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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
00:05different beasts. Some characters are elevated from recurring status to being essentially co-leads,
00:11whereas original leads become bit players or leave the show altogether. That said,
00:15what 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
00:25and last episode. Number 10, John, Parks and Recreation. The early 21st century saw the rise
00:33of documentary style comedies with tongue-in-cheek tones and while some achieved relative success,
00:38almost none, aside from The Office, achieved the notoriety that Parks and Recreation did across
00:44its seven season run. Its main cast were definitely the big draw but its cameos had their own appeal
00:49as well, ranging from Joe Biden to John Cena and even Genuine. One cameo, however, served a unique
00:57narrative purpose, despite not being as prominent as the aforementioned. During the core cast's
01:02farewell in the finale, a man walks into the park's department office and asks if a broken swing in
01:07the park would be fixed. In addition to giving Leslie one last act as deputy director, the man,
01:12played by John Daly, was featured in the pilot as an inebriated drunk who Leslie tried to get out
01:17to the park's slide. Daly's character evolution from a humorous slob to a concerned citizen was
01:23a heartwarming display of how much Pawnee and its people had grown since the show's beginning.
01:28Number 9, Deliveryman, Frasier. The Cheers spin-off enjoyed as much praise and notoriety as its
01:35predecessor 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
01:47of his marriage to Lilith. His eponymous radio show served as an interesting narrative device that
01:52helped differentiate the show from Cheers and gave it a different style of comedy due to Crane's high
01:57society-minded, also known as stuffy, sensibilities having more time to shine. This mindset often clashed
02:04with his father Martin's working-class sensibilities in multiple episodes and one could argue that their
02:10initial misunderstandings were embodied by Martin's rather off-putting Eames chair, a source of comedic
02:17jabs throughout the show's run. That said, the chair is tied to a minor role most fans missed until
02:22years after Frasier ran its course. The deliveryman who brought the chair in is the same person who
02:28picks up the chair in the finale. Played by the late Cleo Augusto, his appearances demonstrate how much
02:33Martin and Frasier's relationship has changed over the years for the better.
02:388. Josh Wilson
02:40Weeds
02:41The mid-2000s Showtime dramedy may have gone out with a whimper but for a time in its first few seasons,
02:47Weeds was a compelling, sometimes uneven and darkly humorous exploration of Nazi Botwin's venture into selling
02:54marijuana to support her family after her husband's untimely demise. A large number of characters came and went
03:00across its run and while some characters had completed arcs by the time they left the show, others were
03:05not afforded this luxury. This is the case with Justin Chatwin's Josh Wilson, son of Neyland's dimwitted Doug
03:12Wilson. The eldest Wilson child was introduced in the pilot as a pot dealer and once Nancy discovered
03:17that he sold the drug to children, she threatened to out his sexuality to his father. After the pilot, the
03:22character was not seen to the series finale where it was revealed that he eventually became a lawyer and
03:27married a painter named Alan. Once Weeds was picked up for a full season, it was revealed that some
03:32contracts were not renewed and this included Chatwin's explaining his disappearance from the
03:37rest of the show.
03:397. Yori Nakajima
03:41The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
03:43The Falcon and the Winter Soldier didn't quite live up to its lofty expectations but still delivered a
03:48mostly interesting exploration of America's deeply flawed socio-political structure and the dynamic
03:54between the titular duo was both fun to watch and emotionally satisfying. Sam and Bucky each got
04:00detailed arcs throughout the six episode run and as much as Sam's had more focus, Bucky's was impactful
04:05in a more personal fashion. The former Hydra assassin had intentions to make amends for his past crimes
04:11throughout the season and although his approach lacked grace in most of his interactions, his friendship
04:16with Yuri Nakajima was a nice bit of humanising for the Super Soldier.
04:20Unfortunately, it's revealed that the friendship was born out of Bucky's desire to atone for his role
04:25in killing Yuri's son, RJ. As seen in the pilot, this loss hardened Yuri and his friendship with Bucky
04:31was one of the few things the Elder held in any regard. In the show's final episode, Bucky came clean to Yuri
04:37and whilst this meant that Bucky had completed this part of his atonement journey, the revelation
04:42visibly hurt Yuri. His role in the show may have been minor but it showed Bucky and the audience
04:47the fallout of his past actions, as involuntary as they may have been.
04:52Number 6. Tom Hanks. Sort of.
04:55Veep.
04:56HBO's satirical comedy was a roaring success and helped solidify Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a comedic icon
05:02for those who may not have experienced or grown up with Seinfeld during its run.
05:07Her role as Vice President Selina Meyer saw the VP being pitted against the off-screen President Hughes
05:12as her attempts to gain political influence, and the hurdles facing this, became more and more amusing.
05:18The show itself was hilarious and incisive with its political commentary and managed to keep its high quality
05:23throughout its run with intriguing storylines, great character work and guest appearances.
05:28One such appearance, in a figurative sense of the word, was beloved actor Tom Hanks
05:33whose potential death was discussed in the pilot as an event that would detract from VP Meyer's very public use of an offensive word.
05:40It seemed like a throwaway joke, but actually pays off in the series finale.
05:45Here, in a 24-year flash-forward, Hanks is revealed to have died and his passing overshadows Selina's own.
05:51It served as a perfectly hilarious summary of Selina's character,
05:56a person whose wins were often short-lived or overshadowed by other notable events.
06:015. The Cloud9 Baby Superstore
06:05NBC's recently concluded sitcom experienced some growing pains early in its run,
06:10but was able to eventually fine-tune its storyline and ensemble
06:14to deliver a wholesome and heartwarming peek into the lives of the Cloud9 employees
06:18and their lives outside of the chain store.
06:20Some may have balked at its your workmates are your family members approach in several instances,
06:25but the show was savvy enough to have a lot more on its mind rather than banal HR proclamations.
06:30It was able to be critical of the challenges and inequities in the workplace
06:34and still foster genuine relationships between its characters.
06:38Its series finale luckily stuck the landing by adhering to what was so endearing in the first place
06:43while being topical at the same time.
06:45In addition to this, its callbacks to earlier seasons and episodes were pleasant in their retrospective approach.
06:50One such callback is Amy's encounter of an unsupervised child sitting on a potty in one of the store's aisles.
06:56It turns out that this is the same child, and in a similar outfit from the pilot, only much older.
07:02It's an amusing moment that serves as a nostalgic source of comfort or nightmare fuel for actual retail workers
07:08before the cast eventually moved on to other phases in their lives.
07:134. Anatoly Sitnikov, Chernobyl
07:16Although a good number of artistic licenses were taken in the Chernobyl miniseries,
07:20its depiction of the horror and desperation following the worst nuclear disaster in history
07:24made for both compelling and harrowing viewing upon its release in 2019.
07:29It wisely took a restrained approach to said depiction in a way that didn't paint caricatures of the people involved
07:35but also ensured that the terrifying scale of the disaster was understood by viewers
07:39who may have only had a cursory understanding of what happened in 1986.
07:43This was seen in the treatment of main characters such as, and I'm going to butcher these,
07:47Valery Legasov and Vasily Ignatenko, as well as minor ones.
07:52One such individual was Anatoly Sitnikov, the power plant's deputy chief operational engineer
07:57who took note of the immediate scale of the devastation following the plant's meltdown.
08:01Unfortunately, he was ignored by his superiors at first until it became clear that Anatoly Dyatlov,
08:06the station's chief engineer, was ill following extensive radiation exposure.
08:12Against his will, Sitnikov inspected the fallout of the exploded reactor
08:15and was bombarded by a lethal dose of radiation.
08:18He was later seen in a flashback in the last episode that detailed everyday life in Pripyat
08:23before the accident that would change his life alongside many others for the worse.
08:28Number 3, Nancy Ryan, When They See Us.
08:32Released in 2019, When They See Us received near-unanimous praise from viewers and critics alike
08:37for its uncompromising depiction of the injustices the Central Park Five endured
08:42after being falsely prosecuted and imprisoned for the 1989 assault of jogger Tricia Mellie.
08:48The case, and consequently the show, is a seminal example of the devastating impact
08:52racial and class criminal profiling has on people of colour and or working class individuals.
08:58One character that both bookended the crime drama
09:01and signalled the shift towards achieving the Five's freedom
09:04was the assistant district attorney Nancy Ryan.
09:07Played by Famke Janssen, the assistant DA was initially assigned to the case
09:11when it was believed that Mellie would die from her injuries.
09:13Once this was determined to not be so, the case was assigned to now controversial prosecutor Linda Fairstein.
09:19Years later, in 2002, Ryan and New York DA Robert Morgenthau began the process
09:25that would see the Five exonerated after sufficient evidence was provided to prove their innocence.
09:30Ryan's part in the miniseries is understandably not its focal point,
09:33but Janssen acquitted herself well as one of the driving forces
09:36that gave the Five their freedom back.
09:39Number 2, Freddie Hamid, The Night Manager.
09:42The 2016 adaptation of John le Carr's first post-Cold War novel
09:46honored the source material by respecting its espionage roots
09:49while adding its own spin on the narrative.
09:51This led to a well-told six-episode saga
09:54and one of the best adaptations of Le Carr's work in any medium.
09:58Tom Hiddleston's Jonathan Pine may be the series lead,
10:01but he wasn't forced to carry the show as he was more than capably aided by the likes of David Harewood
10:06and a rarely better Hugh Laurie as series antagonist Richard Roper.
10:10The simmering conflict between Pine and Roper is driven by the involvement of the volatile hotel owner,
10:16Freddie Hamid, and his partner, Sophie Alekin.
10:19Sophie immediately sees Jonathan as an ally in her mission to bring down Hamid
10:23by exposing his dealings with criminals such as Roper.
10:26Unfortunately, this was her undoing as Hamid found out about their budding relationship
10:30and assaulted Sophie before having her killed.
10:33Her death sees Pine's further involvement with bringing down Roper
10:37and in the final episode, the hotelier slash former spy
10:40enacts his vengeance by killing Hamid once he learns the reason behind Sophie's death.
10:46And number one, Vera Keller, The Pacific.
10:49Although not quite as gripping as Band of Brothers
10:52and admittedly that's a high bar to clear,
10:55The Pacific still delivered the requisite heart, wartime thrills,
10:58and introspective storytelling one would expect in an HBO prestige drama
11:03backed by the likes of Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks.
11:06As its title suggests, the miniseries focused on the United States Marine Corps' actions in the Pacific War,
11:12i.e. the section of World War II that was largely fought on territories surrounding the Pacific Ocean
11:17and Indian Ocean to a limited degree.
11:19Despite this wide narrative scope, the show was still able to focus on a core cast of characters,
11:24one of them being Private Robert Leckie as played by James Badge Dale.
11:29One of his most defining traits was his relationship with his childhood friend slash first love Vera Keller.
11:34Despite her mother's warnings, Vera grew closer to the rebellious Leckie
11:38until his eventual draft into the war following the Pearl Harbor tragedy.
11:42Despite her limited appearances, Vera's romance with Robert
11:45was one of the series' stronger emotional components
11:47and symbolized what every soldier had gone overseas to protect.
11:52and the former mother Scott touched upon and she also found the man who was one of the people who died to change.
11:56She used toban, she used to be a first wife from a Kimber.
11:57It was her leading the leader of the Pearl Harbor.
11:59She used to praise the Queen of Robert
12:00at the time and she used to warn the king of ัะตะปะพะฒะตะบ,
12:04and she used to bite into a young man.
12:05She used to watch the number one of her billionaires,
12:06but she used to get it to be a woman who was a baby-shaped person.
12:07She used to die for this,
12:08and even though she used to end, she used to win the battle from the ship
12:11and she used to do nothing.
12:12And she used to do nothing but she used to do it now.
12:13I used to use the pirates.
12:15So that she was a bit late for the flag.
12:16And what she used to do it to say is today's story,
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