8 TV Scenes Everyone Always Gets Wrong

WhatCulture

How many times do we have to say you aren't supposed to like Rick before you get it?

Transcript

00:00There is no truly, 100% objectively correct interpretation of a piece of media.

00:06Everyone always has a take, and even if the creator comes down from on high and tells their side of the story,

00:11it's ultimately just another reading of the work.

00:14With that having been said, there are people whose takeaway from a work is just, well, wrong.

00:18There are a lot of ways people can miss the point something is trying to make.

00:22So with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture, and here are 8 TV scenes everyone always gets wrong.

00:288. Jerry and Pals Go to Jail in Seinfeld

00:33The selling point about Seinfeld was that it was a show about nothing.

00:38While in some cases this was true, what the show turned out to actually be about was four funny but absolutely terrible human beings,

00:45and their mundane problems caused by them being terrible human beings.

00:49Many fans miss out on this, a running theme you're going to notice on this list,

00:53and so, to them, the ending comes out of nowhere and makes no sense.

00:56Now, granted, the finale does have quite a few logical flaws.

01:00Ask any lawyer worth their salt, and they'll tell you that the trial is a nightmare of legal flaws and fallacies.

01:06But the idea was to end the series with Jerry and Pals getting their comeuppance for nine seasons of being mundanely infuriating,

01:14which puts it quite a bit above other comedies about so-called horrible people who never really face consequences for their nonsense.

01:20Number 7. Daenerys burns King's Landing in Game of Thrones

01:25The final season of Game of Thrones was a kind of disastrous ending that we don't see that often.

01:31Plenty of great shows have bad endings, but Season 8 of Game of Thrones didn't just disappoint fans.

01:36It took a show that ruled the damn world and wiped it off the face of pop culture forever.

01:40How the show handled Daenerys' fall from grace was not well executed at all.

01:44But the idea that her burning down King's Landing came completely out of nowhere is simply wrong.

01:50This is a woman who has only ever had and needed one solution for her problems.

01:54If it's in my way, it burns.

01:56King's Landing was in her way, so King's Landing burned.

01:59Daenerys' fall represents a character's most admirable trait,

02:02in her case her unwavering conviction and belief in her own righteousness,

02:06being turned into her greatest failing.

02:08Turns out that people with that kind of conviction can be real a-holes when they're suddenly on the other side of the argument.

02:15Number 6. Number 6 is Escape in The Prisoner

02:19The Prisoner is a show that's very easy to get wrong,

02:22since its particular type of insanity is the kind that looks like they're making things up as they go along.

02:27Audiences were, understandably, expecting the ending of the show to answer at least one question they'd been asking since the whole mess began.

02:34What the actual hell is going on?

02:35Well, they didn't get that, because something that audiences missed while asking that question

02:39is that they're the only ones who give a damn about getting answers.

02:42Number 6. Our protagonist would just like to not be a prisoner in this madcap nightmare of a town anymore.

02:48Some answers would be nice, which is why we do occasionally see him looking for some,

02:52but one can imagine that after 17 episodes of getting messed around,

02:55Number 6 would really stop caring.

02:57So in the last episode, he finally manages to escape Number 1

03:01and their cavalcade of mind games and manipulations driving off into the sunset.

03:05The show was never interested in giving answers, so why should the audience?

03:10Number 5. Williams' Fidelity Test in Westworld

03:13The thing about having a cast that's mostly made up of robots that are specifically designed to feel and act as human as possible,

03:20to the point where they start developing sentience,

03:23is that the writers can start to play around with who is and isn't a robot.

03:26Now, if you'd seen the original 1973 movie, or if you're one of those weirdos who read the original novel by Michael Crichton,

03:34then you probably already know the twist that William, the man in black, is one of the hosts and was unaware of it the whole time.

03:41But the show knows damn well that 90% of you didn't even know there was a movie, let alone a book.

03:46So the scene in Season 2, where William is subjected to the staff's famous Fidelity Test

03:50at the hands of his supposedly dead daughter Emily, came as a shock to everyone.

03:55Was he a machine the whole time? Then how did he even have a daughter, let alone manage to kill her?

03:59Well, as it turns out, stated by Emily's actress Katya Herbers,

04:03this is the show messing with our perception of time again.

04:06The scene takes place an indeterminate amount of time in the future,

04:09where at some point, either one or both of them were replaced with hosts.

04:14Number 4. The Ending in The Sopranos

04:17Man, oh man, is this ending infamous.

04:20For those who don't know, seeing as how this ending came a long time ago,

04:24the ending of the hit HBO series The Sopranos sees our protagonist Tony Soprano

04:28sitting down for dinner with his family, knowing full well that he's living on borrowed time.

04:33His mob buddies have deemed him a liability,

04:35and are no doubt planning to, well, do what the mob does best when they deem someone a liability.

04:40Except the show never gives you that closure.

04:42You don't even know, when the door to the diner opens and Tony looks up,

04:45that it's the mob or his daughter showing up late.

04:47The screen goes to black right as he looks up, and then boom, show over.

04:51Thanks for six seasons, folks. Have fun with Game of Thrones in four years.

04:54Yeah, people were pissed.

04:56They screamed that they wanted closure for Tony's story,

04:59but the creator of the show, David Chase, held firm, deeming closure to be unimportant.

05:03Was it his daughter walking through that door, or the mob?

05:06It honestly doesn't matter, says Chase.

05:08And honestly, we can kinda see his point.

05:10I mean, obviously, Tony's dead, it's just a matter of when it's going to happen.

05:13It probably was his daughter walking through that door,

05:15but Tony can never be sure, just as the audience can never be sure.

05:19However much time he has left, Tony Soprano will live that time terrified

05:23of when his chickens will finally come home to roost.

05:26Number 3.

05:27Steven sparing the diamonds in Steven Universe

05:30Online discourse about Steven Universe is most aptly compared to

05:35a dustbin full of used nappies that is on fire.

05:37Everyone that has an opinion on the show has a tendency to state that opinion

05:40in as toxic a way as possible, especially if you ask them about the ending to the show's

05:46original run.

05:46To a lot of fans, the show's pacifistic nature was always at odds with its galactic war premise,

05:51and to those same fans, the ending is the worst example,

05:55with Steven literally talking down White Diamond from ruling the universe with an iron fist.

06:00But it's important to keep in mind a few things.

06:02One, Steven sparing them is not forgiving them.

06:05Very big difference.

06:06Talking them down was simply his best option because,

06:08and the show is quite clear about this, fighting the diamonds would have been suicide.

06:12Steven would have lost, badly.

06:14Sure, Steven Universe's future would later clarify that he either did or currently does

06:19have the ability to destroy the diamonds, but that's just not in his nature.

06:23Also, and this might be a bit of a meta-ing too far, but there is no way that Cartoon Network

06:27was going to let this show for little kids end with a triple homicide.

06:31That just flat out was never going to happen.

06:34Number 2.

06:34The One Who Knocks in Breaking Bad

06:37These last two entries are the most egregious examples we have by A Country Mile.

06:42Walter White has become an icon, but sadly in the same way that Tony Soprano,

06:46Tyler Durden, and the last entry on this list have become icons.

06:49Objects of veneration by a very particular kind of men,

06:53who completely miss that they are not meant to like these characters at all.

06:56Just look at how these fans prop up the I am the one who knocks scene from Breaking Bad

07:00as a symbol of badassness, when in reality, Vince Gilligan and his team wrote that scene

07:05to show Walter as, well, what he is.

07:07A sad, pathetic man playing what he thinks a badass looks like.

07:11Which, judging by this scene, is someone who angrily shouts down his own wife when she

07:15dares to voice an opinion he doesn't like.

07:17Walter White is one of the most compelling protagonists in television history, but he is

07:22most certainly not a character to aspire to be, and the rant you all adore so much is

07:26one of the biggest proofs of that.

07:28Number 1.

07:30Pickle Rick in Rick and Morty

07:31What was meant to represent the epitome of Rick Sanchez's flaws as a character was instead

07:38co-opted by a fandom hellbent on missing the bloody point of the whole thing.

07:41Pickle Rick as an episode, as a concept, was made with one purpose.

07:45To expose Rick for the sad, lonely, emotionally stunted man-child he is.

07:50He turns himself into a pickle for the sole motive of getting out of having to go to therapy.

07:54He then goes on this insane adventure where he builds himself a body out of rat guts,

07:58fights a building full of armed soldiers, blows up that building full of armed soldiers,

08:01and then finally makes it to his therapy session, where the therapist proceeds to give Rick

08:05the dressing down of his life.

08:07Now, granted, the fact that Rick takes nothing away from this dressing down but eye-rolling

08:11annoyance in the long run might be why so many fans miss the point being made here.

08:16Pickle Rick is a truly hilarious episode of a truly hilarious show.

08:20But a good many of its hardcore fans don't realise that the episode is laughing at them,

08:25not with them.

08:26And that concludes our list.

08:27If you can think of any other examples, then please do let us know in the comments below.

08:31And while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification bell.

08:35Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there,

08:37and I can be found across various social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild.

08:41I've been Ellie with WhatCulture.

08:43I hope you have a magical day, and I'll see you real soon.

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