Season Finales: A Discussion on Cliffhangers

 

I am sifting through my DVR and have almost caught up on all the season finales that aired within the past few weeks for shows that I follow.   Not unexpectedly, most of these programs ended with a cliffhanger.  So I thought I’d list a few and then compare them to my favorites from seasons’ past.

In no particular order (and with SPOILER ALELRTS):

The Following:  ends with the supposed death of serial killer, Joe Carroll, and viewers get to see the main character, Ryan Hardy, seeming to get his happily ever after.  That is until one of Joe’s followers (an ex-girlfriend), enters his apartment and stabs both him and his recently rescued love interest, Claire.

Nashville:  the show’s soapy qualities are highlighted here as the big storyline of this episode is the hidden paternity of Rayna’s daughter.  After her longtime friend, and former-now-reunited lover, Deacon, discovers that she has been lying to him for years about this child, he shatters his 13 years of sobriety.  The show ends with he and Rayna in a devastating car crash.  (And while this is happening another character, Deacon’s niece, is being proposed to).

Grey’s Anatomy:  well known for ending on catastrophe episodes, this show featured a slew of injuries related to a storm and found the hospital in blackout conditions.  The show’s namesake, Meredith Grey, had to have a C-section without power and almost bled out due to other complications.  While most of tragedy is averted, the show ends with a romantic cliffhanger (Kepner professes her love for Avery) and one intended as a tear-jerker:  Dr. Richard Webber has saved the hospital (restoring the electricity) but has (apparently) lost his life in the process.  (The final shot is of him lying on the basement floor, seeming to have been electrocuted).

Revenge:  as discussed in the previous post, the show ends with the revelation that Conrad Grayson is working with a terrorist group; Victoria Grayson’s long lost son returns on her doorstep; Nolan is wrongly arrested; and Emily Thorne is forced to reveal her true identity (Amanda Clarke) to her childhood friend and soul mate, Jack Porter.

The Good Wife:  the season ends with the main character, Alicia Florrick’s, husband, Peter, being elected Governor.   The final scene is set-up to lead viewers to believe that they are about to see her meet with law partner, and former lover, Will Garner, to renew their affair.  Instead, it is revealed that she will be leaving her law firm (likely to prevent herself from renewing said affair).

Scandal:  there’s really too much going on in this show to sum it up in a few sentences.  So, in this episode a presidency is saved, a love affair is shattered, a civilian turns torturer, an apparent betrayal is revealed as not being so, etc. 

I could go on and on.   As is obvious from the shoddy summaries housed above, the common cliffhanger motifs are near death experiences and romantic revelations (for the good or bad).  The combination of the two (or some things comparable) is also common.

While all of the cliffhangers I watched were good enough – they fulfilled their purpose, I’ll tune in again next fall – they don’t compare to those of the past.

TV really didn’t utilize the cliffhanger season ending until the 1980s and the episode that kicked off this phenomenon was Dallas’s “Who Shot JR?”   (I am just old enough to remember my mother and grandmother talking about this episode, but I mostly know it from my television research). 

I started noticing the technique being used with increasing frequency in the 21^st century.  So, to honor this tradition, some of my favorite season-ending cliffhangers are listed below:

The First Season of 24:  After Jack Bauer seemingly saves the day, the last shot of the program shows him walking in to find that his wife had been shot by the woman who he had just apprehended (minutes too late).

The Third Season of Lost:  The episode closes with the revelation that the show had been deviating from its flashback-focus all season and that all viewers had seen in the past 20 weeks had actually been “flashforwards” (scenes from AFTER people had been rescued from the island).  It closed with the now infamous line (from Jack to Kate):  “We have to go back!”  (Leaving viewers to exclaim:  “Say, what?”)

The First Season of Fringe:  The camera pans out in the last moment of the episode to reveal that the main character, Olivia, is standing in the Twin Towers (in 2008), letting viewers know that an alternate universe exists where the terrorist attacks of 9/11 did not occur. 

The Sixth Season (or any really) of Grey’s Anatomy:  this season ends with a shooter in the hospital that kills multiple people and endangers main characters.  (But to be fair, here are some other ones I could have noted:  Season Eight ends with doctors stranded after a plane crash; Season Five ends with two of principal characters from the original cast on the operating table – Izzy and George; Season Three Cristina has stood up at the altar; Season Two ends with the heartbreaking death of Denny after the interns have broken all rules to get him a heart transplant).

Season One of Prison Break:  As promised, the inmates (most of them) break out of prison and this episode sets them up for season two’s focus of being on the run.  (Also, the love interest of the main character appears to be dead on a drug overdose).

Season Two of Private Practice:  A psychiatrist at the clinic is attacked by one of her own patients who believes that the baby Violet is carrying is her own.  In a gruesome and heartbreaking scene, the patient, Katie, attempts to cut the baby out of Violet’s stomach.  In order to save the baby’s life, Violet (on the verge of being murdered), instructs her on how to make the incision so that the baby will survive.  The scene ends with Katie walking out with the baby and Violet unconscious in a pool of blood.

So, with those cliffhangers lingering in my recent memory, it is understandable why this season’s set was just a bit hum-drum for my tastes.  So now I just have to wait four months to see the other piece of the puzzle:  how these cliffhangers play out in season debuts.  I’ll be sure to relay my opinions on those when the time comes!