{"id":773451,"date":"2026-07-02T03:35:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T03:35:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/773451\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T03:35:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T03:35:17","slug":"best-tv-endings-iconic-finales-ranked-from-worst-to-best-and-no-breaking-bad-isnt-no-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/773451\/","title":{"rendered":"Best TV endings: Iconic finales ranked from worst to best (and no, Breaking Bad isn\u2019t No.1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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As fans of The Bear<\/a> are currently realising, it\u2019s no easy thing to wrap up a high-profile narrative series after multiple seasons. Getting the finale right is one of the hardest tasks in television<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The demands are many: storylines must be resolved, characters acknowledged and viewers must be left satisfied. Clouding every showrunner\u2019s final mission is the lengthy history that shadows their every decision. As this worst to best ranking of high-profile conclusions reveals, disaster or deliverance are both possible.<\/p>\n

Please scroll to the bottom to vote in our poll on your favourite TV ending. \"ShowrunnerShowrunner Eric Kripke based Homelander (Antony Starr) on Donald Trump. A key plot point this season for Homelander is his quest to become God.Jasper Savage\/Prime Video10. The Boys (Amazon Prime Video)<\/p>\n

As a gory, gonzo take-down of American hypocrisy, this warped superhero satire started strong<\/a>. But with each passing season it essentially repeated itself as the good guys and bad guys competed for a decisive item, only to indecisively sustain the status quo. For this year\u2019s sixth and final season<\/a> something different was expected, but The Boys didn\u2019t have another gear or any genuine insight. It found a last-minute means of resolution with a desultory lack of leverage, with the final episode boisterously going through the motions. When leading characters finally met their fate, the impact was insignificant.<\/p>\n

\"MichaelMichael C. Hall as Dexter Morgan. 9. Dexter (Paramount+)<\/p>\n

After eight seasons the original incarnation of this serial-killer thriller was running on creative fumes by 2013. It reached the finish line with a convoluted final episode<\/a>, set against the backdrop of an approaching hurricane in Miami, that had Michael C. Hall\u2019s cold-blooded vigilante making one implausible move after another, even as the show itself refused to reckon with his many murders and the audience\u2019s affection for them. The final sequence, setting up the inevitable sequel<\/a>, rubbed salt in the wound.<\/p>\n

\"EmiliaEmilia Clarke in Game of Thrones.HBO8. Game of Thrones (HBO Max)<\/p>\n

HBO made a simple decision (for complex reasons) that proved to be disastrous<\/a> for its blockbuster fantasy epic. After six detailed, intricately paced seasons they allowed four or five more seasons of storytelling to be compressed into two truncated instalments.<\/p>\n

Creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss raced to the finish, and the series visibly suffered. By the final episode<\/a> many of the key storylines were tied up with unpersuasive leaps and barely developed justification \u2013 most notably in the death of Emilia Clarke\u2019s suddenly dictatorial Mother of Dragons. It was a thorough end but disappointingly shallow.<\/p>\n

\"MatthewMatthew Fox as Jack in Lost.ABC\/Art Streiber7. Lost (Disney+, Amazon Prime Video)<\/p>\n

Wrapping up television\u2019s biggest puzzle-box mystery after 119 ambitious episodes was probably too much to reasonably ask but Lost\u2019s\u00a0two-part finale<\/a> did all that it could. For the most part, the passengers of Oceanic Flight 815 finally did escape the mysterious island that had taken them but it was notable that the narrative relied on the mystical \u2013 in sometimes hokey ways<\/a> \u2013 as a vague answer when for so long the questions it pondered had been found in science-fiction.<\/p>\n

\"MathieuMathieu Kassovitz stars in The Bureau.SBS6. The Bureau (Paramount+, Amazon Prime Video)<\/p>\n

For five seasons this masterful French espionage thriller about the country\u2019s intelligence agency thrived on closely held deception, gripping technical detail and sombre ramifications.<\/p>\n

The ripped-from-the-headlines realism was acute. But for the final two episodes creator Eric Rochant stepped back and in his stead empowered leading French filmmaker Jacques Audiard, who had no prior connection to the series. Audiard\u2019s finale ignored some characters and featured a lengthy, subconscious-set sequence. At times it was like a dream about concluding The Bureau. Hugely divisive<\/a>, quite fascinating.<\/p>\n

\"AsherAsher Keddie as Nina Proudman in the 2013 finale of Offspring.Ten5. Offspring (Stan*)<\/p>\n

Sometimes all you have to do to get the final episode mostly right is genuinely understand your characters. If they\u2019re true to themselves then the storytelling will satisfyingly unfold. That\u2019s what happened, after seven seasons of inner-city Melbourne mayhem, for obstetrician Nina Proudman (Asher Keddie<\/a>) and her bustling mix of family and work friends in this Australian comic-drama. That Nina finally quit, recanted and then quit again \u2013 at her welcome-back party, no less \u2013 the job that had dominated her life felt fitting.<\/p>\n

\"AA scene from the final epsiode of The Sopranos.HBO4. The Sopranos (HBO Max)<\/p>\n

The source of much debate in 2007, the conclusion of one of television\u2019s true masterpieces<\/a> was sudden, shocking and bereft of satisfaction. Throughout a family dinner at a local diner, New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) is on edge, a mood exacerbated by creator David Chase\u2019s direction.<\/p>\n

Just as Tony spots his daughter arriving, the screen suddenly cuts to black for 10 long seconds, then: roll credits. Had Tony finally been whacked? Or was he trapped in fearful paranoia? The subsequent back-and-forth was what the show deserved.<\/p>\n

\"SarahSarah Snook in the series finale of Succession.HBO3. Succession (HBO Max)<\/p>\n

Jesse Armstrong\u2019s iconic series about an ageing media mogul and his fractious children elegantly covered much ground in just four seasons. With patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox) dead and a US presidential election swung to the far-right, the concluding episode<\/a> answered the defining question of the show: who would run the (now sold) family business? Succession operated as a pitch-black satire and a family tragedy, and both sides were represented as the Roy siblings doomed themselves to failure<\/a>. Their inability to co-operate was their father\u2019s defining act of abuse. A note-perfect 88-minute summation.<\/p>\n

\"WalterWalter White (Bryan Cranston) in a scene from the series finale of Breaking Bad.Ursula Coyote\/AMC2. Breaking Bad (Stan)<\/p>\n

Vince Gilligan, the creator of this neo-noir crime drama<\/a> about an ailing high school chemistry teacher who becomes a methamphetamine manufacturer, ran a tight storytelling ship.<\/p>\n

His 2013 finale<\/a>, after five involved seasons, not only settled the fate of Bryan Cranston\u2019s Walter White, it made the character acknowledge who he\u2019d been all along. Walt dealt with his adversaries and freed his offsider, Jesse (Aaron Paul), but before he died he finally confessed to his wife, Skyler (Anna Gunn), and the audience, that he craved his underworld life. No redemption arc here.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Fisher family on Six Feet Under. 1. Six Feet Under (HBO Max, Binge)<\/p>\n

The gold standard. Twenty-one years ago creator Alan Ball<\/a> finished his blackly comic drama about the extended Fisher clan, whose family business was a Los Angeles funeral home, with a definitive episode. The show\u2019s underlying belief that life\u2019s complex pleasures can prosper when we accept death\u2019s inevitability was exemplified in a series of departures, as the family remembered the deceased Nate (Peter Krause) while Claire (Lauren Ambrose) moves to New York. The final extended montage, set to Sia\u2019s wrenching Breathe Me, celebrated the cycle of being by showing the future moment where each remaining character died. You have to pick yourself up off the floor afterwards.<\/p>\n

*Stan is owned by Nine, the publisher of this masthead.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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