‘The Ranch’, ‘Chicago Fire’ and 8 of TV’s Worst Cliffhangers

There’s nothing like a good cliffhanger ending to leave TV fans thinking about a show for months after a season finale, but some of those last-minute twists are too silly not to make fun of them.

While many end-of-the-season twists leave fans wondering how they will spend months before finding out what happens next, some shows take a more crazy route, putting main characters they’ll never kill off in danger for example, that makes fans more annoyed than surprised.

With the 2018-2019 TV season over with, we are looking back on some our favorite show’s laziest cliffhanger endings. Take a look below:

The Ranch

Fans of the Netflix series still lament Danny Masterson’s exit as Rooster after allegations of harassment surfaced against the actor, but the writers still chose to leave his fate in the balance at the end of Part 5.

After ex-con Nick threatened to kill his family if he didn’t leave town, Rooster left town in the middle of the night. The character was killed off in Part 6 when he drove his motorcycle off a cliff.

Bull

CBS legal drama had already renewed the show for Season 3 when Michael Weatherly’s character suffered a last-second heart attack outside of the courthouse in the Season 2 finale.

Since the main character as not going to die, the show could have taken the twist as an opportunity for a more personal storyline surrounding Bull’s health, but alas the show picked up months later with the Bull fully recovered as if nothing had happened.

The X-Files

As the sci-fi drama enjoyed the peak of its popularity, the show expected fans to fear accept Fox Mulder’s (David Duchovny) suicide in the Season 4 finale.

Despite Scully identifying the body, the cliffhanger was resolved with Mulder revealing he had faked his death so he could continue his investigation.

Gilmore Girls

Gilmore Girls made a lot of questionable choices in its later years, but fans could not believe when the Season 5 finale marked the complete destruction of Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory’s (Alexis Bledel) relationship.

Not only did studious Rory quit Yale, but she left her mother’s home in the middle of the night to move with her grandparents. It took half of Season 6 for them to resolve the feud, but at least we had Rory’s cute bangs to enjoy during that awful period.

Star

The cancellation of the Empire spinoff series earlier this month is all the more heartbreaking given the deadly cliffhanger ending the show delivered.

After criminals killed Derek’s (Quincy Brown) grandmother to avenge their bosses’ death, they arrived at his and Alex’s (Ryan Destiny) wedding reception and shot up the party, leaving the fate of about half of the main cast in jeopardy.

After co-creator Lee Daniels announced the show would not be rescued by another network, the fate of all those characters will never be revealed.

Nashville

The ABC-turned-CMT musical drama made a lot of shocking choices for its season finales over the years, but it didn’t take much to know how Season’s 3 deadly ending would end up.

When the show ended with an EKG flatlining, leaving the fate of either Deacon (Charles Esten) or his less-than-likable sister Beverly. Of course, it was Beverly who ended up passing away in the Season 4 premiere.

The Blacklist

A shocking choice for the NBC drama series to this day, when fans found out that Red (James Spader) was actually an imposter in the Season 5 still remains one of TV’s weirdest twists.

A year later we are still not sure who Red really is, as the show has provided about two different answers they have later disproved… so yeah, The Blacklist has made some choices.

Manifest

After a season of mysterious conspiracy theories and sci-fi/supernatural elements, it seemed weird for NBC’s hit drama to end with Michaela finding Zeke and Jared fighting over a gun, only for a shot to be fired leaving someone’s life in the balance.

With time travel, missing airplanes and people and everything else, we really don’t care if someone got shot at the last second.

Chicago Fire

Chicago Fire is the only One Chicago series that had not announced any major cast shakeups ahead of its current season finale, yet it’s the only one of the three shows to at least set up possible exits from the show.

The end of the firefighter drama’s seventh season dropped a high-stakes cliffhanger when almost the entire firehouse was attempting to diffuse an explosion in a factory basement, with the episode ending with the moment before the explosion was set to go off, potentially killing all of them.

Jesse Spencer and Taylor Kinney are set to return for Season 8 as they signed new deals. As for everyone else in the basement? We’ll have to see who makes it out of that basement alive.

Killing Eve

When the hit BBC America series had Eve (Sandra Oh) stab Villanelle (Jodie Comer) in Season 1, it felt like a shocking and perfect cliffhanger.

In reverse, the Season 2 finale ending with Villanelle shooting Eve in the back — and possibly (but definitely not) killing the show’s main character felt lazy.

Hopefully, they come up with something other than a takeout murder-suicide for the Season 3 finale.