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Bleakest TV show endings

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Seinfeld is one that comes to mind. Basically ruins that whole show and just makes you feel like an awful person for loving those characters. Huge bummer.

What?

No.

The final episode is a complete inverse of the entire series. That's what makes it so brilliant.
 
My 2 are Lost and 6 feet under.

Granted Lost's ending shat over the entire series by being so incredibly terrible but also doubles as bleak.

6 feet under is when they all die. Surely doesn't get bleaker than that although in contrast to lost it was genius.

From what I remember wasn't Lost more optimistic?

Anyway maybe its more cynical than bleak but I would say The Wire due to the fates of many characters and what it means for the status quo of Baltimore. Then again it has rays of hope.
 
So, looking up the ridiculous Alf ending and I found a cracked article with a bunch more. Their number one is pretty damn depressing...

cracked said:
The camera pans out from the hospital, showing snow beginning to fall. Then the scene switches to an autistic child playing with a toy in an apartment. One of doctors arrives wearing a construction worker's outfit, and talks to his father about how he wishes he knew what was going on in his son Tommy's head, "... he sits there all day long, in his own world, staring at that toy. What's he thinking about?"

That toy is actually a snow globe with a tiny St. Eligius inside, implying that the entire show (and all the shows referenced within) exist only in the imagination of child.

cracked said:
Mimsie the cat was the logo for MTM Enterprises. In the standard version, he looks up and gives an adorable mew. Throughout the years, different shows had made their own variations of the original.But, in 1988, when St. Elsewhere ended, they decided to take the cat down with them.

As the final credits roll, Mimsie wasn't in his usual surgical mask and cap. Instead, an unconscious Mimsie is seen hooked up to a beeping heart monitor. And, at the very end of credits, he flat-lines, dying onscreen.

http://www.cracked.com/article_18490_the-7-most-soul-crushing-series-finales-in-tv-history_p2.html
 
The Shield will always stick out for the "family meeting"

Berserk is the most cold blooded, it's not even an ending, it just stops at the most horrific moment in the series.
 
Nothing about that ending is
heroic. He's a shark who doesn't know how to do anything but swim forward

I didnt say the ending was
heroic, I said that final moment was him having his hero / badass / "im going to walk out of here with mah gun because im a rebel and look at me smirk because im a badass" moment. I think it should have ended with him at the desk and that was it. He's a scumbag and it should have ended with him feeling like shit.
 
Black Butler 2

I mean, fuck pretty much that entire series, but the ending was the only redeemable part and god was that depressing. Especially after the first series had such a perfect ending. Fuck you Alois, but double fuck you to Claude. You giant sack of shit.
dollhouse tv show was pretty damn bleak, despite the name.
It wasn't really that bleak of a show. It projects this idea that the heroes never win, but they do.
They shut down Rossum in the future and start new lives, even though a few are sacrificed along the way.
It's far less bleak and more just bittersweet. Though a very dark bittersweet.
 
Spartacus. That one had me down for at least a week. Thinking about it again has me down again.

The way the bad guys were just casually going about their business as folks are getting crucified really got to me. It was so grim. Loved the show, but I don't think I can ever watch that again.
 
Seinfeld is one that comes to mind. Basically ruins that whole show and just makes you feel like an awful person for loving those characters. Huge bummer.

You know, looking back, I wonder why people had a problem with the finale. Not that I disagree with you, and am in fact on the same page. But the Seinfeld guys were always assholes, and I figured people who watched the show were already aware of that and that was part of why they watched it.
 
Dexter has a pretty bleak ending.
In the penultimate episode Dexter's sister is shot. Later in the episode it seems all good. This is just a TV show, it is just a flesh wound. Then the final episode all of a sudden she becomes braindead. Then Dexter takes her body from the hospital and drives his boat into a storm assumed dead. Until the next scene, where he is now a lumberjack.

How I Met Your Mother
Whole show builds up to the Mother. Whole last season builds up to Barney and Robin's wedding. Last episode they get married. Then a fast forward of the next 10 or 20 years. Barney and Robin divorce. The mother dies. Ted and Robin get together.
 
Dexter has a pretty bleak ending.
In the penultimate episode Dexter's sister is shot. Later in the episode it seems all good. This is just a TV show, it is just a flesh wound. Then the final episode all of a sudden she becomes braindead. Then Dexter takes her body from the hospital and drives his boat into a storm assumed dead. Until the next scene, where he is now a lumberjack.
[/SPOILER]

In fairness, I laughed out loud at Dexters final shot and the Dexter Season 8 OT is the stuff of legend so every cloud...

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=600681
 
Spartacus. That one had me down for at least a week. Thinking about it again has me down again.

The way the bad guys were just casually going about their business as folks are getting crucified really got to me. It was so grim. Loved the show, but I don't think I can ever watch that again.

Spartacus won, the whole point was to sacrafice themselves so the rest of the slaves could escape and they did.
 
there's quite a few Black Mirror episodes that are just scenes of suffering with no happy ending for any of the characters
 
You know, looking back, I wonder why people had a problem with the finale. Not that I disagree with you, and am in fact on the same page. But the Seinfeld guys were always assholes, and I figured people who watched the show were already aware of that and that was part of why they watched it.
Pointing out the assholery of the main characters is simply not remotely funny as seeing them being assholes in a new situation. Hell, even the crux of the episode (watching a fat guy get robbed and doing nothing about it) was a lot nastier than the vast majority of the episodes delved into.

It also didn't help that the finale was a glorified clip show that aired after an actual clip show.
 
Seinfeld is one that comes to mind. Basically ruins that whole show and just makes you feel like an awful person for loving those characters. Huge bummer.

Wasn't that the point though? It was a meta-episode like the Simpsons show with Frank Grimes. I don't really like the finale but every episode of the show demonstrated that the main characters were selfish, petty monsters, that wasn't news. I think Larry has admitted that it was a mistake though, he thinks they should have just done a normal episode and ended it like that (like Curb). The finale feels like a DVD extra.
 
Blackadder goes forth

"Don't forget your stick Lieutenant"
"Rather, sir. Wouldn't want to face a machine gun without this"
When the artillery guns stop firing and the characters get hopeful the war is over, goddamn. Then Baldrick goes and quashes all hope.

"The Great War, 1914 to 1917!"
 
Blackadder goes forth

"Don't forget your stick Lieutenant"
"Rather, sir. Wouldn't want to face a machine gun without this"

Well, I'm afraid it'll have to wait. Whatever it was, I'm sure it was better than my plan to get out of this by pretending to be mad. I mean, who would have noticed another madman round here? Good luck, everyone.

Spartacus won, the whole point was to sacrafice themselves so the rest of the slaves could escape and they did.

His entire army is dead, a lot of the escaped slaves are caught, there are only a few stragglers that survive but those are the ones you see with his dead body.
Main point is he wins because the Romans get shit-scared of another Spartacus and they do improve conditions.
 
Well, I'm afraid it'll have to wait. Whatever it was, I'm sure it was better than my plan to get out of this by pretending to be mad. I mean, who would have noticed another madman round here? Good luck, everyone.

What gives this an extra sting is that Edmund's last line is probably the only time he shows any genuine compassion for anyone aside from himself.
 
there's quite a few Black Mirror episodes that are just scenes of suffering with no happy ending for any of the characters

Even the happy endings on that show are really just the characters dealing with the horrible circumstance they're left with.
 
Main point is he wins because the Romans get shit-scared of another Spartacus and they do improve conditions.

Huh? I don't remember this part. Almost every slave that didn't escape got either killed or crucified, including poor Korre. :(
 
I think in the finale to MASH Hawkeye goes insane because he witnesses a mother killing her baby.

I'm not sure if that was ever resolved either in the episode or in After MASH.
 
Oh, Oz had a pretty damn depressing ending.

- Beecher gets framed for Keller's murder
- Alvarez won't be released because one of the parole board members hates him
- Said gets assassinated
- Cyril gets executed

At least Schillinger died.
 
The Sopranos is pretty bleak, to me, and I don't understand how people have different readings of the ending because the season spends several scenes throughout it setting it up and giving you all the information you need to have to understand what happened, and Twin Peaks was also ended in a pretty bleak place, both in the last episode of the show and in the film. I have faith that Season 3 will probably end in a similarly bleak fashion, and I can't wait, because bleak endings are my favorite.

Don't understand what's bleak about it. If you a gangster and do gangster shit like Tony, some gangster shit might happen to you as well. Nothing bleak about it.
 
Huh? I don't remember this part. Almost every slave that didn't escape got either killed or crucified, including poor Korre. :(

That is the historical sequel :)

I think in the finale to MASH Hawkeye goes insane because he witnesses a mother killing her baby.

I'm not sure if that was ever resolved either in the episode or in After MASH.

That is the start of the episode. He gets better, returns and in the end manages to say a proper goodbye to BJ.
 
So I finished up my rewatch of 24 last night, concluding with the pretty solid-ish Live Another Day

Loved the entire ride but having done the entire series in a relatively short time, I was struck by the kinda bleakness of it.

Spoilers are inevitable for this kind of thread so if you're sensitive to hearing the end of shows, I suggest you bail


At the end of LAD sure Jack averted a crisis with China, but ultimately

- He was facing exile and torture / jail in Russia
- Audrey was shot to death
- Heller had Alzheimer's and would forget everything and quit
- Renee Walker shot to death 15 seconds after having sex with Bauer :(
- Chloes seemingly only other friend was shot in the head in front of her, with her husband and son dead
- Kate quit knowing her friend for the last year was the one who drove her husband to suicide
- The hot actress who played Simone was dead :(

I don't think that last one is true dude. She was a tweetin yesterday
 
The finale of Roseanne was brutal.
At least it retconned that terrible final season, though.
 
Dollhouse takes it for sure.
End of civilization, most people either dead or basically a zombie, one's self is fragile af and leftover political powers are still dropping mind wiping sound bombs because why not
 
As others said, Dinosaurs really takes the cake here. The last scene is literally the family (including a baby) worrying about how they'll make it through the winter and then the camera somberly pulling out.

Fughhh. Left a terrible feeling in your stomache, especially as a child.
That's literally probably going to be our futures.
 
Angel

Ends with Angel and what's left of his team facing down a horde of demons in a fight to the death.
 
"San Junipero" could arguably just be a happy ending, though

Yeah, I suppose. Though
the two women are dead, one breaks a promise to her dead husband, and they have had their minds uploaded into a computer simulation. The final shot is them being stuffed into a massive server bracket.
 
Space Above and Beyond

Most of the protagonist's squad are dead or MIA, any hope of a swift end to the war either by victory or by peace treaty are shattered, they find out that the idea that the aliens attacked unprovoked was a lie and the war was deliberately started by Earth arms companies, and everything ends with the surviving two marines lying on their bunks staring into space. War is hell
 
The L Word?
The Family
The Big C
Roseanne
other The shows

The Outer Limits (90s) was amazing at this. Basically 4/5 of the shows ended with the bleakest and cruellest possible ending, including the earth being destroyed, main characters paralysed and being eaten alive by spiders, protagonist tricked into revealing humanity's last ditch attempt to win a war then left alone in a darkened cell to be tortured, and the last ever episode ended with someone getting plugged into a machine designed to keep them alive forever whilst submitting them to the most horrific psychological and physical torture imaginable.
 
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