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These devastating cliffhangers were eventually resolved - one way or another.
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00:00Nothing pisses people off quite like a cliffhanger ending, especially where TV is concerned. Where
00:06fans have spent potentially years and years investing themselves emotionally in a show,
00:11only for it to go off the air without any sort of concrete conclusion. But it's not always a
00:16total loss, given that many showrunners and writers have later got on the record to reveal
00:21what was originally supposed to come next. I'm Ewan, this is WhatCulture, and here at
00:26infuriating TV cliffhangers you didn't realise had answers.
00:30Earl Jr's father is a random celebrity, and Earl never finishes his list. My name is Earl.
00:37My name is Earl's cancellation after its fourth season is especially cruel given that NBC had
00:44provisionally already teed the series up for another go-around, before unexpectedly pulling
00:48the plug. Plus, Season 4 ended on a massive cliffhanger, with the revelation that Darnell
00:53isn't the father of Earl Jr, suggesting that his wife Joy had another affair. Oh,
00:59and Earl never finished atoning for his list of wrongs, so there's that too. Creator Greg Garcia
01:04did at least reveal the intended direction for the fifth and final season in a 2013 Reddit AMA.
01:10Though the writers of My name is Earl hadn't yet settled on the precise identity of Earl Jr's
01:14biological father, they planned for it to be someone famous like Dave Chappelle or Lil Jon.
01:19And the kicker about Earl not completing his list? Well, Garcia was actually going to end the show
01:24without Earl finishing it anyway. Instead, he'd get stuck on a particularly tough item on the list,
01:30before running into someone who'd made their own list with Earl's name on. Basically,
01:34Earl's choice to make a list unknowingly kickstarted a chain reaction of other people
01:39creating their own atonement lists, making Earl realise that he's brought some gut into the world,
01:43at which point he tears up his list and moves on with his life. The baby was Kryptonian royalty.
01:49Lois and Clark, the new adventures of Superman. Classic 90s Superman series Lois and Clark was
01:55abruptly cancelled at the end of its fourth season, leaving fans with an agonising cliffhanger as an
02:01unknown party leaves a baby boy in Lois and Clark's home. Given that the baby's blanket is emblazoned with
02:07the Superman symbol and a note declares that the child belongs to them, it certainly raised some
02:11questions which, per the show's cancellation, were infuriatingly never answered. In the show,
02:17at least. But in a 2003 interview with the puddly titled Krypton Sight, one of the show's writers and
02:24executive producers, Brad Buckner, revealed what was supposed to happen next. According to Buckner,
02:29the baby was actually Kryptonian royalty who had been stashed with Lois and Clark by his mother in
02:34order to keep him safe from assassins. Throughout the planned fifth season, the boy would have grown up at
02:39an abnormal rate, quickly ageing into a teenager in mere months while also developing his own
02:44superpowers. The season would have basically focused on Lois and Clark parenting a superpowered child,
02:49who by season's end would tragically leave the duo to save his people. Jim survives being shot.
02:55The Glades
02:57The hit crime drama series The Glades was harshly cancelled at the end of season four, which
03:01wrapped up with an absolutely devastating cliffhanger in which protagonist Jim Longworth is shot twice in
03:07the chest in his new home prior to his wedding, leaving his fate unresolved. However, shortly after
03:12the show was canned by A&E and any prospect of shopping into other networks had dried up,
03:17creator Clifton Campbell revealed what season five would have been about if given the green light.
03:22Simply, Jim would have in fact survived getting shot, with the season being focused around him
03:27investigating the identity of the person who tried to kill him, though Campbell sadly didn't go so
03:31far as to reveal who the actual culprit was. In the very least, fans can rest easy that as much
03:37as
03:37he appeared to be left in existential limbo, Jim didn't take a big long dirt nap at show's end.
03:43Ash fights machines in the future. Ash vs Evil Dead
03:46The brilliantly wacky Evil Dead sequel series Ash vs Evil Dead was cancelled after three spectacular,
03:53blood-soaked, wisecracking seasons, leaving fans hanging on one hell of a tease of a fourth season.
03:59In the final scene, Ash, played by the peerless Bruce Campbell, is shown waking up in a post-apocalyptic
04:05future, where he has a newly augmented hand and a modified version of his beloved car,
04:10the Oldsmobile. Aided by robotic companion Lex, played by Jessica Green, Ash drives off into the
04:16night, presumably to kick more demonic ass, but sadly we never got to see precisely what Ash got up to.
04:22While you can certainly argue that season three's ending is still a decent enough leaping off point for
04:28the character, concept after the intended fourth season reveals that it would have basically been
04:32a Mad Max-inspired romp in which Ash scours an arid wasteland and battles robots. According to
04:39art director Nick Bassett, the season would have been named Ash and the Machines, and though
04:43producers apparently loved the direction for season four, network stars felt that it would have been
04:48too expensive to produce. Hannibal and Will both survive. Hannibal. Hannibal ironically ended on a
04:55literal cliffhanger by having its two central characters, Hannibal Lecter, played by the
04:59brilliant Mads Mikkelsen, and Will Graham, played by the also brilliant Hugh Dancy, go tumbling over
05:04a cliff edge. NBC had cancelled the show due to low ratings for the time the cliffhanger had aired,
05:10leaving fans to speculate on their fate ever since, and I have never ever gone over it. Now,
05:16in fairness, the final episode's post-credits scene in which Bedelia Du Maurier, played by Julian
05:20Anderson, sits at a table beside her own cucked leg, with two additional places set for dinner,
05:25did at least hint that the duo survived, though that certainly didn't confirm it. While Hannibal
05:30creator Brian Fuller initially played coy about confirming Hannibal and Will's fates, in later years,
05:35once it became clear that the show wouldn't be picked up for a fourth season, he finally relented.
05:40In a reply to a since-deleted 2019 tweet asking about the cliffhanger, Fuller confirmed that they
05:45indeed both survived, ensuring that if Hannibal is ever given an unlikely revival, we can expect to
05:51see both Mads Mikkelsen and Hugh Dancy return. Given reported plans to adapt aspects of Silence
05:56of the Lambs, I am begging for this to happen. John Doe was injured in a boating accident. John Doe.
06:03A short-lived but fondly remembered sci-fi mystery series, John Doe revolves around Dominic Purcell,
06:09waking up on an island off the coast of Seattle with a strange mark on his chest and no memory
06:14of who he is
06:15or how he wound up there. Oh, and he possesses a supernatural knowledge of basically everything.
06:19Yeah, the show was cancelled after a single season, leaving not only the mystery of John Doe's true
06:24identity forever unsolved, but also ending on a more overt cliffhanger by revealing that John's
06:29buddy Digger, played by William Forsythe, was the leader of the Shady Phoenix organization,
06:34which has been following him since the start of the series. A year after the show ended, creators
06:38Brandon Camp and Mike Thompson revealed to EW what would have happened next. For starters, the Digger
06:43twist was actually a fakeout. A member of Phoenix simply had facial reconstructive surgery to
06:48resemble Digger instead. As for the bigger mystery of Doe? Well, turns out he's just a regular guy who
06:55was injured in a boating accident, and the mark on his chest was just from debris. But what about his
06:59ridiculous repository of knowledge? Well, here's where things get a little bit wackier. It was a result of
07:05having a near-death experience during the accident and venturing to a spiritual plane where he received
07:11all the answers to the universe's questions. TV. You are a wild medium. Justin, Ben, and Jonesy all
07:18survive. Carnival. Almost 20 years later, HBO's cancellation of the epic drama series Carnival
07:25still stings fresh, coming it just two seasons into its planned six-season arc. The second season's
07:31final episode left fans to chew over a handful of shocking moments, namely Brother Justin, played by
07:37Clancy Brown, and Ben, Nick Stahl, being both grimly wounded following their climactic fight, while Jonesy's
07:43fate is left hanging in the balance after he's shot by Sophie. But a few years after Carnival's cancellation,
07:50the show's creator, Daniel North, dropped the veil and detail would have become the trio.
07:54Somewhat unsurprisingly, the show's protagonist, Ben, survived the ordeal, yet decidedly more
08:00unexpectedly, despite his grim prognosis the last time we saw him, Brother Justin would have also
08:05been alive. And then there's Jonesy, who would have additionally survived a season three, having had
08:11his life saved by Iris. Kyle meets the leader. V. 1984. V was one of the quintessential water cooler
08:19shows of the 1980s, a sci-fi series in which Earth is invaded by a race of carnivorous reptilian humanoids
08:26known as The Visitors. Unlike most entries on this list though, NBC didn't even wait for the 20 episode
08:32series to finish production before binning it completely. They cancelled it, while the season's
08:37final episode was actually still being filmed. God, that's rough. And so, V ended instead on the
08:42season's penultimate intended episode, with a cliffhanger in which Resistance member Kyle Bates
08:47throws away on a shuttle headed towards The Visitors' homeworld. Creator Kenneth Jackson has spoken
08:52extensively about V in the decade since its cancellation, and eventually revealed that
08:57the season finale was intended to have Kyle transported to an alternate dimension where
09:02he sees the leader. Literally, the leader of The Visitors. The episode would have also killed off
09:07Julie Parrish and set up the second season, which was set to focus on the Resistance searching for an
09:11all-powerful ancient artifact known as the Annex. The underground survivors die. The Last Man on Earth.
09:19The post-apocalyptic comedy series The Last Man on Earth was cancelled at the conclusion of its
09:23fourth season, which ended on a cliffhanger as Tandy, Will Fort, and the other survivors set up camp,
09:29only to be surrounded by a group of gas mask-wearing survivors who had been living underground.
09:34Fort did at least offer fans a taste of what would happen in the unrealized fifth season though. In an
09:39interview with Vulture, Fort revealed that the underground survivors initially quarantined Tandy and
09:43company before growing increasingly comfortable with them over the course of the season. However,
09:48the ironic twist? Though Tandy and the other above-ground survivors are immune to the deadly
09:54virus, they're still carriers and would consequently infect the underground survivors and inadvertently
10:00kill the majority of them. Fort planned to keep just one of the underground survivors around,
10:05who would have been played by a notable guest star, and joined the main ensemble.
10:12Before Ryan Murphy became the household TV name he is today, he co-created the teen comedy series
10:19Popular, starring Leslie Bibb and Carly Pope as a pair of opposed teenage girls who are forced to
10:24coexist when their single parents get married. Popular was ultimately cancelled after two seasons,
10:30and left the show's loyal fanbase crushed given the absolutely brutal cliffhanger it ended on. Season 2
10:36concluded with Brooke being hit by Nicole Julian in a drink driving accident, the screen cutting to
10:42black at the moment of impact and leaving Brooke's fate hanging in the balance. Fans have speculated
10:47about the outcome ever since, though in an interview several years later, Murphy did eventually reveal
10:52what became of Brooke. As it turns out, she did survive being hit by Nicole, though broke every single
10:58bone in her face. But in a hilarious twist, when Brooke's bandages are removed, she looks just as
11:04beautiful as before, except with one minor difference. She's now a brunette instead of a blonde. Amazing.
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