Creating a hit TV show and keeping it on air year after year is a hard enough task, but often knowing how to end a hit TV show is even harder. It seems like every few years some massive franchise or another ends with a disastrous final episode, and the 2025 iteration of that trend appears to be And Just Like That. The Sex and the City spinoff came to a close on Aug. 14, 2025, with an episode that will surely go down in history as one of the worst, especially when compared to Sex and the City‘s beloved final episode.
And Just Like That‘s finale featuring a clogged toilet got us thinking about the worst TV finales of all time, and so we’ve compiled a list of seven of the most talked-about final episodes in the history of television. AND NO, The Sopranos and Mad Men are not on this list. Don’t even try to tell me they deserve a place here.
🎬 SIGN UP for Parade’s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox 🎬
From killing off major characters and blowing up buildings to snow globes and a woman named Epcot, here are seven of the worst TV finales of all time:
The worst TV finales of all time
Game of Thrones
It’s hard to imagine a more maligned final season of television than that of Game of Thrones. The last few episodes are so bad that they’ve largely tanked the brand in years since (despite HBO’s best efforts). After years of war over who would eventually end up as the leader of Westeros, the final answer of Bran Stark landed with a thud. Perhaps even more despised though is the fate of Daenerys Targaryen, who after eight seasons as a fan favorite, pivots into a murderous queen in the show’s penultimate episode. She is then stabbed by Jon Snow in the finale, leaving fans with the question, “What was the point of her at all?”
Related: Missing ‘Modern Family’? From ‘Boy Meets World’ to ‘Black-ish’ and Back, Check Out the 55 Best Shows to Watch as a Family
Photo by Reisig and Taylor/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
Lost
As the seasons of Lost progressed, it became more and more apparent that the TV show didn’t quite know the answers to all the mysteries it had introduced over the years. However, the two-part finale doesn’t really give many answers and instead charges headlong into spiritual mysticism in which the island serves as some kind of moral battleground for the souls of humanity. While some fans have come around to the finale, many herald it as one of TV’s most disappointing endings.
Related: 10 Most Important Black TV Shows of All Time
HBO Max
And Just Like That
And Just Like That doesn’t end with any bold moves or big choices, but the small ones it does make are head-scratching. Why spend the final 33 minutes of the beloved series focused on a lactose-intolerant woman named Epcot? Why set it during Thanksgiving, but then separate all the main characters? Why does Carrie eat just the pie filling without the crust? The And Just Like That finale feels like a bad Thanksgiving episode from Season 7 of an NBC sitcom, not the end of a decades-long hit HBO show. I don’t imagine this aging well over time either.
Related: 101 TV Trivia Questions (With Answers) to Test Your Tube Knowledge
NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images
Little House on the Prairie
Many series end with a major death, but few expected that the character that wouldn’t make it out of the Little House on the Prairie finale alive would be the little house. When a land developer threatens to takeover Walnut Grove, the town’s inhabitants blow the whole place up with TNT and set out to homestead elsewhere. For a largely cheery, family-centered show, its fiery ending seemed a bit out of place.
Related: The 100 Best Shows to Binge-Watch on Netflix
Showtime
Dexter
Like Game of Thrones and Lost, Dexter started to go downhill long before the final episode, but the finale certainly cemented the show’s legacy. After wild twists like Dexter’s adopted sister Deb falling in love with him, Dexter ended not with him being brought to justice for his serial killer ways, confessing or finally being killed himself. Instead he just moved to Oregon and became a lumberjack. What?
Related: The Best Reality TV Shows of All Time
How I Met Your Mother
How I Met Your Mother tried to have its cake and eat it too, only to find itself with one of the most hated finales in sitcom history. After years of holding the titular mother’s identity a secret, Cristin Milioti arrived as Tracy only to be killed off with terminal cancer so that Ted could end up with Robin, an ending that the fans wanted (but not quite like this). The move completely undid all of Barney’s character development and left fans annoyed.
NBC
St. Elsewhere
Perhaps the most infamous ending in all of TV history is that of St. Elsewhere, a hospital drama that ran during the 1980s. One of the patients who visits the hospital during the finale is a young boy with autism. In the episode’s final moments, he looks out of a window into the snow only for the hospital to start shaking. Cut to the same boy shaking a snow globe with a miniature hospital inside. The entire show had been a figment of his imagination. WILD.
