10 TV Show Endings That Get Worse The More You Think About Them
6. Castle - Crossfire
During its run, Castle was a surprisingly fun rom-com mixed with a bracing procedural drama, always exciting despite its predictability.
In Castle, the basic theme was that good would triumph, and Castle and Beckett would eventually live happily ever after. With the finale, though, this wholesome, almost comforting edge was stripped away.
Torturing and seemingly killing Castle and Beckett in one last stand against overarching villain Loksat, Crossfire ends with a jarring epilogue that finds the couple alive and well, eating breakfast with their kids.
Is it heaven? A dream shared between two dying lovers? Or is it a lazy "happy ending" squeezed in by writers unsure they'd be getting another season?
The sheer ambiguity is unlike anything the show had tried before, and the more you think about it, the more you realise that nothing could possibly make it feel right: If they're dead, it's far too unhappy, and if they survived, it's just cheap, rushed emotional manipulation.
Castle and Beckett deserved better.