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Today, all six seasons of Lost , sure to ignite a whole new round of discourse about its famously polarizing series finale. (No, they were not dead the whole time.) Time has been kind to “The End,” cementing the , which ran from 2004 to 2010 and consistently prioritized deep, emotional character work over airtight plotting. Still, plenty of viewers would still list it as one of the worst ever, frustrated by its refusal to adequately answer some of the series’ long-standing questions.
Here are 15 other controversial series finales that we still talk about today. (Spoilers abound!)
“Something New,” How I Met Your Mother (2014)
After nine years spent listening to Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor in the present, Bob Saget in the future) tell his kids the story of how he met their mother, it’s hard to overstate the disappointment of watching this CBS sitcom : casting the preternaturally charming Cristin Milioti as the until-now unseen mother while allowing Ted to move on from his ex-girlfriend Robin () and happily attend her wedding to his friend Barney (Neil Patrick Harris). Then time jumps revealed that Barney and Robin got divorced, the Mother died from a terminal illness, and this whole story’s purpose was to get Ted’s kids to approve of him reuniting with their Aunt Robin. Bold, certainly, but misjudged.
“Remember the Monsters?,” Dexter (2013)
A finale so powerful in its badness that you’ll never look at the word “lumberjack” the same way again. In some ways, this one isn’t so much “controversial;” these days, it’s pretty universally considered one of the worst finales of all time. But getting his sister killed, only to escape jail time and death and live out his days in the Oregon wilderness, still needs to be seen to be believed. It’s no wonder Showtime revived the series several years later with , a miniseries that gave Dexter exactly what he deserved.
“The Iron Throne,” Game of Thrones (2019)
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