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Still scratching your head over how your favorite shows ended? Join us as we count down the most baffling and thought-provoking TV finales ever made, breaking down what really happened — or what might have happened — when the credits rolled for the last time!
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00:05Welcome to WatchMojo and today we're counting down art picks for the most head-scratching
00:11TV finales out there!
00:12We'll be getting into spoilers for various shows and dissecting what happened in their
00:16endings, so consider this your warning 10.
00:24Did Eleven survive her final sacrifice, Stranger Things?
00:26Fans spent almost a decade following this 80s-themed cosmic horror show, and in season 5 the story
00:33finally wrapped.
00:40But while the finale was meant to provide closure, one thing still remains a mystery.
00:45What happened to Eleven?
00:46She got caught up in the destruction of the Upside Down, but what happened next?
00:50Did she pay the ultimate sacrifice or did she survive?
00:53Stranger Things leaves her fate open-ended, meaning what happened is up to interpretation.
00:57It doesn't mean you gotta like it, doesn't mean you gotta understand it, never think
01:02about it, you just accept it.
01:06It's an interesting yet equally frustrating decision, and many fans had bones to pick
01:11with the finale.
01:11In fact, this led to Conformity Gate, a theory that an extra episode was waiting to be released.
01:16Evidently though, this wasn't the case, and our looming questions still remain unanswered.
01:21Guys!
01:22What's going on?
01:23The lasagna's getting cold!
01:25Yeah, we just finished.
01:27We'll be right up.
01:289.
01:29Will humanity repeat its cycle?
01:31Battlestar Galactica
01:32Everything revolves around Starbuck.
01:34No, no, no.
01:35Not Starbucks the coffee juggernaut.
01:37Starbuck as in Cara Thrace.
01:39She becomes humanity's last saving grace in their attempt to survive despite all the odds.
01:44The series ends with the last survivors finding a prehistoric version of Earth thanks to Starbuck,
01:48and choosing to give up their technology to instead live amongst the primitive humans.
01:59It's widely been considered that the role of Starbuck was to be that of an angel, getting
02:04humanity to where they needed to be.
02:06Your lives will be less eventful.
02:10The show also asks if humanity is forced to repeat its mistakes when it comes to
02:14technological dependence.
02:15Ultimately, it's one of the final key ideas that the audience is left to sit with as the
02:19show finally closes.
02:21The startling announcement was made that archaeologists believe they have found fossilized remains
02:26of a young woman who may actually be mitochondrial Ene.
02:298.
02:30What's up with that cliffhanger?
02:32Hannibal
02:32You've heard the phrase, it's a dog-eat-dog world, but Hannibal is a man-eat-man world.
02:37In the end, we see the death of Francis Doehler Hyde at the hands of Hannibal and Will
02:46Graham.
02:48But not long afterwards, Will forces himself and Hannibal off the cliff they're on.
02:53It leaves their fates on a literal cliffhanger.
02:56Showrunner Brian Fuller later gave thoughts.
02:58He explained that Will's actions allowed these two codependent men to be together in a way
03:02that prevents further deaths.
03:07This is all I ever wanted for you, Will.
03:14For both of us.
03:16The finale also shows a post-credits scene of Delia du Maurier preparing to eat her own
03:21leg, which is all kinds of nasty.
03:23But besides being nightmare fuel, it also suggests that she's waiting for Hannibal and Will.
03:27Whether her guests actually arrive remains unseen.
03:38Number 7.
03:39Don Draper's Enlightenment
03:41Or another ad pitch?
03:43Mad Men
03:43Most, if not all, people hate ads with a burning passion.
03:47But a select few out there not only appreciate advertisements, but also sees the beauty in
03:52them.
03:52In the show Mad Men, that special crop of people are advertising executives like Don Draper.
03:57The ending sees Don meditating after leaving his career behind.
04:00I'm gonna split.
04:02Well, I'm going to sit here and look at these four walls.
04:05The man who was roped in so many vices has now found inner peace.
04:10At least that's what we assumed.
04:12The finale actually later segues away from Don and into a Coca-Cola commercial.
04:16I have a person-to-person call for Peggy Olson from Donald Draper.
04:20This is Peggy Olson.
04:21I accept.
04:22Where the hell are you?
04:24Don ditched mediation and go back to making ads like this one.
04:27It's a very clear burning of the lines that's going on here.
04:30A show all about advertisements ending with an ad?
04:33Yeah.
04:34Seems pretty fitting.
04:36New ideas.
04:39A new you.
04:436.
04:44WERE THEY DEAD ALL ALONG?
04:45LOSS
04:54We have to go back to the finale of Lost because fans are still scratching their heads 16 years
05:00after the conclusion.
05:01In the end, Jack Shepherd dies on the island, but his death is synced up with The Flash Sideways,
05:06an alternate timeline where the Oceanic Airlines plane crash never happened.
05:10The Flash Sideways are then revealed as basically a spiritual waiting room.
05:24Jack reunites with everyone in the church and they're met by a white light, presumably sending
05:29them into heaven.
05:30Where are we, Dad?
05:34This is a place that you all made together so that you could find one another.
05:39It's not a bad ending, but many thought this meant the characters were dead the entire time.
05:44They weren't in purgatory for six seasons, but perhaps The Flash Sideways was a temporary
05:49purgatory.
05:49Look, Lost asks many interesting questions, but unfortunately, not every answer was well received.
05:55Number Five
05:56Who was Number One?
05:57The Prisoner
05:58We desire that these proceedings be conducted in a civilized manner, but remind ourselves
06:06that humanity is not humanized without force, and that errant children must sometimes be
06:13brought to book with a smack on their backside.
06:16The one season series is about a man named Number Six, who's trapped in a bizarre remote
06:21village.
06:22There's also a villain called Number One, and if you're thinking this show is obsessed
06:25with numbers, you're right.
06:27Anyways, in the finale Fallout, Number Six has a stare down with Number One and tries uncovering
06:32who One is.
06:34The villain is then revealed to actually be Number Six.
06:41Wait, what?
06:43Are we dealing with clones?
06:44Timeline variants?
06:45Someone with an unhealthy plastic surgery obsession.
06:48It's a peculiar twist.
06:50The series creator slash lead star Patrick McGowan explained that he wanted to show that we're
06:54all prisoners to ourselves, and that freedom isn't as real as we think.
06:58However, the execution left a sour taste in fans' mouths.
07:06Number Four
07:07Did Tommy make it all up?
07:09St. Elsewhere
07:10When is a medical drama not a medical drama?
07:12When it's St. Elsewhere, apparently.
07:14That's because not all is as it seems with this series.
07:18You know, ever since beating this disease as a kid, I've always avoided hospitals.
07:23Places like this scared me so much.
07:26On the surface, it looks like a standard hospital procedural, with the only noteworthy detail
07:31being that it kickstarted Denzel Washington's career.
07:34However, the show's finale threw everything we knew into question.
07:37Dr. Westfall and his son Tommy look at snow outside of Dr. Austin Lander's office.
07:42Then we pivot to the hospital, but we then discover that it's actually stuck in a snow globe that Tommy
07:47has.
07:49Hi, Pop. How are you doing?
07:51Good.
07:52How was your day up on the building?
07:54Well, we finally topped off the 22nd story.
07:58We also learned that Westfall isn't actually a doctor.
08:01The implications here is that the entire show was from Tommy's imagination.
08:06Is your head hurting?
08:07Don't worry.
08:07Our heads are hurting too.
08:09He's been sitting there ever since you left this morning.
08:12Just like he does every day.
08:14The world of his own.
08:16Number three.
08:16Was Nora telling the truth?
08:18The leftovers.
08:19What happens after 2% of the world's population disappears?
08:22How are people supposed to pick up the pieces of their life and move on?
08:26Those are questions that The Leftovers tackles.
08:28It's a slow burn of a series about grieving that picks up some steam in its finale, The Book of
08:33Nora.
08:33When an older Nora resurfaces, she tells Kevin she went to a special dimension where the departed now live.
08:39It's a statement that could be met with skepticism, but Kevin actually believes her, and the two share a heartfelt
08:44reunion.
08:45So you're saying you've never been here before? This is your first time in Australia.
08:49Well, you're really gonna keep this up?
08:53We don't know if Nora is right, but it doesn't actually matter.
08:57Over here, we lost some of them.
09:02But over there, they lost all of us.
09:06Kevin wants to believe that she's being honest, so he chooses to live in that hopeful headspace.
09:11Ignorance is ultimately bliss.
09:13I'm here.
09:202. What Happens to Tony? The Sopranos
09:23This finale is unique because it's not about what happens, but about what doesn't happen that everyone can't stop talking
09:29about.
09:29In the midst of death, we are in life, huh? Or is it the other way around?
09:34I think it's the other way around.
09:35With the finale made in America, mobster Tony Soprano sits in a diner with his family and listens to music
09:40as he waits for his daughter to join them.
09:43All the while we get glimpses of some potentially shady characters walking into the diner.
09:47There's this whole feeling of tension that lingers with each passing second.
09:50Not like we haven't envisioned this day.
09:53No, not much tonight.
09:54And at the very end, we get a close-up of Tony's face and nothing.
09:59Just a fade to black. That's how the show ends.
10:02Was Tony going to get killed or did he live to eat gabagool another day?
10:06We're still wondering that very same question years later.
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10:28Number one, what is this reality?
10:30Twin Peaks, The Return.
10:32We live inside a dream.
10:37I hope I see all of you again.
10:42Every one of you.
10:43In Twin Peaks, The Return, fans hoping for answers about what everything was about were left out of luck.
10:49Our iconic FBI agent, Dale Cooper, time travels.
10:52Finds a woman who looks like Laura Palmer named Carrie, asks what year it is, and then we end with
10:57horrifying screams.
10:59Besides time travel, it's widely assumed that dimension hopping occurred in this finale.
11:14The show's co-creator, Mark Frost, later compared Cooper's story to Orpheus.
11:18Orpheus tries getting his wife Eurydice back from the underworld only for chaos to ensure.
11:23At the end of the day, David Lynch's surrealist drama was never going to have its answers be easy to
11:28find.
11:29In fact, this franchise is the poster boy for ambiguity.
11:32But it's not the destination, it's the journey.
11:38Are there any baffling TV show endings we missed?
11:41Spread the confusion down in the comments below.
11:45Let's go.
11:46Let's go.
11:46Let's go.
11:46Let's go.
11:47Let's go.
11:47Let's go.
11:47Let's go.
11:48Let's go.
11:48Let's go.
11:49Let's go.
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