Worst TV Plot Twists Of The Century (So Far)

No TV series is completely safe from an occasional eye-roll or two. Sometimes even our favorite shows can take an unexpected — and ultimately unwanted — detour for the worse.

Yes, we all remember Arthur Fonzarelli and his nail-biting leap over a Los Angeles shark whilst on waterskis (and in his signature leather jacket). Nor have we forgotten Bobby Ewing's highly controversial shower scene. However, our purpose here is to revisit fresher storyline fumbles — specifically, those from the current century.

A word of warning: Some of the plot twists we tallied here were so terrible, we wish a bout of amnesia could delete them from our minds. Remember when 24 sent Jack Bauer's daughter, Kim, into the woods for a confrontation with a cougar? (We guess that seemed like a good idea at the time?) And shockingly enough, not one, but two gorillas made the cut!

But that's not all! Castle, The Big Bang Theory, The Flash, Nashville, Secret Invasion and several other otherwise-regarded series also made the list for their infamous narrative misfires. Review TVLine's picks in the list below, then tell us which plots had your head spinning in the comments.

When 24 returned for Day 2, the show had no idea what to do with Jack Bauer's daughter. Kim spent the duration of the season running around Los Angeles, fleeing an abusive father for whom she babysat, getting arrested, and starting fires in cop cars. But the crème de la crème of Kim's escapades: getting caught in a snare and stalked by a cougar in the woods. It was a mind-boggling, eyeroll-inducing WTF moment in a show otherwise known for its nail-biting action and soapy drama. — Nick Caruso

For years, Arrow (very lightly) teased the idea of John Diggle becoming a Lantern, most pointedly with its series finale, in which Dig came upon a green, glowing cube. During his appearance in The Flash's own farewell run, Diggle declined the "cosmic" invitation — mainly because with the Arrowverse fading fast, The Flash's showrunner decided to power down the Green-ish Lantern-y arc. — Matt Webb Mitovich

We almost feel bad forcing you, dear readers, to look at this photo of Cordelia having sex with Angel's son Connor, whom she knew as a baby! To say that the Season 4 twist still makes us shudder would be an understatement — and that's before the camera pans to reveal that Angel is watching them from a nearby rooftop. To make the out-of-character storyline even more groan-worthy, the inappropriate tryst results in a magical pregnancy. — N.C.

It was series co-creator Chuck Lorre who proposed the controversial Season 4 cliffhanger as a way to shake up the group dynamic — but it didn't go over well with anyone. "I really did not like that season finale ending," executive producer Steve Molaro previously admitted. "I went upstairs to his office right when we got back to work [on Season 5] and said something like, 'This is really bothering me. I think I have a way that we can... get out of it and preserve the characters as they are.' He didn't love it, but he knew it was important to me to the point that he conceded." And it was Lorre, Molaro says, who came up with the "brilliant" idea that Raj suffered from premature ejaculation, so nothing actually happened between him and Penny. — Ryan Schwartz

Why was Rick Castle MIA on his and Kate's original wedding day? It's pretty simple, really. It turns out that he was needed to help an old prep school pal flip on Al Qaeda — though after they both nearly died after a Thailand meet-up, Rick's memory was "erased" to forget the encounter. Rick then somehow wound up shot, after which he was found by MI-6 freelancer Hayley Shipton (whom he would pretend to not know years later when she surfaced in New York). Hayley led Rick to a "dark net" video he had recorded and left for himself, explaining that he had uncovered a link between the nefarious Senator Bracken and he/it which would become known as LokSat. And that, actually, was the real reason why Past Rick had his memory erased, to protect loved ones. Also: boat, dengue fever. — M.W.M.

While it made for a fun cliffhanger, Morgan Guillermo Grimes proved to be insufferable as The Intersect. During his short stint as host of the neural supercomputer, "The Bearded Bandit" got too big for his britches and betrayed Carmichael Industries by whoring himself out to Verbanski Corp. If that wasn't bad enough, he went and got [shudder] frosted tips! While his behavior was found to be a side effect of the Intersect "Swiss-cheesing" his brain, we just couldn't get past the Powers That Be spending one third of the fifth and final season on such an inconsequential arc. — R.S.

Coming off of its acclaimed first season, the beloved, Emmy-winning drama kicked off Season 2 with an ill-conceived murder plot involving Jesse Plemons' Landry and Adrianne Palicki's Tyra that would've been right at home on, say, Melrose Place. Luckily, the narrative misfire proved to be an anomaly rather than any harbinger of a creative decline.

Gilmore fans had waited years for Luke and Lorelai to finally couple up, then waited longer when their Season 5 romance was briefly ruined by Emily's meddling. That's why this Season 6 plot twist, in which Luke learned he had a young daughter, was especially disappointing. As sweet and precocious as April was, her presence was yet another frustrating obstacle for Luke and Lorelai to overcome, and the typically sunny Lorelai spent much of that season in an emotional funk. The couple may have gotten their happy ending eventually, but this roadblock felt particularly unnecessary. — Rebecca Luther

The medical drama's best days were already in the rearview mirror by the time the cantankerous diagnostician drove his car through Cuddy's house because of, what, a broken heart? He could have killed everyone inside, and he didn't seem to care. He got out of the vehicle, approached Cuddy and handed her a hairbrush she left at his place, before he walked away from the wreckage without a care in the world. What followed was a one-episode stint in prison that tried (and failed) to recapture the magic of the Season 6 opener that placed our antihero in a psychiatric ward. — R.S.

In the Season 3 episode "Monkey Business," human sexuality researchers Masters and Johnson attempted to treat an impotent gorilla (that sentence is groan-worthy enough on its own, no?). But if the premise weren't already strange — coupled with the fact that the real-life Masters and Johnson never actually worked with animals — the Showtime drama upped the ickiness when Virginia showed the monkey her bare breasts, and he was responsive. The whole storyline was needless, odd and a little disturbing. — Charlie Mason

Juliette's years-long struggle with figuring out who she was and what made her happy culminated with a Season 6 indoctrination into the Movement for Coherent Philosophy. What seemed at first like a self-help group turned out to be your garden-variety cult. In too deep, Ms. Barnes abandoned her family and wound up held against her will in Bolivia, but later escaped and returned home after realizing she was pregnant with Avery's baby. — Kimberly Roots

Season 7's "requel" accounted for series lead Jennifer Morrison's absence by casting a new spell which relocated most everyone else to Seattle, sans their memories of who they really were. Cue the arrival of Adult Henry's wee daughter at his apartment doorstep toting a Once Upon a Time book, and him oblivious to who she was and all that came before. We wanted to care about each character "waking up" — and make no mistake, the cameos-filled grand finale was a crowdpleaser — but a lack of chemistry between too many new or grown-up characters was more often a snooze. — M.W.M.

Just when he thought he was out, they pulled him back in. For the show's third season, Michael Scofield was tasked with yet another prison break, this time freeing James Whistler from a Panamanian lock-up on behalf of The Company, which was holding LJ and Sara hostage. Sure, the 2007-08 writers' strike didn't help (the season was hacked from 22 episodes to a slim 13), but Scofield's second prison stint was simply a grungier imitation of the show's electric first season. — M.W.M.

In Season 7, the Showtime drama killed off Jon Voight's Mickey Donovan in a spectacular explosion involving a prison bus and a tanker truck. Or so we thought. Not only did the octogenarian scoundrel survive the blast, he walked away from it with barely a scratch. The plot twist was as laughable as it was unnecessary, hindering an otherwise strong season. 

Who is The Initiative... and why, exactly, should we care? It's been eight years since the shadowy, all-powerful cabal came to the forefront during Season 2 of the ABC drama, and we still don't have a good answer to either of those questions. The introduction of The Initiative turned Revenge from a juicy soap into a convoluted conspiracy thriller and promptly sucked all the fun out of Emily Thorne's quest for vengeance. If we could take a red Sharpie to the whole messy storyline, we would. — Andy Swift

Gosh, remember how excited we all were, to hear that Cobie Smulders was teaming back up with her Avengers boss Samuel J. Jackson for this Disney+ series? And then remember how devastated/furious we were to realize that Maria Hill dies, unceremoniously, in the very first episode? If the ongoing MCU is ignoring other events of Secret Invasion, maybe Maria's senseless death can be retconned as well. — M.W.M.

Who needs to "jump the shark" when you can just as easily "hug a gorilla"? Just 12 episodes into Ashton Kutcher's tenure, it was revealed that Walden's primatologist mother raised him alongside a gorilla named Magilla, whom he always thought was an imaginary childhood friend. The episode culminated in Kutcher being tickled by a man in a gorilla suit. (Kutcher alluded to the ridiculous twist on the WTF With Marc Maron podcast saying: "I've been on shows where you keep going, and you keep going... And then you've got a brother who's a gorilla!" — R.S.

Sure, most of the characters on this Netflix adaptation were siblings, so combinations for romantic partners were limited. But Diego and Lila were already matched up in a quirky, lightheartedly dysfunctional relationship; it only weakened the final season for their marriage to become sad and strained, paving the way for Five and Lila's baffling, hard-to-take-seriously subway romance. Is there a version of the apocalypse that could just wipe out this one storyline? — R.L.