That's All, Folks!

Art by Francesca Polistina

A few weeks ago, the final season of The Good Place was added to Netflix. I spent my weekend bingeing the last thirteen episodes, and was left in an existential, tearful crisis by the time the finale was over. When I finish a show, whether I’ve been watching for many years or bingeing it to fill time, my emotional reactions are strong. Not to give Ryan Murphy too much credit, but I watched the Glee finale and cried for an hour and a half after. It’s easy for our hearts to feel heavy when finishing shows, and with that much emotional investment involved, there’s a lot on the line in a series finale. Writers, producers, and anyone else involved in creating a show, are trying to give closure to the story they’ve been telling for a long time, wrap up the development of their characters, please audiences and rabid fanbases, and ensure a legacy that will stay with the show forever. 

Another show that’s ending left me in tears was How I Met Your Mother. It ended in 2014 with one of the most highly anticipated yet disappointing finales of TV. While How I Met Your Mother gave its story an ending, it did not match the direction of the show or the point they seemed to be trying to make the whole time. How I Met Your Mother follows the frame story of the protagonist telling his kids about how he met their mom, and the simple yet compelling premise led to good ratings, and seasons after seasons of getting renewed. The show had great character work and running bits, but at the heart of it, audiences were always waiting to see the mother and the protagonist together. Their meeting is not officially shown until the finale, and only provides a glimpse into their relationship before going in another direction that doesn’t end up with them together. The general consensus among viewers was that the twist ending was unnatural and did not understand its audience or own writing well, defeating so much of what it had built for nine seasons. 

 Maybe one of the most highly controversial TV finales is HBO’s Game of Thrones, who finished their series in May 2019. I’d never seen the show, but it was difficult to escape the cultural tirade against the ending, on social media and in real life. Long time Game of Thrones fan, Jacob Sockett ‘22, explained that the final season had already been a let down, but the finale “still stung.”  “What you had been expecting to happen all along, did come to a head, but the characters all were given endings that did not satisfy all the growth that they had been through during the show,”  Sockett says. Closure for the characters is definitely needed for a strong TV finale. This feeling of dissatisfaction is explained well by Martie Cook, author of Write to TV, who says “TV shows are like friends, and when you watch them you are inviting the characters into your house.” Audiences are obviously going to want to see where the characters they’ve connected with end the journeys we’ve watched them go on. Like with an old friend, the characters should be left where you will remember them fondly, but are comfortable with the time you spent together.

I asked Martie if she thinks audiences are owed a certain amount of satisfaction with the end of a show. Plainly stated, she told me, “Yes, if you don’t have an audience you don’t have a show, so you gotta give the audience something to satisfy them.” Especially with social media and streaming, finales will be talked about and depending on that shows will go watched or unwatched after their original airings. However, with the best shows, the writers understand their characters and stories well enough to deliver a quality ending. 

TV is my ultimate comfort, yet it’s also easy to be let down by it. In Emily Nussbaum’s book I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way through the TV Revolution, she says “the ideal viewer should behave less like a nagging critic and more like a soul mate, supportive and committed even when doubts creep in.” There are so many people putting these stories together, and I’ve got to trust that they know it better than I do. However, Nussbaum also says “If you build a show to be loved, heartbreak is always a risk.” For the viewer who invested their time and emotions into the story and characters, a disappointing finale sits with you like a breakup with no closure.