4 Beloved Sitcom Finales That Secretly Suck
Until A.I. becomes capable of churning out new episodes of Seinfeld, I Love Lucy and Everybody Loves Dead-Eyed, CGI Raymond, most sitcoms have a very clear-cut end date. Their finales are typically a big deal, with the creative crews aiming to stick a memorable dismount for fans. But upon closer examination, we’ve found a few examples of widely acclaimed finales that aren’t as awesome as their reputations suggest, like how…
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Rachel Giving Up a Great Job for Ross on ‘Friends’ Isn’t a Happy Ending
Putting aside the regrettable events of the Joey-verse, Friends came to an end in 2004 with the episode “The Last One.” The most memorable part of the finale involves Ross trying to convince Rachel to stay in New York with him rather than fly to Paris to take a promising, lucrative new job with Louis Vuitton. In the end, she pivots to choosing Ross over her career, which seems like a mistake.
For one thing, terminally selfish Ross never suggests that he could go to Paris, only that Rachel should give up on the biggest professional opportunity she’s received to stay in New York with him. And before you go saying that Ross has a son, Ben, who he can’t leave behind (and who already lives with his moms), this doofus never even mentions the fact that Rachel is moving to France with their daughter Emma. Yeah, the fact that he’ll only ever get to see his infant daughter through the janky early 2000s version of Skype somehow never comes up.
Worst of all, once Rachel does bail on her flight and returns to be with Ross, he somehow can’t make it 30 seconds without making a joke about the time he banged a random Kinko’s employee while they were dating.
Could you be any more of an asshole?
The ‘Cheers’ Finale Didn’t Need to Bring Diane Back
Since it was never going to end with Sam, Cliff and the gang staging an emotional intervention for Norm, the acclaimed series finale of Cheers, “One for the Road,” instead found Diane Chambers re-visiting the bar, getting engaged to Sam and then quickly breaking off said engagement.
While the return of Diane seemingly pleased long-time fans, re-introducing her character at the 11th hour also diverted attention from the other characters — you know, the ones that kept Cheers going for six years after actress Shelley Long decided to quit the show. Sure, this storyline was also about Sam, but re-introducing Diane was ultimately unnecessary because she and Sam already shared the perfect goodbye scene back in the Season Five finale.
That being said, the episode’s final moments — in which the core group of friends shares one last drink, and Sam reflects that he’s “the luckiest son of a bitch on Earth” — remain pretty touching.
Sadly, though, much of the happy ending was ruined a few years later thanks to its spin-off: Frasier. It’s revealed that Rebecca’s working-class husband, who she married in the finale, hit it rich and immediately dumped her. Meanwhile, Sam confesses that entering group therapy for his sex addiction led to a toxic marriage, and Woody’s political career, which kicked off with his city council win in “One for the Road,” seemingly didn’t go anywhere, since he tells Frasier that he’s “still tending bar at Cheers.”
Winston’s Final Prank on ‘New Girl’ Was Unnecessary/Cruel
Rather than change the name of the show to Been Around for a While Now Woman, New Girl called it quits after seven seasons. The last episode sees Jess and Nick getting married and moving out of the loft after being served with an eviction notice. But before the show went away forever, its final moments revealed that the eviction was actually one last elaborate Winston prank.
Sure, his previous pranks got pretty extreme, but forcing your friends to pack up everything they own and leave their home is pretty cruel. Then, everyone decides to just leave this spacious, super-affordable loft behind anyways — sure, the loft serves as a metaphor for the carefree single days, which the characters are evolving past, but realistically, it’s a beautiful, budget-friendly apartment in a major city and in a country in the middle of a giant housing crisis.
Before the Iconic Twist, the Last ‘Newhart’ Was a Racist Mess
Bob Newhart’s sitcom Newhart — not to be confused with his other sitcom, The Bob Newhart Show, or his other, other sitcom Bob — famously gave us one of the most iconic comedic twists in television history. In the show’s closing moments, Newhart’s character Dick is hit in the head with a golf ball, only to wake up in bed with Emily, his wife from The Bob Newhart Show.
It’s this scene that has led many people over the years to praise Newhart as having one of the greatest TV finales of all time. But while there’s no arguing that the twist is great, everything preceding the two-and-a-half-minute ending is hot garbage.
“The Last Newhart” finds the quaint Vermont town being bought up by ruthless Japanese businessmen who turn the whole place into one giant golf course. Furthering the Reagan-era paranoia, the show flashes forward five years, and the town has completely surrendered its Western identity — Dick’s wife now dresses in a Kimono, while the hotel’s staff are all Japanese. And when he can’t get another job, Dick’s handyman flies off the handle and tries to commit seppuku.
This was all tied to the real 1980s panic among some Americans, who feared that Japanese economic growth would lead to their government literally buying the United States. At least Newhart’s racist delusions turned out to be a dream.
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