With the final episode of Game of Thrones on the horizon, endings are in the air. Last month we had Avengers: Endgame, not a TV show, but like one – a 22-movie arc culminating in an epic final instalment. Later in the year we will have Star Wars Episode IX – again not a TV show, but like one in the sense that the whole Star Wars saga grew out of a love for Saturday morning serials, which were themselves precursors of the TV shows we know today. Endings are hard to do at the best of times, but ending a series, or a multi-part narrative, is especially hard. GoT fans don’t seem to be happy at all, whereas Endgame fans are ecstatic. I haven’t seen any of the current season of GoT yet, so I can’t comment (although spoilers have been nearly impossible to avoid). I have seen Endgame, and while I thoroughly enjoyed it, a lot of it went over my head. However, I am informed by those in the know (my two teenage sons) that in terms of wrapping up the series it is a magnificent achievement, with satisfying callbacks and much emotionally resonant tying up of loose ends. But back to TV. How have other series fared, as it were, in the end?
Here’s a quick listicle, in ascending order of – IMHO – quality. (Spoilers ahead, natch).
Breaking Bad Meh. I’m sorry. I loved the series, but there was something droopingly normal about how it all wrapped up.
The Americans Again, I loved this series, with its perfect dramatic-irony motor that kept things running for so long. But there was just something missing for me in that final episode. Philip and Elizabeth losing their kids to America was great, and maybe them getting out was good – but it seemed to me that Elizabeth had become such a killing machine towards the end there that no resolution scene with Stan Beeman was ever going to be psychologically plausible or satisfying.
Mad Men Brilliant ending – divisive, ambiguous, and controversial. Was it cynical or sublime? Who knows? I did find the unrestored graininess of the film stock in the Coke ad a little jarring, however, and wished they’d had the balls or the budget to re-shoot it – or to show the ad being shot, with Don smoking in the background – for the closing scene.
Boardwalk Empire Now we’re talking. This is epic story telling with a slow-burn resolution built up subtly over many seasons. The master stroke here was for the show to weave its own quasi origin-story spin-off series into the fabric of the final season. Those closing moments, as they chart the sickening corruption of Nucky’s soul, and loop the narrative round to a perfect conclusion, were devastating to watch.
The Wire More epic story telling when it comes to The Wire. The achievement here was in drawing together and resolving so many narrative strands, and in doing so with the balance and clarity of a nineteenth-century doorstop novel. The corrosive power of the institution over the individual was the motor that drove the show, and this was reflected in much of the ending – but the survival of a long-suffering character such as Bubbles, for example, was in no way sentimental or tokenistic; it was fully earned and contributed a satisfying emotional resonance to the final episodes.
The Sopranos What is there to say about this ingenious, original, and ballsy way to end a series? Talk about divisive. Talk about exegesis – this is one of the deepest rabbit holes you can go down, dissecting and picking apart the imagery and symbolism, the echoes and call-backs, the music, the very meaning, of that final sequence in the diner. Because of course the thing is, The Sopranos didn’t end, it stopped. Mid scene. Screens went blank. That was it. End of