8 popular TV shows with notoriously controversial endings
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Sometimes our favorite shows have a way of letting us down in the end. There is a lot of pressure from audiences to produce a creative, fulfilling finale that answers every last burning question we had throughout the series. But writers can’t always pull it off.
Here are eight TV series with maybe the worst series finales of all time, leaving fans in an uproar.
Spoiler warning: proceed with caution — major spoilers ahead.
1. ‘Seinfeld’
After dominating the sitcom universe for nine irony-filled seasons, “Seinfeld” left fans the same way it greeted them: unsentimental, satirical and stuffed with inside jokes — all while mocking the typical end-of-series cliches.
Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer are charged with “criminal indifference” after standing by, gawking at a carjacking. During their trial, a slew of witnesses testify to roughly a decade of selfish behavior and extreme pettiness from the crew — the bubble boy, the woman who lost her marble rye bread to Jerry and the Soup Nazi.
Nine seasons worth of bad behavior finally catches up to the group and they are put behind bars for a year. The series concludes with Jerry doing a typical stand-up routine in an orange prison uniform: “So what’s the deal with the yard? And what’s with the lockup?’’
Many Seinfeld fans weren’t fans of the series finale. Some expected a wedding between Jerry and Elaine or maybe just more of nothing — whatever they were expecting, for many, it wasn’t this.
Final episode: “The Finale.”
Original air date: May 14, 1998.
Where to watch: Netflix.
2. ‘Gossip Girl’
“Gossip Girl” fans spent six drama-filled seasons suspecting, theorizing and guessing the identity of Gossip Girl — when GG’s identity was finally revealed in the season finale, fans claimed the answer made no logical sense.
It turned out, Dan Humphrey, otherwise known as “lonely boy,” was the Upper East Side’s infamous Gossip Girl — but fans pointed out several plot holes that made this impossible.
An article from Insider proved fan logic to be correct. The article, by Ciara Appelbaum, details 12 instances throughout the series that make Gossip Girl’s true identity improbable. Some of Appelbaum’s examples include when Dan spread personal information about his sister and the several times he outed himself as a cheater.
But according to the show’s executive producer, Stephanie Savage, the writers knew Dan was Gossip Girl from the very start and that they “never really entertained any other ideas of who Gossip Girl was,” per E! News. She also admitted that there are several times fans could be skeptical that Dan was truly Gossip Girl.
“We could have made the show two hours long with just Rufus drilling Dan about all of those things,” she said to E! News. “What about this time and what about that other time? Wait, you wrote this about yourself?! My hope is that people who are really curious about that can go back and rewatch the season and get their brains going.”
Final episode: “New York, I love you XOXO.”
Original air date: Dec. 17, 2012.
Where to watch: HBO Max, Amazon Prime.
3. ‘Lost’
Every season of “Lost” was increasingly more convoluted. Six seasons and a few polar bears, alternate realities, one bizarre foot statue, a time loop and dozens of unanswered questions later, fans got an answer — and the fandom was split open. Some fans loved the finale, but other really hated it.
Viewers stuck with the show in hopes of receiving logical answers to six seasons of mystery, but the finale felt like a lazy, unfulfilling way to tie up the show.
Apparently, the passengers of Oceanic flight 815 all died throughout the series. In the finale, they reunited in a heaven-esque setting (a church) and it was revealed that the previous season was actually glimpses into their shared afterlife.
Fans expected a logical finale to the series, but show creator JJ Abrams gave them an emotional end — it was rooted in faith rather than science. Despite poor reactions from fans, Abrams is happy with how he wrapped up the show.
“I loved the ending,” Abrams said, per Yahoo News. “I thought it definitely provided an emotional conclusion to that show. There may have been specific technical things people felt they wanted to understand, like what the island was exactly or why it was.”
Final episode: “The End.”
Original air date: May 23, 2010.
Where to watch: Hulu, Amazon Prime.
4. ‘How I Met Your Mother’
Audiences spent nine seasons with this romantic sitcom hearing a father tell his children how he met their mother. During the last minutes of the series, Ted Mosby finally reveals how he met his children’s mother — she is killed off moments later (technically six years earlier). And Ted ends up with his ex-girlfriend, Robin.
Viewers didn’t like that.
“The decisions to minimize the woman the show spent nine seasons teasing and deny Ted the happy ending he (and we) had been pining for, coupled with unceremoniously ending the marriage between Robin and fan-favorite Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) outraged many fans,” panned a review from USA Today.
Fans spent years emotionally dedicated to the series and the finale made roughly a decade of investment in the show feel like a waste. It was a tragic and unexpected twist that had fans thinking: What was the point?
Final episode: “Last Forever, Part 2.”
Original air date: March 31, 2014.
Where to watch: Hulu.
5. ‘Dexter’
Fans weren’t just disappointed, but furious about the finale to “Dexter.”
“As the closing scene faded from my television screen, my reaction wasn’t shock or sadness. It was anger,” Richard Rys wrote of the “Dexter” finale in Vulture. “It’s the kind of anger you feel after investing so much time into a show that you once loved, only to watch it fizzle out in the most unsatisfying of ways.”
The titular character goes from serial-killing vigilante to self-isolated lumberjack. When Dexter learns that Deb had a stroke which will leave her in a vegetative state, he decides to kill her and dump her body in the river. He leaves his child with another woman and makes a run for it — to a cabin in the woods.
“Dexter” creator Clyde Philips admits that the finale “failed to satisfy” and that it “broke a certain trust with the audience,” per ScreenRant.
Final episode: “Remember the Monsters?”
Original air date: Sept. 22, 2013.
Where to watch: Paramount +, Showtime.
6. ‘Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life’
The original “Gilmore Girls” series had wrapped the feel-good show up with sentimental goodbyes and happy endings. Rory was offered a dream job after graduation and there is a glimmer of hope for Lorelei and Luke.
Show creator Amy Sherman-Palladino never got to give the series the finale she planned for from the beginning — she claims she knew the series’ final four words from the beginning (“Mom?” “Yeah?” “I’m pregnant”), per Entertainment Weekly. Roughly a decade after the series concluded, Sherman-Palladino got to give the series her ending in a reboot series.
In 2016, the reboot series “Gilmore Girls: A Girl in the Life” uprooted everything the Gilmore Girls worked for in the original seven seasons. At 32, Rory hits rock bottom and her immaturity is put on full display. To make matters worse, the show’s reliably witty dialogue plummeted toward ignorance when, in one scene, Rory and her mother Lorelai mocked swimsuit-wearing poolgoers for their weight.
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Die-hard fans were not pleased with the new “Gilmore Girls” ending.
The series promoted a Washington Post article titled, “Rory Gilmore is a Monster,” and the Guardian said, “we should pretend that nightmarish sequel never happened.”
Final episode: “Fall.”
Original air date: Nov. 25, 2016.
Where to watch: Netflix.
7. ‘St. Elsewhere’
One of the first controversial TV finales was in “St. Elsewhere.”
The hospital drama focuses on the day-to-day realities of working in a hospital — it is poorly-staffed and filled with desperate patients. The series concluded with a spin on the “it was all a dream” trope.
At the close of the final episode, Dr. Westphall is sitting alone in the office of his friend Dr. Auschlander, who recently died. His son Tommy — a quiet, autistic boy with limited appearances in the series — comes into the office.
Tommy sees snow falling outside and suddenly we see him sitting on the floor of an apartment playing with a snow globe. His father, Westphall, returns home in a hard hat (not scrubs) which suggests he is a construction worker.
As the episode comes to a close, Tommy places the snow globe down and the camera zooms in. Inside the globe is a perfect replica of St. Eligius, suggesting the entire show is a figment of Tommy’s imagination.
“(The writers) wanted to do an ending to the show in a way so that it could never be brought back again. They really wanted to kill the show,” described cast member Bonnie Bartlett, per Entertainment Weekly.
Final episode: “The Last One.”
Original air date: May 25, 1988.
Where to watch: Hulu.
8. ‘Supernatural’
After a 15-year run on the CW, “Supernatural” came to a shocking close — but it did tie up loose ends.
During the final episode, brothers Sam and Dean take on a pack of evil vampires and Dean gets wounded. He makes a tearful goodbye to his brother and says “You knew it was always going to end like this for me.”
Dean always hoped for a peaceful existence in heaven and he finally got it. After giving his brother a funeral, Sam returns to his life. Audiences see a montage of Sam’s life through the years, such as the birth of his son.
Although the series did a nice job of tying up loose ends, many fans did not appreciate Dean’s shocking death. But apparently show-runners always planned it to end that way.
Show co-runner Andrew Dabb told Entertainment Weekly: “Dean was always going to end up in Heaven, and we were always going to see Sam’s life in fast-forward.”
Final episode: “Carry On.”
Original air date: Nov. 19, 2020.
Where to watch: Netflix.
