SeaBusCBus
Marth/Fox is 60/40
Mine is Scrubs. Followed by House M.D and Breaking Bad.
What’s yours?
What’s yours?
Yeah, what she said. Cheers!I'm gonna say the ending of the original Twin Peaks and Twin Peaks The Return and probably the 2 best pieces of television I've ever seen. Can't think of anything the even comes close in terms of last episodes.
I want to watch it again but I need some separation from the actress that plays Lucy being a pedophile defender (in possibly the most disgusting way ive ever seen)Probably Twin Peaks. Granted, both endings are very unsatisfying at first, but later on you can't help but respect the sheer power of Season 3 which concludes everything neatly and then throws the curveball which I'm still not sure I understand. Obviously big props to Kyle MacLachlan for portraying like 5 different characters in season 3, what a ride that was.
Says who?I'll round this out with a mention that isn't anime: the Sopranos.
Avatar The last Airbender (Obviously)
Young Royals (Series about a Swedish gay prince on Netflix not always having the best episodes but a great ending)
How I Met Your Mother (Unironically)
Great Pretender (Cool original Anime by Wit Sudio)
Neo Genesis Evangelion (Yes, the original ending)
Both endings of Twin Peaks
Says who?
(I'm the rare breed that actually likes that ending)
Oh, and I like LOST and Evangelion's endings, too!
I didn‘t really follow the series live, so I wasn‘t part of this internet meltdown when that ending aired. I watched the last season a few months later. Also it wasn‘t clear to me at the time how much it was hated.Both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul ended perfectly, in my opinion. The Wire wasn't necessarily perfect but it's a poignant conclusion I still think about a lot to this day.
Oh, and I like LOST and Evangelion's endings, too!
I'm going to need an explanation.
That's a fair interpretation!I didn‘t really follow the series live, so I wasn‘t part of this internet meltdown when that ending aired. I watched the last season a few months later. Also it wasn‘t clear to me at the time how much it was hated.
I think it worked for me quite well because at that time I had to deal with losing a friend close to me too early. The show has I believe a strong message in this regard, with it was a great time as long it lasted, but at some point you have to move on, life is happening now.
It is something I can relate to greatly and I think the last two seasons of HIMYM really have some masterful scenes there. I mean much of the last episodes are the group dealing with saying goodbye while still be happy about the time they had (and have now). To the point that they have to acknowledge that they aren‘t this close friend group anymore.
When first time watching it, it didn‘t occur to me that the death of the mother could be seen that she was killed off so Ted can be together with Robin, I understood it more in the sense that he still was living in the past and now has to move on. He had to say goodbye and so had you as a viewer.
I understand that they wrote themselves in a bit of dead end situation with keeping that ending over all those years and I’m sure they planed it differently initially, but I get why it would have been important to them to end the show like this.
Did the message might get lost a bit somewhere? Was the ending too rushed and felt forced? Maybe. It was too much of a melancholic ending for what was essentially a Comedy Sitcom that relies on fast paced 24 minutes episodes. For many it felt like it came out of nowhere. Especially when you consider the last season was overall perceived not too positively by most people. I think it would have worked better if the last two episodes were a movie with more runtime or something.
Anyway, I get why people wouldn‘t like it, but I think the hatred for it is a bit of an overreaction and I am still surprised about the strong reaction people have to it to this day.
Fair, I get that. I think for me this things were explained enough that the characters moved on over those years, so they were in a different place.That's a fair interpretation!
I can't speak for everyone who was disappointed, but my qualms with the ending were less to do with the death of the mother and more to do with the widespread disregard for any character development that occurred over the course of the series.
- Barney (who I understand is irredeemable in a modern context but let's for a moment rewind the clock to 2014) has an arc that sees him evolve from a totally unrepentant scumbag to an actual human being that is capable of genuine love. But then he gets married and that's all gone because he just can't quit his vices!
- The show cycles through Ted and Robin many, many times and shows exhaustively how the two just are not compatible in a romantic sense. But, nope! The whole story was actually about how Ted never stopped being into Robin. This totally invalidates several episodes including a very important one in season 9.
- Lily's characterization in season 9 just kind of sucks, but the finale neither improved or worsened that. I just had to say it!
It's one of the best series ever created, even if season two stumbles for quite a while due to studio interference. The way the first story arc ends is perfect and the way the second season ends is just mind blowing. The studio really had something on their hands and ruined it until Lynch got his hands on it again for the final stretch.Man, I've never seen or heard of twin peaks. I need to check this out.
I THINK I agree but I don't know if it's for the same reasons. Would you mind expanding on this?and I think on principle Breaking Bad sucks shit
hah, sure, but I don’t know if it’ll be a popular take around hereI THINK I agree but I don't know if it's for the same reasons. Would you mind expanding on this?
Yeah!hah, sure, but I don’t know if it’ll be a popular take around here
let’s see what kind of trouble this gets me in…
walter white sucks shit
compellingly horrible, sure, but the whole fucking crux of the show is him being extremely horrible to everyone around him and just obliterating every charismatic and interesting character he comes into contact with
like in addition to everything, they make him do something super fucked up in the first season without warning — I’m not repeating what it is here — and still keep writing it like there’s some possibility that he’s a sympathetic character instead of the fucking worst
the women in the show are NOT written well and pigeonholed into horrible little pockets
the show is more freewheelingly racist, and though it’s often positioned like “maybe possibly it’s supposed to be a criticism of the white people in question,” NONE of that is backed up by the way any non-white character is written
there’s so much else I could say about all the ways in which it’s shitty, but I’d run out of energy, lmao
and then you have Better Call Saul
which is given enough room to breathe and the gift of hindsight, mixed with extremely fortunate circumstance
Kim does an amazing job right from the start — and a role that easily could have gone badly is given much more room and attention
because of that, the gang has to work a little harder to remember that women are people
and to make sure they actually do that this time, they end up with way more women writers
not a panacea by any means. but an important component to it working here!
recognizing Rhea’s talent immediately has them reframe the core gag: they’ve said that this is when they really realized that Jimmy becoming Saul is a tragedy, and not something they needed to rush into for fanservice. the tension between that inevitability and trying to avoid it becomes crucial to the entire thing — fundamental to the joy and the heartbreak.
also, the show leads off sort of recognizing that it did so many non-white actors dirty in Breaking Bad — it immediately revisits some of those roles to give them more screentime, nuance, and agency.
so if you bring back a zany guy from Breaking Bad, whose character is given more time to shine but is ultimately still the guy you wrote the first time… how do you balance that?
enter the immensely talented Michael Mando, perfect foil to Tuco, immediately given the kind of agency, longevity, and charismatic / tragic balance to be super compelling and well-rounded, unlike any other non-white character really gets to be in Breaking Bad
another thing, right from the first episode, that reframes it — they recognize from that success that they must have a meaningful foil or balance to any returning Breaking Bad character
so when it comes time to let Gus shine so so so much more than he got to in Breaking Bad, especially with much less nebulous context… we get an incredibly worthy (and also tragic) adversary in Lalo
because of the strength of the Better Call Saul characters, all the woven in Breaking Bad characters fit, are set up perfectly, and just get to truly shine
that’s not to mention every other amazing performance — Mike at his absolute best and most heartbreaking, Chuck’s mastery of cutting snark tinged with despair, Howard being an absolute freak, etc etc etc
there’s so much more interplay. not one fucked up asshole tearing down everything — threads, tragedies, interlinked
and — not in a condescending, pandering, or bleak sort of way — it’s a fucking love story
a real and meaningful one
not where the goal is together at all costs, but we changed each other and that matters and being who we are is more important than fearing what we could be or were
and honestly, intended or not, the whole thing is so queer-coded
like there are the obvious and clearly intended parts, but like… even Jimmy and Kim are just profoundly queerly written
which is so refreshing, versus the violent and widespread straightness of Breaking Bad
I uh… rambled a lot there
did I answer the question?
I genuinely think Gurren Lagann has the best TV finale I've ever seen. The final battle, the emotions, the animation, the denouement, it's all incredible stuff.
Runner up for me would be Cowboy Bebop. It's so iconic I don't even have to post it. But the music right before the ending, in the final battle, always gets me:
Third for me would have to probably be Dragon Ball GT. Despite an incredibly uneven production, the final arc of GT is, in my opinion, up there with the best arcs of DB/Z, and the sendoff to Goku is incredibly touching. Despite Toriyama's limited involvement in GT (he mostly designed some of the early characters and gave minor input), it certainly feels much more bittersweet after his passing.
Yu Yu Hakusho's ending always manages to make me bawl like a baby. Just seeing the characters one last time like this with Smile Bomb, it gets me:
I'll round this out with a mention that isn't anime: the Sopranos. Nothing needs to be said with how iconic its ending is, but here's a video anyway:
This is getting long so a few honorable mentions:
Avatar: The Last Airbender - Sozin's Comit
The Wire - 30-
The Shield - Family Meeting
Futurama - The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings (Meanwhile is still a good ending, but of all of the Futurama finales, this one is still the best)
Star Trek: The Next Generation - All Good Things... (literally watched this one a few days ago!)
It may not be great as a 'series finale' but I liked the final episode of SG-1 a lot (Season 10 finale). It's a very reflective, calm, and almost zen episode focused on the characters rather than anything big and plot-heavy. It was fitting in a way after 10 long seasons.It's not a "grand finale to a story" type ending, but for a more episodic show I love Star Trek: The Next Generation's "All Good Things...". If you haven't seen it, without giving too much away Captain Picard seems to be bouncing between past, present, and future. This gives a good excuse to revisit things as they were back around episode 1, as well as a taste of a possible way things could play out, without locking themselves to anything for certain.
Stargate SG-1 did something somewhat similar with its "Moebius" episodes at the end of season 8, but then it ended up getting picked up again so it wasn't the series finale, even if it was still an end of an era with some major cast and story changes.
I nearly mentioned Adventure (rewatched it last year and hearing Butterfly at the end always gets me), but I felt the final battle was on the anticlimactic side.Digimon Adventures 01- After watching 50 some odd episodes of that show, if watching the digidestined leave on the train while saying goodbye to their digimon friends doesn't put a tear in your eye, you aren't human.
I nearly mentioned Adventure (rewatched it last year and hearing Butterfly at the end always gets me), but I felt the final battle was on the anticlimactic side.
Still worth posting: