10 Great TV Cliffhangers (With Awful Pay-Offs)
The Walking Dead, The Sopranos and Arrow all left us hanging.
Few things in life are harder than wrapping up a story in an interesting way while also keeping the viewer hooked for any potential follow-up. Whether it's a movie, a video game, a book or a TV series, there are many ways to stumble right at the finish line. Honing in on TV, in some ways creators might have realistically already crossed the finish line, only to then fall flat on their faces when the next season of a series rolls around.
Not only does it hurt when these things happen, but it's even worse knowing that the cliffhanger that came before was so incredibly good that you couldn't stop thinking about it for days, weeks or even months. You'd expect the resolution to be on par or even better than what came before, but that is not always the case.
Sometimes series do you dirtier than a pig rolling through the mud when it's hot outside. Sometimes the resolution is just plain awful and it leaves you in a state of uncontrollable rage. Not because they were just that bad, but because these cliffhangers failed you on a personal level.
Be aware, full spoilers for these episodes follow.
10. The Walking Dead - "Start To Finish"
We're starting this list off right with one of the downright worst episodes in the history of The Walking Dead, but not in the way you might expect. The Season Six mid-season finale of The Walking Dead, Start to Finish, is an exciting hour of television leaving us excited to return to the show when it comes back in the spring. Unfortunately, Start to Finish can be credited as the episode that started the worst batch of episodes from the entire show.
Of course, we didn't know this at the time. When the episode aired it was quite fine by leaving us with some tantalizing promises. With Alexandria flooded with walkers, Rick and Carl (along with Jessie and her kids) have to make their way across a sea of the undead while covered in zombie guts. Jessie's youngest son, Sam, is mortified, however, and starts to call out for his mom at the worst time possible.
It's an exciting cliffhanger, especially if you count the post-credit scenes that introduce Negan and the Saviors to the TV universe. Looking back, the pay-off wasn't worth it at all. Negan and his goons are responsible for the worst story arc in the show due to the plot being stretched out way too thin. It's not surprising many people stopped watching, and frankly, we can't blame them.