Best TV Finales

Ten shows that stuck the landing, which is rarer than it should be.

Entries
10
Category
TV
Updated
  1. A dim wood-paneled bar after closing, stools upturned on the counter, a framed picture on the wall hanging slightly crooked.

    10. One for the Road

    Cheers · 1993

    Diane comes back, Sam almost leaves, and instead he turns away the last customer, straightens a picture of Geronimo, and walks into the dark. Afterward the cast did The Tonight Show live from the Boston bar, and Leno said almost everyone was drunk. Correct ending.

  2. An army helicopter lifting off over a dusty Korean hillside camp, olive tents below, white stones scattered across the ground.

    09. Goodbye, Farewell and Amen

    M*A*S*H · 1983

    Two and a half hours, directed and co-written by Alan Alda, and watched by 105.97 million Americans, still the most for any episode of any series. A real wildfire burned the set mid-shoot, so they wrote it in. Ads cost more than the Super Bowl. The war ended; the reruns did not.

  3. A rural Australian farmhouse kitchen, two cups of tea on a weathered table, a pigeon perched on the windowsill.

    08. The Book of Nora

    The Leftovers · 2017

    Years later in rural Australia, Nora tells Kevin over tea where she went and what she saw. The show never says if she's lying, and Lindelof says the writers agree but will never tell. 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. The man who did Lost made peace with ambiguity.

  4. An empty train compartment window at night, a small suitcase on the seat, a snowy Canadian border landscape blurring past.

    07. START

    The Americans · 2018

    The spies finally run. Stan corners them in a parking garage and the confrontation is all talk, which is worse than gunfire. Then a train, a U2 song, and a goodbye nobody saw coming. Emmys for Matthew Rhys and the writing. You will never hear that song neutrally again.

  5. An empty 1970s newsroom at night, desks tidied, a lone box of tissues on the central desk, the overhead lights half switched off.

    06. The Last Show

    The Mary Tyler Moore Show · 1977

    A new manager fires the entire WJM newsroom except Ted, the one who caused the bad ratings. The staff group hug shuffles across the room to a tissue box. It won an Emmy for writing, and the Friends creators called it the gold standard. Ted is still on the air.

  6. An abandoned meth lab with steel tanks and drums, a single bloody handprint on a stainless steel vat, a blue crystal glinting on the floor.

    05. Felina

    Breaking Bad · 2013

    Walt ties off every loose end with a garage-door opener and a trunk-mounted machine gun, then dies in a meth lab to Badfinger's Baby Blue. The title is an anagram of finale. 10.28 million watched, and Baby Blue's sales jumped nearly 3,000 percent. Badfinger thanks you.

  7. A diner booth with a basket of onion rings on the table and a tabletop jukebox, the edge of the frame dissolving into black.

    04. Made in America

    The Sopranos · 2007

    Onion rings, Journey, Meadow failing to parallel park, a guy in a Members Only jacket, then black. Viewers thought their cable died. David Chase has declined to explain it for nearly twenty years and seems to be enjoying himself.

  8. A cozy 1970s bedroom at night, twin lamps glowing, a bedside alarm clock and a takeout container of Japanese food on the nightstand.

    03. The Last Newhart

    Newhart · 1990

    Bob Hartley wakes up next to Suzanne Pleshette, his wife from The Bob Newhart Show, and the entire Vermont series was a dream. Newhart's wife Ginny pitched it. The audience applauded the bedroom set before anyone said a word. It was done in one take.

  9. A cramped government cubicle with a stack of typed reports, a wall calendar, and a gun-shaped shadow cast by a desk lamp.

    02. Family Meeting

    The Shield · 2008

    Vic Mackey dodges prison and gets something worse: a three-year ICE desk job writing gang-crime reports, in a suit, unarmed, family in witness protection. Alan Sepinwall ranked it the best finale ever. For a man like Vic, paperwork is the electric chair.

  10. A small car driving east on an empty desert highway at golden hour, a camera on the passenger seat, Los Angeles fading in the rearview mirror.

    01. Everyone's Waiting

    Six Feet Under · 2005

    Claire drives east to Sia's Breathe Me while the show flashes forward and kills every main character, one by one, through 2085. Alan Ball wrote and directed it. A series about death ended by refusing to let anyone off the hook. Bring tissues and a will.

Honorable mentions

  • A muddy First World War trench with ladders against the wall and helmets on the parapet, fading into a sunny field of red poppies.

    Goodbyeee

    Blackadder Goes Forth · 1989

    A trench sitcom ends with the cast going over the top. The fade to a silent field of poppies was found in the edit, when the polystyrene battlefield looked fake. Richard Curtis and Ben Elton wrote it. The funniest show on the BBC ended on the least funny thing possible.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A grand battle-scarred spaceship drifting into the sun, while on a grassy prehistoric plain below a single abandoned rifle lies in the grass.

    Daybreak

    Battlestar Galactica · 2009

    After four seasons of politics, terrorism and grim science, the survivors find our Earth, fly their ships into the sun and give up technology to go live off the land. The explanation for much of it is, roughly, God. Then an epilogue 150,000 years later. So say we all, apparently.

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