As we approach finale season next month, we're bringing back some of the greatest season-enders of your favorite TV shows.
Finales come in all shapes and sizes, but most of them are targeted at leaving you in a state of utter shock, begging for summer to be OVER already because reasons!
These jam-packed episodes bring deaths, resurrections, explosions, and all those other show stopping numbers that leave you twisting and turning, desperate to discover what happened.
After a pretty sedate episode, the game changed in the last five minutes of The Vampire Diaries Season 3 finale when Elena and Matt's car drove off a bridge. Our screens cut to black on Elena's corpse surging back to life because, whoops, she'd ingested vampire blood earlier that evening. Enter vampire Elena!
The rise of the Ricktatorship plus that little reveal that everyone was infected with the zombie disease was a huge way to end the second season of The Walking Dead. Talk about a game changer! But the real award for this cliffhanger goes to the entrance of Michonne, the mysterious katana wiedling, zombie owning savior!
We were so close! So close to the dream wedding! Kate was even in her freaking wedding dress, but then a horrifying car crash nearly ruined it all! Who could ever forget the heartbroken look on Kate's face as she found Castle's car engulfed in flames?
Merder hearts around the world broke into a million tiny pieces when Addison Shepherd showed up in Seattle to reveal that McDreamy was McMarried. McAwkward...
The image of a butt naked Daenerys flanked by three baby dragons was possibly the best ending to the best first season in TV history. High praise, but well deserved. It completely changed the mythology of the show, plus it spawned about a thousand Mother of Dragons memes.
After spending an entire year (okay, six months - damn that writer's strike!) trying to save Dean from his hellish fate, the Winchester brothers finally failed. Our last moments of the season were spent with Dean in hell, wondering how on earth he would ever make it out of there!
Seeing as the whole show was built around avenging the death of David Clarke, it came as quite the surprise to see him casually stroll in and murder Conrad Grayson in the third season finale. Talk about your major ressurections!
Has there ever been a more WTF cliffhanger moment than the infamous White Room? The last two minutes of the first season of The 100 were spent blowing our minds as Clarke woke up in the totally operational Mount Weather, screaming to be let out of her prison. In the immortal words of Jason Rothenberg: BOOM. OUT.
Not only was Olivia officially outed to the press as the President's mistress in the last few minutes of the finale, we finally learned just how the nefarious Command was connected to her. He's her FATHER. That is a Star Wars level truth bomb right there.
Elsa's box office success earned her a visit to Storybrooke in the final moments of the Season 3 finale episode. How enjoyable her actual story was... well we'll leave that up to the fans, but you can't deny that was a KILLER way to end the season!
Every single member of our team was in peril after this finale, when a bomb went off just outside the office. Gibbs and Abby ducked for cover, McGee got blasted, Tony and Ziva were trapped in an elevator, and Ducky suffered a heart attack after hearing the news. Why NCIS? Why?!
After spending a whole season trying to figure out who killed Lila, now we're going to have to wait six months to figure out who killed Rebecca? This is all too much! Our money is on one of the kids, but Frank has proven himself a murderer too. Time will tell!
We think The Originals might have gotten the memo that their show needed more Originals because their Season 1 finale brought back a whole bunch of them! This cliffhanger came in two parts, with the resurrection of Esther, and the mystery of which Original brother she brought back from the dead with her!
We were all screaming right along with the liars as they were chased onto that rooftop by a gun-toting A. Brave as ever, Ezra tackled the hoodie wearing gunman, getting a bullet to the gut in the process. Has a hiatus ever lasted as long as that one? We don't think so.
Gosh, Trevor was just THE WORST, wasn't he? After going through all that effort to cover Mike's tracks, his Harvard secret still ended up getting spilled when Trevor told Jessica the whole sordid story. How dare he call himself best friend material.
Grey's Anatomy gets a second mention because we have never been more terrified for a character's fate than when Richard Webber ended the ninth season electorcuted in the hospital basement, with no one around to even know he was hurt!
BEST. CLIFFHANGER. EVER. And by best, we also mean worst. Each member of the BAU is seen entering a different black SUV, and every door closes shut behind them. Cut to an ambiguous shot of one of those SUVs bursting into flames! With no clue which car expldoded, the fans were left to wonder who had gotten blown up and who had escaped certain death!
They spark theories that range from predictable to preposterous, no matter what show you're watching.
Whether you're into vampires, attorneys, dragons, or doctors, we can all agree that these finales were some of the greatest WTF moments of all time. Or at least the last ten years...
Brace yourselves as we enter the final stretch of the spring season with this list of 17 finales that left our jaws on the floor, and remember what a great cliffhanger really looks like!