The 12 Most Controversial TV Finales of All Time
Seinfeld
With a reported 76 million other folks staring at (seriously), Seinfeld stays one in every of potentially the most watched sequence finales in historical previous, but its spacious raise out left its fans deeply divided. Whereas the gang went to detention heart after witnessing a carjacking, but the true promoting point used to be the laundry checklist of different folks that returned to act as character witnesses for these gross other folks. Some fans beloved the raise out. Others regarded it as disrespectful to both the characters and the intensely right fandom. Nonetheless, it stays a pivotal tv moment—and Larry David made monetary institution.
Dexter
After eight seasons of following Dexter Morgan and his problematic compulsion to kill, the sequence took a peculiar flip and determined that the appropriate potential for Dexter to
Dinosaurs
Dinosaurs used to be ABC’s white collar, paleontological play on the sitcom hiss of the 90s. Educate the Sinclair family, the sequence told the on a conventional basis story of a dinosaur family that generally ended with humor. Although the sequence took a few swipes at social points in some unspecified time in the future of its four season mosey, none were more valorous than its closing switch. After the dinosaur other folks of Earth took the planet and not using a consideration, a wide storm used to be prompted, successfully ended their species perpetually: Child Sinclair and all. The sequence finishes on a zoom out from the Sinclair home with ominous music taking part in previous to breaking to a dinosaur newscaster telling the arena goodbye, one final time.
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How I Met Your Mother
Any HIMYM fan you consult with is possible aloof no longer over the botched finale. Proof that an supposed finale isn’t always how you’ll need to stick your touchdown, the titular mother regarded within the closing season finest to…die rapidly after? After years of “will they, won’t they?” between Robin and Ted (and Barney, in actuality), the narrator of the sequence lastly leaves his submit of narrating his entire life story to his children and goes to be with the girl he’s speculated to be with. The switch did not
Misplaced
Maybe potentially the most controversial on the checklist, you either just like the Misplaced finale or you hate it. There’s no longer moderately plenty of in between. After six seasons of unanswered questions, polar bears, and time shuttle, the closing few episodes appear to desert all motive. Viewers held out, hoping that the sequence finale would answer the dangling questions, however all of it resulted in a church in any other timeline where various the survivors of the doomed Oceanic 815 reunited previous to “bright on.” Some interpreted it as them being tiring all alongside. Others conception of it to be a touching message referring to the vitality of humanity. Most were right pissed about these polar bears. Nonetheless the final sequence ended on a accrued shot of the ocean lope, abandoned and tiring, the day of the atomize.
Mad Men
The portrait of mid-century white collar The
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The Office
This one is a toss up. The of whether or no longer Michael Scott would return for the uncover’s closing season clouded an in any other case perfect sequence. After lacking Season Eight and coming out and in by Season Nine, the sequence in the end discovered that having Michael swoop in a single final time within the tip used to be positively the right switch. After a few uneven seasons, the closing episode served its motive, revisiting the appropriate workers that Dunder Mifflin ever had. This finale is much less of a controversy and more of a worthy essential subtle touchdown to a very rocky descent.
Roseanne
Ahead of her Trumpian flip, Roseanne Barr used to be liable for one in every of the highest sitcoms referring to the working class in tv historical previous. The sequence dared to be though-provoking: no longer since it used to be a gimmick but since the issues it tackled shined a delicate-weight on what it used to be favor to be blue collar in The
Sons of Anarchy
Sons of Anarchy used to be always fated to total tragically, but nobody would have guessed that it would have hit them as laborious as a truck. No, actually. Jax drove himself straight into a tractor trailer a la Metropolis of Angels, but with more motors and leather. The Hamlet-inspired sequence caught moderately plenty of fans off guard in its closing episodes (right here’s why you attain the reading in excessive college!), with a savage assassinate of Gemma and that grotesque closing scene. Jax knew his finest potential out of SAMCRO used to be by strategy of demise, but viewers weren’t having it.
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The Sopranos
It used to be the decrease to gloomy that made HBO subscribers apprehension in disaster that their televisions had decrease off too rapidly. “Don’t Terminate Believin’” soundtracked the closing moments of what is going to have to be HBO’s finest introduction, but the spacious raise out for Tony Soprano didn’t scratch an itch for everyone. The sequence left the fate of the mob boss up within the air with a laborious end, making other folks (furiously) wonder if he lived or died at the hand of some assorted other folks. Some Sopranos fans call the switch genius. Others call it bullshit.
St. In numerous places
Ah, the OG controversial finale. After six seasons, the prolific clinical institution drama alluded to the premise that your entire sequence (and all its groundbreaking storylines) took dwelling within the imagination of an autistic boy. In a closing shot, he is maintaining a snow globe and inner is a reproduction of St. Eligius clinical institution, where the sequence took dwelling. The tiny legion of enormous fans were skittish—had they in actuality been performed? Became this entire, very practical clinical sequence in actuality right the manifestation of an autistic boy’s tips, or used to be there something else deeper? Turns out they right bought performed.
Game of Thrones
The memoir fantasy drama came to a screeching end in a truncated closing two seasons that had some amazing particular person moments, but felt too rushed to be as pleasing because it is going to also and will were. The bustle came by in various parts like characters crossing the final continent of Westeros very with out problems when it is going to also have taken plenty of episodes in prior seasons, and no more-than-pleasing resolutions for mighty lengthy-running figures in this sequence. Seeing Bran discontinue up King of Westeros after Daenerys’ plunge into destruction and tyranny had the total possible within the arena, but essential more house to breathe.
Justin Kirkland
Writer
Justin Kirkland is a Brooklyn-essentially based mostly author who covers culture, food, and the South. Along with Esquire, his work has regarded in NYLON, Vulture, and USA This day.