10 TV Shows That Almost Had Much Better Endings

4. The Fires Of Freedom - Nurse Jackie

Walt Breaking Bad
Showtime

The Ending: In the last scene of the show, Nurse Jackie Peyton collapses after overdosing from heroine she snorts up her nose, and it's left relatively unclear as to whether or not she dies. As she lies there and the camera zooms slowly towards her face, Zoey strokes her hair and offers up the very mysterious line: "You’re good, Jackie. You’re good.”

The Alternative Ending: Whilst the ending that was ultimately used was okay-ish, it also felt a little bit like a cross between the ending of The Sopranos and Breaking Bad - not very original, all things said and done.

The alternate ending sounded a lot better, though, and would have seen Jackie caught up in a hospital fire as she tries to rescue a heroine patient. She's consumed by the flames, at which point audiences would have assumed her to be dead, only for Jackie to squeeze herself out of a little window and escape - a metaphor for "freedom and birth," apparently.

Contributor

Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.