Another finale, come and gone.
This one left us with great expectation, but did it fulfill us? Did it complete its journey around the narrative sun? Did it conclude the tale of its troubled protagonist? Did it draw the character’s interior life out and connect it to the exterior? Did it show the fall from grace we were expecting?
That’s right. I’m talking about Small Wonder.
Where V.I.C.I. was forced to endure a reckoning as her evil android twin appears and sets the stage for an epic robo-showdown that results in the eventual spin-off series —
*receives note*
Oh. Ohhhh.
We’re supposed to be talking about the Mad Men finale, aren’t we?
Ah. Yeah. Oops! Ha ha ha boy are my cheeks red.
Lotsa folks saw the Mad Men finale and felt like it was the perfect end.
Lotsa folks saw it and seemed bewildered or bored by what they saw.
(Count me as somewhere in the middle — but more on that in a second.)
First, I want you to understand how hard it is to write an ending.
An ending should:
1) tie most things up but
2) not tie everything up and be too tidy
3) fit the rest of what came before but
4) still be its own thing
5) feel like the natural and only possible conclusion but
6) not feel too obvious because we still like surprises
7) fulfill the promises made early on but
8) also fulfill promises we didn’t realize it had made
9) confirm the theme of the piece but
10) but not make that theme so obvious it’s like a brick to the jaw
11) carry the same mood and emotional heft as the rest but
12) still be somewhat separate from the piece, too
13) answer questions but
14) ask a few new ones, too
That’s hard enough when it comes to a short story or a book.
Now, think about an entire book series. Or an entire television show.
You get more characters. More questions. More arcs to finish, more threads to see to their fraying or knotted ends. And then you have the factor of time. Five books. Seven seasons. A hundred chapters, or comic book issues, or television episodes. People investing years toward the tale — years where the pressure mounts for you to really stick that fucking landing. TV makes this even fuckier because you’ve got a week between episodes, you’ve got months (or even a year) between seasons, you’ve got the pressures of a network, the pressures of advertisers, countless writers, the loss of actors, and very likely a show who had to stretch out its journey (I’m looking at you, Lost, and also you, HIMYM), because you weren’t allowed to end when the story really should’ve ended. Oh, and not to mention the millions of people who are each waiting for their own personal vision for how the story’s gotta kick the can to the end of the road.
It’s actually amazing that any TV finales are any good at all.
So. The Mad Men finale. How’d it do?
(Note, from here on out, THERE BE MILD SPOILERS.)
For me, it was kind of… hit or miss. With a lot of the characters, it did good work — it resolved their arcs and put them the places we both expected and didn’t expect. (Again, that mysterious trick of making the ending feel organic and inevitable while still surprising us with an outcome we didn’t realize was so inevitable.) A lot of the women get fitting ends and don’t get the short shrift — Peggy and Joan in particular. (Betty, well, the show and the audience have always hated her, and so her ending seems somehow extra-malicious — if somewhat still inevitable. And I worry about Sally getting caught up in the wake of that.)
The problem for me comes in with the titular character, “MAD MAN” MCSTEVENS, the hard-charging, cigar-chomping advertising executive who punches his way to the top of Madison Avenue and with his revolutionary new ad campaign for Depends adult diapers —
*receives a note*
Okay, apparently Mad Man McStevens is not a character on that show.
Hold on, hold on.
*shuffles papers*
Ah! Dick “Don Draper” Whitman.
Who I will now call “Dickie-Don.”
Right.
I feel like the finale wasted ol’ Dickie-Don.
Like, here’s the thing, right? The show’s been promising us from the very beginning that this will be Dickie-Don’s fall from grace. His climb to the top and his subsequent tumble — it’s telegraphed even in the credits sequence at the fore of every episode. It is, in a way, a promise.
But that’s not what really happens. He hits emotional bottom, maybe — though it’s not something we haven’t seen before. He’s left his life in wreckage but we never get to see him have to deal with that wreckage. Not his kids, not Betty, not the war, not him stealing someone else’s name, not Peggy, not anything. He is consequence-free.
And the emotional breakthroughs he experiences in the episode aren’t even his. Dickie-Don goes to a retreat and experiences the turmoil and fallout of other characters — characters who are in part or are entirely strangers to us. Characters who often have conversations with Dickie-Don or who offer up confessions that are so on-the-nose regarding his “journey” it made me feel like I was reading someone aping bad literary fiction. People talked the way people don’t talk to deliver thematic emphasis and emotional beats just so we understood what was happening inside Dickie-Don’s pretty little LEGO man hair-helmet head.
Now, that’s not altogether bad — it’s certainly giving us some aspect of what the show has always given us. Dickie-Don hits bottom and then we find out the bottom is really just a new way for him to climb higher and so he does. That happens here, too, with Dickie-Don creating one of the world’s most consequential advertisements moments after reaching some kind of wibbly Nirvana during the first thirty seconds of meditation.
But we never get the fall.
We never get consequence.
We never get comeuppance.
That’s certainly a message in and of itself. Intentional, I’m guessing.
Cynical, and purposefully so.
So, in that sense? It works.
But where I fall apart is, it took seven seasons to get here. It took seven seasons to stand still. It’s easy to say, well, it’s all about the journey, but this wasn’t really much of a journey. It isn’t THERE AND BACK AGAIN: A DICKIE-DON’S TALE, but rather, YOU THINK DICKIE-DON LEFT AND WENT ON A TRIP BUT REALLY HE JUST HID IN THE CLOSET AND AVOIDED ALL CONSEQUENCE. We went along on the ride for, what, almost 100 episodes over eight years to go essentially nowhere. (In this, it’s very Sopranos-esque.)
TV is often criticized as having characters who don’t change and being “all middle,” but the current Renaissance of television is changing that — or so I thought. Shows are now allowed to move, allowed to end, and not merely tread narrative water.
The problem with Don Draper is that we’ve seen him before. Too many times. Ego-fed white guy Narcissist who sleeps around and drinks and has family troubles and is highly competent at his job and blah blah blah. Don Draper, Tony Soprano, Frank Underwood, Walter White — difficult, borderline-abusive, middle-age white motherfuckers who are secretly little damaged flowers inside. Villains cast as heroes. Weaponized unlikeability.
I don’t hate that particular character, but I am getting tired of him.
And if you’re going to give us one, you need to conclude it. Or do something new.
(Walter White, to my mind, gets his conclusion. Tony and Don, not so much. Can’t speak for Frank, but I’m hopeful that the show will take us where it needs to take us.)
If Mad Men just spent seven seasons to tell us that Don Draper will continue to grin that shit-eating grin and create advertising and carry on with his paradoxically-ascendant swirl-down-the-toilet, fine. That’s certainly a mission statement and not out-of-character with the show.
But it feels a bit like a waste of our time.
For me — not necessarily for you! — I want more out of my ending.
It was close. And it’s given me a lot to chew on — which is a good thing.
But it still missed the mark for me.
Now, I ask:
What did you think?
Better yet, what were some of the best finales — and worst finales — across television?
Graham Milne says:
I’m rather partial to the finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Obviously it was not as serialized as other dramas so it isn’t as though there were a huge number of threads to tie off, but it did bookend with the pilot nicely, and the last scene in which Captain Picard sits down at the senior staff poker game for the very first time and acknowledges, subtly, that here at last is what this solitary explorer has always been looking for – his family – is a beautiful beat. And then the Enterprise sails off into the stars as Patrick Stewart intones, “the sky’s the limit.”
Granted the four movies that follow undo the ribbon a little, but taken on its own it’s still great.
May 18, 2015 — 8:29 AM
Mark Gardner says:
The TNG finale was definitely better than the abhorrent ENT finale, but the TNG finale was so littered with plot holes and cannon errors. I feel both DS9 and VOY had way better finales.
May 19, 2015 — 2:09 PM
Paula says:
MASH – still my fave series finale. Ooops, just showed my age there, didn’t I :\
May 18, 2015 — 9:05 AM
terribleminds says:
(I should add that my wife had a great ending for Don in her mind that wouldn’t change too much — he goes to the ashram and then becomes like, a self-help guru. He’s a seducer, a sham, and how appropriate would it be that he basically becomes some nonsense meditative leader? Another lie, but a change from who he was — and ostensibly leads nicely into THE UNBREAKABLE KIMMY SCHMIDT ha ha ha ahem.)
May 18, 2015 — 9:06 AM
Beth Turnage says:
Yeah, I lost interest in Don when he married his bubbled headed trophy wife. This was a guy, that despite his immorality never did anything wrong, at least when it came to business Oh, his personal life was utter chaos but except for one time, he never missed a beat when it came to the clients. He was a winner, and corporate America will do anything to avoid noticing their boys flaws, except when the winner goes too far.
As somewhere who watched Don Draper types dance the corporate tango, and inevitably fall down, I can think of a couple good endings for Don.
1.) He suffers the inevitable fall from grace and ends up selling furniture in a furniture store. (I know a corporate director this happen too. But he made Don look like a choir boy.)
2.) For all the times Don stuck up someone’s keester, Don get’s prostate cancer, and learns about the inevitability of death and taxes. He dies an ignoble and lonely death. Only Betty is there in his final hours.
3.) Don takes his millions from the sale to McCann, writes a best selling book about advertising and ends up a professor of communications at the Newhouse School of Communications in Syracuse. (And I tell you, the winters of Syracuse are one step close to hell, where Don belongs.) The final scene is where a student asks Don if advertising is relevant to today’s world, and Don gives his famous shit-eating grin. Fade to black.
May 18, 2015 — 11:25 AM
Ian Cann (@thebeercolonel) says:
For me in terms of US series The West Wing did it just right, the Santos Presidency getting going showing how everything went on as usual renewed, whilst The Barletts were wrapped up with a nice nod back to the show’s past.
In terms of awful ones, The X Files suffered from getting far too complicated and confused by its own universe and going on too long, and whilst not a duffer Fringe fell a little foul of the JJ Abrams problem a la Lost and Dr Who these days, where everything is built up well, but with no real concrete idea of how it’s going to be finished.
May 18, 2015 — 9:06 AM
mikes75 says:
I actually loved the last episode of Lost. I think the reason it failed for so many is in part because ABC encouraged the water cooler discussion around the show to focus so much on the mysteries of the Island. It created a perspective of the show where what’s essentially the MacGuffin began to overshadow the characters, who were the real reason for the story. It would be like telling The Maltese Falcon in a way that leaves the audience disappointed they don’t get to see a jeweled bird statue in the end.
May 18, 2015 — 9:06 AM
terribleminds says:
I am one of the few fans, I think, of the LOST finale.
May 18, 2015 — 9:09 AM
Robert Sadler says:
I’m with you both on LOST. It had its issues and disappointments, but overall, I think they gave it a beautiful ending. And since it’s my favorite show of all time (my honeymoon included a tour to all the filming locations, just to give you an idea of my love for it), it really hurts that it has become the poster child for terrible endings. Especially because so many people still seem to think the whole show was purgatory, which blows my mind.
I’ll stop now, but I could go on forever on this topic.
May 18, 2015 — 12:34 PM
Bev Katz Rosenbaum says:
Agree with so much of what you said! At first, I did feel taken. Really? Don went back to McCann to create the Coke ad? But then I thought, Okay, that’s…real. Ultimately, Dickie Don is a survivor. But I like to think he went back to his job with a little insight into his behaviour. And he’s an artist. His medium is advertising. Of course he’s going to use his life experience in his art. So for me, yeah, pretty perfect! (Though I didn’t like how they had Stan disrespecting Peggy’s ambitions–think they were a little off there.)
May 18, 2015 — 9:15 AM
Jessica Quest says:
I agree with everything you said here, except I don’t think Stan was trying to disrespect Peggy’s ambitions – he was just terrified she’d leave him. Once they got together I’m sure he told her to reach for the stars, otherwise I don’t think she would have stayed with him. She’s left all sorts of guys she really liked before when she felt it wasn’t working out.
May 18, 2015 — 12:22 PM
Heather Umphrey Dudley says:
I think one of my favorite finales is the American The Office finale. I loved that show; and the ending for me was absolutely perfect.
May 18, 2015 — 9:21 AM
allreb says:
Michael’s “That’s what she said” entrance line for his cameo was one of the all-time most-earned punchlines ever.
May 18, 2015 — 11:37 AM
Erin Bellavia says:
I, too, am tired of this character. So tired.
As for endings…very recently, Parks and Recreation leapt into the #1 spot in my heart. I still don’t want to talk about HIMYM.
May 18, 2015 — 9:29 AM
momdude says:
“M*A*S*H” and “Newhart” worked best for me.
For a serious show, the breakdown of Hawkeye, the show’s rock, and his recovery were tremendous drama. The end of the war allowed us to say goodbye & get closure with all of the other characters. (We will not speak of “AfterM*A*S*H”.)
The über-dry humor of Bob Newhart’s main character being surrounded by a whole array of goofy whack jobs was ratcheted up into a new dimension, only to end in what I consider the finest series ending ever. Hilarious, completely out of left field yet the ultimate in-joke.
May 18, 2015 — 9:33 AM
Chris Crawford says:
I’m glad someone else mentioned Newhart. The finale was so good, it lifted a slightly-better-than-average sitcom into a classic.
May 18, 2015 — 1:24 PM
Dianna Gunn says:
Not a Mad Men fan, but there are two finales that immediately pop out as disappointing: 1. Dollhouse, which ended way too soon–there were two extra special episodes to wrap it up, but much later and after what I’m sure would have been more amazing show and 2. Buffy, because the whole thing felt rather rushed and I still can’t decide how I feel about how they actually overcame the big bad.
Side note: I might also be a fan of Joss Whedon. And both lead actresses in both of those shows, so perhaps biased BUT STILL
May 18, 2015 — 9:35 AM
evoletyvaine says:
Dollhouse! Yeah, I forgot about how that one was a disappoint, too. And the fact that poor Eliza can’t seem to hold down a show. 🙁
May 18, 2015 — 2:03 PM
bassplyr5150 says:
Certainly Breaking Bad stuck the landing for me. I was content with the Mad Men ending. It didn’t make me mad or ecstatically happy, but I was pleased with how everything wrapped up.
When did “event” finales begin? Mary Tyler Moore? MASH? I guess longer running shows have more of a capacity to build up to something big, but I’ll tell you, “The Sarah Connor Chronicles” certainly went out with a bang, twisting the narrative and making you wish the show was coming back.
May 18, 2015 — 9:40 AM
Ed says:
I think the biggest problem facing TV shows is that the writers dont have a clear end in mind. They come up with an idea, thenthe 1st season is a success and suddenly we are 5 series in and now the shows flagging. Its at this point that they go “oh now how do we end it?” Life on Mars i think was classic example of writers knowing what they wanted. 2 seasons done and dusted.
A book is meant to have a start, middle and end. A TV show should be no different. A clear plan is required.
May 18, 2015 — 9:46 AM
animisticengine says:
That’s a great sentiment, but a book is one person and a computer/typewriter.
A TV show is minimum 100 people, all of whom work in an industry that may offer them a way better deal tomorrow. They all gotta eat. People seem to forget that this was a huge factor in LOST. Several actors didn’t like spending 9 months of the year away from their families who couldn’t move to Hawaii, so they quit when their contracts expired… but before they reached the end of their characters’ stories.
TV, unlike a book, is not made beginning to end in a vacuum. Fans see each episode, react, and often their reaction is taken into consideration.
Aside from that, look at HIMYM, which is a classic example of having an ending in mind and it being completely wrong, because the show was such a runaway success it went several seasons beyond the point where that end worked.
That aside, some of us love the fact that TV can change season to season, and not need to fight a great idea because it doesn’t fit with the preconcieved ending.
May 23, 2015 — 1:16 AM
jimheskett says:
I think you could look at Don’s ending as either one with hope or despair. Assuming he made the coke commercial, you could look at it as “Don made the ultimate commercial and fulfilled his destiny.” Or, you could look at it as “Don came so close to escaping that life, only to get sucked back in at the very end.” That ambiguity makes for a good puzzler for after the credits rolled.
May 18, 2015 — 9:51 AM
jim Heskett says:
You can see Don’s final arc in his wardrobe choice. He leaves New York for his aimless road trip wearing a suit. As he gets further away from NY, his clothing relaxes. By the time he’s in CA, he’s wearing jeans and a flannel. Then, in the last shot, when he’s ready to go back… He’s wearing his white button down again.
May 18, 2015 — 11:30 AM
maqhem says:
Breaking Bad and Jericho both did it for me. They were both great series, and they both nailed the finales. Especially considering Jericho was cancelled I think they did an extremely good job of rounding off the story without leaving loose ends and without it feeling rushed. It is unfortunate that I can name a lot more series that I feel deserved a better ending (or an ending at all): Fringe, Heroes, Lie To Me, Weeds, Dexter, How I Met Your Mother. Just to name a few.
May 18, 2015 — 10:14 AM
Doug Daniel says:
I hate the finale of Lost with a visceral passion. To me it is the epitome of how to destroy a great concept (actually, of course, the destruction was ongoing throughout the series, it just culminated in the final episode). It’s my prime example of what not to do with a story.
It’s obvious that, not only did the (many) story contributors not have an idea where they were going, they also committed the sin of placing too many items on the mantel, so to speak, and never using them, or never fully explicating why they were important. As far as I can tell the show runners had no clear overall story line in mind and ended up floundering in unresolved plot threads.
May 18, 2015 — 10:37 AM
Yerp says:
I actually liked the Sons of Anarchy finale. It certainly felt “earned”, in the sense that we knew going in that things were not going to be tidy (including some nasty signs that the cycle of violence will continue with the next generation) while allowing the “hero” to “atone” for his sins in a little act of sacrifice.
May 18, 2015 — 10:38 AM
Weirdmage says:
Lost failed completely for me, and it was pretty clear it was going to do that halfway through the last season. But even when I was watching with dread at how bad it was going to be the last episode still managed to disappoint me. Lost is actually much better if you just ignore the last season altogether.
The best ending is probably Babylon 5. But that was a planned one, and it was a rare example of a series that actually manages to have a vision from the beginning.
More recently, every season of American Horror Story has had a satisfying ending. And in some ways I wish AHS becomes the future of television. One season story arcs, with a beginning, middle, and end. They do it with new characters, but it should work well with the same characters each season too.
Let the story reach it’s natural end, and then tell a new story.
May 18, 2015 — 10:58 AM
Doug Daniel says:
“Lost is actually much better if you just ignore the last season altogether.”
Dang, that pretty much nails it on the head.
I was trying to think of a series ending that I liked, and somehow I didn’t think of B5. I should turn in my Psi Corps badge. I still watch the end credits of “Sleeping in the Light” when I want a dose of awesome.
May 18, 2015 — 2:56 PM
Melissa Clare Wright says:
I thought the ending of Breaking Bad was pretty much perfect. That show traumatized me from start to finish, but it was incredible.
My favourite ever series ending has to be Buffy the Vampire Slayer though. 🙂
May 18, 2015 — 11:14 AM
socalvillaguy says:
I got on the Mad Men train sort of late, binge-watching the first 6 seasons in a week. Having watched the evolution of the characters in fast-forward, I enjoyed the first half of season 7 in real time, but feel that there was too much distance between the end of part 1 and part 2 to make the latter fully satisfying. The momentum seemed lost to me, and as my wife said, watching part 2 was like watching paint dry. I thought it was better than that at least, as I enjoyed watching the character arcs as much as the plot lines over the years.
With that said, the ending for Dickie-Don’s character seemed about right for me. I had predicted he’d end up in California on his magical odd-yssey (sic) of self-discovery and self-abuse. In my mind, whole commune, self-actualization thing definitely wasn’t going to be Don’s future, but in true Draper style, he exploited that zeitgeist of the time to make advertising history.
As far as the other characters … several high notes, a few meh notes, but overall, I’m pleased. The finale certainly couldn’t touch the finale of Breaking Bad, but then again, they were totally two different series in premise (though some genius may write an article in the next day or two comparing & contrasting the two series and their finales, showing they were more similar than not — not me).
Bottom line .. I’ll miss the show, but I’m happy it concluded on the note it did.
May 18, 2015 — 11:22 AM
Ally Blue says:
Breaking Bad was perfection from beginning to end. I loved the actual ending of Six Feet Under, though I felt the show itself was starting to sag narratively speaking toward the end of its run. I feel BETRAYED by the finale of Lost. It DESTROYED MY TRUST. Ugh.
As for Mad Men and that jackass Dickie-Don, I sort of wanted him to jump into the damn ocean. Was disappointed when he didn’t. But the end did sort of fit the cynical, bad-guys-win style of the show. IMHO.
May 18, 2015 — 11:27 AM
Robert Sadler says:
Six Feet Under doesn’t get enough love. Great show, great ending.
May 18, 2015 — 12:45 PM
curleyqueue says:
I’ll 3rd that!! Still one of my fave shows ever.
May 18, 2015 — 1:06 PM
allreb says:
I think my reading of the ending was more optimistic than yours. Not that it wasn’t on the nose – it SUPER WAS, like omg WE GET IT – but I took it as Don having a genuine breakthrough. He realizes that what he’s always believed, that you can just move on and forget it and it’s like the past never happened, is not true; and per sad sack blue suit guy he hugs, that the love and respect you wanted was always there and you just didn’t know what it was. So we see Don have a moment, and smile; and he’s there surrounded by hippies, but clearly isn’t really one of them. And per the opening credits, where Silhouette Man falls from grace and gets everything stripped away from him, only to land safely back where he started, so does Don — but now he’s making ads that draw from his *own* emotions, his *own* understanding and feeling of connection, instead of by based on his observations and skills at reading and understanding people as an outsider.
But I will be honest, Don’s journey was, for me, the most boring. I like Mad Men a lot, and the reason I find this show about white patriarchs to be much more interesting than most is because it is about a mad scramble to keep power and maintain the status quo in the midst of a major cultural shift, rather than unquestioningly having a bunch of white dude protagonists. But that’s probably also why I was so much more interested in Peggy, Joan, Sally, and even Betty in those last few episodes.
(Side note: I love Betty. I have always found her to be fascinating and complex – because hey, strong female characters don’t have to be likable or sympathetic, neither of which she was. But she was an excellent character: a woman who was a product of a specific time, class, and race; and pushed into a particular societal role where she was often deeply unhappy, without ever getting the chance to question it or figure out what she actually wanted until it was far, far too late.)
May 18, 2015 — 11:35 AM
golfwriter says:
Screenplay is a different animal. It’s writing by committee, a group of writers, not just one guy sitting at a typewriter. I’ve done it, so I know. This show was scheduled to end a few years before it did end — it was such a hit that the series was extended, so the original ending had to be re-done. Frankly, I think they did a pretty good job with the theme — of crossing over from the 1950s to the Sixties, and everything the Sixties represented. So Dan ends up at Esalan in Big Sur, perfect representation of the freedom of the Sixties. He’s there to redeem himself, to explore who he really is, which is what the Sixties were all about — freedom of expression and Redemption. He changed. First he had to be torn apart, which happened, and then he needed to wake up the Sixties … The theme is good, and well expressed. Those of us who lived through the Fifties and the Sixties understand. That said, the writers did get a little lost, which often happens when too many writers are involved (screenplay). One writer would have done a better job. The theme of Redemption into the Sixties got a little lost through too many writers. But Redemption was what the end was all about, and they stuck to the theme. If the series ended three years ago, as it should have, the meaning would have been more clear. The finale was about cross-over to the new times, not necessarily about tying up loose ends. The Fifties had to die for the Sixties to give birth. I’m quite sure the network execs had this in mind, with a new series about the Sixties coming soon … that’s how execs think, much to the chagrin of the writers …
May 18, 2015 — 11:36 AM
Bran Mydwynter (@mydwynter) says:
Leverage. Leverage, Leverage, Leverage. Best ending of a tv series that I’ve ever seen. It checked off everything on your list, added a few more to it, and checked them off too. I’ve never been so satisfied with an ending before—which is a particularly neat trick since I didn’t want the show to end in the first place.
Recently, Parks and Rec did a lovely job, too. But they did something neat: they spread the ending over the final few episodes, and that allowed them to give every character the time for a wrap up. The writers had the space to give each character…well, if not their heart’ s desire, they had the space to give each character what they never knew they most wanted. One of Parks and Rec’s biggest strengths was that it loved its characters, and this was a perfect way to put that into action.
May 18, 2015 — 11:42 AM
evoletyvaine says:
Leverage! Love me some Elliot. Agree with you about the ending. I wish it had kept going. I still watch the reruns.
May 18, 2015 — 2:05 PM
Elizabeth Poole says:
Leverage yes! Great ending! Tied things up but didn’t pull anything assholeish at the end like series are wont to do. I still watch rewatch it about once a year.
May 18, 2015 — 2:46 PM
Isarine says:
Everything here about Leverage. I almost didn’t want to watch the end because then it’d be over for real, but then it went and did everything so damn perfectly. I didn’t ever expect that show to even be good in the first place, but now it’s one of my favorites. I was actually just thinking it was time for a rewatch.
May 18, 2015 — 7:34 PM
McSpain says:
Six Feet Under still is perfect for me.
May 18, 2015 — 11:44 AM
Terri says:
Sons of Anarchy hit the satisfying emotional trope of “The meaningful sacrifice, freely given.” To satisfy the Shakespearean arc, Jax could not survive the series. Of course, the fans howled. They wanted Jax to go off to the farm and play with the other bikers and the series to go on forever. No.
I do like the current theory in television that shows have an arc and once that arc is done, the show is done. Instead of just dragging it on year after year milking the franchise. Having wacky guest stars, introducing Cousin Oliver, going to Hawaii to solve mysteries, and finally queuing The Fonz up to jump the shark.
Like a book that makes me desperately hope there are more invisible pages at the end, a good finale gives me the feeling that the story continues beyond my field of vision, but the current arc is resolved. The story is done, the characters aren’t.
HBO and other cable networks, in the beginning of the era of the limited series blew it with several promising properties. Instead of giving it the last season to resolve, they got antsy and cancelled too soon, either leaving storylines hanging or forcing writers to hurry through storylines to an abrupt conclusion. The worst offenders were Carnivale, Deadwood, Rome, and Huff (we shall not discuss Firefly – too soon.) I like now how they seem to be committing to 3-5 season runs up front and the writers are narrating to the fixed arc.
One of my favorite novels has the characters loading up to seek a nirvana they used to dream about as children. Now as broken adults, they are going to try and find the haven they need. The last line?
“And perhaps they found it.”
May 18, 2015 — 11:51 AM
Dae says:
I haven’t seen a lot of shows that stuck the landing (mine you, I’m not a *huge* TV watcher), but there are two I can think of that did.
Legend of Korra got off to a shaky start, and the end of Season 1 was truly eyeroll-inducing (they thought it was going to be canceled, so it’s *kind of* understandable, but I still maintain that even had that been the end of the show, they could have handled it a lot better), but it picked up depth and maturity as it went on from there. Its actual finale fits in quite thoroughly with its nature as a show for… well, I wouldn’t say young kids; it’s rather dark for that. But adolescents/young adults. It goes through a very obvious series of final bows for the characters and wraps things up more… cleanly and methodically than would probably be considered appropriate for a show targeted at an adult audience, but it does it very, very well. And if you know anything about the show you almost certainly are aware of the internet-splosion that ensued due to the actual last 30 seconds being damned near perfect in terms of delivering on something that had felt like a promise it was making, but that its fans were afraid to hope would ever be explicitly solidified.
Spartacus (Blood and Sand, Vengeance, and War of the Damned) is one. It’s a loosely-historical show, so there’s one thing you kinda already know about the ending, and into the third season it becomes more obvious because suddenly even the people who aren’t ancient Roman history buffs recognize the antagonists and know they have historical plot armor. What you (or, well, all the people I know who’ve seen it, anyway) spend the series hoping for is that some of the rest of the wonderful ensemble cast get to live and maybe even be kinda happy. The final 2-3 episodes deliver on all fronts: Spartacus has to die, but even though I knew that, it managed to toy with my sense of almost-hope up until the point where he did. Enough other beloved characters die in appropriately dramatic ways over the course of those episodes to twist the knife… and then a few of them live to escape and presumably continue to be free. It’s not a surprising ending at all, but it’s so well-balanced in delivering on its promises versus not being 100% predictable that it doesn’t need to be.
It’s also worth mentioning that I really think both Seasons 1 and 2 finished similarly well, and *that* is particularly rare – good finales for all seasons and the whole show. It’s a wonderful example of a show that knows exactly what it is the whole way through and plays that role to the hilt.
May 18, 2015 — 12:24 PM
curleyqueue says:
Felt the same about Spartacus! Have great respect for that show simply for the fact that they make consistent entertainment despite having to make a prequel season after the initial one, ultimately losing their lead man (SO sad!!) and replacing him, all while contending with the fact that everyone already knew the finale.
May 18, 2015 — 1:14 PM
evoletyvaine says:
My husband and I tried to get into after Andy died. We watched Vengeance and liked it, hoping the whole time that Andy would come back. We tried to like Liam, but we couldn’t. He didn’t look right. To us, Andy embodied Spartacus. He WAS Spartacus and felt no one could take his place. So we stopped watching after the first eppie.
May 18, 2015 — 2:09 PM
Isarine says:
As much as I love the Korra finale and respect and love what they did at the end, I think the finale to Avatar just barely edges it out for me. They wove together so many threads and brought back so many things while still keeping it mature and complex enough for their adult viewers but simple and colorful for the younger ones. Korra was great and they did some things I never expected them to be able to do, but the whole thing felt a bit less planned than Avatar. Both were amazing, though, and great fun, and a standard gift of mine to children and adults alike.
May 18, 2015 — 7:38 PM
Jessica Quest says:
Even though it was a bit rushed, I thought the “series finale” of season 4 of Fringe did pretty much everything I wanted it to do. (They ended up having an extra season that was… very different from the rest of the show, and kind of interesting to watch, but I didn’t like it as much as that season 4 finale.)
Honestly, I think the best told long-form story I ever watched was seasons 1 – 4 and the specials of new Doctor Who. From Doctor Nine to the end of Doctor Ten. Most stuff got wrapped up at the end of season 4, which still makes me cry from JOY when I watch that third act of the last episode, but the real end of the show was “The End of Time Pt. 2” which is probably the most heartbreaking and satisfying ending I have ever seen.
Russell T Davies spoiled the hell out of me with his run on that show, keeping it corny while also giving it an insane amount of heart and truth, I felt.
The only downside of it is I am basically physically unable to watch Moffat’s Who now because it’s so, so, so not the same kind of show it was when RTD wrote it.
May 18, 2015 — 12:30 PM
Robert Sadler says:
Some scattered opinions of finales:
Seinfeld: 6/10
Not as bad as everybody treats it. Of course, not great either.
LOST: 9/10
Loved it. You probably hated it. Divisive as hell.
Sopranos: 9/10
Bloody and open-ended. Just how I like it.
Breaking Bad: 10/10
The only complaint I could even imagine making is that it was a bit too neat in wrapping up the plots. But I’m not making that complaint. Fantastic all-around.
Fringe: 8/10
They didn’t try anything fancy, just gave it the emotional, solid, and character-driven ending it deserved.
Boardwalk Empire: 7/10
Still not completely sure how to feel on this one. Cool twist at the end, but almost felt like it came too quickly with no buildup.
Battlestar Galactica: 6/10
Top notch show that really slacked in the end. But I can’t stay mad at it.
Game of Thrones: 10/10
I absolutely loved the big twist of the finale, putting the least-expected character on the throne. And goddamn, killing off EVERY other character was a hell of a ballsy move.
May 18, 2015 — 12:43 PM
Matt Black says:
Okay I’m going to have to ask… Game of Thrones isn’t over, where did you get that?
BSG I would have given a 4 at best. The series was great but the ending was sooo forced.
Fringe and Breaking Bad I agree with you. I think I’d rank Seinfeld higher but that is just me. I didn’t watch lost or Boardwalk Empire.
BUT 9/10 FOR THE SOPRANOS??? I WOULD GIVE THAT A 2 AT BEST!!! WHAT WAS THAT RESTAURANT THEY WERE IN?? LITERALLY NO CLOSURE ON ANY PLOT THREADS!! HOW COULD YOU GIVE THAT A 9/10???
May 18, 2015 — 1:55 PM
Robert Sadler says:
Concerning GoT, I’m from the future. You’re in for quite a ride.
BSG: I understand your opinion. I might have said “5” on a different day.
Sopranos: With such different scores, there’s no way I’ll convince you it was great, nor vice versa, but I’ll at least give a few sentences in my defense. I actually thought they did a good job of wrapping up certain plot threads while leaving others open for interpretation. In fact, the ambiguous ending and Silvio’s fate are the only big questions left unanswered. I’ve always been a fan of endings with multiple interpretations, and the scene leading to the cut to black gave us that. It had a very surreal feeling, which the show had a habit of sprinkling in from time to time.
I can understand not liking the story’s ending, but the finale was well executed, took risks, and was written with the same top quality as the rest of the series.
Although I really did want to know if Silvio would survive.
May 18, 2015 — 2:44 PM
Matt Black says:
While I do not agree, I do see your point. What you call surreal, in context, I would call awkward and possibly forced, depending on what they were going for, which I still can’t see. Also, many of the threads were ended before the finale. It was a great last season but not a great last episode.
Concerning your futureness, please tell me Josh Boone doesn’t fuck up the “New Mutants” film?!?!?
May 18, 2015 — 3:15 PM
Robert Sadler says:
Oh boy… You may want to sit down for this one
May 18, 2015 — 3:30 PM
authormilligib says:
Okay, so the WORST finales are when the show is expecting to get picked up the next season, but don’t. Prime examples would be two of my husband’s favorite shows, Pretender, and Las Vegas. Now… Las Vegas didn’t go out and make it worse. Pretender on the other hand… Wow. Okay, so four seasons in, they leave us hanging with a subway train gone boom with our hero in it. Or near it. Or something. Fans went ape-shit over it, so they did a two-movie wrap-up. Except they didn’t wrap it up. They left it with, okay, he’s alive, and the Triumverate and MIss Parker are still after him. WTFuck to that. Seriously. You might as well have just left it the way season four ended and left us thinking he was dead. Or had him bring down the company and finally be free. Seriously. If you know you’re ending, END IT. If you get uproar, do a movie or two to tie up the loose ends, and END IT. Sure, leave enough open for a later restart of the show if you can talk networks into it. A little niggle, a string that can still be picked up on later. But for the most part, END IT… okay, I’m done now. But I think Pretender was by far the worst.
May 18, 2015 — 12:49 PM
evoletyvaine says:
OMG, The Pretender!! Thank you!! I loved that show, too!!! Loved, loved, loved Jared.
May 18, 2015 — 2:00 PM
Sebastian from Germany says:
OK. I just bought your eight-book-bundle and instead of reading them to improve my writing, I come back to your blog laughing my ass off! admit it… you planned this all along, you bastard! 🙂
May 18, 2015 — 12:52 PM
Chris Crawford says:
Personally, I think the ending makes perfect sense and completes the story arc. The show starts at the onset of the marketing generation – the ads were more genuine, but Don was not. He’s a sham. Over 7 seasons, Don gradually comes to terms with his true self while the industry embraces falseness. In the last episode he fully faces the reality of his life’s choices and it almost destroys him. His acceptance leads to his greatest success.
Is it a bit contrived? Certainly. Do the other characters get lip service? Sure. It’s not the greatest ending ever, but I’m satisfied with the journey.
Of course, I consider the ending to Lost one of the most satisfying, along with Breaking Bad, M*A*S*H and Newhart.
May 18, 2015 — 1:16 PM
alexis says:
great endings- Friday Night Lights, Breaking Bad and Parenthood
May 18, 2015 — 1:53 PM
Sarah Donaldson says:
It’s hard to write an ending because unless you kill off all the characters, like Six Feet Under did, life goes on. My mom has never liked a Stephen King ending because of this reason.
As for Mad Men I like to think that Don Draper continued in advertising but returned to the retreat every year to get his “mojo” back, was never father of the year but was there for his kids (who are now in their late 50s/early 60s) Don made a lot of money off the Coke ad, retired some years later and after all that drinking morning noon and night still died of natural causes in his late 70s/early 80s.. The End.
As for the most talked about TV ending of last year I’ve said it before and I will say it again although Ted did finally get to how he met their mother each episode of How I Met Your Mother was REALLY more about Ted and Robin’s relationship and Ted getting permission to be with her. He wanted his kids to understand that he loved their mom but Robin was always there for him.
May 18, 2015 — 1:59 PM
evoletyvaine says:
The worst? ANGEL. I was a big fan of that franchise and the way they left it–an epic battle–really pissed me off. I wanted to know who survived. DEXTER – Didn’t understand the ending until I read an article in which it was explained. HEROES – did they save the fucking cheerleader or what? I read that it’s coming back, but I’m sure there’s not going to be an explanation of what happened before. The best? BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER – that seemed fitting, seeing as how the town was sitting on the Hellmouth. DROP DEAD DIVA – I like how Jane and Grayson ended up together in the end, even though it wasn’t in their original bodies.
May 18, 2015 — 2:00 PM
Elizabeth Poole says:
I was going to complain about Angel too. Don’t slack off for an entire season and then throw up a big battle just to fade to black. That’s b.s. Some people said hey that’s real life, evil is always there, but hey this is a story. You start a story, you END a story period.
May 18, 2015 — 2:50 PM
Dianna Gunn says:
I didn’t watch Angel much but I do distinctly remember disliking the ending more than I disliked the ending of Buffy, in spite of not caring about the characters or story line much. I’ve considered rewatching it but I’m really not in the business of disappointing… Rewatching Firefly will be painful enough
May 18, 2015 — 2:56 PM
Hawk Eppler Zindell (@EZ_Hawk) says:
Uhm, they all die horribly OHBVIOUSLAH 😉
I really like the ending to ANGEL, for me it’s a great example of the open ending done right… Throughout the series Angel was always fighting a losing battle (both externally and in his quest for redemption) and the narrative conclusion is him coming to terms with the fight itself being what matters, not the outcome. I dig it.
That said I watched ANGEL years after it aired and was spoiled on the end ahead of time, I may have been a little angrier if I’d been watching it real time.
May 18, 2015 — 5:12 PM
Jax Garren says:
9 times out of 10 (maybe more) I preferred Buffy to Angel, show-wise. However, Angel is quite possibly my favorite series finale of all time, any show ever, and I did watch it real time. I remember blinking at the screen thinking…that’s it? That’s the ending? WTF???? And then breathing for a minute. At which point it all sorted out.
Yes, they probably all die (whatever the later comic books say). But whether or not they survive isn’t the point the ending hit home to me. The whole show is about (As Hawk EZ said) fighting the good fight no matter what. Angel’s entire character revolves around his struggle to stave off the demon inside him and hold onto his soul. From a long-term narrative perspective, being immortal, Angel has only one ultimate ending–he gets killed by something. He can’t die peacefully in his sleep or painfully of a disease or in any other way that we humans all know we’ll eventually go. Either he dies fighting the good fight or it happens in some meaningless way. His most uplifting ultimate ending is to die with his soul, fighting for something that matters.
The finale shows him heading into the trenches, so to speak, and again from a long-term perspective, it doesn’t really matter if he wins or loses. If he loses, he dies a hero with his soul. If he wins, he fights again tomorrow. There is no other ending for him. The episode is titled “Not Fade Away.” Angel can’t fade away. He goes down swinging–probably at a dragon–as he says, “Let’s go to work.” For me, anyway, there’s not really any other way for his story to end.
May 21, 2015 — 12:09 PM
Costa Thunder says:
Chuck, I’d be interested in how you felt about “The Shield” series finale. The crime drama that came on FX. Seven seasons and the ending was borderline perfect. It’s one of my fav shows and I can’t get anyone to watch it. With an average run time of 43 minutes per episode, they let the last episode run out at 70 minutes. it was quite a special end to a series I felt strongly about and could never get anyone to watch.
Hope you are well!
May 18, 2015 — 2:04 PM
terribleminds says:
At the time, the SHIELD ending sat uncomfortably with me — but over time, I kinda got it, and came to really love it.
May 18, 2015 — 2:17 PM
Tom Bither says:
This year, Justified did a very good job with their finale, giving the closure we were looking for.
Going back, Babylon 5’s series finale was very appropriate and, like Justified, gave the closure we would expect from a series finale.
Then, you sometimes get the show that doesn’t know it’s going to be ending, but what turns out to be the finale is much stronger because of that. Blakes 7 was a good example of this.
May 18, 2015 — 3:11 PM
Matt Black says:
I’d hate to bring this one up, but “Quantum Leap” had one of the best endings ever.
May 18, 2015 — 3:16 PM
Mark Gardner says:
Yeah, Quantum Leap did have a great ending, then again, I would say seasons 3 & 4 also had great season finales. I for one was glad they brought back all those characters for the series finale, and the story couldn’t’ve ended any other way.
May 19, 2015 — 2:14 PM
Nick says:
Wait…A…Second!!! V.I.C.I. HAD AN EVIL TWIN?! Thanks for the spoiler warning Chuck!
All joking aside:
Best: quantum leap- sad but fitting.
Runner up best: Boston legal- tied up pretty much everything and left one wondering a little.
Worst: Star Trek enterprise- they reduced the finale to a damn holo deck episode and it didn’t even get a two hour send off either (the last season of shows leading up to the series ending were great, deserved better).
Runner up worst: x-files- it basically summed up everything Chris Carter was improvising the whole time. Granted the show should have ended at the end of 7. The only good thing was if one was confused with the show’s mythology, one could just watch the series finale.
May 18, 2015 — 4:37 PM
Matt Black says:
Oh damn I forgot Boston Legal… truly excellent finale.
May 18, 2015 — 5:00 PM
Sandra Lindsey says:
Since you mentioned Frank Underwood, have you seen the original UK dramatisation? Have you read the book? They have almost opposite endings. I read the book first & knew the TV series was different because the author said so in the foreword to To Play The King (the weakest of the three stories, imo) but I wasn’t especially keen on the book-ending. The TV series end rather blew me away. Total cynicism and utterly fitting.
May 18, 2015 — 4:50 PM
Jeffrey Howe says:
The Prisoner (the original, not the attempt at a remake), “Fall Out” (and its setup episode, “Once Upon a Time”). Because all you need is dru…er, love.
May 18, 2015 — 6:04 PM
Ivan Askwith says:
Not sure if someone else already pointed this out up there in the thread — and it’s not a statement on whether the ending WAS, in fact, satisfying… just an observation on one point you raised:
You note that “The show’s been promising us from the very beginning that this will be Dickie-Don’s fall from grace. His climb to the top and his subsequent tumble — it’s telegraphed even in the credits sequence at the fore of every episode. It is, in a way, a promise.”
Which is totally true. And yet, the ENDING that is telegraphed in that opening sequence is that, despite that perilous fall, he will always end up confidently back in that chair, drink in hand, seemingly unruffled. And so, perhaps the insinuation was always there that Don is someone who goes through things but isn’t changed by them, no matter how dire?
Certainly one of Weiner’s pet theses seems to be that people don’t REALLY change in sustained, sustainable ways.
May 18, 2015 — 6:04 PM
filmschrott says:
Imho there will never be a better ending than Six Feet Under. But one should not forget, that every story is different and not every ending fits to every story. A Six feet Under ending was just perfect for the show Six feet Under, but it would have never worked with, lets say, Breaking Bad.
Recently I really liked the ending of Parks & Recreation. I think, they really kept the tone of the show, but also managed to give every character a good ending, which is even harder, when its a comedy, I think. But this worked just great for me.
Worst finales in the last years have to be Dexter and Sons Of Anarchy. But the shows both became crappy long before the last episode.
And I really hated the 24 ending. Yeah, I know, they wanted to make a movie and therefore kept the ending open, but I don’t care. When a show ends, I want an ending of the story and an ending for the characters. When they’re planning to make a movie, or a new season a few years later, or whatever, they should come up with a new story instead of keeping everything open, so they mabe can continue years later.
May 18, 2015 — 6:07 PM
Kyoko says:
I unfortunately just witnessed the all time worst series finale that I’ve witnessed, which was for FX’s Justified. It was so utterly horrible I devoted an entire blog post discussing exactly what you, dear Chuck, so eloquently said about what an ending needs to do, why it needs to do it, and how it can impact the way you feel about the rest of the series. (Seen here: http://shewhowritesmonsters.com/cautionary-tale/) The Justified finale was an insult. It was so clear that the writers got the series greenlit one whole season past where they still had story ideas and character arcs, so they just shit the bed completely and everyone’s ending was a disappointment.
I have to say off the top of my head, the best series finale I can recall is Parks and Recreation. That entire finale season was just top notch. It was so sweet and funny and everyone’s future played out in hilarious, surprising, but understandable ways. (Minor note: I found Ann and Chris to be the two least funniest people, aside from Tom but he’s MEANT to be annoying so I guess he doesn’t count, and they are absent the final season and I personally think that was what made everything click so well. But your mileage may vary.) I even got a little choked up in the last episode. The show took a while to find its footing, but once it did, it was an absolutely wonderful show and they took their time writing an ending that was satisfying as hell.
Couldn’t love this post more. Endings are HAAAAAAAAAAAAARD. I just ended my premiere urban fantasy series (the main novels, anyway, I plan on doing short stories and novellas somewhere down the line because I love my babies and also my main villain Belial is apparently a big hit with the ladies) and it took me well over eight months because there was just so much to consider in terms of threads to tie off or snip or connect to other threads and how to wrap it all up without forcing anything down the readers’ throats. I learned a lot while writing it, and I will carry that into my future works.
May 18, 2015 — 7:21 PM
marlanesque says:
I liked it.
What we witnessed was a sort of suicide over the last couple of episodes, the suicide of Don Draper and the rebirth of Dickie Whitman. Don said his farewells, shed his skin, realized that he actually hates what he’s become and even the victories were hollow because, well, they weren’t really his victories. That last phone call where he says goodbye to Peggy was, in my mind, an actual suicide. It wa sa mental cliff jump for Don. He was letting go of everything Don and letting Dickie come back, the very persona he’d tried so hard to bury for the last decade or so.
And maybe your wife is right. Maybe he does take the new age guru thing to the next level. Either way, I think he’ll be doing it as Dick and not Don.
My $0.02
May 18, 2015 — 8:57 PM
Loretta Hendy (@Vellarb1) says:
Seinfeld last episode was too dark in contrast to the lightheartedness of the entire series. i love the dark but i dont like being be plunged into it without warning. It kind of left me feeling more fucked up than i normally do (if that is at all possible?)
May 18, 2015 — 9:41 PM
cat says:
Same Feeling.
May 19, 2015 — 6:21 AM
Sophie Renee' says:
I’m not sure if anyone mentioned this, but I thought one of the TV shows that did a successful job with their finale was Battlestar Galactica (Reimagined series). The build up was phenomenal, there were a few questions that were never answered, and you got to see a conclusion to the story. To this day, people are still asking, “What was Starbuck?” To me, that means they were spot on with the way they ended things. I struggle with endings, personally. It isn’t that I don’t know where to stop, but I panic near the end and suddenly everything is rushed. It’s something I’m working on.
May 19, 2015 — 9:39 AM
Emma says:
My least favourite finale has to be the How I Met Your Mother one as it just felt as if they’d reversed nine years worth of character development to bring everyone back to the pilot episode. It was as if the whole purpose of the show was a lie and I just felt so cheated.
May 19, 2015 — 11:56 AM
Sandra Lindsey says:
Took me until halfway through today to remember but: best ending ever is in Blackadder Goes Forth. It’s so good the series is (or at least used to be) used in history lessons in the UK…
May 19, 2015 — 12:40 PM
samhawkewrites says:
God that’s a devastating ending. But the show knew how to slip effortlessly from humour to incredible sadness. So great.
June 1, 2015 — 6:15 AM
Millie Ho says:
Walter White’s conclusion, while a little too perfect, was well-deserved and appropriate for the context of the show. But you’re right: there needs to be less fall-and-get-back-up-again consequences and less run-of-the-mill protagonists. I’m fine with TV shows NOT having a resolution, but there must be closure. The viewers should be rewarded for their attention by feeling like they’ve achieved something.
TV writers should take more risks and go where the pain is.
May 19, 2015 — 4:26 PM