Poetic justice

Then there's poetic justice. The guilty must be punished. There were some TV crimes shows where they would try to show how gritty and realistic they were by having someone get away with their crimes. On Miami Vice, an acquitted murderer is killed by his victim's wife as he leaves the courthouse. Hill Street Blues would let someone get away with murder in one episode only to be murdered themselves in the next.

I don't know why this is, but watching Soviet action films like Pirates of the 20th Century or White Sun of the Desert, I find it more jarring when characters are killed. Hollywood movies telegraph who's going to die. You can usually tell which characters will be killed as soon as you see them.

There was the Israeli movie, Delta Force, with Chuck Norris. One member of the Delta Force signs off on the radio by saying "I'll see ya when I see ya." The first time he said that, I knew he was going to die and that his dying words would be, "I'll see ya [gasp] when I see ya!"