Loss, Mortality and Unfinished Struggles: 10 Heaviest TV Finales of All Time, Ranked

When The Fight Continues

Angel closes on a battle that may never be finished. The characters do not appear to win, but viewers also do not see them die, leaving room to imagine that they keep fighting.

The ending is darker than the balanced bittersweet finish of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Its last moments offer a trace of sweetness in the characters’ chance to go out on their own terms, though the bitterness remains stronger.

A Family Faces Extinction

The Dinosaurs finale, “Changing Nature,” confronts the end of the dinosaurs and suggests the characters will soon die. That makes for an unusually grave ending to a family sitcom.

Some episodes made before it aired afterward, but “Changing Nature” is considered the intended narrative finale. Its stark treatment of mortality sets it apart, even as the story draws on what happened to dinosaurs in reality.

A World Starts Again

Wolf’s Rain’s ending spans four OVA episodes that together form a feature-length finale. The original run had 26 episodes, including four recap episodes that can be skipped. Across the finale, the characters face the end of the world, and the cast is killed off one by one. The cycle appears to begin again, offering a small suggestion of rebirth but no clear victory.

Acceptance In The Good Place

The Good Place shifts from a fantastical sitcom into a story about morality, human nature and what follows death. In its first-season finale, the characters discover that the place they believed was heaven is actually hell.

The season-four finale, “Whenever You’re Ready,” gives the story a victory while considering whether even an ideal afterlife should be finite. The characters must accept another, more permanent death, making the conclusion bittersweet and moving.