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Talk about bookending a story.
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00:00The long-running nature of some TV shows means that earlier and latter seasons become completely different beasts.
00:06Some characters are elevated from recurring status to being essentially co-leads,
00:11whereas original leads become bit players or leave the show altogether.
00:15That said, what about characters who leave the show after the pilot has aired and return for the series finale?
00:20I'm Sy, this is WhatCulture.com, and these are 10 TV characters who only appear in the first and last episode.
00:27Number 10, John, Parks and Recreation.
00:31The early 21st century saw the rise of documentary-style comedies with tongue-in-cheek tones,
00:36and while some achieved relative success, almost none, aside from The Office,
00:41achieved the notoriety that Parks and Recreation did across its seven-season run.
00:45Its main casts were definitely the big draw, but its cameos had their own appeal as well,
00:50ranging from Joe Biden to John Cena and even Genuine.
00:54One cameo, however, served a unique narrative purpose, despite not being as prominent as the aforementioned.
01:01During the core cast's farewell in the finale, a man walks into the park's department office and asks if a broken swing in the park would be fixed.
01:08In addition to giving Leslie one last act as deputy director,
01:12the man, played by John Daly, was featured in the pilot as an inebriated drunk who Leslie tried to get out of the park's slide.
01:18Daly's character evolution from a humorous slob to a concerned citizen was a heartwarming display of how much Pawnee and its people had grown since the show's beginning.
01:29Number 9, Deliveryman, Frasier.
01:31The Cheers spin-off enjoyed as much praise and notoriety as its predecessor and gave Kelsey Grammer's Fraser Crane a chance to start over in his hometown of Seattle
01:41as a radio show host alongside being caretaker to his father after he left Boston following the end of his marriage to Lilith.
01:48His eponymous radio show served as an interesting narrative device that helped differentiate the show from Cheers
01:54and gave it a different style of comedy due to Crane's high-society-minded, also known as stuffy sensibilities, having more time to shine.
02:03This mindset often clashed with his father Martin's working-class sensibilities in multiple episodes
02:09and one could argue that their initial misunderstandings were embodied by Martin's rather off-putting Eames chair,
02:16a source of comedic jabs throughout the show's run.
02:18That said, the chair is tied to a minor role most fans missed until years after Frasier ran its course.
02:25The deliveryman who brought the chair in is the same person who picks up the chair in the finale.
02:30Played by the late Cleo Augusto, his appearances demonstrate how much Martin and Frasier's relationship has changed over the years for the better.
02:39Number 8, Josh Wilson, Weeds.
02:42The mid-2000s Showtime dramedy may have gone out with a whimper,
02:45but for a time in its first few seasons, Weeds was a compelling, sometimes uneven and darkly humorous exploration
02:52of Nazi Botwin's venture into selling marijuana to support her family after her husband's untimely demise.
02:59A large number of characters came and went across its run,
03:02and while some characters had completed arcs by the time they left the show,
03:06others were not afforded this luxury.
03:08This is the case with Justin Chatwin's Josh Wilson, son of Neyland's dim-witted Doug Wilson.
03:13The eldest Wilson child was introduced in the pilot as a pot dealer,
03:17and once Nancy discovered that he sold the drug to children,
03:20she threatened to out his sexuality to his father.
03:23After the pilot, the character was not seen to the series finale,
03:26where it was revealed that he eventually became a lawyer and married a painter named Alan.
03:30Once Weeds was picked up for a full season,
03:32it was revealed that some contracts were not renewed,
03:35and this included Chatwin's explaining his disappearance from the rest of the show.
03:39Number 7, Yori Nakajima, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
03:44The Falcon and the Winter Soldier didn't quite live up to its lofty expectations,
03:48but still delivered a mostly interesting exploration of America's deeply flawed socio-political structure,
03:54and the dynamic between the titular duo was both fun to watch and emotionally satisfying.
03:59Sam and Bucky each got detailed arcs throughout the six-episode run,
04:03and as much as Sam's had more focus, Bucky's was impactful in a more personal fashion.
04:08The former Hydra assassin had intentions to make amends for his past crimes throughout the season,
04:13and although his approach lacked grace in most of his interactions,
04:17his friendship with Yori Nakajima was a nice bit of humanising for the super soldier.
04:22Unfortunately, it's revealed that the friendship was born out of Bucky's desire to atone for his role in killing Yori's son, RJ.
04:28As seen in the pilot, this loss hardened Yori,
04:31and his friendship with Bucky was one of the few things the Elder held in any regard.
04:35In the show's final episode, Bucky came clean to Yori,
04:39and whilst this meant that Bucky had completed this part of his atonement journey,
04:42the revelation visibly hurt Yori.
04:45His role in the show may have been minor,
04:46but it showed Bucky and the audience the fallout of his past actions,
04:50as involuntary as they may have been.
04:53Number six, Tom Hanks.
04:55Sort of.
04:56Veep.
04:57HBO's satirical comedy was a roaring success,
05:00and helped solidify Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a comedic icon for those who may not have experienced
05:05or grown up with Seinfeld during its run.
05:08Her role as Vice President Selina Meyer saw the VP being pitted against the off-screen President Hughes,
05:13as her attempts to gain political influence,
05:15and the hurdles facing this, became more and more amusing.
05:19The show itself was hilarious and incisive with its political commentary,
05:22and managed to keep its high quality throughout its run,
05:25with intriguing storylines, great character work, and guest appearances.
05:29One such appearance, in a figurative sense of the word,
05:32was beloved actor Tom Hanks,
05:34whose potential death was discussed in the pilot,
05:36as an event that would detract from VP Meyer's very public use of an offensive word.
05:41It seemed like a throwaway joke, but actually pays off in the series finale.
05:46Here, in a 24-year flash-forward,
05:48Hanks is revealed to have died, and his passing overshadows Selina's own.
05:53It served as a perfectly hilarious summary of Selina's character,
05:57a person whose wins were often short-lived or overshadowed by other notable events.
06:03Number 5, The Cloud Nine Baby, Superstore.
06:06NPC's recently concluded sitcom experienced some growing pains early in its run,
06:11but was able to eventually fine-tune its storyline and ensemble
06:14to deliver a wholesome and heartwarming peek into the lives of the Cloud Nine employees
06:19and their lives outside of the chain store.
06:21Some may have balked at its
06:23your workmates are your family members approach in several instances,
06:26but the show was savvy enough to have a lot more on its mind
06:29rather than banal HR proclamations.
06:32It was able to be critical of the challenges and inequities in the workplace
06:35and still foster genuine relationships between its characters.
06:39Its series finale luckily stuck the landing
06:41by adhering to what was so endearing in the first place,
06:44while being topical at the same time.
06:46In addition to this, its callbacks to earlier seasons and episodes
06:49were pleasant in their retrospective approach.
06:52One such callback is Amy's encounter of an unsupervised child
06:55sitting on a potty in one of the store's aisles.
06:57It turns out that this is the same child
06:59and in a similar outfit from the pilot, only much older.
07:03It's an amusing moment that serves as an nostalgic source of comfort
07:06or nightmare fuel for actual retail workers
07:09before the cast eventually moved on to other phases in their lives.
07:14Number four, Anatoly Sitnikov, Chernobyl.
07:17Although a good number of artistic licenses were taken in the Chernobyl miniseries,
07:21its depiction of the horror and desperation following the worst nuclear disaster in history
07:25made for both compelling and harrowing viewing upon its release in 2019.
07:30It wisely took a restrained approach to said depiction
07:33in a way that didn't paint caricatures of the people involved,
07:36but also ensured that the terrifying scale of the disaster
07:39was understood by viewers who may have only had a cursory understanding
07:42of what happened in 1986.
07:45This was seen in the treatment of main characters such as,
07:47and I'm going to butcher these,
07:49Valery Legasov and Vasily Ignatenko, as well as minor ones.
07:53One such individual was Anatoly Sitnikov,
07:55the power plant's deputy chief operational engineer,
07:58who took note of the immediate scale of the devastation following the plant's meltdown.
08:02Unfortunately, he was ignored by his superiors at first,
08:05until it became clear that Anatoly Dyatlov, the station's chief engineer,
08:10was ill following extensive radiation exposure.
08:13Against his will, Sitnikov inspected the fallout of the exploded reactor
08:16and was bombarded by a lethal dose of radiation.
08:19He was later seen in a flashback in the last episode
08:22that detailed everyday life in Pripyat
08:24before the accident that would change his life
08:26alongside many others for the worse.
08:29Number 3, Nancy Ryan, When They See Us.
08:32Released in 2019, When They See Us received near-unanimous praise
08:37from viewers and critics alike
08:38for its uncompromising depiction of the injustices
08:41the Central Park Five endured after being falsely prosecuted
08:45and imprisoned for the 1989 assault of jogger Tricia Mellie.
08:49The case, and consequently the show,
08:51is a seminal example of the devastating impact
08:53racial and class criminal profiling has
08:56on people of colour and or working-class individuals.
08:59One character that both bookended the crime drama
09:02and signalled the shift towards achieving the five's freedom
09:05was the assistant district attorney, Nancy Ryan.
09:08Played by Famke Janssen, the assistant DA
09:10was initially assigned to the case
09:12when it was believed that Mellie would die from her injuries.
09:14Once this was determined to not be so,
09:16the case was assigned to now controversial prosecutor, Linda Fairstein.
09:20Years later, in 2002, Ryan and New York DA Robert Morgenthau
09:25began the process that would see the five exonerated
09:27after sufficient evidence was provided to prove their innocence.
09:31Ryan's part in the miniseries is understandably not its focal point,
09:34but Janssen acquitted herself well as one of the driving forces
09:37that gave the five their freedom back.
09:40Number 2, Freddie Hammid, The Night Manager.
09:43The 2016 adaptation of John Le Carr's first post-Cold War novel
09:47honoured the source material by respecting its espionage roots
09:50while adding its own spin on the narrative.
09:52This led to a well-told six-episode saga
09:55and one of the best adaptations of Le Carr's work in any medium.
09:59Tom Hiddleston's Jonathan Pine may be the series' lead,
10:02but he wasn't forced to carry the show
10:04as he was more than capably aided by the likes of David Harewood
10:07and a rarely better Hugh Laurie as series' antagonist Richard Roper.
10:11The simmering conflict between Pine and Roper
10:14is driven by the involvement of the volatile hotel owner,
10:17Freddie Hammid, and his partner, Sophie Allekin.
10:20Sophie immediately sees Jonathan as an ally
10:22in her mission to bring down Hamid by exposing his dealings with criminals such as Roper.
10:27Unfortunately, this was her undoing
10:29as Hamid found out about their budding relationship
10:31and assaulted Sophie before having her killed.
10:34Her death sees Pine's further involvement with bringing down Roper
10:37and in the final episode, the hotelier slash former spy
10:41enacts his vengeance by killing Hamid
10:43once he learns the reason behind Sophie's death.
10:46And number one, Vera Keller, The Pacific.
10:51Although not quite as gripping as Band of Brothers,
10:53and admittedly that's a high bar to clear,
10:56The Pacific still delivered the requisite heart,
10:59wartime thrills and introspective storytelling one would expect
11:02in an HBO prestige drama backed by the likes of Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks.
11:07As its title suggests, the miniseries focused on the United States Marine Corps' actions
11:11in the Pacific War, i.e. the section of World War II that was largely fought on territories
11:16surrounding the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean to a limited degree.
11:20Despite this wide narrative scope,
11:22the show was still able to focus on a core cast of characters,
11:25one of them being Private Robert Leckie, as played by James Badge Dale.
11:30One of his most defining traits was his relationship with his childhood friend
11:33slash first love Vera Keller.
11:35Despite her mother's warnings, Vera grew closer to the rebellious Leckie
11:39until his eventual draft into the war following the Pearl Harbor tragedy.
11:43Despite her limited appearances,
11:44Vera's romance with Robert was one of the series' stronger emotional components
11:48and symbolized what every soldier had gone overseas to protect.
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