"It's Worse Than 'Game Of Thrones' And 'How I Met Your Mother' Combined" — People Are Sharing The Worst TV Endings Of All Time, And Nobody's Holding Back

    "To this day, I still wish I never watched this show."

    Amy Glover
    by Amy Glover

    BuzzFeed Staff

    Even the best TV shows don't always stick the landing. In a post shared to r/television, site user u/spaceraingame asked, "What is the worst TV series finale?" — here are some of the most-upvoted responses!

    ⚠️HUGE WARNING ⚠️— this post is absolutely brimming with spoilers (obviously). Read at your own discretion! 

    1. "Dexter becoming a lumberjack in Dexter."

    Michael C. Hall, as Dexter, in rugged, plaid shirt and unkempt beard against a dark background with partially visible red text
    Showtime

    [deleted] 

    "Dexter S8 is the worst series finale ever and it is not even close in my opinion. I'd say that it's at least five times worse than Game of Thrones and How I Met Your Mother combined.

    The whole episode is a mess. Deb is shot and falls into a coma. A bloody hurricane starts to arrive in the city. Dexter breaks into a hospital and kidnaps his comatose sister without anyone noticing. He goes by boat towards the hurricane and throws Deb as an offering to Poseidon. And after that, he becomes a lumberjack. Seriously, I can't imagine a more ridiculous ending."

    u/Sergiocamposnt

    2. "The Pretty Little Liars one was INSULTING. Seven years of mental gymnastics for an evil British twin reveal."

    A woman with long hair, hoop earrings, and a denim hoodie looks concerned while talking to someone off-camera
    Freeform

    u/TheFilmBUFF1738

    "I don't know how ANYONE on the writing or production team thought, 'haha lol surprise last-minute evil British twin' with ZERO buildup was something they could actually film, produce, and release without feeling a deep shame."

    u/007meow

    3. "The Will & Grace 2006 finale was so bad, they ignored it and rewrote the timeline for the 2017 reboot."

    Debra Messing, holding a salad container, and Eric McCormack, reading a newspaper, in a scene from a TV show
    NBC

    u/LeoMarius

    "'The two inseparable friends you've just watched for eight seasons are suddenly distant after a fight (I think?) for two years while they both have children. They make up and promise to be in each other's lives and then.. aren't... for sixteen years while their children grow up to the point of not even recognising each other. Karen is left penniless despite being shown to be a savvy businesswoman. Also, Beverly Leslie gets blown out of a window after making Jack his sole heir. This makes complete sense!'" 

    u/sevsnapeysuspended

    4. "How I Met Your Mother."

    A scene from "How I Met Your Mother" with Jason Segel, Alyson Hannigan, Neil Patrick Harris, Colbie Smulders, and Josh Radnor seated at a bar table
    Fox

    "It's the only finale that was so bad it made me regret ever watching the show in the first place. We wait nine seasons to see how he met the mother, only to find out that she was dead the whole time. Not only that but entire story arcs that took multiple seasons to build up get thrown away like garbage (Robin and Barney marry, only to suddenly divorce; Ted crawls back to Robin, despite the entire series establishing multiple times it would never work between them). To this day, I still wish I never watched this show.'" 

    u/spaceraingame

    "In our house, HIMYM is known as 'How I Spent Eight Years Convincing My Kids That It Was Cool To Start Banging Aunt Robin Again.'"

    u/PlatasaurusOG

    5. "Game of Thrones."

    Bran Stark and Daenerys Targaryen, characters from Game of Thrones, are shown in separate images. Bran wears a fur cloak, and Daenerys has braided hair
    HBO

    "Where do I begin? The entire final season was a sh*tshow with a joke of a finale. Bran gets the Iron Throne despite being the least qualified; Danaerys turns evil literally out of nowhere; Jon Snow goes back to where he started. They took two to three seasons of character and plot development and crammed it into a season that was only six episodes. They took an extra year off to come up with this?! Way to ruin my favourite series of all time." 

    u/spaceraingame

    6. "Maybe not the worst of all time, but the end of Penny Dreadful disappointed me so much I wanted to punch a wall."

    A woman in old-fashioned attire is sitting and crying in a dimly lit room
    Showtime/ Sky Atlantic

    u/chaoticgood0405

    "The reason it really bummed me out was the amount of time we spent following various characters just setting up separate plot threads — and then they never wrapped up most of them. If it wasn't important to the story, then why show us all that filler?

    I feel like writers should have a mantra added to their contracts. Any amateur hack can do a bunch of out-there setup, but the real story-telling skill lies in paying it off.

    It's not all about the journey, the ending has to make sense to pay off the audience's/reader's investment."

    u/dysfunctionallymild

    7. "The Flash."

    Grant Gustin dressed as The Flash, in a red suit with a lightning bolt emblem, appears to be running fast in an urban setting
    The CW

    "Holy sh*t. From best pilot to worst series finale." 

    u/Ayevera

    "I can’t disagree, however, it wasn’t really a sharp decline. That show really fumbled the ball from like season three onwards." 

    u/Dustollo

    8. "Roseanne has to be way up there."

    Roseanne Barr, Lecy Goranson, Sara Gilbert, Michael Fishman, and John Goodman are smiling together in casual clothing
    ABC

    "The whole final season is so bad. They win the lottery and the whole show changes; the house is updated, they dress fancy, all kinds of crap. Then we get to the final episode at the very end we see Rosanne is writing a book and the whole final season is just her story and her way of dealing with the fact that Dan had actually died from a heart attack. I may not be getting all the details right but I just remember it being terrible." 

    u/lukewwilson

    9. "Medium. The show wasn't too good to begin with, but the series finale was just ridiculous."

    Patricia Arquette in a close-up shot, looking solemn while wearing a white textured robe
    NBC

    "The episode starts with her husband going on a work trip. Then on the way back, she has a dream where her husband is going to die in a plane crash. He calls before his plane crashes due to turbulence and then it flashes ahead seven years — she is now a lawyer and working for the district attorney prosecuting a smuggler. She has a dream that the smuggler is holding her husband hostage. She finds him alive and happy ever after.... but WAIT! It's all a dream! 

    Then in the last five minutes, her husband appears and tells her that he was making her have a vision of what life could be after he died — but she took over the vision to make it so he was still alive. It flashes forward to when she is dying, reunited with her husband.

    It was pretty hilarious, since we were hate-watching by that point, but my GOD was that a bad finale." 

    u/bros402

    10. "Star Trek Enterprise."

    Scott Bakula, Jolene Blalock, Dominic Keating, Anthony Montgomery, Linda Park, Connor Trinneer, and John Billingsley in sci-fi uniforms on a spaceship set
    UPN

    "They literally made it an episode of another show in the franchise, killed one of the fan favourites for literally no reason, and built up a speech Archer was writing to deliver on the foundation of the Federation but then never showed the speech."

    u/hart37

    11. "Sliders."

    Close-up of a person's hands holding a device with red LED numbers displaying "00:00:00."
    Syfy / Fox

    "That whole last season without Jerry and Charlie O'Connell is an absolute mess. It ends with them ending up in a world where they're famous, have a TV show, and even have a religion based around them. They then find out they're stuck there because they can't open a vortex but conveniently their friend has a bit of tech that will open a vortex. However, only one person can use it. So Rembrandt injects himself with some sort of bioweapon virus that targets the big bad Kromaggs and jumps through a vortex while everyone else is just stranded on this alternate universe. And that's it. No resolution. We don't know if the war crime virus worked and everyone is just stuck here." 

    u/hart37

    12. "The original finale for X-Files."

    David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, in office attire, sitting at desks with FBI badges visible, in a scene from The X-Files
    Fox

    "I’m a huge fan of the show (I mod the sub), but that finale with Mulder and Scully on the run was just a total cop-out.

    No alien invasion, no 'Truth is Out There,' just a lame excuse to not actually write a legit ending." 

    u/DontGetNEBigIdeas

    13. "A lot of these are great answers, but I can’t believe no one brought up Sherlock. Maybe it’s because the entirety of the last two seasons of the show were bad, but holy sh*t is that finale garbage."

    Benedict Cumberbatch stands by a river with a cityscape and bridge in the background, wearing a dark coat and scarf
    BBC

    [deleted]

    14. "Castle. Nothing comes close."

    Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic in a serious scene, standing indoors with a focused look, wearing formal attire
    ABC

    u/Gromit801

    "The whole incident where Castle disappears before the wedding and can’t recall anything afterwards really just sealed the deal for me."   

    u/woahysenia

    15. "Two And a Half Men. Extraordinary that went to air."

    Charlie Sheen, Jon Cryer, and Angus T. Jones sit on a couch. Charlie holds a popcorn bowl, Jon is seated in the middle, Angus wears a graphic T-shirt and shorts
    CBS

    u/Created_By_InGen  

    16. "The Walking Dead was a cluttered mess of sh*t by the end."

    Close-up of Rick Grimes crying and a pregnant Michonne ready to fight, both from The Walking Dead series
    AMC

    "They announced spin-offs before the finale, which took the possibility of death away from several main characters. And they ended up just fighting some nobodies in the community where they ended up. There were no resolutions for the long-standing characters. It's a shame for a show that ran that long. I know it dipped quite a bit in quality but the middle seasons were must-watch TV for me." 

    u/romafa

    "I stopped watching about season four. Just didn't give a sh*t anymore"

    u/k20350

    17. "People who complain about Game of Thrones should check out House of Cards. That was bad. If you don’t like watching a story do a speed-run through its actual ending, try quickly shoehorning in a story you didn’t want to tell in the first place."

    Robin Wright, in a scene, wears a sleek, long-sleeve dress with a minimalist design. An American flag is visible in the background
    Netflix

    u/bshaddo  

    "100%. The final season and final episodes are unwatchable."

    u/Cantomic66

    H/T to r/television and u/spaceraingame for having this discussion.

    Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.  

    Do you have any others to add, or disagree with the above? Let us know in the comments below!