10 Great TV Cliffhangers (With Awful Pay-Offs)
7. The Sopranos - "Made In America"
Technically it might be cheating to include this one, but the series finale of The Sopranos is for sure one of the greatest TV cliffhangers of all time. Incidentally, it also has one of the worst pay-offs ever. The reason? There simply is no pay-off.
All fans got after watching close to 90 episodes was a cut to black at the worst time imaginable. It's quite stunning that The Sopranos even got away with this. Imagine if Breaking Bad would end three episodes earlier than it did? People would riot in the streets.
No one will ever truly know if Tony and his family made it out alive of the diner after the bell rang as someone entered. Tony looked up, almost as if he recognized who came in, but watchers will never know who that person was. It's both brilliant and infuriating at the same time.
Did The Sopranos get a happy ending, or is that diner overflowing with blood? No one knows, and while that might be an amazing twist, it's also an awful pay-off that we'll never get an answer to.