10 TV Shows With the Best Series Finales of All Time

As NBC’s The Good Place entered its afterlife with “Whenever You’re Ready,” its characters exited theirs, bidding heartfelt goodbyes to the others who made the Good Place bad and the Bad Place good. With the characters giving up their immortality, we’re reminded that it’s not the length of a life that gives it meaning, and that an endless life would be an unfulfilling one. In other words, when it comes to our own mortality, we should all just “take it sleazy.”

The stakes in “All Good Things…” are no less than the survival of humanity, as Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) must solve a puzzle in three timeframes to stop an anomaly from stopping life on Earth before it begins. That timeline-skipping premise, though, gave the writers of the Next Generation the chance to bring the plot of this syndicated sci-fi series right back to where it started, with the Enterprise’s first mission. (Plus, it gave Picard the chance to show the Q Collective just what humanity is capable of.)

“–30–” is named after the mark journalists use to indicate the end of a story, and the finale’s closing montage provides codas for the The Wire’s characters with the dispassionate eye of a reporter. Carcetti (Aidan Gillen) becomes governor, Valchek (Al Brown) replaces Daniels (Lance Reddick) as commissioner, Kenard (Thuliso Dingwall) gets arrested, Bubbles (Andre Royo) enjoys sobreity, Dukie (Jermaine Crawford) uses heroin. In other words, the people of Baltimore continue living their lives, upholding or beholden to the power structures the HBO series explored all along.

“Happy Ending” was just that for the denizens of this unfortunately named town, and we’re not just talking about the unexpectedly erotic massage David (Dan Levy) gets before his wedding. As the Rose family moves onto new chapters of their lives, they embrace their town as a haven of belonging, not the backwoods purgatory they once saw it as. Off screen, Levy won three Emmys for this CBC comedy’s finale — one for his performance, one for his writing, and one for his co-directing — which just makes us “wig” out.

At the end of this NBC series, Hannibal the Cannibal (Mads Mikkelsen) and FBI profiler Will (Hugh Dancy) took the plunge — literally falling over a cliff in one another’s arms — after defeating serial killer Dolarhyde (Richard Armitage) in a bloodbath that Will calls “beautiful.” (Shippers will tell you that Will’s pursuit of Hannibal was always more of a romantic fixation, and this episode brings that subtext tantalizingly close to the surface.) Then comes another twist of the knife: an after-credits scene in which Hannibal’s psychiatrist, Bedelia (Gillian Anderson), is faced with a dinner that was once her leg.

Between the “phalanges” and the feels, Friends went out in “The Last One” with all the ridiculousness and romance we’d come to expect from the NBC sitcom, with Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) and Ross (David Schwimmer) getting together for good, Monica (Courteney Cox) and Chandler (Matthew Perry) getting twins and a new house in the ‘burbs, and the whole group getting one last sip at Central Perk.

The will-they-won’t-they tension between Sam (Danson) and Diane (Shelley Long) seemed to reach a romantic conclusion when Diane returned to Boston in “One for the Road,” the series finale of this NBC comedy. But that would be the easy way out. Instead, Cheers depicted a more honest end for Sam and Diane, in which she returns to Los Angeles alone and Norm (George Wendt) helps Sam realize that he’ll always come back to his “one true love.” (Hint: it’s where everybody knows your name.)

Still the most-watched scripted TV episode in American television history, “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen” gave CBS’ long-running war comedy-drama a sentimental sign-off, with a departing Hawkeye (Alan Alda) spotting the “GOODBYE” that B.J. (Mike Farrell) spelled out in stones on the helicopter landing pad. But the double-length episode also honed in on the horrors of war: Hawkeye uncovers repressed memories of a refugee baby’s death, and Charles (David Ogden Stiers) is devastated by the deaths of a P.O.W. musician group.

There should be no doubt about how cunning a kingpin the once-lowly Walter White (Bryan Cranston) has become by “Felina,” the thrilling finale of this AMC masterpiece. He uses laser pointers to scare the Schwartzes into setting up a trust for his son, he poisons Lydia (Laura Fraser) with her own coffee sweetener, and he rigs a machine-gun surprise for the neo-Nazi gang leader holding Jesse (Aaron Paul) captive. But Walt also becomes self-aware, at long last, telling Skyler (Anna Gunn) that his meth-making scheme went from a necessity to a thrill for him.

What other series finale shows how the main characters kick the bucket? But HBO’s Six Feet Under is, of course, a show about death, so it’s only fitting that viewers would see flash-forwards of the lives and demises of the Fisher & Sons Funeral Home workers and their loved ones. Morbid? Maybe. Oddly reassuring? Maybe! The montage, set to Sia’s “Breathe Me,” also depicted death — in some cases, at least — as a gentle transition guided by the spirits of those who predecease us.