While no one wants their favorite show to end, if it has to happen,
we all hope the conclusion leaves us feeling satisfied in some way.
Unfortunately, some shows left their fans confused, disappointed,
angry, and asking questions. This spoiler-filled list will show you why.
Creator Vince Gilligan admitted that the critically acclaimed season 5 "Felina"
episode would probably be different from what many "Breaking Bad" fans imagined and would,
therefore, disappoint a fair number of people. But it ended up giving most of its characters
satisfying endings that fans loved. The biggest lingering
question wasn't really about the end itself but about how it all began.
The show traces every inch of Walter White's transformation with brutal precision.
What's missing is its true beginning, which is indirectly what made the ending so meaningful.
By blackmailing his old partners at Gray Matter, Walt achieves what he set out
to do in the very first episode — provide for his family in the event of his demise.
But we never really find out why he separated from them in the first place, choosing a life
as a science teacher over a lucrative career as a chemist. Instead, we get multiple versions of the
story. Walt's account suggests a justifiable origin for the bitterness that eventually led
him to become a criminal mastermind. Gretchen, however, insists he left without an explanation.
Walt's journey from schoolteacher to drug lord gets a lot of emphasis and rightly so.
But given that it's potentially the impetus for his eventual life of crime, the transformation
from all-star chemist to schoolteacher is the one we're really left wondering about.
You knew this one was going to be on the list. In addition to devastating fans,
the finale of "How I Met Your Mother" left a lot of things uncertain. First of all,
what kind of terminal illness did the mother have that could've come on so suddenly with
such a poor prognosis, while not seeming to affect her youth and radiance in any way?
And as if the mother's cruel demise wasn't bad enough,
what happened to her rock band? A pretty significant plot point that introduced Tracy's
character was the fact that Ted inadvertently helped her get her band back from a usurper.
It was a big moment for both Tracy and Ted as a couple. Did the band ever make it?
And, speaking of character and relationship development, we know Ted left the wedding
mid-reception. But he met Tracy, the bassist for the wedding band, at the platform.
Did she, a paid performer for the whole evening, suddenly dip out too?
And speaking of dipping out, Ted would've been unemployed when he started dating Tracy,
because he quit his new position in Chicago to stay in New York with her.
But even hopeless romantics have to pay their bills, so what's up with that?
Perhaps the greatest injustice of the series,
however, was the fact that we never did find out where Ted got that pineapple.
Ironically, the title of "Lost" aptly describes what happened to the thread
of the famous aughties series — which was complexly woven to begin with.
The "Lost" timeline was often hard to follow, even before the finale, but fans by and large had
fun with the twists and turns, and they trusted that the writers would tie it all up in the end.
This happened for some loose ends, but many seemed to be forgotten or suddenly changed.
From the inconsistent rules of the island to Walt’s mysterious “special” abilities, there are
a plethora of plot devices that “Lost” seemed to never fully address or simply ignore completely,
not to mention the bomb that was supposedly the only hope for destroying the island.
After detonating it, a new and confusing timeline is created,
but the bomb is never really mentioned again and the island isn’t destroyed.
Did Jack and his friends accomplish anything by setting off the bomb?
We can’t be sure. Similarly, we're never sure where the Others' money comes from or what's
going on with Ben's childhood friend, Annie, who was supposed to be a major part of the series.
"Lost" had a lot of loose ends to tie up, to be fair, but we definitely expected more.
Even Jerry Seinfeld himself has admitted he's had second thoughts over the years following the
"Seinfeld" finale. Fans have a lot more than just second thoughts. They've been thinking, opining,
and arguing about the final episode with fervor ever since it aired in 1998. There are loads
of questions left unanswered in the finale, both about the show as a whole and the episode itself.
There are a few little details left hanging. For example, what became of "Jerry," George
and Jerry's show that was supposed to take off in the last episode before they got arrested?
Did they work on it in prison? What did they do in prison? And perhaps,
most importantly, did Jerry get the prisoners to laugh at his routine?
And there were a lot of bigger questions too. Realistically, how were all those witnesses
at the trial tracked down and gathered from the last nine years of the characters' lives?
Legally, how relevant or admissible would their widely ranging "character" testimonies even be?
And speaking of evidence, did Ray steal the statue or not?
The finale didn't make sense for a lot of reasons,
both in terms of ambiguity as to how and why it all happened,
as well as in terms of how out-of-character it was for the four friends and the show.
"Pretty Little Liars" was soapy from start to finish,
but that doesn't mean the ending was clean.
To be fair, a lot of questions were answered, most importantly the identity of A.D. — true
to soap opera form, an evil identical twin. But as is often the case with plot twists,
the big reveal answered some questions only to open a Pandora's box of new ones.
"You’re still playing the game."
One of the biggest unanswered questions is how the wine moms escaped from the basement.
Apparently, only they will ever know the true story. Also unknown to us,
how did Mona get Mary and Alex out of prison and all the way to her basement in Paris? After
everything she's gone through, maybe it's better not to ask questions and just let her be happy.
HBO's revolutionary mafia series, "The Sopranos," featured a flawed anti-hero
and allowed its characters room for realistic evolution and devolution. But for all the
masterful depictions of Tony Soprano's character, the series left us unsure of how his story ended.
Some have called this finale episode revolutionary, while others, upon its conclusion,
got up to check whether their TV sets were broken. We suspect that the cut to black
is the moment of death that Bobby Baccalieri once imagined as likely being anticlimactic:
"You probably don't even hear it when it happens."
A cut to black is the perfect way to illustrate that. If Tony were offed
by the stranger who heads to the bathroom earlier in the scene,
it would mirror one of his favorite parts of "The Godfather." That is,
Michael Corleone emerging from the restaurant bathroom to kill Sollozzo and Captain McCluskey.
Not only were we left without the details of Tony's fate,
but we never got to see what happened to characters like Silvio Dante, a compelling
character who lies comatose for the entire final episode as a result of his gunshot wounds.
"Dexter" was supposed to end with the death of its titular serial killer. But the actual finale
neither redeemed nor condemned its protagonist, literally running away from the jarring moral
tension it was introduced in episode 1. What exactly went wrong? Well, the series spent eight
seasons developing Dexter as a calculating and methodical force. Then, in the finale,
he decides to disappear, leaving his son in the company of a known murderer in order to live a
fake life as a lumberjack. Fans can’t help but feel that this was forced and out-of-character.
Not only that, but we're also left with a genuine lack of resolution. What happens to Dexter's son
after being abandoned by his father? Sure, he left Harrison in Hannah's care, but not legally,
so in the eyes of the U.S., Hannah simply abducted him to Argentina. And how did Dexter even survive
that storm in the first place without so much as a scratch? And what was the reason
for choosing Oregon as the location of his life in hiding? Knowing Dexter, he would’ve had one.
The ending of "True Blood" may have given it eternal life, but not necessarily in a
desirable way. For many people, it will be forever immortalized as an incident of "what went wrong?"
The ending to this series didn't seem to have its finger on the pulse—or lack thereof. While
some complaints simply revolved around it being boring, there were some very real questions left
unanswered. After letting fans get invested enough to choose sides regarding who Sookie
would end up with, both Team Eric and Team Bill were left disappointed. Sookie ends up marrying
some rando who only gets a few seconds of screen time in the finale. Seriously, who is this guy?
We also never find out who turned Steve Newlin, or the identity of Pam's first progeny,
who we never got to meet. At the end of the series, we’re left with many questions about
the characters that were left unanswered, and some answers that just don’t quite make sense.
While "Game of Thrones" left multiple lingering questions, the biggest one is simply, “Why?”
And that question applies to a lot. For some fans, it applies not just to the finale but the
whole of the eighth season. We're especially looking at you, suddenly Crazy Daenerys. But
issues with writing and development aside, we're still left wondering about all manner of things.
Why did Jon have to kill Dany, rather than Arya, who was not only an expertly trained
assassin but was planning to go AWOL anyway? And, honestly, why didn't Daenerys have better
security after taking the throne? Why exactly was Bran the logical choice to become king?
And how do we explain Daenerys' massive army in the finale? Didn’t she lose most
of her Unsullied and Dothraki forces back to the battle at Winterfell?
Finally, when Bran agrees to become king, he implies that he came, quote,
“all this way” for that exact purpose. This suggests that he knew much more about the future
than he previously let on, like when he insisted earlier that he couldn't be lord of Winterfell.
Sadly, the highly anticipated finale left many confusing and exasperating questions,
making it seem like the writers just punted.
The maddest men and women in 2015 were the fans of one of AMC's most successful dramas
and its jaded male anti-hero, Don Draper. Some "Mad Men" viewers felt angry at the conclusion,
while for others, the finale simply generated a mountain of questions.
The show did an impeccable job of portraying a flawed and troubled soul, as well as the people
who helped shape him into the formidable madman that he was. But one of the biggest unanswered
questions involves some of those very side characters, particularly Don Draper's family,
who undoubtedly bore the brunt of his bad behavior for many years. But we don't hear
from Don or Henry Francis after Betty's death, regarding who'll take custody of Don's children.
After all his family has endured from him, we have no idea what will become of them.
"I messed everything up."
But even more than the Draper family, fans want to know what happened to Don. He seems to achieve
inner peace at the end, but not in the form of some grand transformation. All "inner peace"
really means to him, it seems, is coming up with the next great ad. But while it's a hollow idea
of happiness, it's also not conclusive. Maybe he just makes that one last great ad and then steps
back to finally take care of his family. Hard to believe, but the ambiguity lets us wonder.
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