You know how it is. You spend a large chunk of your life religiously following a show, knowing that it has to end at some point or another. The end finally arrives, and like the feeling that comes with finishing a good book, there is an unmistakable hole left in your heart that lingers over the next few days until you set your sights on a new distraction. You might also write a few tweets at the show’s creator, or, if it were 10 years ago, an angry letter to the network that you never send.
The series finale of Seinfeld aired 19 years ago on May 14. It stands as one of the most widely-discussed series finales of all-time. On that note, here is a list of series finales that really irked fans.
***huge spoilers ahead, proceed with caution.
Seinfeld
How does one end a show about nothing? While a lot of people hate on Seinfeld’s series finale, there doesn’t seem to be any good suggestions for how the show should have ended. We’re talking about a show that completely disregarded consistency. In thinking this through, maybe throwing everyone in jail at the end of the series was the perfect ending.
How I Met Your Mother
People were pissed when the finale of HIMYM decided to flash forward and reveal that the mother, who we waited nine seasons to meet, was actually dead. The entire point of the show, the whole reason we watched it, the literal title of the show, was all a lie. Thanks, CBS.
True Blood
Seasons one and two of True Blood were amazing — easily one of the best first seasons of a show to air ever. Somehow, though, the show was thrown completely out the window sometime in the midst of the third season, yet still managed to continue for another five cringy seasons (that, let’s face it, we devoured right until the very end).
The show’s finale was just as cringy, with the only characters that were actually still good nowhere to be seen (Eric, Pam, Lafayette) and Bill was unnecessarily killed off. The worst part? The final scene, with the crew having dinner together and Sookie Stackhouse pregnant and married to some random new guy. True.
Dexter
What can we even say about Dexter’s finale? Dexter becomes a lumberjack. If that doesn’t answer your endless questions about one of TV’s most complex serial killers then I don’t know what will.
Lost
Surprise! Everything in that episode you just watched wasn’t actually real! As Lost, the show about a group of plane crash survivors stranded on an unknown island, decided to waste our time with “flash-sideways” of the show’s characters in heaven and answered a total of zero questions.
Gossip Girl
Surprise: the two couples that probably shouldn’t be together, Blair and Chuck and Serena and Dan, all get hitched. The real surprise, though, was that Kristen Bell is actually Dan Humphrey….kidding, but not really. The omnipresent Gossip Girl was actually revealed to be Dan, though. The whole time, Dan, the writer and Serena’s main love interest, was the XoXo signing, Kristen Bell sounding Gossip Girl. The sad part is, in hindsight, the ridiculous plot twist actually, sort of makes sense. I guess. Sigh.
The Sopranos
Although many would agree that in terms of a television series ending, The Sopranos finale was brilliant on many levels, it did leave a million questions lingering for its viewers. Like, basically, everything. The underlying theme of the series was Tony’s intense fear of being “whacked,” and instead of giving us a resolution, the camera went black right before anything could happen. Not to mention it cut to nothing right in the middle of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’,” which is extremely unsatisfying in its own right. In one sense, this could be the perfect ending, while in another sense, it’s frustrating as hell.
Two and a Half Men
At a time when Charlie Sheen was getting a lot of real life press outside of the show, which included Sheen bad-talking creator Chuck Lorre, Lorre thought it was a good idea to end the show with a bunch of immature jabs at Sheen. The final scene, which featured a piano falling on Sheen and Lorre saying “winning” at the camera before a piano falls on his head, was suitable for that moment in time, however, future generations watching the show will have to do a lot of research to understand even a pinch of that finale. It also sparks the question: if there’s no laugh track, is it still funny?
My So-Called Life
This probably shouldn’t even be on this list because My So-Called Life‘s season finale wasn’t meant to be a series finale, but oh well. The final episode of this show is both beautiful and endlessly frustrating, considering the fact that it ends with Angela driving off in a car with Jordan Catalano, even though her best friend Brian wrote the apology letter from Jordan. The most frustrating part is that the show ended after one season, so we will never see if Brian gets his moment.
