Closing Time

How the ending of a show can change the meaning of the experience

I’ll be honest. My favorite novel ends with a woman walking into the sea. So you can take that into account when judging my taste.

But the novel is The Awakening and if you’ve read it, then you know there is no other way it could have ended while sticking to its themes and morals.

TV has a way of ignoring those needs when it comes to the final episode. There are a few reasons for this, the number one offender being unpredictable cancellations. Others include turnover of showrunners who may or may not grasp the original vision for the characters and the show and losing main characters to too many seasons.

These practical considerations cleave shows into two separate categories for me: those who always knew where they were going (cohesive narrative arcs) and those who just kind of kept going until they could go no more.

Stories with beginnings, middles and ends

There is probably no show more infamous in this category than Game of Thrones. I personally gave up on the show about the time Oberon’s head literally exploded (which is like four seasons in so do not say I didn’t try). However, I came back for the final season because GoT became a cultural phenomenon a media geek like me simply couldn’t miss out on.

The last season was riddled with logistical issues. The unforgettable Starbucks cup making its way past at least twenty sets of eyes and into the episode. Night shoots that lasted weeks on end and were at least partially to blame in sending Kitt Harrington into intensive treatment when filming wrapped. Scenes that were so dark that social media endlessly complained about the OG black square.

However, the unforgivable sin of the last season is that the madness we as an audience needed to justify the killing of Daenarys Targaryen didn’t unravel over the course of several episodes, but came in a final burst of anger before her death. While the showrunners obviously knew where the season was headed, they didn’t take the audience with them through this journey. And significantly there was minimal to no foreshadowing of her decline in any of the previous seven seasons. Her father was a mad king, but that alone is not enough to portend her own demise.

In contrast, The Good Place is probably my favorite show arc of all time. A compact four seasons, the cast is led by Ted Danson and Kristin Bell on a journey through moral philosophy, what it takes to be a good person, what the afterlife looks like, and finally how personal the meaning of existence really is.

Throughout the story, romances fall apart and then back together, and those relationships bloom so that they can teach lessons and change the people in them. There is no sense that ratings dictated who was with who or for how long. Friendships shape the characters into the kind of people who can make the choices they will eventually make.

This dynamic movement of the characters toward a final ending is an essential part of what makes The Good Place work. No one is the same as they started out in the very first episode, but as an audience, you are taken on the journey of their life and afterlife and cry sweet tears in the final moments of the show. There is no sense that you’ve missed something or that there is more that you need to see.

Some other great examples of consciously moving toward an end are Schitt’s Creek, House, M.D., Justified, and one of my personal favorites: Un/Done. These shows have a sense of inevitability to them. Their characters are changed in realistic ways by the trials and choices they face to become the person who exits the screen in the last moments on air.

Shows that aren’t meant to be narratives

Perhaps the greatest example of a show that should have ended with its original arc is Supernatural. The first five seasons of that show are some of the most delicately woven, intricate and emotional stories that existed on TV at the time.

There are clear thematic plot points of brotherhood, sacrifice, growing up and developing your own identity and atoning for sin. When one brother sacrifices himself for the other, there is a perfect symmetry to the story and a sense that it’s the only choice he could’ve made to make up for what he’s done.

And then… season six happens. Let me caveat this with the fact that I have watched every season of this show probably three or four times through at least. The first seven or so probably more than six. There are probably few people who know the show better than I do. And yet, I still believe that had the show ended on its finale in season five, Sam and Dean would have been better off as characters.

Instead, the clarion call of possible cancellation leads to ever bigger and bigger stakes that expand the world past all credibility and end up recycling the same plot points over and over. There is no change in the characters themselves because the show is not moving toward a resolution.

In fact, to keep the engine running on Supernatural for fifteen seasons, it is imperative that the character flaws of the original seasons don’t get resolved. They are necessary to create the conflict that operates the show.

And this is the difference between shows that are trying to say something and shows that are trying to maintain existence. In the age of streaming, the latter are fewer and farther between. Gone are the days of 23-episode seasons and staying on indefinitely. Viewers on streaming platforms have been trained by breakout hits like Breaking Bad to want a show with a beginning, middle, and end.

Yet, there are still staples on our cable channels that depend on this never-ending-story. Shows like NCIS, 9-1-1, Chicago Fire, and the show I originally started watching in eighth grade, Grey’s Anatomy, are less focused on telling a story of change and more focused on providing comfort TV to millions seeking to be lulled after a long day. Their characters are really secondary to serving the formula of the show.

I am not saying there are no places for shows like this. These are some of the highest-rated spots for a reason, and people will likely always want what I call primetime soap operas. But a show is at its strongest when it knows what it wants to be. Are you going toward something? Or are you simply a vehicle for comforting characters and storylines that soothe people after a complicated day?

So, what do we want from an ending anyway?

If we know that a show is meant to end, what makes it easier to say goodbye? Is it an epic last battle, or an assurance that everyone lives happily ever after? I think the answer is as varied as the shows themselves.

What we want are endings that align with who the characters were and who they’ve become. We want a sense that it “had” to end that way. Sure, shock and awe all you want with the final episode of your show - see if anyone wants to watch it once it hits syndication.

We want to feel like the characters were either given what they deserved or ended up where they needed to be, for better or worse. If it’s a bad guy, we want to know that he ended up being better or he ended up punished one way or another. If he isn’t punished, we want it to reflect the reality of our world: he either bought his way out of it or incompetence kept him from being caught.

If it’s a good guy, we want to see them surrounded by people who give their life meaning. We want to see them make healthy choices to show they learned from all of the lessons we’ve watched them conquer.

Personally, I think that a showrunner should have to pitch where the characters are headed to be able to get a show made. Streaming platforms like Netflix who are infamous for prematurely cancelling shows should be locked into minimum three season contracts that allow the writer’s rooms the space they need to let their characters grow. When an audience devotes hours of their limited free time to a story, they shouldn’t be punished by some venture capitalist turned TV executive.

Stories with great endings keep us coming back for more. Their lessons are more poignant, the sense of fairness keeps us from feeling robbed. They live on in a way unfinished business just can’t.

TV isn’t a novel, there are more threads to unravel and wrap up in those final seasons. But when those threads are tied together well, there is nothing more satisfying as a viewer. If showrunners and executives want a show to remain a permanent part of the culture, they need to be thinking of the end from the very beginning.