10 Best TV Pilot Cliffhangers Ever

10. Ratched - Brotherly Love

Beginning with a softer cliffhanger here, the events of Ratched’s opening episode are clear to show us some kind of connection between the titular evil nurse and serial killer Edmund Tolleson. The exact nature of this relationship is left rather ambiguous, however.

The setup for this Ryan Murphy clanger involves the aforementioned Tolleson brutally murdering four priests and our ‘hero’ Nurse Ratched faking her way into a nursing position at the psychiatric hospital that contains him.

Along the way, we see Ratched enjoy a peach, some oysters, a bit of casual homophobia and a demonstration of a lobotomy. It’s this last part she enjoys a little too much and gives hints at what’s to come.

With one of Tolleson’s survivors, Father Andrews, seemingly ready to give enough evidence to get him executed, Ratched takes matters into her own hands; drugging and lobotomizing the priest. It’s during this wince-inducing scene we learn that Ratched is actually Tolleson’s sister. Gasp!

We even get a secondary reveal that Tolleson might not have been crazy, but enacting righteous vengeance. The only way to know for sure was to keep on watching.