The Most Shocking Season Finale Ever!!!
Ok, we’re in full season finale mode and some shows are really ratcheting up the drama. Even comedies are bringing in cliff hangers and surprise endings to get you drooling over next season’s episodes. Some season finales are so good and cliff hangery that they become famous, like Dallas’s “Who Shot JR” episode. Some, on the other hand, just suck. Some are both famous and sucky.
So far, I have seen Justified, How I Met Your Mother, Community and Hawaii Five-0. Those were all good finales, but the only one that truly shocked me was H50. Truly. Shocking. I tell ya. (And it didn’t even involve P. Diddy).
So let’s hear about the ones you are watching this season. What finales have entertained, shocked or disappointed you and why? Which ones didn’t seem like a finale, but only a minale (you know, like a mini-finale)?
Note: I have purposely left out spoilers in this post, so if you are going to include spoilers in your comment PLEASE NOTIFY EVERYONE IN CAPS.
Posted on May 17, 2011, in Pop Culture, Television and tagged Season Finales. Bookmark the permalink. 29 Comments.
Steve Evans
RJH
Scott B.
John C.
Susan M
Aaron Brown
ninemoons
arandomjohn
kulturblogadmin
Kyle M
Brad
KulturBlogGuest
MCQ
Wm
Rebecca
Ivan
Geoff J
btdgreg
Clark Goble
Aaron R.
Tim J
Ben
(Trying to be vague enough here.)
Castle has an AMAZING finale. Full of emotions, “quest” solving and some shocking twists. The very last few minutes of the show have a very welcome “Well, finally!” moment followed by anguish. It will be interesting to see what happens next season.
I’m a huge fan of Chuck, but the finale didn’t blow me away. It seemed to lean more towards the emotional, too, with some nice action moments. The final minute had a nice homage to the last season finale, but I was sure it was going to happen to a different person.
We’ll be watching the H50 finale tonight. Can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic about the shocking or not. Hard to imagine, especially considering the way they resolved Danno’s poisoning so quickly last episode.
No sarcasm at all intended, FHL. It is truly an over the top shocker. This would never have happened in a million years on the original H50. It’s like if they burned down the hospital on ER.
Nothing will top the season finale and end of show finale of Twin Peaks. *** SPOILER *** Agent Cooper is possessed by the demon Bob and half the characters end up blown up. Wow.
Castle is such a terrible show that would have been cancelled after only 3 episodes were it not for Nathan Fillion and some extremely forced sexual tension. I could do an entire post on the ridiculousness of the Smart Bomb episode alone.
er, dirty bomb…
The second season finale of Breaking Bad was one of the best season finales ever. The third season finale of Breaking Bad was also amazing.
Chuck felt like a “we’re not sure if we’re coming back or not” kind of ending. It was a little sappy. Wonder how many seasons they’ll end with a wedding.
The season finale for Fringe was pretty awesome in a confusing, game-changing way. I’m really wondering where they’re taking the show now.
Clark, we’re talking about this season, not twenty seasons ago.
Castle is pretty silly, but it’s not intended to be a serious police show, it’s intended to be a romantic dramedy in a police setting. With that in mind, it works, mainly because the two leads do a pretty good job (mostly Fillion). But it’s still not nearly as good as anything else Fillion’s been in. I want Firefly back, and I want more of Captain Hammer.
I just watched the season finale and it is totally shocking, in at least two ways, but you just know one of those ways is going to end up being not true.
But it still doesn’t beat H50.
You know, now that I think about it, I watch Castle mainly because my daughter likes it, and because Stana Katic is ragingly hot. So I guess it doesn’t have much to do with Fillion after all.
The Fringe finale was great, and a really cool way of answering some season-long questions while simultaneously introducing a new set of problems. The show’s producers have learned a major lesson from the problems experienced by similar shows like X-Files and Lost: you can’t keep dangling some mysteries over the viewers heads, unanswered, year after year. At some point, you have to answer some of the bigger questions, even if you introduce new ones to ponder. Fringe has achieved this balance quite well over the last three years.
MCQ, Fillion carries the show whether that’s the reason you watch or not. A less engaging lead actor would have doomed the show.
About 1/3 of the way into the Dirty Bomb episode, I turned to my wife and told her that Beckett and Castle would be the ones to find the bomb and Castle would be the one to diffuse it. My wife said there’s no way that would ever happen.
MCQ, I know. But I’m still weeks behind in my viewing. I didn’t even know Fringe had its finale. (It’s staying on Fridays, btw – and Chuck is moving to the Friday death spot although honestly no one expected it to be renewed)
Actually let me add one even though I’m *way* behind in my viewing. I heard the finale to House was shocking. (*** SPOILER FROM SOMEONE WHO ACTUALLY HASN’T WATCHED IT YET AND JUST FOUND OUT THAT HOUSE IS BACK ON DRUGS ***)
So apparently Cuddy got fired from the hospital and the actress is leaving the show. This is a good thing, if true. For one the sexual tension was always a bit unbelievable. Further this season was HORRIBLE. Poorly written in so, so many ways. Also many of us always wondered how financially House’s actions could be justified. (See this Yglesias post on his thoughts)
Clark, that post was written by a woman.
You keep saying how horrible the writing has been on house this season, but I’ve been watching it off and on and I just don’t see it. It hasn’t been as good this season as in the past, but I think that’s mainly because they blew it by having House and Cuddy get together. That ruined the subplot about their sexual tension, which was part of what made the show good.
It’s the same dilemma every show faces where there is sexual tension between two of the characters. You can’t string the relationship out forever without having them get together, but as soon as they do, it ruins the plot.
Other than that, the writing has been fine. I was glad to see 13 come back.
Also, I watched the season finale of Chuck last night and was underwhelmed.
SPOILER ALERT:
There’s another show that went downhill when two of the leads got together. Now they’re married, and the intersect has changed hands again. I just don’t see how they’re going to keep it entertaining going forward.
So is someone going to spoil the H50 finale for those of us that gave up on the show months ago?
No! Watch it dammit! It’s been a good season, but the last few episodes are awesome.
It wouldn’t really help to tell you what happened because you have to have seen enough episodes to know who Wo Fat is and what’s been happening with the envelopes being delivered to McGarret every week.
But here’s one quote from Chin Ho (Daniel Dae Kim) to Danno at the end of the episode: SPOILER ALERT:
“There is no Five-0 anymore.”
The H50 finale was pretty final. Felt more like an episode of 24 where someone destroys CTU. (Jean Smart may have added to that.)
My wife and I were left with one dangling question: Couldn’t Danny just pick up a cell phone and call Rachel?
Regarding Chuck: it’s been picked up for a 5th and final season, 13 episodes, and yes, moving to Friday nights. (Why don’t they ALL put on the sunglasses?)
Also underwhelming: the Good Wife finale. (Except: more Eli next season, I’ll sign up for that!)
I know, none of you watch SVU, but that finale ended with a bang.
Hope Modern Family outdoes itself again this year. =)
finally catching up…
30 Rock finale was lame. Hour long episode was lame as well. However, the second to last episode was amazing: “Oh, Invictus. Who was the white guy in that?” Plus the Condi cameo…
Castle is fine but it makes me wish for more Firefly. Which is probably why he never gets to use a gun. If Castle were running around shooting people I think a spaceship might spontaneously appear in the show.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q3pdj9p6yI&w=560&h=349
MCQ (14), I didn’t realize Yglesias had other people writing on his blog. I just saw it there and assumed he’d written it.
As for bad writing, I’d just compare say the first few episodes of last year with some of the stuff going on this year. They tried to get creative (say House sitting at the school). But they were just horribly written. In some cases the direction was bad too but often the directors are trying to do the best they could with what they had. Throw in an inexplicable thread about adultery with one of the least sympathetic characters (House is an unsympathetic character we sympathize with) and you just have a very disappointing season. The writing decisions about how to deal with House and Cuddy were just bad as well. (Although I did like how the toothbrush incident was the catalyst for everything) But the dialog was much worse this year than previous years, the plots were much worse, and… Well I better just stop.
I think it bugs me because I used to love this show. This season I’ve almost stopped watching several times. It’s not just the Moonlighting effect. Everything about this season was just poorly written. Maybe the Moonlighting effect was made worse simply because it was hard to buy the relationship as really working. (And fortunately they saw that too)
13 is back? I’ve not gotten that far yet. I assumed she would since they never removed her name from the credits. I assumed she was just taking a break with her many movie projects.
FHL (18) Final? CTU got destroyed nearly every season in 24.
Chuck is just tired. Always the same thing. They’ve worked through everyone and their dog now…
Fringe was very good. That and Castle are the only two shows my wife will stand to watch, and we liked the finale to that too, though the cliff-hanger isn’t much of one.
The season finale for The Mentalist last night was awesome. I’m probably the only person around here who watches that show. Or least the only one who watches it just to laugh at it. Awesome, I tell you.
Susan M, you have company. I watch The Mentalist also.
I also watch it for the humor. I can’t stand (and therefore do watch) ANYTHING with a laugh track, so The Mentalist passes for comedy in my TV viewing. I thought the Finale was great. It ended the Red John plot line (mostly) which was getting ponderous just in time. Great semi-cliffhanger, too. I’m actually looking forward to next season.
I was so pleased when I saw who was playing Red John, I thought, wow, this is going to be fun! But, then… Well, so much for that. Maybe Jane will go White Collar, or something. I don’t know how they’re going to resolve that.
They’ll probably do something stupid and have it not actually be Red John. So awesome how a serial killer has all these minions in high places helping him out.
Steve, I just watched the return of 13 and then the loss of the intern on House. (Yeah, I’m still way behind) I have to admit both of those were very well written and directed. A distinct step up from most of this season and on par with previous seasons.
I think you mean me, Clark. I’m glad you liked those episodes. They’re really closing the season out with a bang on that show.
Loved the finale to Cougar Town, which completed the joke started a couple of months ago on Community. At Abed’s birthday dinner he staged a “My Dinner with Andre” meal with Jeff and described his experience being an extra on the set of Cougar Town. At the time it was played up as a big fiction on Abed’s part, but on last night’s Cougar Town, there he was, drinking coffee in the background while Laurie and Travis talked. Brilliant!
I totally forgot about that. I wondered why he was in that scene, but didn’t remember that episode of Community. Very cool.