Since it has to pay off years, sometimes decades’ worth of buildup and anticipation, it’s almost impossible to give a TV series a perfect ending. Crafting the perfect final episode is like splitting the atom; you have to get everything just right: the final scene, the final line, the final shot.
If they get the final shot right, it can become iconic. From the “Goodbye” message in MAS*H to the Dale Cooper doppelgänger in Twin Peaks to Don Draper meditating at a hippie retreat, these are the greatest final shots in television history.
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Mad Men
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Technically, the final shot of Mad Men was filmed half a century before the series was even created, because the show ends with the 1971 “Buy the World a Coke” commercial. But the final shot that the Mad Men crew shot for Mad Men has become one of the most iconic images in TV history.
In the closing scene of Matthew Weiner’s advertising saga, we see Don Draper meditating at a hippy-dippy wellness retreat, coming up with the Coke ad that will save his career. The final season had followed Don’s attempts to discover deeper meaning in life, but in the end, he realizes he already knows who he is: he’s an ad man, full of great ideas, and he belongs in an office on Madison Avenue.
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The Americans
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The Americans ended on an appropriately sad and sobering note. After watching Philip and Elizabeth Jennings barely conceal their true identities for six seasons, the Cold War finally ended, so they were pulled out of the Washington suburbs and summoned back to the Soviet Union.
This was the ending that the series had been building to from the beginning, but it hardly felt like a victory, because they had to abandon their children and their lives in America to go back to a home that doesn’t feel like home anymore. The final shot of Philip and Elizabeth sitting side-by-side, silently watching over the Moscow skyline, is hauntingly beautiful, and leaves you feeling deeply contemplative as the credits roll.
11
Cheers
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The ending of Cheers is so iconic, it’s become a cliché. It’s become commonplace for sitcoms to end with the star taking one last look around, turning the lights out on the set, and closing the door one last time. Cheers was the first to do it, and it’s still the best.
The final shot sees Sam Malone in Cheers, all alone, and as a potential customer knocks on the door, he solemnly tells them, “Sorry, we’re closed.” It gave the series a true sense of finality as it closed its own doors for good.
10
Twin Peaks
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Twin Peaks: The Return had its own brilliant final shot — Dale Cooper and Laura Palmer standing outside the Palmer household, realizing they’re doomed — but the original series ended on a doozy of an image. Just when it seems like everything has gone back to normal, Cooper smashes his head into the mirror, sees Killer B.O.B. in the reflection, and smiles menacingly.
It was Cooper’s evil doppelgänger that escaped from the Black Lodge, not Cooper himself. So, Cooper is still trapped, the evil version has gotten out, and he keeps asking, “How’s Annie?” The cliffhanger that kept us guessing for two-and-a-half decades is intrinsically tied to this terrifying image that’s been haunting us for all that time.
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The series finale of Barry had an unexpected time jump to a future where Sally is content as a high school drama teacher, and a teenage John is still wondering about his dad. The show ends with John watching The Mask Collector, a falsified biopic about his dad’s life as a soldier-turned-hitman, and in the final shot, we see John admiring the hero that his father never was.
The show ends with John proudly looking up to the fake, Hollywoodized version of his father. It’s a testament to the transcendent power of acting and storytelling, which is what this show was all about from the very beginning.
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Blackadder
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Blackadder had one of the darkest, saddest endings of any sitcom. It’s one of the funniest, silliest, wackiest British comedies ever made, but it ends with Blackadder and co. running into certain doom on the battlefields of No Man’s Land.
In the final moments of the series, the shot slowly fades to a thriving field of poppies. This transition ensures that the ending isn’t 100% bleak; there’s still a slight note of hope, looking forward to a brighter future in the ashes of their sacrifice.
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Succession
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Succession‘s series finale has a Return of the King montage running through everyone’s endings: Greg commits himself to the dark side; Shiv reluctantly reaffirms herself to Tom as his Waystar consort. But we end on Kendall, staring out into New York Harbor.
He’s lost everything, and we see that in Jeremy Strong’s eyes. He’s still a billionaire, but he’ll never be happy. It was a suitably bleak, sober note to end the series on.
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In the final scene of Lost, Jack lies down in the jungle, in the same spot where the plane had spat him out in the very first episode, and closes his eyes. It’s a beautiful visual bookend, mirroring the opening image of the pilot episode.
Not everyone loves the Lost finale, but you can’t deny that the closing image is wonderfully poetic. It brings this whole crazy survival saga full circle (and always brings a tear to my eye).
5
Six Feet Under
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The most iconic part of Six Feet Under‘s finale is the flash-forward montage, where we see brief glimpses of each major character’s eventual death. But the final shot completes the show’s thesis.
Six Feet Under was a show mired in death — it was set at a funeral home — but it was really about all the things that make life worth living. The final shot of Claire driving off into a hopeful future, set to the sounds of Sia’s “Breath Me,” really hammered that home.
4
Breaking Bad
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Breaking Bad ends with the perfect needle-drop — “Baby Blue” by Badfinger — but it ends on the perfect image, too. We crane up from Walter White bleeding out on the floor of a meth lab.
It’s similar to the way Martin Scorsese shot Travis Bickle after the firefight at the end of Taxi Driver. The camera rising up to the ceiling almost seems to represent their soul leaving their body, as police officers swarm the scene.
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