TV shows, at their core, are serialized stories, and every good story has an ending. Sometimes, the writers knock it out of the park. Other times, it seems like nobody realized they needed to write an ending until the last day. Here are some of the the darkest TV finales in history.
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00:00Every good story has an ending. Sometimes, all of the characters you've come to know
00:05and love get happy endings. But other times, our heroes are left to the worst possible fate.
00:11Here are a few of the bleakest finales in TV history.
00:16Fans either loved or hated Seinfeld's final episode. Whichever side you're on,
00:21you have to admit it was a pretty bold way to end a lighthearted sitcom.
00:26What makes Seinfeld's ending so dark isn't just that it throws Jerry, Elaine,
00:31George, and Kramer behind bars. Co-creator Larry David clearly wanted to put viewers
00:37in the uncomfortable position of acknowledging that these characters,
00:41as funny as they might be from a distance, simply weren't good people.
00:46And just in case you think the show is being way too easy on the gang,
00:50the final episode makes sure to bring back just about every single side character
00:55who ever got humiliated or harmed over the course of Seinfeld to ensure that the protagonists face
01:01actual consequences. There's no mistake, they belong in jail. For the most part,
01:07fans disliked Seinfeld's finale at the time, but maybe that's the point. It's a punishing
01:13hour of television, and while it's probably not the finale anyone wanted,
01:18it's definitely the one they deserved.
01:21Quantum Leap was an entertaining blend of science fiction, drama, and comedy. The premise of Dr.
01:27Sam Beckett leaping through time with only the holographic image of his buddy Al for support
01:32is pure sci-fi, and the idea that he could presumably only move forward by repairing the past
01:39meant that, from week to week, he could jump from crime thrillers to feel-good romances to
01:44straight-up just being a monkey.
01:46And so Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life,
01:51striving to put right what once went wrong."
01:54The series finale begins with Sam realizing that he's leapt into his own body,
01:59but in an unfamiliar reality. Finding himself in a coal mining town in 1953,
02:05at the same moment of his birth, Sam chats with a mysterious bar owner,
02:10who tells him that he's been in control of his own fate the whole time.
02:14Sam's need to help people has kept him from making the leap home.
02:18The divine bartender asks Sam if he's ready to finally have a normal life again,
02:22but Sam wants to take one final leap to prevent his friend Al's heartbreaking divorce.
02:29Successfully changing the course of Al's life, Sam leaps again, and the screen fades to black.
02:35A hastily misspelled caption proclaims that Sam never returned home.
02:40Despite Sam's goodwill, he's still out there, forever,
02:44thanks to the show being canceled at the last moment.
02:48Felina, the last episode of Breaking Bad, might be the most satisfying TV finale of all time.
02:56Every question gets answered. Almost every loose thread is tied up.
03:00Still, Jesse's big rescue aside, Felina is every bit as dark as the rest of the series.
03:07Ultimately, the finale proves that, despite Walt's good intentions,
03:11his secret life as a drug dealer fractured the lives of every single person he knew and loved.
03:17Yes, poor Walt Jr. is going to inherit a hefty sum of money eventually, but it's still blood money,
03:24and that certainly won't undo the trauma of finding out his beloved father was such a rotten guy.
03:30Although Walt manages to find it in himself to mount a big rescue mission for his partner Jesse,
03:36this hardly redeems his past actions. One of the darkest moments of Felina is Walt's final
03:42conversation with Skyler, when he admits that building his meth empire was never about his
03:47family.
03:48"'I did it for me. I liked it."
03:54Luke Cage was an honorable figure in Netflix's dark corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
03:59Although he'd claimed that he wasn't heroic, his actions spoke louder than words.
04:04Whether Luke was bouncing bullets off his chest or facing down bad guys with his intimidating
04:10swagger, it's no wonder that he quickly became Harlem's hero. Yet, as the show's finale
04:16demonstrates, even Luke Cage is vulnerable to the dangers of power. When Luke's arch-enemy
04:22Mariah Dillard finally dies, poisoned by her estranged daughter Tilda, she has one last
04:28trick up her sleeve. She leaves her nightclub, Harlem's Paradise, in Luke's name, making the
04:34hero a de facto crime boss. Although Luke hopes he can stay true to his morals, his cold stare
04:40into the camera in the episode's final moments reveal an emerging dark side. Unfortunately,
04:47Netflix pulled the plug, leaving this culturally important series with a serious bummer of an ending.
04:53Dinosaurs was a cheerful ABC sitcom featuring a working-class family of prehistoric lizards
04:59dealing with the ups and downs of life, and if you grew up in the 90s,
05:03you probably expected it to appear here. Why? Because while plenty of sitcoms end on a
05:09bittersweet note, there's only one where the doofus dad helps cause the apocalypse.
05:14The show's finale, Changing Nature, is a subtle but powerful climate change allegory.
05:20Although the show doesn't beat its audience over the head with its message, it's nonetheless some
05:25incredibly depressing viewing. When series co-creator Michael Jacobs first proposed killing
05:31everybody off, ABC balked, but after some consideration, everyone saw that it was the
05:36right choice. Jacobs told Vulture,
05:39"...I said, it's not the cast that we are trying to destroy, it's the entire world.
05:45My source for doing this is history."
05:48While Superman, the animated series, was a quality cartoon, it never quite escaped the
05:54shadow of its predecessor, Batman, the animated series. However, while the Man of Steel's
05:59adventures often seemed lighthearted compared to the exploits of the caped crusader,
06:04Superman's finale left him hanging in a dark place.
06:08The two-part final episode, Legacy, features a mysteriously brainwashed Kal-El, who believes
06:14that he's the adopted son of Darkseid. This evil Superman is waging war on Earth in his
06:20villainous father's name. Of course, Superman soon recovers and delivers an unholy smackdown
06:27to Darkseid, but the people of Earth aren't about to just forgive and forget. Thanks to Darkseid,
06:32Superman's reputation on Earth is shot. Aside from Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen,
06:38no one will move to help the disgraced Man of Steel.
06:41"...If you ask me, the bum ought to go back where he came from."
06:45That's how it ends.
06:47When the animated Superman returned in Justice League, this plot thread was never revisited.
06:54Now that Mark Ruffalo's Hulk is recognized as an honored member of the Avengers,
06:58it's easy to forget that the original, on-screen depiction of the Green Goliath was a true tragedy.
07:041977's The Incredible Hulk was a tale of true superhero tragedy. The sight of David Banner
07:11hitchhiking off to an uncertain fate as the famous Lonely Man theme plays remains a touching
07:17TV moment. The series itself took great pains to depict Banner as a decent man facing horrible
07:23circumstances. The Hulk wasn't a superhero but a big green disease, and from week to week,
07:30Banner's goal was to find a cure, clear his name, and return to a normal life.
07:36Sadly, David Banner never gets a happy ending. The original show ended in an anti-climax,
07:42but thankfully, the story continued in a series of TV movies.
07:47The last of those was titled The Death of the Incredible Hulk. In the film's climax,
07:52Banner's kindness towards so many others goes unrewarded. He's never cured, and he dies in the
07:58body of the Hulk after falling out of an airplane. Suddenly, the Lonely Man is even sadder.
08:05A medical drama set in a run-down Boston hospital, St. Elsewhere was known for its gritty,
08:11realistic storylines. Often cited as one of the most influential shows of all time,
08:17St. Elsewhere also ends with the weirdest twist in television history. In the show's final moments,
08:23the camera pulls back from St. Elijah's Hospital to reveal the building inside a snow globe.
08:29A young, autistic boy named Tommy Westfall is staring into the globe, while his construction
08:36worker dad, whom viewers will recognize as Dr. Donald Westfall, one of the show's main characters,
08:42discusses the boy's condition. The entire show has apparently taken place within Tommy Westfall's
08:49mind. Here's where it gets stranger. As postulated by the late comic book writer Dwayne McDuffie,
08:56if St. Elsewhere was a figment of Tommy's imagination, then so are a shocking number
09:01of fictional characters and settings. St. Elsewhere boasted a surprising number of crossovers,
09:07if you connect the dots. Other shows that happen in Tommy Westfall's imagination include Frasier,
09:13Homicide, Life on the Street, and The X-Files. Even the Marvel Cinematic Universe is subject
09:19to the Westfall theory. Mystery Science Theater 3000 is one of the most hilarious shows ever made.
09:26Unless you directed one of the horrible movies they eviscerated.
09:30For years, the program showed an average guy, first Joel, then Mike, and his robot pals trapped
09:36on the Satellite of Love, forced to watch an endless stream of cheesy movies. 1999 marked
09:42the end of the Mike Nelson era, with the episode Diabolic. This final outing of the show's second
09:48incarnation found Mike and his robot friends Tom Servo and Crow crash-landing on Earth.
09:55If that sounds like a happy ending, think again. Mike and the bots get settled on Earth,
10:00where the trio has rented a rundown apartment in Milwaukee. What do they do with their newfound
10:06freedom? They watch terrible B-movies. While the irony is funny, it also paints a grim portrait
10:12of Mike and the bots, implying they're never going to grow or get out of their bubble.
10:17Look, Nelson. Move on. I am.
10:22The animated series Ed, Ed, & Eddie always had a bit of a dark side. Despite the show's light
10:28tone, the trio of Eds still seem isolated from their peers. Eddie, a boastful loser who's always
10:34trying to scam others and worships an older brother who looks down on him, is an especially
10:39sad character. That depressing subtext hit the foreground in the show's original finale.
10:45Take this, Ed, and shove it. The episode begins like any other, but during the second part,
10:51Eddie gets hit on the head and awakens as a bitter old man. The entire series has been Eddie
10:57remembering his lost youth. Old Eddie spends the rest of the episode trying to escape his fate,
11:03but in the end, all he can do is accept it. For a cartoon, that's a pretty depressing way
11:09to go out. However, the show proved popular enough to spark a revival,
11:13and an additional two seasons followed. Nonetheless, the fact that this episode
11:18was intended to be the last we saw of the Eds is definitely a shocker.
11:24No list of dark TV finales is complete without the final episode of The Sopranos.
11:29What's darker than leading the audience to believe something horrible is about to befall the main
11:34character, and then cutting to black? In the decade since The Sopranos ended, creator David
11:40Chase has expressed no regrets about being so cruel to his audience, and continues to be
11:45ambiguous about Tony Soprano's fate while admitting that the finale was more controversial than he
11:50expected. In a 2019 interview with the Directors Guild of America, Chase stated,
11:56"'I thought the ending would be somewhat jarring, sure, but not to the extent it was,
12:01and not a subject of such discussion.' Nonetheless, you have to give Chase credit.
12:06There's a reason people still debate this ending today."
12:10The Sopranos type TV Show seasons 5 Genre Drama, Romance, Fantasy Rating TV-MA run date 05-07-15