15 Most Shocking Season Finale Cliffhangers Ever, Ranked

If there's one truism in television, it's to leave the audience wanting more, which is why cliffhangers will never go out of style. After all, there's no better way to ensure viewers will tune back in than to end an episode on a note of dramatic uncertainty, especially if that episode just so happens to be the season finale.

The season finale cliffhanger has become a TV hallmark, sparking water cooler conversations and passionate online debates for literal decades. They can be equal parts exciting and manipulative, but that just speaks to how effective they can be. A good cliffhanger leaves the fate of a beloved character in limbo, and the longer we have to wait to find out what happened, the more our anticipation grows. In many ways, the cliffhanger is more thrilling than the outcome, because we're forced to use our imaginations as to what the writers have in store for us.

Here are the 15 most shocking season finale cliffhangers, ranked.

When "The Good Place" started out, it didn't seem like the kind of show that had a major twist up its sleeve. Throughout the first season, recently deceased Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell) winds up in the utopian afterlife by mistake, and tries to hide that from her Heavenly tour guide, Michael (Ted Danson). Hoping to earn her spot in the Good Place, Eleanor takes ethics lessons from her soulmate, Chidi (William Jackson Harper), but her plan is disrupted by the arrival of the Real Eleanor (Tiya Sircar), who went to The Bad Place by accident. 

In the Season 1 finale "Michael's Gambit," Eleanor, Chidi, and their friends Tahani (Jameela Jamil) and Jason (Manny Jacinto) are forced to choose who among them will go to The Bad Place. Suddenly, Eleanor realizes they've been in The Bad Place this whole time, and Michael is a demon who constructed this nightmare scenario. It was a shocking reversal that upended what the entire series was about, and it was all the more surprising when Michael wiped Eleanor's memory clean, leaving us wondering what would happen in Season 2.

Like "Breaking Bad," "Better Call Saul" (one of the best TV spinoffs) broke its final season into two parts, and ended with a doozy of a cliffhanger midway through. In "Plan and Execution," Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk) and Kim (Rhea Seehorn) are riding high when their plan to undermine Howard (Patrick Fabian) in the Sandpiper case proves successful. Meanwhile, Lalo (Tony Dalton) hatches a plan to kill Gus (Giancarlo Esposito), forcing Mike (Jonathan Banks) to divert his security detail away from Jimmy and Kim's apartment.

When Howard shows up at Kim and Jimmy's apartment unannounced to accuse them of character assassination, Lalo walks into the unprotected apartment and shoots him in the living room. Audiences had to wait almost two months to find out what would happen to Jimmy and Kim, who had to watch their friend get killed right in front of them. Like "Breaking Bad," "Better Call Saul" was at its best when dramatizing the showing that no one can dabble in crime without consequence, and this sixth season installment makes that heartbreakingly clear.

Ross and Rachel's will they won't they love story ran throughout the entirety of "Friends," and provided the show with an all-time great cliffhanger. In the two-part Season 4 finale "The One with Ross' Wedding," Ross (David Schwimmer) flies to London to marry his fiancée, Emily (Helen Baxendale). Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) hops on a transatlantic flight to stop the wedding, as Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) frantically calls the gang to warn them before she can get there.

Luckily for Rachel, she doesn't have to do much to stop the ceremony, as Ross makes the Freudian slip to end all Freudian slips. At the altar, Ross says "I take thee Rachel" instead of "I take thee Emily," proving that he still harbors feelings for his old flame no matter how hard he tries to convince himself he's moved on. Fans had to wait until the fifth season premiere to find out whether or not this slip up led to a breakup, and whether or not Rachel would confess her true feelings to Ross.

Season 2 of "Alias" was packed with twists and turns, but nothing could prepare you for what the writers had up their sleeves for the finale. In "The Telling," Sydney (Jennifer Garner) confronts her mother, Irina (Lena Olin), over what her true motives are. She also has it out with Allison, who murdered Sydney's best friend, Francie (Merrin Dungey), and assumed her identity. Their death match is so vicious that Sydney falls unconscious... and that's when the final twist comes!

When Sydney awakens, she finds herself in Hong Kong, and learns that she's been missing for two years. She's further stunned to hear that Vaughn (Michael Vartan), having assumed her dead, has gotten married to someone else. Sydney's realization of this, coupled with her inability to remember anything from that period, are devastating, to say the least. When the credits rolled, audiences sat with their own realization that they would have to wait until Season 2 to find out what Sydney did with the knowledge that she'd lost not just the last two years, but the love of her life as well.

Some stories are just too full of plot to contain themselves to a single episode, which is why "Star Trek: The Next Generation" split "The Best of Both Worlds" across two episodes. Unfortunately for fans, these episodes aired as the Season 3 finale and the Season 4 premiere, making for one hell of a cliffhanger. 

In part one, the Starship Enterprise does battle against the Borg, a group of humanoids united by a cybernetic hive mind. Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) is kidnapped by the Borg, and a rescue mission commences... but they're too late.

As the episode ends, Picard has been turned into a member of the Borg's hive mind, and he assures the crew of the Enterprise that "Resistance is futile." Hoping to stop the spread any further, Riker (Jonathan Frakes) orders Worf (Michael Dorn) to fire upon the enemy ship... and that's when the credits rolled! Viewers had to wait three whole months to find out Picard's ultimate fate, and they weren't disappointed.

In "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," anything seemed possible, which is why the Season 5 finale was so heartbreaking. In "The Gift," Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) must stop Glory (Clare Kramer) from completing a ritual that would open the gates between dimensions and unleash Hell on Earth. At first, it looks as though Buffy's sister, Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg), must sacrifice herself in order to close the mystical portal, as her blood was used to open it. But Buffy has other plans.

To spare her sister's life, Buffy plunges into the portal and closes it for good. The episode ends with a shot of her headstone, with an inscription that reads, "She saved the world. A lot." Considering the First Slayer's message was "Death is your gift," it seemed totally logical that Buffy actually perished and the show was going to continue without her. Yet an itch in the back of our heads made us think that perhaps they'd find a way to bring her back, which made the next season's premiere all the more anticipated.

Before there was the Red Wedding, there was the Moldavian Massacre. Season 5 of the primetime soap "Dynasty" ended with one of the craziest cliffhangers in TV history, generating a level of suspense that rivaled the famous "Who shot J. R." finale of "Dallas." 

In "Royal Wedding," the Carrington family flies to the European country of Moldavia, where Amanda (Catherine Oxenberg) will marry Prince Michael (Michael Praed). The lavish ceremony is interrupted by the arrival of armed revolutionaries, who open fire on the wedding banquet.

The episode ends with an image of startling brutality, as the entire Carrington family lay on the ground motionless. Fans had to wait all summer long to find out which of their favorite characters survived, and which suffered a worse fate. Although the gunfire only claimed two minor characters, audiences were left wondering whether or not fan favorite Alexis (Joan Collins) would return when Collins refused to show up to set over contract negotiations, leaving her out of the Season 6 premiere entirely. Talk about a real cliffhanger!

"The West Wing" was television's most optimistic political drama, presenting an idealized vision of the American presidency that's almost unfathomable today. Yet the job came with its risks, as the first season finale makes clear. In "What Kind of Day Has It Been," President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) has his hands full when a US Air Force captain gets shot down near enemy lines and an American space shuttle incurs mechanical difficulties. But Bartlet and his team handle these problems through competency and strength, wrapping up in time for the President to attend a town hall.

As they're returning to the motorcade, the Secret Service spot something suspicious, but fail to act in time before shots ring out. The episode cuts to credits before we find out who got hit, and considering this was the Season 1 finale, it made total sense that President Bartlet could've been assassinated, throwing the entire series into chaos. When Season 2 premiered, we learned that both Bartlet and Josh (Bradley Whitford) had been shot, causing us to bite our nails even further.

Who could ever forget the moment when Hank Schrader (Dean Norris) realizes that Heisenberg was under his nose the whole time? "Breaking Bad" split its final season into two halves, and ended part one with that iconic image. In "Gliding Over All," Walter White (Bryan Cranston) is looking towards retirement when he realizes he now has more money than he could ever possibly launder. With the meth lab running smoothly, his relationship with Skyler (Anna Gunn) on the mend, and his competition eliminated, Walt decides the time is right to leave his hang up Heisenberg's hat for good, and has a celebratory barbecue with Hank and Marie (Betsy Brandt).

When Hank goes to the bathroom, he finds Walt's copy of "Leaves of Grass," and reads the dedication from his old meth lab pal, Gale Boetticher (David Costabile). As Hank puts two-and-two together, he raises his head and gives a look that has been nearly memed to death. Yet it speaks to the power of that moment that it's become almost shorthand for learning something you should've known all along while simultaneously grappling with the consequences of it. It took nearly a full year to find out what Hank would do with that information, and he didn't disappoint.

In its original run, "Twin Peaks" ended both its first and second seasons on cliffhangers. Season 1's capper "The Last Evening" ends with Agent Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) getting shot by a mystery assailant, mimicking the famous "Who shot J.R.?" cliffhanger from "Dallas." In the Season 2 wrap-up, "Beyond Life and Death," Cooper enters the Black Lodge to save Annie (Heather Graham), from his deranged former partner, Windom Earle (Kenneth Walsh). Earle demands Cooper's soul in exchange for Annie's life, but the evil spirit Bob takes Earle's soul instead, allowing Cooper and Annie to escape. Or so we think...

Back at the motel, Cooper smashes his head into the mirror and deviously asks, "How's Annie?" To our horror, we realize this is actually Cooper's doppelgänger, who he encountered in the Black Lodge. The last moment plays upon many themes that dominate David Lynch's work, from the duality of man to the literal existence of evil. It's deeply upsetting to see the morally upstanding Agent Cooper take such a dark turn, and because the show was cancelled after it second season, audiences had to wait 25 years for his fate to be revealed in "Twin Peaks: The Return," one of the best revivals of all time.

"The Simpsons" has mined a lot of humor from satirizing the many tired tropes TV needs to stop doing immediately, making cliches fresh again by highlighting how stale they've become. By sending up season finale cliffhangers with "Who Shot Mr. Burns," "The Simpsons" created one of the all-time great whodunits. Season 6 ends with Mr. Burns angering everyone in Springfield by stealing the drilling rights from an oil well discovered underneath the elementary school. After a town hall meeting, Burns is shot and collapses on a giant sundial, leaving everyone to wonder who pulled the trigger.

"Who Shot Mr. Burns" is obviously inspired by the famous "Who shot J.R." episode of "Dallas," one of the best TV cliffhangers of all time. Yet the two-parter is great in its own right, sending up not just "Dallas" but also "Twin Peaks," "America's Most Wanted," and "Basic Instinct," to name just a few. What's most remarkable is that it does all of this while simultaneously working as an effective mystery, proving once again that at its best, "The Simpsons" contained multitudes.

Any "Game of Thrones" fan knew that unexpected deaths came with the territory, but that didn't make Jon Snow's (Kit Harington) slaying at the end of Season 5 any less shocking. "Mother's Mercy" is a jam-packed hour of television, primarily focusing on Stannis Baratheon's (Stephen Dillane) failed attack on Winterfell and Cersei Lannister's (Lena Headey) walk of atonement in King's Landing. But the thing that had everybody talking the next day was what happened to poor Jon Snow during the closing minutes.

Jon is taken outside the Wall under false pretenses, and by the time he realizes he's been betrayed, it's too late. His men take turns stabbing him in revenge for allowing the Wildings to pass south, an act they view as treasonous. Jon is left to die in the snow, and fans were left wondering whether or not his wounds were fatal. Thankfully, he was resurrected by the sorceress Melisandre (Carice van Houten), but it took almost a full year for that to happen.

Season 6 of "The Walking Dead" introduced Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan, the tyrannical leader of the Saviors. Although he's unseen throughout most of the season, he becomes something of a primary antagonist without a minute of screen time. That all changes with the season finale, "Last Day on Earth," which not only turns Negan into a walking, talking bad guy, but used him as a way to knock us off our feet with a doozy of a cliffhanger.

Negan appears in the episode's closing minutes, wielding his barbed-wire laced baseball bat, "Lucille." He's there to punish Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and his group, who have been captured by the Saviors. After stalking back and forth, Negan chooses a member of Rick's team to bludgeon to death... and we had to wait nearly seven months to find out who got the bad end in the Season 7 premiere.

"Lost" was nothing if not known for pulling the rug out from under us, as it did with the two-part third season finale "Through the Looking Glass." Throughout the season, we catch glimpses of Jack (Matthew Fox) in what we assume to be the past, as he's battling depression from his divorce and a crippling addiction to pain killers. After attending a funeral for someone he used to know, he attempts suicide, only to be stopped when a car crashes on the bridge he was going to jump off of.

All of this seems pretty coherent until the final moments, when Kate (Evangeline Lilly) appears, revealing that all of these flashbacks were actually flash-forwards, which becomes abundantly clear when Jack tells Kate "we have to go back" to the island. 

Despite its ups-and-downs, "Lost" remains one of the sci-fi shows that defined the genre, and with "Through the Looking Glass," you can sense the writers course-correcting after raising more questions than they could answer. This episode might've ended on a cliffhanger, but it proved there was a destination in sight.

When it comes to shocking season finale cliffhangers, there's no competing with the great granddaddy of them all: "A House Divided" from Season 3 of "Dallas." After angering his many enemies, family members, and business associates with a shady deal, Texas oil bigwig J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman) is shot by a mystery assailant while working late at his office. Everyone is a suspect, and viewers had to wait until the fourth episode of the next season — appropriately titled "Who Done It?" — to find out... well, who done it.

Although there were perhaps more shocking cliffhangers to come after it, "A House Divided" deserves placement atop this list for popularizing the tradition of ending a season on a note of uncertainty. Throughout the summer of 1980, fans kept asking, "Who shot J.R.?," including Democratic President Jimmy Carter during a campaign stop in Texas. The slogan was printed on everything from coffee mugs to T-shirts, creating a frenzy that resulted in more than 80 million people tuning in to finally get an answer. If "A House Divided" proved anything, it's that there's no better way to guarantee people will tune in than leaving them wanting more.