It's almost inevitable that some cast members will leave a TV show well before its conclusion,
but thankfully plenty of them also make time to return for the conclusion.
But then are those huge stars, like the following, who just couldn't make it back for the series
finale.
The Showtime family dramedy Shameless featured a sprawling cast over the course of its 11
seasons, but it was primarily the story of Fiona Gallagher.
The eldest Gallagher sibling, she served as the de facto matriarch, responsible for making
sure that the lights stayed on and that her brothers and sisters were fed and stayed mostly
out of trouble.
For nine seasons, Emmy Rossum played Fiona as she hustled to pull herself out of poverty,
or at least to see more of the world beyond Chicago's South Side.
And in 2018, she did, heading out for parts unknown and leaving a financial windfall with
her siblings.
That plot development came to pass because Rossum decided that it was time for her to
leave the show.
Shameless continued for two more seasons without her, wrapping up in April 2021 with an event-packed
finale that included celebrations and a major death.
But Fiona wasn't there to see any of it.
Producer John Wells told The Hollywood Reporter that they actually did want Rossum to return,
but alas, COVID-19 lockdowns prevented her from traveling from her New York home to the
series' Los Angeles set.
In 2010, Charlie Sheen was earning $1.8 million an episode playing proudly debased jingle
writer Charlie Harper on the CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men.
But then in 2011, he departed the smash show after a dizzying series of events that included
a days-long Las Vegas party with an adult film star, a stay in rehab, and some ill-advised
comments about Two and a Half Men creator Chuck Lorre.
CBS ended the eighth season of the show early, firing Sheen and replacing him with Ashton
Kutcher.
Four years later, as Two and a Half Men was wrapping up its 12-season run, Lorre invited
Sheen to return for the series finale, but it didn't quite work out.
In the production company vanity card at the end of the episode, Lorre described his plan:
"Our idea was to have him walk up to the front door in the last scene, ring the doorbell,
then turn, look directly into the camera and go off on a magical rant about the dangers
of drug abuse [...] And then we would drop a piano on him.
We thought it was funny.
He didn't."
And so, the show instead hired a Sheen look-alike and shot him from behind as he was crushed
to death by a piano.
In the spirit of fairness, Lorre also got crushed by a piano.
"Winning."
The NBC sitcom Community forever struggled in the ratings, but it was a critically-acclaimed
show that pushed the boundaries of what TV comedy could do.
It made stars out of several cast members, including Donald Glover.
After his time playing washed-up high school football star-turned-community college goofball
Troy Barnes, Glover evolved into a versatile and prolific artist.
He created and starred on the Emmy-winning FX series Atlanta, he played a young Lando
Calrissian in Solo: A Star Wars Story, and he's won Grammys as his musical alter ego
Childish Gambino.
Glover has clearly had plenty on his plate, which explains why he left Community midway
through its fifth season in 2014, as Troy departed on a sailing trip around the world
with LeVar Burton.
Soon after Glover left, NBC cancelled the show, only for Yahoo!
Screen to pick it up for a sixth season, but Glover wasn't a part of that.
He later addressed his absence during a 2016 Television Critics Association event, as he
explained,
"I just like endings [...] It's important that things end.
I'm glad things end because it forces things to progress."
"Cool.
Clone hug?"
The ABC sitcom Home Improvement dominated the ratings throughout the 90s.
Adults tuned in for Tim Allen's macho and self-deprecating humor, while the younger
crowd was there for teen idol Jonathan Taylor Thomas, who played sarcastic middle brother
Randy Taylor . Alas, Thomas broke plenty of hearts when he abruptly left the show in 1998.
As he later told People Magazine,
"I'd been going nonstop since I was eight years old.
I wanted to go to school, to travel and have a bit of a break."
Thomas enrolled at Harvard University, where he studied history and philosophy, but he
didn't leave acting behind completely, as he also shot a couple of movies.
That really upset his TV dad Tim Allen, who told TV Guide,
"He said it was about going to school, but then he did some films.
Did he want to do films?
Did he want to go to school?"
Thomas returned to Home Improvement for a 1998 Christmas episode, during which Allen
mentioned that he was confused about why he left.
Multiple attempts were made to get Thomas to appear in the finale a few months later,
but he opted to skip it.
John Travolta has been a major Hollywood star for more than four decades, but it all started
with a little high school sitcom called Welcome Back, Kotter, on which he played dimbulb self-styled
ladies' man Vinnie Barbarino.
Soon after the show's 1975 debut, he was recording music and starring in hit movies like Grease
and Saturday Night Fever.
After those back-to-back blockbusters, Travolta could've understandably left Welcome Back,
Kotter to pursue a film career full-time.
But he hesitated because of the example of Farrah Fawcett, who had tried and failed to
do just that after departing Charlie's Angels.
"I got the memo pretty quickly that if you become big from this TV series, don't leave
it."
But when Welcome Back, Kotter's fourth season rolled around, Travolta appeared less and
less frequently.
He was last seen in a February 1979 episode, and he didn't return for the finale a few
months later.
The Cosby Show was a warm and easy-going sitcom about the Huxtables, a well-off New York City
family presided over by obstetrician dad Cliff and lawyer mom Clair.
While the main draw for many of the show's millions of viewers was surely Bill Cosby
as Cliff, Lisa Bonet brought in her own sizable fanbase as bohemian Huxtable daughter Denise.
She proved so popular with younger viewers that she got her own spinoff in 1987: A Different
World, which sent Denise off to school at the hip and happening Hillman College.
But after just one season, Bonet left the show after becoming pregnant.
She'd later return to The Cosby Show, with Denise marrying a Marine and moving back into
the family brownstone, only to depart the series again near the end of Season 7 in 1991.
She was reportedly fired for so-called "creative differences" and was simply not asked to come
back for the series finale in 1992.
When Cosby was accused of multiple assaults decades later, Bonet wasn't surprised.
As she told Net-A-Porter in 2018,
"There was no knowledge on my part about his specific actions, but ... There was just energy.
And that type of sinister, shadow energy cannot be concealed."
When it premiered on ABC in the fall of 2004, Desperate Housewives was pretty much the hottest
show on TV.
It depicted a wealthy suburban street where a tawdry web of scandal lay just below the
calm surface, and it went down easy with plenty of dark humor.
A lot of that lightness was thanks to soap opera veteran Nicolette Sheridan, who played
deliciously wicked neighbor Edie Britt.
In the fifth season, Edie received her comeuppance, as she crashed her car into an electric pole
and then got electrocuted to death when she stepped in a puddle.
Sheridan wasn't pleased with her exit from the series, as she sued ABC and Desperate
Housewives creator Marc Cherry for $20 million, alleging wrongful termination.
That suit stretched on for years, with a judge ultimately dismissing it in 2013.
"I felt so alone in my fight against the machine."
While the feud waged, the show ended its run in the spring of 2012.
At a Television Critics Association event in 2011, Cherry indicated that he wanted Edie
to come back to help wrap up things.
When Sheridan was told about Cherry's comments while appearing on NBC's Today, she responded,
"That's news to me."
And when asked if she would consider returning, she said,
"I had an amazing time playing that character.
I loved her dearly, but they killed her!
She's dead."
When Weeds debuted on Showtime in 2005, it told the story of newly widowed mother Nancy
Botwin, who tried to maintain her ritzy upper-middle-class lifestyle by operating an illegal marijuana
distribution ring.
Over the course of eight seasons, Nancy and her family moved from the Los Angeles area
to a San Diego suburb, and then to Seattle, Michigan, New York, and Connecticut, necessarily
but unceremoniously adding and dropping characters along the way.
In the first five seasons, Elizabeth Perkins was a regular cast member as Nancy's self-centered
neighbor Celia.
But then Perkins left the show, and Celia's fate was never explained, beyond the fact
that she moved to Mexico.
Weeds concluded in 2012 with a time jump set 10 years in the future, at the bar mitzvah
for Nancy's son Stevie.
Celia was nowhere to be seen among the Botwins' assembled family and friends.
As Perkins told Yahoo! in 2013,
"They asked me to come back for the final episode, but it was, I think, just to sort
of stand around at the bar mitzvah.
I just felt like, no, Celia should die.
I was actually also busy shooting a new show and couldn't really have made it work.
But, it just seemed like Celia deserved a better send-off."
"Did you smoke weed on Weeds?
Umm, no, I drank and did cocaine, though."
"Oh, okay!"
On the Fox medical procedural House, the only person who could keep the arrogant title doctor
in line was his boss Lisa Cuddy, the hospital's dean of medicine.
For seven seasons, House and Cuddy butted heads, but the show ran for a total of eight
seasons.
Eventually Dr. Cuddy quits her job, unable to take any more of her colleague's antics
after he crashes a car into her house.
As it turned out, Lisa Edelstein, the actress who played Cuddy, was ready to move on from
the show at that point as well.
As she told TV Line in 2011,
"It was very sad and very disappointing and a really difficult decision to make.
But ultimately I felt like it was the best thing for me to do for myself and for my business."
Edelstein didn't return for the final House episode the following year, as she didn't
think it would have made sense.
As she quipped to TV Line in 2015,
"If someone drives a car through your living room you should do what I did and get the
f--- out of town.
[...] You file a police report and you leave — and you don't come back for the f---ing
finale."
In 2000, Hilarie Burton graduated from high school, moved to New York, and did so well
in a contest to guest-host MTV's Total Request Live that she was hired as a regular VJ.
By 2003, she'd moved on to acting, landing a starring role as artist and cheerleader
Peyton Sawyer on One Tree Hill, one of the many era-defining teen soaps that filled the
schedule of The WB, and later The CW. Burton played the character for six seasons, but
then left the show in 2009, with Peyton and the show's resident dreamboat, Lucas Scott,
driving off into the future together in a convertible.
At the time of her departure, Burton made it sound like it was all just business.
As she told Entertainment Weekly,
"There really wasn't a lot of turmoil.
It was a fabulous six-year run, which is how long my contract was for, and I feel really
lucky to have been a part of the show."
Despite seemingly leaving on good terms, Burton didn't return to One Tree Hill for its final
installment in 2012.
That may have had something to do with the allegations and horrific on-set environment
she discussed with Variety in 2017.
She claimed that OTH creator Mark Schwahn forcefully kissed and touched her without
her consent, in addition to dispensing verbal abuse and spreading lies about non-existent
physical relationships with other female cast members.
Schwahn was also accused of misconduct by cast members of another one of his shows,
The Royals.
In light of those revelations, it's no wonder that Burton opted not to go back.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available.
Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline
at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).