Small Role Big Impact / Live-Action TV

Instances of Small Role, Big Impact in Live-Action TV series.

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• 24:
  • Even people who haven't seen the show are likely aware of the cultural phenomenon that is Mandy (aka "Naked Mandy"), the cold, ruthless chessmaster assassin who routinely evaded capture only to make a sudden, shocking, bombastic return when the heroes least expected her. Fans of the show, however, know that she only ever appeared in seven episodes, almost never for more than one scene, and she only ever made two "shocking returns" (and it was never a surprise for any of the heroes — none of them met her or knew who she was until her last arc in Season 4 — only for the audience). Still, she did make quite a splash whenever she did show up, most notably in the Season 2 finale, where in her one minute of screentime she managed to single-handedly turn the upbeat, triumphant ending into a horribly uncertain Downer Ending.
  • There's also Conrad Haas who only appears in one episode (the Season 5 premier), but he made a tremendous (and shocking) impact on the season/show as a whole by assassinating former president David Palmer.
  • Mitch Anderson is a minor villain in Season 4 whose appearances can be counted on one hand. But by the final time he appears he ends up shooting Air Force One and putting the current President out of commission... causing the series' iconic villain Charles Logan to get sworn in his stead. Logan winds up causing trouble for rest of the show, even if at times it's indirectly for arcs where he's absent, and all of it can be traced back to what Anderson did.
• Arrow had this with Justin Claybourne, and in a Season 5 flashback, too. He was a Corrupt Corporate Executive who The Hood killed after his company went around making poor people sick. However, his death led to his illegitimate son swearing revenge. He was trained by Talia Al Ghul, and went on to become Prometheus, arguably the biggest villain on the show to date.
• Band of Brothers shows Moose Heyliger being shot in a case of Unfriendly Fire by an unnamed sentry. The man in real life was quickly transferred to another regiment for his own safety and does not appear in the series again. Nonetheless this results in the incompetent Norman Dike being put in charge of Easy Company through the Battle of the Bulge. Many men lost their lives (or limbs) due to the man's poor leadership skills.
• Before Batman the Riddler had all of two appearances in the comics, neither in over a decade. Frank Gorshin's performance single-handedly saved the character from obscurity, the Riddler himself is considered a core villain in Batman lore, with most adaptations drawing heavily on Gorshin's version of the character.
• Better Call Saul: Jimmy's father appears for less than 5 minutes in a flashback, but Jimmy's whole corruption into Saul and the animosity between the McGill brothers can be traced to him being Stupid Good towards conmen and Jimmy losing respect for him and swiping cash from his registers.
  • Daniel "Pryce" Wormald has a minor role in the series, but enabling him escape justice for dealing his pharmaceutical drugs illegally tips him closer to becoming Saul Goodman. Pryce is also responsible for Hector's stroke, as he provided Nacho with the defective medicine.
  • Fred Whalen appears in one episode where he is killed, but his murder at Lalo's hands has major reprecussions for everyone going into the subsequent season: it gets manipulated by Gus and Mike to put Lalo in prison where he's represented by Jimmy (who tells Kim about it), thereby bringing just about all the remaining main characters in on the same plot, save for Howard. And the fallout of this trial results in Lalo's attempted assassination, which in turn leads to Howard's death once Lalo decides to confront Jimmy and Kim.
  • Ron and Sticky are two meth-heads using Saul's "50% Off" to commit crimes, but their demands for the Salamancas' cocaine leads Krazy-8 to be busted by the DEA, resulting in Lalo using Nacho to call up Jimmy to defend him and to turn him into a snitch for his war against Gus. Krazy-8 will also snitch on Jesse and Emilio eventually, leading to Walt killing him and his own rise in Breaking Bad.
• Breaking Bad:
  • Christian "Combo" Ortega is one of Heisenberg's flunkies; and he has so little screen time that Walter's not even sure which one he is when notified of his death. However, Combo has two major effects on the series; Firstly, his death led to a bloody chain of events that would consume the Heisenberg empire. Secondly, it's later revealed that he, not Jesse, procured the RV that proved so crucial to Walter's operation.
  • The rival dealers have 2-3 appearances, have no lines and are killed off in their last appearance. But they kill Combo and later Tomas, whose deaths Jesse attempts to avenge, but Walt kills them, leading to the downfalls of Gus's syndicate as well as Walt's, later on.
  • Brock Cantillo. He may be a little kid with very few appearances, but when Jesse found out Walter poisoned him back in Season 4, he permanently cuts ties with Walter and becomes a significant threat.
  • Dr. Delcavoli. He's only used as exposition for Walt's cancer, barely being seen for the first two seasons. However, his treatment helped Walt's cancer enter remission; it may have altered Walt's attempts to break bad in the meth business since he assumed that he would die and leave his family a sizable amount of cash before going in too deep.
  • Drew Sharp, a child who appears for literally less than a minute, completely changes the entire show upon his murder at Todd's hands, as this single moment is the reason why Jesse and Mike want out of Walt's empire for good, setting up the rest of the conflict for Season 5A.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Olaf the Trollgod, the former husband of Anya Jenkins, is this on two levels. Firstly, as revealed in season 7, Olaf was the first person Anya ever cursed as retribution for cheating on her, which led to her being recruited as a vengeance demon. Secondly, Olaf's divine hammer proves instrumental in defeating Glory, the main villain of season 5.
• Dancing on the Edge: Jessie Taylor (Angel Coulby), whose role is to sing and get murdered, but remains one of the most memorable aspects of the miniseries.
• Doctor Who:
  • Gordon Tipple's incarnation of the Master in The TV Movie appears for mere seconds, and what few lines he had were cut in the official release of the episode, but his Thanatos Gambit sets the whole plot running (and indirectly causes the Seventh Doctor's regeneration into the Eighth).
  • Harriet Jones, Prime Minister (yes, we know who she is), played by Penelope Wilton, appears in a grand total of four episodes. In the third of those, the Doctor's reaction to something she does changes the entire course of history and has serious consequences for the next three seasons of that show and all of Torchwood. Then, despite having been thoroughly screwed over by said Doctor, she proceeds to help save the world with a tear-jerking Heroic Sacrifice. She's also a Four-Episode Wonder, as she's one of the most iconic supporting characters of the new series and a fan favourite.
  • "The Fires of Pompeii": Caecilius and his family only appear in this one episode, but they have a big enough impact on the Doctor that he subconsciously models an incarnation on the man's face over a thousand years later.
  • Cass, in the "Night of the Doctor" minisode. She appears in Doctor Who for all of six minutes, most of which is after her death. But her death is what pushes the Doctor over the Despair Event Horizon and into participating in the Time War, which had a HUGE impact on the rest of the series.
• Downton Abbey: Turkish attache Kemal Pamuk only appears for a single episode early on (and is dead by the end of it), but his dalliance with Mary Crawley and the threat of scandal if it was revealed hangs over the first half of the show, intersecting into multiple plots.
• Frasier: David Hicks only appears in one episode^note His identity remained unknown until he finally appeared onscreen in Season 8 where he has only a few lines of dialogue. Despite this, David has a major impact on the show's story as the one who shot Martin in the hip and disabled him. Had he not done this, Martin wouldn't have had a reason to live with Frasier. Also, Daphne never would have been brought in to care for Martin and thus never would have met Niles and eventually married him.
• Friends:
  • Mr. Waltham, Rachel's boss in Season 4. He's only in two episodes, but in his second and last appearance, he asks Rachel to give his niece a tour of America as she's visiting. His niece? Emily, who becomes an important character in Ross's life with their relationship and subsequent failed marriage, which hangs over Ross for the rest of the series.
  • Mark Robinson appears for a few episodes in Season 3 and Season 10, but he is the one who sets up Rachel with Bloomingdale's, leading to Rachel's career diverting to fashion. He is also the catalyst behind Ross and Rachel's infamous breakup^note WE WERE ON A BREAK! due to Ross becoming jealous of him and also the reason for them getting back together for good.
  • Chloe, the girl at the copy store appears for only 2 episodes, but Ross sleeping with her in the fallout of his above argument with Rachel is the main reason for their breakup, which hangs over the remainder of the series.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Lyanna had one of the largest influences in the plot: her kidnapping led to the death of Ned's father and brother and Robert's Rebellion, her death turned Robert Baratheon into a depressed man whose disdain for ruling caused no short end to problems and casts a constant shadow in his marriage to Cersei. And most of all, she is mother to Jon Snow, an incredibly important character.
  • Wyman Manderly shows up for about one short scene at the end of the sixth season, but after Lady Mormont declared her endorsement of Jon Snow as King in The North, his agreement is what catalyzes the motion.
  • Martyn and Willem Lannister are two small, sacrificial characters. Their murders lead to Robb losing the support of House Karstark, to an apparently renewed alliance with House Frey and to the Red Wedding.
• Rory Flanagan from Glee only had a few episodes in the spotlight, and was relegated to the background for most of Season 3 before disappearing afterwards. However his brief infatuation with Brittany led to Santana becoming more defensive of her, which further exacerbated the rift between her and the rest of the glee club, ultimately leading not only to the formation of the Troubletones but Santana being outed by Finn.
• Doug Forcett from The Good Place. After Michael meets Doug to find out what makes a good person and finds how horribly broken he has become trying to be good, Shawn's gloating that even Doug will end up in the Bad Place even with his admirable 520,000 points encourages the gang to go further and find out just how horribly broken the points system is and to strive for the necessary changes, due to which Doug earns his spot in the Good Place.
• In Gotham, Jerome only shows up in a few episodes, dies in the third episode of Season 2, and also causes enough chaos that watching a video recording of his antics causes people across Gotham to snap, thus making Jerome, in all likelihood, the inspiration for a certain clown.
• From Hannibal:
  • Garrett Jacob Hobbes, the serial killer known as the Minnesota Shrike. He appears as the primary antagonist of the first episode, and his crime spree is stopped by the end of the episode when he is shot to death by protagonist Will Graham. However, the guilt Will feels over killing Hobbes, combined with the guilt Hobbes' daughter Abigail feels for having an indirect hand in her father's murders, contributes a great deal to both Will and Abigail's storylines in Season 1. The incident also sets up the Arc Symbol of the raven-feathered stag, and foreshadows the climax of Season 2.
  • Neal Frank. He's a Posthumous Character whose death is a major part of Dr. Bedelia du Maurier's story arc and was established to have been a patient who died under her care and led her to retire from active practice. The flashback episode reveals that Hannibal was his actual therapist that he was seeing for insomnia. Instead, Hannibal hypnotized him into choking when he gets upset, and he was actually nothing more than another innocent victim caught in Hannibal's games. Bedelia was even going to prescribe the same therapy he was getting from Hannibal when he complains to her about his treatment. When he calls her out on it and starts to choke, she shoved his tongue down his throat instead of saving him. In other words, she lied about his death, which throws all of her previous characterization for a loop and implies she's actually no different from Hannibal when she's talking to Will Graham.
• House: While not as important as his name would suggest, the appearance of Jack Moriarty, the man who shot House, had repercussions beyond his brief appearance. He appeared in only one episode, and almost all his scenes took place in House's head, but his shooting House led to House's ketamine treatment, which led to him temporarily being able to walk pain-free.
• In How I Met Your Mother, the Mother's First Love Max isn't even seen on-screen but his death was enough for the Mother to swear off dating and be unable to move on in any relationship.
• Kamen Rider Zi-O is a crossover series involving time travel and meeting the characters from previous Kamen Rider shows. Of these, the role with the biggest impact is that of Kamen Rider Gaim, one of the few other Riders capable of time travel, who in his few minutes of screentime sets off a butterfly effect ultimately leading to the show breaking out of the Stable Time Loop the main cast had unknowingly been perpetuating.
• Let's Make a Deal began as a game show where contestants were picked out of the audience at random. Then one day a lady came on holding a sign that read "Roses are red, violets are blue, why can't I make a deal with you?" in the hopes that host Monty Hall would pick her - and he did. That one woman ignited one of the show's most enduring aspects, which was people dressing in wacky costumes or holding flashy signs in order to get chosen.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Waldreg is just a peasant and a inn owner from the Southlands. His humble origins and small screen time don't stop him from becoming the reason why Orodruin erupts, influencing millions of lives in the centuries to come. At Adar's request, he uses an ancient evil weapon to unlock a mechanism that triggers the destruction of a series of dams, which sends a vast torrent of water streaming down into the Southlands via the channels the Orcs have dug, and ultimately deep into Mount Orodruin itself. The volume of water causes a pressure cooker effect, activating the mountain's volcanic core and sending a huge blast of ash, fire and rock cascading down into the valleys below.
• In Lost, Jacob never appeared onscreen until the end of the fifth season... in an episode in which he was killed at the end. In the next season, he appeared just a handful of times as a ghost or in flashbacks. Nevertheless, he is one of the major characters in the Myth Arc of the series.
• On the fourth season finale of Madam Secretary, a colonel is served divorce papers by his wife when she finds him with another woman. At work, the colonel is the highest ranking officer when the radar shows a massive Russian nuclear launch on the U.S. The President orders a counterstrike but the colonel can't enter the codes as his security clearance has been revoked because of the divorce. This delays the launch long enough for a general to arrive and reveal the "attack" is all a simulation. Lampshaded by the Chief of Staff.
  Russell: So the world is saved thanks to a philandering general. Maybe the mistress should get a medal.
• Merlin (2008):
  • Phil Davis appeared in a guest spot that lasts no more than five minutes. In that time he mortally wounds King Uther, a major character who had been on the show since the beginning, and changes the entire course of the show.
  • Kara, Mordred's Girl of the Week whose execution at Arthur's behest starts the Disaster Dominoes that leads directly to Mordred's Face–Heel Turn and the Grand Finale.
• Miami Vice:
  • The entire series wouldn't have happened if Ricardo Tubbs's brother, Rafael, hadn't been killed by Calderone, leading Tubbs to go to Miami, leading to his teamup with Crockett that defined the series.
  • Likewise, Calderone had quite the impact on the series despite only appearing on a handful of episodes, thanks to said murdering of Rafael and later impacts on both Crockett and Tubbs.
  • Lieutenant Lou Rodriguez only appears in a few episodes early in the series before dying Taking the Bullet for Crockett, but it was his idea for Tubbs and Crockett to team up in the first place.
  • Ludovici Armstrong only appears in one episode, but it's his appearance that caused the aforementioned death of Rodriguez, the arrival of his replacement Castillo, the end of Crockett's first marriage for good, and gave Crockett and Tubbs the information they needed to take down Calderone for good.
• In Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Godzilla shows up less than ten minutes of screentime both in the past and present but his presence contributes to much of the story. Lee, Keiko and Bill discovering and bringing back a footprint of Godzilla's convinces General Puckett about the existence of Titans and the need to financially support Monarch. Lee uses Godzilla surviving the nuke to convince Puckett to keep Monarch afloat. Cate's severe PTSD and Monarch and Shaw's fears of another monster attack all started because of Godzilla's actions in the 2014 film. His appearance in Axis Mundi is what helps Cate, May and Keiko return to the human world.
• In NCIS, Ari Haswari first appeared two-thirds of the way through the first season, and wasn't actually named until his second appearance in the season finale. He dies in his fifth appearance, in the second episode of Season 3. Over his five appearances, he crippled Ducky's first assistant, causing Jimmy (who is still on the cast as of Season 19) to replace him, killed Kate, causing Ziva (who stayed on the show until the beginning of Season 11) to replace her on the team, and people Ari had connections with keep running into Team Gibbs and impacting their lives (such as Ari's half-brother showing up and murdering Gibbs' second ex-wife Diane), even though he's been dead for over a decade now.
• NUMB3RS: Roland Haldane as he is only in the pilot episode, and has two or three lines of dialogue, but his crimes are what inspire Don and Charlie to begin teaming up on cases.
• Once Upon a Time:
  • Zelena's birth father appears in only one episode, simply as a palace gardener disguising as a prince. He seduces Cora and gets her pregnant, but does not appear again except asking for a bribe. Because of the illegitimate pregnancy, Cora abandons Zelena in the forest — which leads to her getting taken to Oz and becoming the Wicked Witch of the West.
  • Dorothy Gale likewise only appears in one episode. All she does is arrive from Kansas and mistakenly throw the water on Zelena. However she acts as a Face Heel Door Slam and Zelena turns down her redemption and sets out on her path to villainy.
  • The Duke of Weselton courts Princess Helga and then makes a pass at her older sister Ingrid. In trying to save her sister from an attack, Ingrid accidentally kills Helga and is sealed in an urn by her other sister Gerda.
  • Isla only appears in one episode, but is the reason why the Land Without Magic is what it is.
• Mrs Inglis, the HR manager who fires Victor Meldrew in the first episode of One Foot in the Grave, thereby setting up the rest of the series. Played by Susie Blake—quite a big-name cameo— she even gets the opening line of the entire series but her role is over within the first ten minutes.
• In the opening scene of Orphan Black, Sarah Manning sees a woman who looks exactly like her, Beth Childs, at a train station. Then Beth throws herself in front of a train and Sarah steals her identity, kicking off a series of events that soon leads to the revelation that they are clones, the whole premise of the show. Although Sarah spends most of the first season pretending to be Beth, she has only properly appeared since the opening scene in a video and a brief dream sequence. Her death plays a major role in the arcs of Paul Dierden and Art Bell, and her presence is very much felt even well into the third season.
• Johnny Post from Oz dies in the second episode, but his murder of Dino Ortaloni kicks off the conflict over who gets to control the drug trade, kickstarting the series.
• Power Rangers:
  • Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The astronauts who unwittingly released Rita Repulsa from her prison. They are never seen nor mentioned again and we don't even learn their names, yet their mistake had massive consequences for Earth that would be felt for years.
    • Season 3 has the gymnastics coach, Gunter Schmidt who only appears for three episodes yet plays a factor in Kimberly's decision to leave for the Pan-Olympic Games and pick Kat as her successor.
  • Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie: Mirroring the situation above, we have the construction workers who uncover the egg Ivan Ooze was trapped in by Zordon.
  • Power Rangers Turbo: Goldgoyle was a Monster of the Week who in his single appearance destroyed all of the Rangers' zords. This was only the beginning of the heroes' Darkest Hour.
    • In turn, this leads to a positive example of this trope, and probably the biggest in this franchise since the case with Rita. General Norquist, the base commander of NASADA, with only minor appearances between two episodes of this season and three of the next, has no reason to believe a kid who looks like he came from a war zone that the Power Rangers need their super-advanced space shuttle. And yet, upon hearing the name of the planet Eltar (that he somehow knows and, given his reaction, knows the importance of), he drops everything to have the shuttle launch immediately with four equally beat-up looking teenagers, who he also has no reason to believe are the Rangers, and a robot onboard. But with this one act, Norquist unwittingly causes a chain of events that result in the salvation of the entire universe from the greater evil about to befall it. And arguably, even the means for more Rangers to rise to save the day in the years to come.
  • Power Rangers Lost Galaxy: Psycho Pink appeared in only two episodes in the season (though she and the other Psycho Rangers were major villains in the previous season) yet she was pivotal in one of the most memorable moments in not only Lost Galaxy but the Power Rangers franchise as a whole: the death of the Galaxy Pink Ranger Kendrix Morgan.
    • From the same season, we have the old lady from the first episode whom Leo saves from a mugging. Her words that the new world would need people like him is what spurs Leo to stowaway unto the shuttle and leads to the events of him becoming the Red Ranger.
  • Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue: The nameless nomads who open the tomb containing the demons allowing them to return to menace Mariner Bay. Humans bringing doom is a common theme in Power Rangers.
  • Power Rangers Time Force: Venomark was a Monster of the Week whose connection to the Big Bad Ransik ended up playing a role in the creation of another major villain Frax. Venomark bit Ransik and the venom of his bite resulted in Ransik's condition of his mutation causing him pain. Dr Ferricks saved Ransik by providing him with a special serum only for Ransik to turn on him and nearly kill him. Ferricks survives and transforms himself into the robot Frax. In the present, Frax unleashes Venomark to distract Ransik while he destroys Ransik's entire serum supply and finally makes his own move for world domination.
  • Power Rangers Wild Force: Onikage only appeared in two episodes, but his presence resulted in major events for the remaining few episodes: The return of Master Org, Princess Shayla being kidnapped, the deaths of Mandilok and Toxica, Jindrax defecting from the Orgs, and the stage being set for Master's Org's end game in the series finale.
  • Power Rangers RPM: Prior to the present events of the show, Alphabet Soup was a corrupt government facility which kidnapped young children and forced them to create secret military projects. One of their victims was Doctor K who created the Venjix virus in an attempt to escape the facility but was captured before she could activate the firewall to stop it from spreading to the rest of the world. Or, as we later find out in 11 real world years, other universes, namely the main one.
• The Punisher (2017): Gunner Henderson is a former member of Frank Castle's military squad who only appears in two episodes of the series, yet ends up being pivotal in Frank Castle becoming the Punisher. It was Gunner who mailed the video of the torture and execution of Ahmad Zubair to David Lieberman, resulting in the latter becoming a target of the villainous conspiracy and having to fake his death to go into hiding. Gunner's actions also lead to the villains murdering Castle's family in an attempt to kill him and cover up their crimes.
• Red Dwarf: Lister's cat Frankenstein only appeared in two episodes. Of those, she only appears for a scene in each one (one of those appearences was in an alternate universe too). However, it is Lister being caught with the cat and being put into stasis as a result that kickstarts the series. Frankenstein also becomes the ancestor of an entire race of cat like humanoids, one of which (The Cat) is a regular cast member.
• Throughout the first season of The Resident, Olive Tan is a "frequent flyer" hypochondriac who keeps showing up and complaining of illnesses she doesn't have. In her last visit, she thinks she might have be connected to her cancer. Used to her antics, Devon calmly tells her she doesn't have cancer. Tan protests that she does and furthermore has been receiving chemotherapy from Dr. Lane Hunter. This leads to the discovery that Hunter has been pulling a massive fraud by giving perfectly healthy patients fake cancer diagnoses and chemotherapy just to get rich on the insurance payments and make herself look like a "miracle" healer. Tan's lack of any cancer symptoms is the evidence needed to bust her.
• The Sopranos has Dr. Bruce Cusamano, Tony's doctor. He only appears in a supporting role in a paltry handful of episodes, but he kicks off the plot of the entire series by referring Tony to a psychiatrist after his panic attack, leading to him going to Dr. Melfi for therapy in the first episode. In fact, one of the very first lines of the series (before he's actually appeared) is about him.
  Dr. Melfi: My understanding from Dr. Cusamano, your family physician, is that you had a panic attack.
• Major (later Lieutenant Colonel) Samuels from Stargate SG-1. Despite only appearing in four episodes, he's the one who approaches Jack O'Neill in the pilot, brings him back to the SGC, and basically starts O'Neill's many years of serving in the Stargate Program.
  • Jolinar dies in her introductory episode, but her connection with Carter has a much larger impact on the plot due to both the introduction of the Tok'ra and the aftereffects of possession.
• Star Trek:
  • John Colicos played Kor, the first ever Klingon, only once on Star Trek: The Original Series before reprising the role decades later on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, yet his Genghis Khan-influenced performance set the standard for all Klingons throughout the whole franchise.
  • In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Morn is little more than a recurring extra that hangs out at the bar and never speaks. The turning point in the war that took up the series' main arc was his smuggling crucial information inside a present for his mother.
• Stranger Things:
  • Barbara Holland, who appears in Season 1 before she is killed by the Demogorgon, but her death eventually results in its discovery as well as the trigger for the Character Development that both Nancy and Steve will get in the series and also leading to their break-up in Season 2, but also the shutdown of Hawkins Laboratory.
  • Virginia Creel, whose grand-uncle's death gave her the inheritance to buy property in Hawkins enabling the Creel family to settle in Hawkins as well as being the first victim of the demon inhabiting her house, but is slowly revealed to be more important than what it let on, as it's revealed that she figured out her son being the one tormenting the family with hallucinations, which forced her to contact Dr. Martin Brenner to test her son, leading to Henry snapping and killing both her and Alice and framing her husband for it. After failing to kill Victor, Henry is taken by Brenner in an attempt to control his psychic powers for his MKUltra project, failing which, he decided to replicate his powers in children, leading to him kidnapping them from their parents and using them, leading to Eleven rebelling against him and removing Henry's control chip, after which Henry kills most of the Hawkins staff and nearly all of the children excluding Eleven. As a result, in an attempt to kill him, Eleven accidentally opens a portal to the Upside Down and sends Henry there, leading him to discover the Hive Mind and reconstituting it into the Mind Flayer and transforming the Upside Down to tailor his genocidal plans.
• Succession: Andrew Dodds, a cater waiter at Shiv's wedding, appears for only a few minutes in the last two episodes of Season 1. After he's impulsively fired by Logan, he hangs out with Kendall, whereupon they get high, drive off to find more drugs, and swerve to miss a deer and crash into a lake, killing Andrew. The repercussions of his death lead to Logan blackmailing Kendall back into submission in exchange for a cover-up, and last into the series finale, becoming the deciding factor in Shiv's switching sides.
• Throughout its fifteen-year run, barely an episode of Supernatural went by without reference to John Winchester, the father of the main characters whose disappearance kicked off the show's initial plot. It can be shocking to learn, therefore, that he only appears in 17 out of 327 episodes (and four of those were relatively minor flashbacks to his youth, during which he wasn't even portrayed by his main actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan).
• Ronette Pulaski from Twin Peaks is little more than a Satellite Character to Laura Palmer with small scenes in only six episodes. And yet, by wandering across the border between Washington and Idaho in her catatonic state, Ronette inadvertitely turns her own disappearance and Laura's murder into a federal case, prompting the arrival of Agent Cooper and basically kickstarting the events of the series.
• Pilar has only a couple of scenes in the first episode of Velvet. However, her refusal to guarantee that the workers would keep their jobs if she paid off Velvet's debts ensures the course of Ana and Alberto's true love run anything but smooth. Her actions take on a more deliberately villainous light after her Season 3 arc.
  • Don Rafael is dead by the end of Episode 1. However, his actions in this episode and the Backstory planted the seeds for almost every major conflict in the series.
• Judah Botwin is dead before Weeds even begins, and he only appears twice, briefly, in video footage taken before his death. However, it quickly becomes clear that he had a very stabilizing influence on his family, who almost immediately begin acting out once he's gone. His wife, with no idea how to provide for the family in his absence, turns to dealing marijuana, and his sons begin exhibiting sociopathic behavior, particularly Shane, for whom Judah was one of the only people who truly understood him and encouraged him to be himself, and area in which his mother is clearly out of her depth.
• Young Sheldon:
  • Libby is only in one episode, but is the main catalyst to Sheldon's contempt for geology which he'd carry with him to adulthood.
  • Marcus is in four episodes and has zero lines, but Missy's breakup with him in the Season 4 finale causes the entire Cooper family to get into an argument, setting the stage for George possibly having an affair and the family breaking up. More will be revealed in Season 5.
• The Wire likes to play with this trope.
  • Season 1: William Gant is killed at the end of the first episode, but is insturmental to having the police deparment forced to take the Barksdale organization seriously. Little Man, who is also a fairly minor character, is the one that shoots Kima, shifting the case to high gear, and is Killed Offscreen just episodes later.
  • Season 2: Osman, the sailor in charge of the container full of girls kills them in a panic, leading the police to look into what is going on at the docks.
  • Season 4: Lex instigates a war by killing Fruit because girlfriend left him for Fruit, and is also murdered early on. Because Little Kevin uses Randy as a messanger to get Lex to go to an ambush meeting and then later tells Randy that Lex is dead, events down the line lead to Randy talking to the police about the murder, which both leads Lester to find the bodies in the vacants, but unfortunately also spills out to the streets and Randy endures a Trauma Conga Line as a result.

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