The portrayer of Team Nikita’s recently deceased member discusses the character’s death and run on the show.

Warning: If you haven’t watched Friday night’s episode of Nikita, “Broken Home,” stop here. This story contains major spoilers.

Nikita‘s producers have been teasing a game-changing death for weeks now, but that didn’t make the loss of one of Team Nikita’s most beloved members hurt any less.

At the end of the episode, former Navy SEAL Sean Pierce died from internal bleeding after sustaining a gunshot wound in the final moments of the uprising in Division. Unlike his first “death” earlier this season, however, this one is final.

Dillon Casey recently discussed his character’s demise with TVLine.

A not-so-shocking demise

When asked when he learned about his character’s permanent death, Casey replies, “I was told about two episodes before, so not a huge amount of notice — but these things are secretive. That’s the nature of the show…I joined a show about assassins and spies and killers — we all have a [gun] to our head!”

But he “wasn’t too shocked by it, because I knew somebody had to go,” he says of the uprising in Division, especially with the show’s continued theme of the heroes not being able to save everyone. “I just embraced it. Sean had a really nice run and was able to die a hero’s death. It was good for the character and good for the show.”

A sad fate

As for Casey’s feelings on Sean’s death scene, which happened in the final moments of the episode, Casey says, “Oh, it’s so sad. It was so sad. Of course, I was personally sad that I was leaving the show because I’ve made so many friends and it was a lot of fun. But when I read that script, I almost cried — I didn’t quite cry, but I almost did,” he adds with a laugh.

“I teared up a little bit because Sean is such a good guy; the best person that I’ve ever played. He’s so honorable and he’s so selfless,” Casey continues. “Even when he’s [dying], he accepts and knows that it goes with the territory. It’s a shame because he really doesn’t deserve it — if there’s anybody on the show that doesn’t deserve to die, it’s Sean!”

Quickly backtracking on that with a laugh, he says, “I don’t know if that’s going to come across the right way. There’s no moral gray area for him. It was sad because this guy was just the victim of statistics, almost; he puts himself in these dangerous situations, and eventually he’s going to get hit.”

The rest of the episode

In terms of the rest of the episode, which depicted the end of the uprising within Division, Casey says he was pleased with all the action Sean got in before he died.

“[I]t’s nice because Sean has been a bit of an isolated character,” he adds. “A lot of what he does is with Alex… So, it was nice to have this episode when he’s joining up with everybody.

“He teamed up with Michael and with Birkhoff — it was almost like a goodbye, and it was really nice to get to do that.”

Reflecting on the last two years

Casey says his favorite Sean moment was “when Nikita shot Sean and then when he ran after her, she was taking off in the helicopter and he shot at her… It was so surreal. It was about five episodes in and I’d never been on a show like this before. You see it on TV and in the movies, and all of a sudden I was doing it. Amazing,” he reflects with a laugh.

For the fans

Casey didn’t stick around the set after his character’s death. He was trying to “rip it off like a Band-Aid,” but Nikita fans “noticed that I hadn’t tweeted about Nikita for awhile, so they figured Sean was dead!”

The fans “are like detectives!” he laughs. “They know more than I do!”

As for any parting words, Casey says, “I want to tell the fans thank you so much for supporting the character and accepting him so quickly as part of the cast. This character was brought on initially for just a couple episodes” back in season 2, “but fans connected with him and really liked him.

“So, I owe the last two years to them. Thank you very much.”

Were you sad to see Sean go?