Outraged ‘Psycho’ Fans Call for a Return to Physical Media After AppleTV+ Ruins Final Scene With a Preview for ‘The Big Bang Theory’
We all go a little mad sometimes, but the UX designer at AppleTV+ responsible for this classic cinema catastrophe is more psycho than Norman Bates.
Spoilers ahead for anyone who hasn’t seen Psycho but who thinks that they might stream it at some point — or, better yet, they might buy a physical copy of the film. Alfred Hitchcock fans will recall with photographic memory the iconic closing moments of his 1960 masterpiece Psycho when the camera slowly zooms in on Norman, captured in a police station and his personality permanently evacuated by the constructed alter ego of his mother, as Norma’s voice echoes in his head. In the penultimate shot of the movie, Norman slowly looks up and stares into the camera, grinning menacingly, before the film cuts to his final female victim’s car and her remains getting pulled out of the swamp.
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But just as Norman begins to break the fourth wall and sends a chill down the spines of generations of film lovers, the frame suddenly shrinks to barely 1/8th of the screen, and a promotional still for Chuck Lorre’s massive hit sitcom The Big Bang Theory jump-scares AppleTV+ watchers for one final shock. Or, at least, that’s how Psycho ended for one irate cinephile who probably wishes they could catch Sheldon in the shower right now.
As legendary stand-up Patton Oswalt and the rest of the online Psycho fandom so angrily highlighted, streaming subscribers have long complained that services such as AppleTV+ cut away from the closing scene too soon and ruin the final frame of incredible films like Psycho with ads for whatever bullshit slop content they’re pushing that week. When a scene is as iconic as the one that ends Psycho, this practice is especially infuriating, and it emphasizes the need for true film fanatics to own physical copies of their favorite flicks.
In order to apologize for their transgression, Apple could always ruin the ends of a couple Big Bang Theory episodes by abruptly cutting to Psycho. Watch out, Penny.
