Perhaps the only thing more surprising than the fact that Modern Family [1] is still going strong ten seasons later is that the comedy series — which is typically full of lighthearted, zany antics from the Dunphy clan [2] — is about to kill off one of its characters. The long-running ABC show returns for its season 10 premiere on Wednesday, Sept. 26, and there's a chance it'll have you shedding tears from sadness instead of laughter, according to co-creator Christopher Lloyd.

"We're handling some bigger life events in this season," he told Entertainment Weekly [3], explaining that someone will perish at some point within the season's first half. "We do deal with a death, which is certainly a topic that families have to deal with, and on television, it's not easy to do because that's a heavy subject. But at the same time, it would seem unusual for a family not to go through it."

Lloyd didn't spill the identity of whoever is kicking the bucket, or even if it's one of the major players, but he did say that the ill-fated individual is a "significant character on the series" and the death "will be a moving event — and an event that has repercussions across several episodes." He also said that season 10 — which is the last in the show's contract and therefore might be its final outing overall — will feature "a significant change in the dynamics of the family that people maybe thought was going to happen at some point down the line, that is happening sooner than expected."

It pretty much goes without saying that Sept. 26 can't come soon enough.