The final episodes of fan favorite TV shows tend to be emotional, from sadness, to a sense
of closure, and even to anger over things not panning out quite as audiences may have
expected.
In the case of these shows, though, the major feeling most fans got after watching their
final moments was total confusion.
Here are some TV show endings that required a little unpacking.
The Sopranos
Perhaps the most perplexing TV finale of all time, The Sopranos' final scene is still nothing
short of confounding.
Throughout the last season, fans picked apart every episode, theorizing about how the story
of mafia boss Tony Soprano would conclude, but chances are, nobody saw this coming.
In the final moments, the show's anti-hero and his family are shown sitting at a diner,
listening to Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'," before Tony notices a man looking around the
diner and….
"Don't stop..."
The quickfire curtaining was so abrupt that many viewers thought something went wrong
with their cable feed, and when they realized it wasn't a technical error, they were fuming
even more.
According to series creator David Chase, the ending was meant to imply that Tony would
always be paranoid, and that endings for guys like him usually come out of nowhere like
this.
But it's taken fans years of dissection to draw their own conclusions about Tony's ultimate
fate, and even still, not everyone's convinced it was conclusive.
It was a huge letdown for what was otherwise a legendary series.
Roseanne
For eight seasons, Roseanne brought the midwestern blue collar life to light by way of the Conner
family.
From their consistent money troubles to their kids' disappointing decisions, the sitcom
series was underscored by some relatable drama that carried it for nearly a decade without
issue.
But then in the ninth and once-final season, the Connors came into some serious dough after
winning the lottery, and the show went completely off the rails.
The last run quickly turned into some Beverly Hillbillies redux that featured Dan having
an affair, Darlene delivering a premature baby, and a massive last-minute twist that
basically erased it all.
In the final moments, we find out the whole series was a book written by Roseanne.
But she's taken some creative liberties to cope with and escape her harsh realities.
Notably, Dan hadn't had an affair…because he'd died from a heart attack years before.
And as a result of that switcheroo, she proceeds to explain that much of the events seen on
the show never happened, like who her kids actually married.
The wonky ending was not well-received, and with a Roseanne revival en route for 2018,
we can probably count on that backtracking to take another drastic turn as John Goodman
is reprising his role for the new series.
As far as we know, he's not expected to return as some zombie, no matter how much the Conner
family loved their Halloween tricks.
"Let me look at you, you're gonna need stitches.
AHHH!"
So, chances are, the finale will get swept under the rug altogether by the time the new
series launches.
Battlestar Galactica
With Battlestar Galactica, the Syfy channel took the classic, 1970s show about space hippies
and turned it into a gritty story about the last humans trying to survive in outer space.
The show featured humans that were from another galaxy, venturing out into space looking for
the lost human colony of Earth to make a new home there.
In the last season, they finally find the third rock from the sun, but it's a nuclear
wasteland and everyone is dead.
The confusion sets in when we see Kara "Starbuck" Thrace return from the dead under mysterious
circumstances to usher them into their new dwelling.
She'd seemingly passed away in the prior season, so her ill-explained revival was a head-scratcher
indeed.
But then things got even more inexplicable when, in the finale, she is shown saying goodbye
to Apollo before disappearing into the wind.
"I'm done here.
I've completed my journey."
Executive producer Ron Moore tried to explain that Starbuck had been brought back to life
by a higher power to lead the humans to Earth, but real-life Earthlings were left stunned
by the bizarre stunt.
Hannibal
Bryan Fuller's stylish horror series took the idea of a cliffhanger literally.
The show's murderous cannibal Hannibal Lecter and FBI profiler Will Graham culminate their
twisted, series-long game of cat and mouse with a brutal combat at the edge of a cliff,
at which point they both fall off into the sea … and that's it.
We're left to wonder whether anyone survived the fall, and the question mark about that
prospect is even furthered by the Season 3 post-credits scene.
In it, Hannibal's enabler psychiatrist Bedelia is shown waiting at a dinner table with two
empty place settings, and her own severed leg ready to be served.
Kinda makes you hungry for more, no?
Angel
When this spinoff of Buffy the Vampire Slayer debuted in 1999, it was about vampire Angel's
small Los Angeles private detective agency.
By the end of the fifth season, however, the show had evolved into a story of a grand war
between good and evil, in which Angel and his cohorts were determined to destroy the
wicked Circle of the Black Thorn.
The final shots of the series finale show Angel and the good guys heading into a battle
against a massive army—just as the episode ends.
Ending in the beginning of a battle is certainly an understandable point of confusion, but
co-creator Joss Whedon told TV Guide that the final scene of the series demonstrates
the notion that the war between good and evil is never over, saying,
"The point of the show is that you're never done.
No matter who goes down, the fight goes on."
And so does the fan quest for a sense of closure …
"Then let's make 'em memorable."
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