So, Game of Thrones has just ended and if you haven’t heard the ending then hell, you’d better stay waaaaay off the socials. In fact, what are you even doing here?
And it’s fair to say that absolutely everyone viewing GoT will think “yep, that was a satisfying ending about which I have nothing to say. I have nothing to add to that.”
Yet this wasn’t the case with certain other programmes. For example:
(Spoilers for a bunch of very old shows, obviously.)
Oh, and The Empire Strikes Back. Sorry.
5. Breaking Bad
There’s a fan theory that the “true” end of Breaking Bad came with Walt freezing to death in his car in the third-to-last episode and then the rest of the series was his revenge fantasy, which might explain things like the remote-control robot machine gun car which was something of a thematic change of pace for a chemist – but an excitingly dark direction for a future episode of ABC Kids show Rusty Rivets!
4. Seinfeld
I’ll defend the ending on exactly one ground: the idea that the show about nothing would end with the characters being jailed for doing nothing at least has thematic weight – and, as it turned out, also zero comedic value. Mind you, as episodes where you go “oh, that guy, I remember that guy” goes, it’s certainly got a lot of those guys in it.
Better ending: this for 46 minutes plus ads.
3. How I Met Your Mother
The show’s entire premise was building up to the big reveal of the mother of the kids being told what were, in retrospect, incredibly inappropriate information about their father’s sex life. Honest to god, do you want to know that sort of stuff about your parents? Or how horribly sexist your beloved Uncle Barney is? What the hell is wrong with you. Moseby?
Anyway: the reveal that it was a lovely woman who… um, died suddenly and was replaced by your dad’s best friend/on-again-off-again girlfriend/the aforementioned Uncle Barney’s ex-wife? That’s just cruel.
2. Lost
This escapes being number one not because there was anything to be said for the “surprise! You know all those mysteries we were apparently setting up? Forget ’em, because the characters were all in purgatory, or something!” ending, but because it was at least clear for a while that the writers had no goddamn idea where they were going with the story and were just admitting defeat.
In short, it was juuuuuuust slightly less horrific than “…and it was all a dream!” or “…and then they became lumberjacks in Oregon!”
Speaking of which…
“Man, I love wood. Love to do something with wood. Anyway, back to this murder.”
1. Dexter
What. The. Actual. Hell?
The serial killer that kills those that deserve it seems like he’s going to get his comeuppance and then… his beloved sister gets shot, he takes her off life support, and then steers a boat into a hurricane from whence he emerges as a lumberjack in the Pacific Northwest. Honestly, as a species we need to swap out “jumped the shark” with “went beardy in Oregon”.
What, so we’re meant to assume that Dex is about to go off into the mountains and get all Twin Peaks in the…
…actually, that would be amazing, we’d watch the hell out of that. Proceed, television.