“Or, how I learned to stop caring and love the slop.”
Quick, think fast! What’s your favorite television show of all time? Maybe it’s Friends, or Community. Perhaps you’re keen on sitcoms and like to relax after a long day with something fun, something friendly, something where everybody knows your name (*cough*). Or maybe you’re more of an action fan, and prefer the more intense police procedurals, like The Wire or something. Perhaps you’re even a fan of soap operas, or medical dramas, or reality television. Regardless, whatever you like, I’m sure there is probably something that jumps to mind as your “favorite” tv show, even if you might deliberate a little about it later.
Ok, now consider the following: what is the best television show you’ve ever watched? Not your favorite, though maybe those two overlap. Even if it wasn’t your thing, or even if it gets beat out by a “worse” show for your spot of favorite, what do you believe to be the highest-quality, best-written, best-acted, most complete television series you’ve ever seen (or seen part of)? Maybe it’s The Sopranos, or a classic documentary like Planet Earth (which IMDB considers television, so I guess I will, too), or Game of Thrones? Ask yourself: do my answers to these questions overlap? Why? why not? And now, think about the endings to both of the shows you have chosen. Does your opinion on ending of a show change your opinion on it? Ah, I figured I’d get a few Game of Thrones fans with that one. Bit notorious, huh? I’ve never even seen the show and I heard all about it. Suffice it to say: would your answers to these questions change if the ending of those shows were better? Because let’s be real here, because between everyone moving away to start their own dead-on-arrival spinoff shows, finding out it was all a dream (there’s a lot of those), or whatever the hell happened to Lost, there’s a lot of stinkers out there. And as it so happens, there seem to have been a lot of stinkers recently, if you listen to online discourse.
This long, roundabout, pedantic opening is my way of broaching a big question that’s been on my mind lately: “How do you end a TV show?” and the follow-up question, because any hack writer can end something, “how do you end a TV show well?” That one’s much trickier to do, as evidenced by what seems to me as a recent trend in people despising the end of a beloved series and then going online to rant about it. Which, hey, that’s sort of what I’m doing here! Because, truth is, I’m not here to talk shop or discuss craft for writing a satisfying ending. Well, maybe a little bit. In a way. But, actually, what I’m here to do is talk about a few TV shows I’ve recently finished (and some not so recent ones), because I’ve finished a ton recently, for some reason, and I want a place to vent about it (and I need to get back into writing again)! And I’m going to guise it as a sort of surface-level analysis of what I think does or doesn’t work in a particular ending. So, maybe we will get into some analysis after all!
So, for all that stuff about “how to end a TV show,” I guess the big question I want to answer today is: “What does Andy think of the endings of a bunch of TV shows he’s finished recently?” and, more pertinently, “Why is Andy ok with such mediocre endings to things he ostensibly likes?” And at the end of the day, that’s what I want to answer, and I hope we’ll all come away from this feeling a little more at ease with accepting mediocrity and a little less invested in whatever the hell the Duffer Brothers decided to splooge out next. And we’re gonna do it in a bit of a list-format because this is, after all, still the internet, and listicles are king. Let’s go.
By the way, there will (obviously) be some spoilers. So be warned!
Great Endings
Breaking Bad
What can I possibly say about the ending of Breaking Bad that hasn’t already been said by a million sweaty white dudes? In this post, nothing! There is nothing unique or original I can say about the finale of Breaking Bad, because it is maybe one of the greatest television finales of all time, and genuinely one of the greatest pieces of screenwriting ever, and I do mean that. The last three episodes or so, but especially “Felina,” are so tightly-paced and emotionally-fraught while offering a satisfying conclusion to pretty much every story arc from the show, even going back to characters from season one. I cannot think of a single writing critique or criticism of that show’s ending (or, at least, not right now. Let me rewatch it later and we’ll see).
I think the big takeaway from the finale of Breaking Bad, as an ending, is the attention to detail is truly what makes it succeed. It’s the way that character arcs close out in a way that is both interesting and narratively consistent, the way that one bad decision leads to another bad outcome that eventually dominoes everything down, just in the way that it always had to end from the very start. There was no other possible ending for Walt. And maybe that’s what makes it so compelling, too. No punches are pulled. No consequences are shied away from. No conclusions are missed. There is so, so much that makes the finale of Breaking Bad great, but for me, it’s the clockwork way in which everything ties together (in just one hour, no less!) that makes it one of the best.
Better Call Saul
You know, it’s funny to mention both Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad in the same listicle, because in some ways, I actually think Better Call Saul does things better than Breaking Bad, which is probably an unpopular opinion. Those things, however, are not the ending (although BCS‘s ending is still stellar). Taken on its own, BCS’s ending is an incredible series of dramatic decisions, emotions, and consequences, much like Breaking Bad. But taken in tandem, I think it’s easier to see where BCS’s faults lie. Perhaps that is part of the problem; in some ways, the endings hit a lot of the same emotional notes. But where BB sticks the landing with a shotgun blast, I personally feel like BCS chickens out at the last minute.
The big advantage that BCS’s ending has over BB is that it’s very, very stylized, shot in black-and-white and taking place some years after the end of not just the main plot of BCS, but BB, too. This allows BCS’s ending to wrap up even a few more loose ends that BB’s perfect ending didn’t get to. But I think that sort of undermines what made BCS so great in the first place; for a show that took great pains to both explain and distance itself from so many aspects of BB, the ending can’t manage to leave the shadow of its older brother. And while the more I think about Jimmy’s ultimate decision to try and atone for his sins by the end, the more I appreciate it, I just can’t help but feel that it’s missing something. It’s such a left turn for who his character is by that point in the show. And yet… maybe that’s the point. Regardless, though, it’s got me talking about it and it’s got me thinking about it from all sorts of differnt angles. And that’s the mark of a great ending.
Gravity Falls
Maybe it does feel a bit odd to throw a goofy show with silly jokes for kids up on this list next to, you know, meth production and criminal lawyering. But kids show or not, Gravity Falls manages to pull the same magic writing rabbit out of the finale hat that Breaking Bad does. Funnily enough, both shows end with a tightly-plotted three-episode arc that concludes all major character arcs in a meaningful and internally consistent way while calling back to characters from across the series. Those are pretty superficial similarities, sure, but Gravity Falls also manages to do this in a show made for children. And while I will defend children’s media in the sense that children also deserve to have quality writing, you do have to give some consideration to the medium. Prestige, prime-time drama this is not. So I find it all the more fascinating when something this out-there manages to be so good.
I think the big takeaway from Gravity Falls is that you can still achieve greatness in spite of (or perhaps because of) limitations, such as Disney’s famous strict family-friendly guidelines. Gravity Falls’s ending manages to create an emotional payoff with attention to detail, arcs and relationships between characters, and playing to the show’s established strengths; comedy and surprise. And while it’s still a little sad that we’ll never get more proper Gravity Falls, what we got is excellence bar none.
Mediocre Endings
Stranger Things
You know what? Yeah, I am gonna say it. I am gonna go against the reddit grain! I am gonna give you my hot take: The ending to Stranger Things was not bad. It wasn’t good either! Don’t get me wrong. It was just… fine. Fine! And I think that’s ok for something to be! I didn’t hate it. I didn’t love it. But it scratched the itch that this show has been teasing me with for ten fucking years now. That has to count for something.
I’ve written before about Stranger Things, even once going so far as to consider it one of my favorite TV shows (around 8 years ago now…), and I’ve also written about how disappointed I was with Season 4. So is Season 5 better? Yes! Does it reach the peaks of the first season? No! But here’s the thing; season 1 was fresh, new and exciting. It came at exactly the right moment in the cultural zeitgeist to capitalize on 80’s nostalgia while delivering something that was, at the time, unique, Could anything based largely on nostalgia ever match that initial hit? I think no. But for what it is, which is a Netflix show with consistently mediocre writing (let’s be honest, half the dialogue feels like it was regurgitated from your local community college’s Screenwriting 101 class) and more interest in merchandizing (see: Stranger Things ouija board) than telling a coherent, character-driven plot, I think the finale set out what it meant to to do. Which is, of course, conclude Eleven and the Upside Down’s story.
I did not have high expectations for season 5 after the disaster that was season 4. But the show managed to exceed my low expectations in that it got me hooked again. It got me invested for the 10-odd hours that the season lasts for, and then it did not overstay its welcome. And I think that’s ok! It’s popcorn TV that is nostalgic for popcorn movies of the 80’s. Could it have been great? Yes, if season 1 was anything to judge by. But did Netflix want it to be great? No, I don’t think so. And sometimes, that’s ok. Hitting the (major) plot lines, closing some arcs in an emotional-enough way, delivering a large, climactic battle with the satisfaction of, uh, Winona Ryder beheading the string cheese man, and leaving an ambiguous enough ending to hint at potential continuation, it was bombastic and emotionally taught. I did not come to Stranger Things 5 needed it to payoff every plot thread from every previous season. Was that vapid of me? Maybe. But I don’t watch Star Wars for the in-depth commentary on the Vietnam War. I watch it to see space samurai and frog wizards duke it out on a lava planet. And I feel more or the less the same about Stranger Things.
The Boys
And you know what? I feel exactly the same way about The Boys. It’s a series that absolutely hooked me in its first season. The tension of sneaking around these super heroes, the fear every time Homelander was on screen (to the show’s credit, that never changed), the intrigue of how this weird grotesque, bloody parody universe worked, it was intoxicating. And then it kept going. And kept going. And the writing got worse. And worse. Characters became weird one-dimensional versions of themselves when they had already been fairly flat to begin with. Sight gags and explosions of bodily fluids can only carry something so far. You could have shortened this show by an entire two seasons and I think it would have been better off for it.
But, to the show’s credit, it does manage to tap into some sort of cultural nerve right about now. There is something vaguely fulfilling (in an admittedly hollow way) about seeing a bunch of Christian nationalist fascists get their teeth kicked in. And credit where credit’s due, the show never did take the easy route out of making it a glorified power trip either. Even at the end, the message the show kept hitting (without any level of subtlety) was hope. And you know what? I respect that. Hope is good. Hope is a great thing to have! Violence for violence’s sake is the coward’s way out. Season 5 never lost sight of that, in its own twisted way, and I think it gets props for that. For what was otherwise a pretty lackluster final battle (the advertising made this season seem like it would be so much bigger than the others, and honestly? it wasn’t) and a string of bizarre, drawn-out character decisions, it still made me feel something. And it gets a mediocre score from me for that much, anyway.
On the other hand, I might have to give minus points for the epilogue’s absolute batshit decision of Hughie and Starlight naming their unborn child after Hughie’s old girlfriend who exploded. And then Starlight just rocketing away, with unborn baby in tow, to go fight crime. Things ended where they began, with Hughie in an AV store and Annie listening to a police scanner, and Butcher got what he deserved, and that’s all very nice and all, but fucking hell, that is a weird last way to close out the show. Fucking diabolical.
The Amazing Digital Circus
I feel like this one barely counts as a TV show, since it started as an indie animation on YouTube, but it’s on Netflix and it made it to theaters, so I’m going to count it! But the thing about that independent part, I think it works to both the show’s benefit and its detriment. I mean, no mainstream studio would ever greenlight a single-season, high-quality animated show about mentally ill people trapped in a 90’s computer game, so I think The Amazing Digital Circus had to be independent. Which is great! I’m so thrilled it exists! But at the same time, the creator of the show is, well, sort of an amateur at this stuff? And I think that it kind of shows in the ending. No shade to Gooseworx, the creator! Show’s great! I’m an amateur, too. It’s just… well, TADC doesn’t stick the landing. (Also I think having Jax die in amazing digital circus was a strong decision and thematically appropriate maybe? Read those posts I found)
To be honest, I think I sort of expected that to happen from the very beginning. Because the fall-off in quality with the show was clear from the second episode. Not the animation quality, mind you, but more the writing quality. The first episode was one of the funniest things I’d seen in a long, long time, and I adored it. And then right away, the next episode was just… not? Maybe my tastes changed in the six months or so between episodes. Or maybe the first episode had just been spit-shined to perfection because an independent pilot needs to be perfect to succeed. And everything that came after just… couldn’t live up to it. Which isn’t the finale’s fault on its own, but it definitely contributes. The show never really had any room to breathe or let its characters live, so the arcs that are present by the end of the show are short, and they feel stilted. And although I do think Jax’s suicide is a strong writing decision and I do think that the show has something meaningful to say about mental health and how you treat yourself, your friends, and your situation in life, I don’t think, frankly, that those things can carry the finale by themselves. I’m not bothered by the lingering questions left over after the show is done. But I am bothered by the lingering feeling of “…huh. Guess it’s over now.” And I guess that’s ok. I’ll always have the other episodes. And that’s the case with all of these shows, ultimately. The best parts are still there. And no bad ending can trash that.
Bad Endings
Brand New Cherry Flavor
Oh, man. This one hurt. I’m not writing this article to just praise Breaking Bad and shit on everything else, and I don’t like making a habit of trashing things. But come on. The ending of this show? Absolute stinker. I mean, I don’t know how many other shows have their final episode drop an entire point below average on the IMDB score. I had to check that, just to make sure it wasn’t just me. And it wasn’t. The last episode of Brand New Cherry Flavor? Abysmal.
You want to talk about wasted potential? This show is basically the definition of that. The first half of the show (it’s only a single season of eight episodes, mind you) was phenomenal. My partner and I couldn’t stop watching. First off, it’s from a creator whose previous work I really, really like (Channel Zero, anyone?) Second, it was scary, funny, beautifully-shot, and most of all, hooking (hooking? is that a word?). It had a hook. It hooked us. Who was Boro? What’s with that weird ghost? Is she gonna kill that guy? What happened in her short film? So many questions! And the show kept piling on questions. And more questions. And more. And more. And never… really… answered… them? Ok? And an ambiguous ending is fine, sure, and yeah, enough questions were answered to give me an idea of what it all means, but, frankly, killing off 75% of your cast is not a meaningful character arc. Having the big bad just walk away is fine in some cases, but not when the main character also just walks away. The last episode just feels like you’re picking up the trash after someone else has a wild party in your apartment. And then the lead character? She just goes to the airport, buys a plane ticket, says, “I’m going home,” and walks off into the light. Fade out. Roll credits. WHAT? WHAT DO YOU MEAN? We find out who her mom is, who Boro is, what the deal is with that ghost, yes, but what bearing does any of that have on our main character? None, if you go by her dialogue, because she is largely the same at the end as she was at the beginning. Nothing changed, except all her friends are dead. Hurray.
Honestly, I blame Netflix for all of this. If the show had gotten two more episodes, or even another short season, I think there would have been enough room for more character arcs, more change, more answers that impact the story. Instead, I suspect that Netflix greenlit this, decided one season was all they wanted, and then kept shrinking the number of episodes and the budget they would get. It would not be the first time Netflix has cancelled something prematurely. But oh man. Talk about the ending spoiling my feelings on the rest of it. What a rough way to end a great show.
The Handmaid’s Tale
Lordy, I didn’t even watch this whole show, so I guess you could say this one doesn’t really count. But honestly? I didn’t have to watch the rest (and after this, didn’t want to) in order to understand just how much of a fall-off the ending is. I read the book, yes (so don’t come at me and say I’m anti-feminist for this opinion), but my only experience with The Handmaid’s Tale TV show is the last two episodes, and woof. What a mess.
All of the other entries in this list have been, understandably, colored by my opinions of the show as a whole, and my opinions of the show as a whole have been colored by the endings, and vice versa. It is an ouroboros of opinion. But Handmaid’s Tale is one where I can definitively judge the ending on only its merits alone, and I will tell you: it is bad. Very bad. The last episode is extended, slow-mo shots of Elisabeth Moss (who is a Scientologist, by the way; the irony of a Scientologist actress playing a revolutionary fighting a theocratic fascist state is not lost on me) walking through empty sets that were part of earlier episodes. That’s… kind of it. I thought I was high watching this because everything felt unnaturally slow. The whole thing is a bizarre self-aggrandizing, narcissistic, self-obsessed, circle jerk of an episode that, like Brand New Cherry Flavor, sees a significant drop in viewer score on IMDB. I have a hard time believing that this is what Margaret Atwood envisioned for her landmark literary achievement. It’s tacky, weird, and missing any sort of substance. It’s just a simmer reel of the sets of the best moments of the rest of the show. Minimal dialogue, minimal character arcs and closure, and anything else meaningful seems to have been handled in the previous episode. Why even have this? Why end the show this way? Just to drag out some extra screen time? It’s so, so weird. Oh, and it was directed by Elisabeth Moss. I’m sure that is just a coincidence.
As a little side note, I wanted to have three shows for each category of quality, but honestly, I apparently haven’t watched enough TV with truly awful endings to think of a third one. I’m sure there’s one out there, but this post is already getting long enough and I think it’s time to move on. Point is: bad (or mediocre) TV show endings are ones that upend the tone of the series (Handmaid’s Tale), leave too many meaningful questions unanswered or provide answers with no impact on the story (Brand New Cherry Flavor), fail to create enough spectacle or don’t live up to expectations set by previous episodes (Stranger Things and The Boys), or don’t properly close character arcs (Amazing Digital Circus, but also, all of the above). Make sure you know when to quit, and when in doubt, sometimes (not always!) it’s better to go bigger. Writing!
Honorable Mentions
Just kidding! Not done yet! You didn’t think I’d go a whole TV show post without mentioning Buffy, did you? Here’s some other things I wanted to mention but didn’t want to talk too much about:
Avatar the Last Airbender: Great ending! It’s one of the all-time greats for a reason. Though I don’t think the pacing is perfect (i.e. I wish we spent just a little more time with the gaang after the fire lord is defeated), and while I think the “take away his bending” solution is a smart one, it feels just a little bit deus ex machina.
Dark: Good ending! For what is maybe the most convoluted time travel show to ever exist (hopping across not just eras of time but different universes of timelines), the show ends in a way that makes it poignantly human, and manages to cut back to what made the first season so compelling; this is a story about people. Still confusing as hell though.
What We Do in the Shadows: Mediocre ending! The show was kind of wearing thin by season 4, and as much as I loved the characters, I think everyone recognized that things had to draw to a close somewhere. Nothing wrong with ending things while the ending is mid, it just felt a little bit drawn-out. Also, character arcs for people other than Guillermo and Nandor? Eh, we did those last season. Sean’s ending was nice, though.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Mediocre ending! Hey, another vampire show that felt a little drawn out! Although I will still stand by my assertion that Season 6 is the most thematically interesting, I’m glad they didn’t end on it. And while having them fight the ultimate evil, confronting the origin of the Slayer, and having all the potential slayers hang around is interesting, it just goes on for way too long. But that’s television before the era of streaming for you!
Ultimately, at this point in my life, I’m growing more and more of the opinion that a shorter, tighter-plotted series/movie/game is better than a fluffy, empty, oversized mess. Even if the bigger one offers more “content,” I feel more and more that my time is precious, and I don’t want to waste it on something that I know will just waste my time. How many of these shows would have been better off as a single season, or just a long movie? Certainly some of them. Probably definitely including Stranger Things.
But at the same time, I’m not immune to being swept up in a grand epic, or a sprawling affair that covers years and dozens of characters. See: The Lord of the Rings, for example. Or The Legend of Zelda. But everything has to end eventually; this is the natural way of all things. Despite what the AI tech bros would have us believe, infinite content is not good content. And sometimes, something doesn’t have to be good for me to be swept up in it, either. See: Stranger Things, once again. And you know what? That’s ok! It’s perfectly fine to enjoy things that aren’t good. As long as you don’t get your hopes up.
I think we need more nuance in things. And this is, obviously, not a unique or original thought. Far from it. But I think that nuance needs to include room for thoughts like, “I know what I’m watching is television that has been engineering by a corporation for maximum appeal and maximum profit. And I enjoy it, and that’s ok.” And then we also need to have room for nuance like “…and I will adjust my opinions and expectations of it accordingly.” Not that we shouldn’t hold all media to the same standards; of course, on an objective level, you can compare something like Stranger Things to, say, Rear Window or whatever. Or The Boys to, say, Oppenheimer. But I also think it’s ok to acknowledge that, sometimes, things are just ok. And it’s fine for something to be ok! It’s definitely more than fine to be disappointed about it, especially if you do happen to love any given media. It’s great, healthy, even, to put pressure on creators and corporations so that they can’t get away with just making slop and iterating on it over and over again. But you know what? At a certain point, I have more important things to get upset about than the ending of a TV show I loved when I was sixteen.
It’s ok for things to be mediocre, if your expectations for that thing were also mediocre. It’s like going to McDonald’s. I’m not upset that my quarter pounder tastes like the cows have been pumped with formaldehyde, and the nuggets are 25% sawdust. Frankly, that’s part of the experience. Sure, if I went to McDonald’s and after finishing my meal they kicked me in the nuts, I’d be pretty damn mad. But it isn’t the same as going to, say, a Michelin-starred restaurant and ordering a steak that’s juicy and delicious until the last bite is a big mouthful of gristle. Expectations are higher, and so should be the product. I like both (minus the nut-kicking and the gristle)! But I am not gonna hold both to the same standards.
I’m tired. The world is a shitshow. It’s 104F/40C in Paris. ICE continues to arrest immigrants, travelers, and American citizens alike. Trump held gladiatorial bloodsport on the White House lawn for his birthday America’s 250th anniversary. Russia and Ukraine are still at war. The Gaza strip is still under martial law, more or less. The US has blown up more schools in Iran. Again. Curacao lost to Germany 7-1. There is no peace and there is no mercy, and then sands of time will make dogs of us all. I’ll be damned if I can work up enough energy to give a shit whether or not Eleven lived or died, and whether or not that is a good or bad ending to a show which has made over a billion dollars for yet another soulless corporation.
One of the greatest things I learned from my master’s degree is that, sometimes, good enough is what you need. Perfect is the enemy of the good and all that, but genuinely, in both science and life, sometimes you need to look at something and say, “this is good enough. The effort it would take to make it better is not worth it.” Knowing when and where to draw that line is hard, and just because I draw it here doesn’t mean you should, too. What we care about says far more about us than it does about the things of which we care. There is an art to knowing what is just enough, what is mediocre enough, to get by, when doing anything better would be insurmountable. Maybe corporate pressure and board members make it impossible to write the ending you want. Maybe the effort and energy it would go into learning the statistics you need to “properly” assert your case is unnecessary when the answer is self-evident. Maybe you’ve written yourself so deep into a corner you can’t see sun for the shadows. And yet, sometimes it is worth it to fight on. When things matter it is always important to fight on. But for the finales of TV shows? Sometimes a mediocre ending is just what we need. And if that is not the place to draw the line, then I don’t know where it is.
