12 TV Show Finales That We Judged Way Too Harshly

Television fans are never quiet when they’ve been displeased. When a show ends badly, their rancor can reach epic heights. Audiences are still debating the merits of the series finales of “The Sopranos” and “Breaking Bad” years after they aired, which we’ll get to — and whatever you do, don’t get them going on the issues with the “How I Met Your Mother” finale. 

While some finales stick in the public consciousness by reminding us of all their negative issues, others remain there in a positive way — and only time determines which of those takes will last the test of time. But might some of these snap judgements been wrong? Too quickly formed, and too harsh to be truthful? While some of these series finales might have been incomprehensible or even impenetrable when they were first released, and some still remain unpopular, they definitely deserve reassessment all these years later. Here are 12 shows whose endings might not have been as bad as initially believed, selected by author preference. 

Over 10 years after Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) first turned his head toward that diner door to face down his final moments of the show, fans still can’t decide of the (now better understood) ending to “The Sopranos” was good or bad, artful or painful. It does deserve to be reconsidered for what it avoids telling its fans about the future. While it’s highly possible that Tony dies — after all, the show muses earlier about “not hearing [the bullet] that kills you,” it’s the question of his existence that haunts the narrative. Since that question also haunted Tony’s life throughout the show, it makes the ending even more fitting.

In the final episode, “Made in America,” Tony’s world goes dark, metaphorically, as he becomes an informant. Time is running out for him, and he’s increasingly aware of it. He meets with his family at a diner and they try to remember the good times together while waiting for Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) to show up. Some suspicious figures whisk by the family’s table — and when Tony looks up as the front door opens for his daughter at last, the show cuts to black. Tony’s world goes literally dark. It’s iconic enough to have been parodied several times, ensuring it has a legacy behind it that will probably outlast the memories of the show itself. Still, “The Sopranos” was a watermark of television. The ending ignited a permanent conversation.

“Lost” got a lot of heat for occasional pretentiousness and getting tangled up in its own dodgy myth arc, but the show still ends in a place that makes sense, with a circular sense of logic that ultimately works. While it might be oblique in its execution — how much of the show takes place in the afterlife? Was everything just happening in Jack’s (Matthew Fox) imagination? — it does reward the audience. Fans wanted mystery when they decided to watch this show, and mystery is what was served to us up to the last second of its existence.

In the final episode, all of the reborn characters in the flash-sideways universe arrive at the church, which is revealed to be a generic but apt concept of Purgatory. This is where they have been waiting to reunite with one another, so they can move on. Happy, peaceful, and satisfied that they have finally resolved the issues that held them in place (to varying degrees of success — we ranked the endings of each character on “Lost”), they prepare for the final stage of the afterlife, now that Jack has accepted his own fate. In the actual island portion of the story, Jack sacrifices himself to ensure the survival of the others, rescues Desmond Hume (Henry Ian Cusick), and dies of his injuries with Vincent the dog at his side. Best of all, the lovable Hugo (Jorge Garcia) and the scarily efficient Ben Linus (Michael Emerson) are now in charge of the island, ensuring the next era for this mysterious place will be a better one.

“Scandal” received a lot of blowback for doing certain characters dirty. Among them is star Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington), who suffers a lot of unsatisfying moments only to earn the endings she deserves — and then some. True, her ever-dire romance with Fitz (Tony Goldwyn) continues to loom over the audience like a Sword of Damocles, but at least she gets to continue doing what she loves outside of the town that sucked  away so much of her energy and so much of her heart. 

In the finale, Olivia is completely free of the covert B613 agency entirely. No longer in charge of cleaning up political scandals, nor working in intelligence, she can do whatever she wants — including being with Fitz, who is also safely out of the White House and its circle of corruption. 

Who does remain in the presidency? Mellie Grant (Bellamy Young), who ends up in a romance with Marcus (Cornelius Smith Jr.). It’s Rowan’s (Joe Morton) testimony that frees the rest of the Gladiators from charges of wrongdoing. Ultimately, Jake (Scott Foley) ends up doing time in jail, taking the fall for the whole project.

It was burned as saccharine and unceremonious at the time of its release, but the ending of “The Flash” eventually proved itself to be a sweet way to say goodbye to both the series and the Arrowverse at large. Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) and his wife, Iris (Candice Patton), give birth to the future of the DC world in the form of baby Nora — meaning he will continue to spread the joys and pains of being one of the fastest beings in the world. It is an unabashedly warm-hearted and hopeful conclusion, and one that the series earns, despite the ire it pulled at the time.

In the four-part series finale, collectively entitled “A New World,” Barry chooses to share his powers with other speedsters and names Avery Ho (Piper Curda), Max Mercury (Trevor Carroll), and Jess Chambers (Violett Beane) as members of his new force. He doesn’t give up the superhero life himself, however, continuing to balance fatherhood with doing good. Elsewhere, Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) gets her body back when Khione ascends to a higher reality. Good stuff, and arguably better than how the pre-James Gunn DC era ended.

Fans hated the fact that “Little House on the Prairie” ended its long run by blowing up Walnut Grove. Decades later, that ending feels far more relevant than it was back in 1984, when it aired. It turns out there was a practical reason: When the property was leased to build the sets for “Little House,” the production company had to agree to return the land back to its original condition. Michael Landon by now the star, director, and writer, created a final script that would necessitate that change. 

The townsfolk of Walnut Grove didn’t destroy their homes for no reason. They did it to ensure that a greedy land developer who has swindled them out of their property will never get his hands on their hard work. It’s a violent, necessary blow against capitalism, and an important nod toward the importance of standing up for yourself and claiming what’s yours. The people of this former town will have to leave everything behind and scatter to the four winds — but they go out with a literal bang. It was also a statement by Landon himself, who, according to co-star Melissa Gilbert, was never formally told about the show’s cancellation. In an interview with EW, she said that, “it was just such a disrespectful thing to do to him.” Agreed. His response, in today’s context, is epic.

The ending of “Dinosaurs” traumatized many a ’90s kid, with that last episode often named as one of saddest and most bizarre finales of all time. On further reflection, however, not only was it a brave story, it made an important point about global warming at a time when no one wanted to talk about it. The show had already made a habit of addressing serious topics before — though the characters naturally survived all of those previous scrapes, and the tone used in those episodes was lighter in nature. Decades after it aired, this episode still has the power to shock — with depressing reports from climate scientists proving that fans may have been too harsh in their judgment here.

As we explained regarding the ending of “Changing Nature,” the entire ecosystem of Pangea is thrown into chaos when the Bunch Beetles don’t return to eat the cider poppies which grow wild on the continent. It turns out the Brunch Beetles’ mating ground has been overdeveloped by the WESAYSO Corporation, who eventually reacts to the near-extinction of the beetles by making it worse. WESAYSO tries to fix the situation with chemical weedkiller — then, when they’ve started a chain reaction of total plant annihilation, they bomb volcanos to force it to rain. 

It works perhaps too well, creating a cloud cover that chokes out all light and heat. Now it won’t stop snowing outside — leaving the survival of the Sinclair family, and all of dinosaur kind, facing the only obvious result. The dinosaurs are gone. If we don’t learn from their lesson (and we haven’t yet), it will happen to us, too.

It is hard to justify at least some of what Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) does in “Everybody Dies,” the last episode of “House M.D.” Many fans couldn’t, calling the show out for its choices. Still, it’s hard to resist those final scenes, which commits fully to the connection between James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) and the joyously imperfect House. The show dragged itself to conclusion, overall, but the series finale corrects some of its mistakes, creating, against all odds, a proper way to say goodbye to the drama.

House is dealing with a terminal illness as “Everybody Dies” opens. As his house burns down around him (metaphors!), he hallucinates all of the important people in his life, past and present. The audience is meant to thinks he’s dead, having decided to go out with a shout instead of a whimper. But it turns out he faked his passing in the fire — he’s going to travel the world on a motorcycle, instead. He invites Wilson to join him, and the doctor climbs on the back of the bike, both aware that House’s cancer will worsen someday. The pair head for parts unknown — and an unwritten future.

While some called the ending of “Breaking Bad” flawless, there have been plenty of people who have happily called the ending too pat, too neat, and too perfect — not to mention the fact that it seems to give Walter White (Bryan Cranston) everything he wants in the end. But Walter is lying dead on the ground. His family hates him and his reputation has been ruined. Is the ending to this drama as “happy” as the audience claims it is? Or is it a fitting ending for a man who became so obsessed with committing to his life as a drug dealer that he died alone with the only thing he ever truly loved — the drug he created, which became a monster and overtook him?

In “Felina,” Walter White tries to tie up some loose ends — putting over $9 million in a trust for his son, Walter Jr. (R.J. Mitte) and invading Jack’s compound to ensure that Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) finally escapes his imprisonment. He fatally poisons Lydia (Laura Fraser), and also kills Jack Welker (Michael Bowen). In the end, wounded and smiling, he dies alone on the floor of Jack’s lab. It is poetic in its loneliness. In the end, all he ever really had left was the meth. Does it leave him any better than the life of trouble and pain he offered his addicted clients? Like “The Sopranos,” the meaning gets darker the longer you look.

How much you’re going to like the ending of “Mad Men” will depend on how much you like Don Draper (Jon Hamm). Draper finally faces disgrace for his many, many bad deeds but apparently becomes resurgent upon thinking up the iconic “I’d Like to Teach The World To Sing” Coca-Cola advertisement. Nonetheless, this is a perfectly fitting ending — Don, who has spent his whole life lying and grifting, would naturally glom onto the crunchy hippie movement. Today we all know that the anti-materialistic, back-to-nature zeitgeist of the 1960s would be cynically marketed into the ground — then resold to the “Me Generation” and their children just a few decades later on the backs of even more cynical nostalgia. It’s probably the best ending Draper could have possibly deserved.

While Don’s rediscovering the delicious taste of Coke while meditating, the rest of his friends are getting on with their lives. Elsewhere, Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) earns her personal and professional fulfillment, Joan (Christina Hendricks) starts her own production company, and Sally (Kiernan Shipka) hunkers down to help her mom, Betty (January Jones), who has terminal cancer.

“Deadwood” was lucky enough to have a television movie wipe up its loose ends years after its original series finale aired, but the way the show ended in the first place was pretty interesting, too. It is a typically brutal day in the Deadwood neighborhood, sure, but there’s something incredibly cold and terrible about the last episode of Season 3. Extreme violence happens and life goes on. That’s the show’s general moral code, and thus it makes sense that it ends in such a diffident manner, no matter the target. 

In “Tell Him Something Pretty,” Hearst (Gerald McRaney) orders the death of Trixie (Paula Malcomson), who had shot at him previously, but Al Swearengen (Ian McShane) has Jen (Jennifer Lutheran) targeted instead — a prostitute who looks enough like Trixie to trick the client. Swearengen orders Johnny (Sean Bridgers) to kill Jen, but he refuses to do it, leaving Al to take matters into his own hands. Meanwhile, Manning (Brent Sexton) becomes sheriff, and Cy Tolliver (Powers Boothe) is denied any position of authority in this new regime. 

Hearst finally leaves town, and Johnny and Al reckon with what has been done alone, with Al scrubbing the blood of Jen off of the floor as he does so. The most heartbreaking truth is that the former sheriff, Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant), doesn’t end the series as the golden hero he wanted to be.

The series finale of “Roseanne” — well, the first and best one, since the franchise went through two more before ending as “The Conners” in 2025 — is intriguingly dark. It dares to erase all of the happy imagery that overtook the show’s final season, replacing it with a return to the show’s blue-collar values and kitchen-sink dose of reality. Decades later, it’s an artistic triumph, and an important curative to the season that came before. While it was unpopular when it came out, it has begun to receive reevaluations as something worth watching. 

In “Into That Good Night,” the family gathers to welcome a new baby into the Conner household. Darlene (Sara Gilbert) and David (Johnny Galecki) move back home, and, while all seems well, Roseanne (Roseanne Barr) reveals that much of what the audience has seen over their years with her was fictional fodder for her new novel. 

The Connor family never won the lottery; Darlene is with Mark (Glenn Quinn), while David is with Becky (Sarah Chalke). Jackie (Laurie Metcalf) is a lesbian instead of their mother, Bev (Estelle Parsons) — and Dan (John Goodman) actually died of the heart attack he had at Darlene’s wedding. Roseanne explains that the “show” was created to help her cope with her life, and that the birth of Darlene’s baby is what brought her back to reality. As remarkable as it all is in hindsight, it’s still hard to argue with the choice of bringing Goodman’s character back.

Though it isn’t a well-remembered fact all these years later, people hated the finale of “Mad About You” when it first aired. People complained about the framing device, about how it used Paul (Paul Reiser, who was able to use this and “Stranger Things” to broaden his demographic appeal) and Jamie’s (Helen Hunt) relationship, and how the series managed to make the entire episode all about the angst of the couple’s now-adult child, Mabel (Janeane Garofalo). But in the end, the episode really is all about Paul, Jamie, and their love for one another — and that is what matters. The result is an episode of TV that’s just sweet enough without being saccharine. 

In “The Final Frontier,” Mabel recounts episodes from her adolescence, childhood and young adulthood to a camera. She has become a filmmaker — and across the years Jamie and Paul’s marriage has become strained. But with a little bit of hard work (and a terrible movie created by Mabel), they find themselves drifting back together. The end of the show finally reveals the Buchman’s fate — and the way they have managed to muddle through the years without losing each other.