. But when it comes to TV’s best assassins, they are particularly ruthless and cut-throat. They have a job and they do it, by whatever means necessary.f
Some assassins have a crisis of heart, feeling guilty about what they have done, or what they are about to do. But others simply get their assignments and go on their way, with nary a care in the world. Some, even take pleasure in the lethal occupation, which makes them both effective but also terrifying.
10 Kai Jin (Wu Assassins)
The main character in the Netflix series Wu Assassins, Kai begins as an everyday Joe and chef working in Chinatown. But when he discovers his powers and destiny, he becomes a lethal assassin. What makes Kai so dangerous is that he has the knowledge of a thousand monks and can change his appearance to emulate a different one every time he fights.
He then takes on the persona of The Wu Assassin to handle business with ease, battling bad guys effortlessly without anyone ever knowing his true identity.
9 Barry Berkman (Barry)
The multi-Emmy-winning series Barry is about a former marine and hitman who decides he wants to become an actor and turn his life around. He might not be lethal anymore, but back in the day, he was a gifted sniper who could hit his targets with laser precision.
Suffering from trauma over having potentially killed innocent people, however, Barry becomes angry and starts killing more people. Soon after falling into a depression, he’s groomed to use his skills to take on hitmen jobs. What makes Barry so lethal, though, is that he has the skills he can use at any time, even though he wants to turn his life around.
8 Villanelle (Killing Eve)
Real name Oksana Anatolyevna Astankova, Villanelle from Killing Eve is an assassin by trade who is not only extremely violent in her methods, but also obsessive. She once castrated a man with whom she had a relationship because of jealousy over his wife.
What makes her so dangerous is that Villanelle knows nothing else in life except that she was trained to kill, and she has grown to love and take pride in her work. This makes her a frightening threat who won’t hesitate to take anyone out if it’s for the sake of her job.
7 Peter Quinn (Homeland)
Peter Quinn from Homeland does have a soft side, as he demonstrates when he can’t bring himself to execute Nicholas Brody. But this is more due to his obsession with Carrie Mathison and not wanting to hurt her than it was his inability to do the job.
Indeed, Peter can infiltrate anyone, anywhere and will often use brutal methods to get the job done. He has become so traumatized by the things he has done that he seemingly has no fear of death. But he also has the skills to back it up, so everyone knows that if they send Peter Quinn after someone, he will find and kill them.
6 Blind Cannibal Assassins (Into The Badlands)
The name says it all: these assassins from Into the Badlands are blind cannibals with twisted habits and zero tolerance for anything but what they want. They keep people in chains and threaten to not only kill but also consume people if they don’t join them and hand over their babies.
While the name might sound like a play on words, in the case of these assassins, it’s actually literal. The blind cannibals go beyond typical assassination, taking things to disturbing new levels.
5 Jaqen H’ghar (Game Of Thrones)
Also known as one of the Faceless Man of Braavos, Jaqen has the unique ability to take on the likeness of any form or person, making him an incredibly lethal and successful assassin on Game of Thrones. Effectively a shapeshifter, he considers himself and the other Faceless Men to be “no one,” a skill he trains Arya to be able to take on herself.
Answering to no one but the Many-Faced God, Jaqen has no loyalty to anyone else. He handles any situation with calmness and ease, whether he’s being held captive or asked to kill a seemingly innocent person.
4 Lila Facchini (Sense8)
Sense8, one of the most expensive Netflix original series to produce, has plenty of compelling characters, and Lila Facchini is one of them. A trained assassin and one of the sensates, she spends time working as a killer, taking out people her cluster needs her to take out.
She shows no remorse in her kills, including when she shoots Kala without any semblance of feeling. When she electrocutes Wolfgang and his cluster, she revisits him to make sure he doesn’t forget her face and what she did.
3 Karakurt (The Blacklist)
Raymond “Red” Reddington, the notorious career criminal with charm and style, faces various adversaries throughout the many seasons of The Blacklist. But one of the most brutal was Karakurt, a Russian assassin who, not surprisingly, is a member of The Blacklist, being hunted by the FBI and considered armed and dangerous.
He is so dangerous that no one even knows his real name. He works to eliminate anyone who is dissenting from Russia. And unlike the others on this list, Karakurt specializes in killing in ways that disguise the murder by making crime scenes look like accidents or suicides, or linking them to other innocent parties.
2 The Reapers (The Walking Dead)
The Reapers are the biggest threat in The Walking Dead season 11 storyline, and they are ruthless killers. They function like a cult, following the orders of their no-nonsense leader Pope. They are well-trained assassins, thanks to military careers prior to the apocalypse. In fact, many of them had been soldiers fighting in Afghanistan. After returning and being able to find jobs, some of them went on to become mercenaries, just when the apocalypse hit.
Even though The Reapers have fewer numbers than other groups, they are able to fight just as strongly with hand-to-hand combat as they can with weaponry. And they show no mercy, even to their own.
1 Jane Doe (Blindspot)
Jane, real name Alice, isn’t technically an assassin on Blindspot, but she was trained while having lost her identity to kill in the name of a terrorist group. Once she realizes who she truly is and what happened to her, she switches to work with the good guys. She then uses her incredible skills in all forms of training and martial arts to help them take down the bad guys.
But that still makes Jane one of the most lethal assassins when she was working for the organization, who erased her memory then trained her as a human weapon to do their bidding.
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