{"id":2070,"date":"2026-08-14T21:13:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T21:13:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=2070"},"modified":"2026-08-14T21:13:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T21:13:27","slug":"eight-perfect-series-finales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=2070","title":{"rendered":"Eight Perfect Series Finales"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This is an edition of The<\/i> Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. <\/i>Sign up for it here.<\/i><\/small><\/p>\n

Read more Hollywood\u2019s Most Indestructible Superhero<\/a><\/p>\n

Last year, I asked The Atlantic<\/i>\u2019s writers and editors to name a perfect episode of TV, but a perfect finale is especially hard to pull off\u2014and nothing invokes the wrath of fans quite like a bad ending. Here are eight shows that make the most out of their last minutes.<\/p>\n

The following contains spoilers for the shows mentioned.<\/em><\/p>\n

Fleabag <\/i><\/b>(streaming on Prime Video)<\/b><\/p>\n

Almost nobody is left happy by the final moments of Fleabag<\/i>\u2014not the heartbroken but resolute \u201cHot Priest\u201d; not the protagonist Fleabag, watching a fox trail behind the man who has just left her for God; and certainly not the viewer, who has no choice but to let Fleabag look into the camera, shake her head, and leave us behind.<\/p>\n

But the best ending is a cathartic one. Fleabag, played by the show\u2019s creator, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, is a dry-humored, unabashed, fourth-wall-breaking character who encounters God and new meaning in the second season, which is also the last. She attends a Quaker meeting and is moved by the Holy Spirit to say one of my favorite lines of the series: \u201cI sometimes worry I wouldn\u2019t be such a feminist if I had bigger tits.\u201d She and her sister, Claire, repair their relationship and each kneel, exasperated, before different men to ask for deliverance\u2014Claire from her obnoxious husband, and Fleabag from her suffering. And in the last moments of the finale, after a backyard wedding and the implosion of Claire\u2019s marriage, Fleabag tells the Hot Priest that she loves him, and he tells her, \u201cIt\u2019ll pass.\u201d To anybody still reeling from the conclusion of this perfectly short-lived show, that\u2019s also a message to us: This is the end, and one day it will feel like enough.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Stephanie Bai, senior associate editor<\/p>\n

***<\/div>\n

Twin Peaks<\/i><\/b> (streaming on Pluto TV and Paramount+)<\/b><\/p>\n

Twin Peaks <\/i>had multiple conclusions over its strange life as a TV show, first ending on a shocking second season cliff-hanger in 1991, then failing to resolve that with a follow-up film a year later, leaving fans feeling frustrated by what could have been. But in 2017, the co-creators David Lynch and Mark Frost delivered a magnificent and challenging third season with an even more mind-bending last episode. In the true finale of Twin Peaks<\/i>, titled \u201cPart 18\u201d or \u201cWhat Is Your Name?,\u201d the heroic Special Agent Dale Cooper (played by Kyle MacLachlan) finally frees himself from the demonic possession that he\u2019s been under for the entire season and travels back in time to the start of the show to try to undo Laura Palmer\u2019s murder. Whatever he does, however, creates an entirely new world that seems even more confusing, and the screen cuts to black as some new version of Laura lets out a chilling scream. It\u2019s another dramatic cliff-hanger, but this time a more intentional one, underlining the hubris in Cooper\u2019s straight-arrow heroism: Try as he might to fix the world\u2019s wrongs, its fundamental evil and suffering are impossible to scrub away.<\/p>\n

\u2014 David Sims, staff writer<\/p>\n

***<\/div>\n

Nathan for You<\/i><\/b> (streaming on HBO Max)<\/b><\/p>\n

The overarching story of Nathan for You<\/i>, the brilliant docu-comedy hosted by Nathan Fielder, is easy to miss. Fielder\u2019s show ran for four seasons on an episodic premise: He uses his very minimal business acumen to help local entrepreneurs and store owners boost their foot traffic through absurd means that are clearly destined to fail. Fielder performs the role of a stoic, socially awkward, sometimes-cruel game master with aplomb, but amid all the tomfoolery is a very human through line: Fielder, the show implies, really just wants to connect.<\/p>\n

That context explains why the series finale is a moving, feature-length meditation on love, remorse, and loneliness. \u201cFinding Frances\u201d focuses on a man named Bill Heath, who previously appeared on the show as the world\u2019s least convincing Bill Gates impersonator. Fielder endeavors to reunite him with a long-lost old girlfriend, and the episode makes clear that he is afraid that he may eventually become Bill, who, in his 70s, is alone and full of regret, having funneled all of his energy into his career. The quest to locate the titular Frances is full of the usual contrivances, but it\u2019s also sentimental and shockingly earnest. The very last scene\u2014in which Fielder has to choose between his heart and his humor\u2014ends the show with a reveal that rings poignant, even a little sad.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Allegra Frank, senior editor<\/p>\n

***<\/div>\n

Cowboy Bebop<\/i><\/b> (streaming on Crunchyroll)<\/b><\/p>\n

This 1998 anime about bounty hunters adventuring through galaxies aboard a spaceship is nothing like its more famous Cartoon Network contemporaries Sailor Moon<\/i> and Dragon Ball Z<\/i>. Cowboy Bebop<\/i> isn\u2019t kid friendly (though I did first discover it at age 12): There is bloodshed, sex, and criminal activity, but most of all, there is the profoundly adult theme of running away from one\u2019s past. Among the hunters is Spike, who split from a crime syndicate under circumstances I won\u2019t spoil; Faye, a wanted amnesiac; Jet, the hulking captain, who lost a love; Ed, the quirky teenage hacker left by her father; and Ein, a corgi rescued from a lab.<\/p>\n

For me, a perfect finale needs to feel both inevitable and surprising, and it needs to actually round out the story. Cowboy Bebop <\/i>takes care to draw out every character\u2019s past, and gives them arcs that befit their endings. This does mean that the found family you\u2019ve grown attached to over the course of 26 episodes may not stay together in perpetuity. But I wouldn\u2019t want to see the show finish any other way.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Shan Wang, programming director<\/p>\n

***<\/div>\n

Insecure <\/i><\/b>(streaming on HBO Max)<\/b><\/p>\n

Issa Rae\u2019s namesake character on Insecure<\/i> routinely looks at herself in the mirror and talks to her alter ego. Her reflection is a little more outgoing and blunt than she is in real life, and in the series finale, that alter ego is once again laughing at her for a situation she put herself in: \u201cYou\u2019re down bad. I don\u2019t know where you go from here.\u201d In real life, Issa replies that she just wants \u201cto fast-forward to the part where everything is okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

But life is not lived in a series of highs. \u201cOne could collect the highest peaks of the whole world but put together they would not be a continent,\u201d Zora Neale Hurston once wrote. \u201cJust a collection of bristling peaks. No nuances of valleys and plains.\u201d Insecure<\/i>, as a show, follows the relationships and friendships of two Black women in Los Angeles, giving us a look into the minutiae of their daily lives and how big everything can seem. The finale, in contrast, is a series of vignettes showing each central character\u2019s birthday at some point in the future\u2014the moments when they think they have it all figured out, and the moments amid those highs when they remain insecure.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Adam Harris, Radio Atlantic<\/i> host<\/p>\n

***<\/div>\n

The O.C. <\/i><\/b>(streaming on Hulu, Disney+, and HBO Max)<\/b><\/p>\n

The last season of this popular early-2000s teen drama is somewhat controversial among fans. There are plenty of cringeworthy plotlines (Chris Pratt plays an animal-rights activist named Ch\u00e9; a main character\u2019s absent father suddenly reappears), but the finale manages to save the show from the mess it\u2019s made. The episode follows Seth Cohen and Ryan Atwood, who was taken in by Seth\u2019s family at the series\u2019 start, as they all prepare to move out of the titular O.C.<\/p>\n

The storyline provides closure while leaving just enough open-ended. A flash-forward in the final minutes allows viewers to catch a glimpse of the futures they have yearned to see for these characters: Seth and Summer get married; Ryan goes to college and later offers to help a young boy the way the Cohens once helped him. Set to Patrick Park\u2019s \u201cLife Is a Song,\u201d the montage provides one last moving musical moment on a show known for them. It also delivers what I think all finales should: emotional payoff and an ending that feels earned.<\/p>\n

Read more A Bleak, Violent Novel\u2019s Unexpected Delights<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Kate Guarino, senior editor<\/p>\n

***<\/div>\n

The Jinx<\/i><\/b> (streaming on HBO Max)<\/b><\/p>\n

There has never been a finale like the Season 1 finale of The Jinx<\/i>. The 2015 HBO documentary series investigated the 1982 disappearance of Kathie Durst, the wife of the real-estate heir Robert Durst, as well as the murders of two of his acquaintances. It sounds like your typical true-crime doc. It isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

If, in the 11 years since it came out, you have by some miracle not been spoiled on what happens, do not<\/i> read the rest of this blurb. I\u2019m serious. To those in the know or stubborn enough to stay for the spoilers, I will say this: I have never been as shocked by anything on television as when Durst seemingly confesses on mic: \u201cKilled them all, of course.\u201d<\/p>\n

I know I am bending the rules a bit here\u2014technically, the Season 1 finale of The Jinx<\/i> isn\u2019t a series finale, but at the time, it was supposed to be. And the evidence revealed in that season directly contributed to Durst\u2019s arrest and eventual murder conviction, which the show covered when it aired a second season nearly a decade later.<\/p>\n

The Jinx<\/i> ruined all other true-crime documentaries for me. If you aren\u2019t going to actually catch the killer, why would I even watch?<\/p>\n

\u2014 Julie Beck, staff writer<\/p>\n

***<\/div>\n

St. Elsewhere <\/i><\/b>(available to rent on Prime Video and Apple TV+)<\/b><\/p>\n

During its run in the 1980s, the NBC medical drama St. Elsewhere<\/i> engaged in plenty of creative experiments. But the 1988 finale is a masterpiece, a loving homage to time-honored shows such as The Fugitive <\/i>and M*A*S*H<\/i> (an autopsy is performed on \u201cpatient 4077 \u2026 Blake, Henry\u201d). Why so many inside jokes about old TV shows?<\/p>\n

Because, as we find out in the show\u2019s last few minutes, the entire series is merely the dream of an autistic boy named Tommy Westphall. The two top doctors at St. Elsewhere are actually, in Tommy\u2019s real life, his grandfather and his construction-worker father, who wonder what Tommy thinks about all day while sitting in front of the TV and staring into a snow globe with a model of the hospital in it.<\/p>\n

This amazing moment lives on: It has spawned years of internet theories about the \u201cTommy Westphall Universe.\u201d If St. Elsewhere<\/i> is a dream, what about all of the crossovers from other shows? The doctors of St. Elsewhere <\/i>visit the bar from Cheers<\/i>, which is also set in Boston; is that showpart of Tommy\u2019s fantasies?<\/p>\n

It is a fine ending to a quirky series, and almost 40 years later, I still wonder whether so many shows I loved were just dreams in a snow globe.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Tom Nichols, staff writer<\/p>\n

Here are three new stories from The Atlantic<\/i>:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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