.jpg)
3 weeks ago
29
PROTECT YOUR DNA WITH QUANTUM TECHNOLOGY
Orgo-Life the new way to the future Advertising by AdpathwayOutlander Kills Off 2 Characters Ahead of Series Finale
Warning: This article contains major spoilers for Outlander's May 15 episode "And the World Was All Around Us."
Jamie Fraser and Claire Fraser's epic love story has reached its happily ever after—but not before a few shocking twists and turns, of course.
Outlander's series finale saw Jamie (Sam Heughan) and Claire's (Caitríona Balfe) time-traveling journey come to an end during the Starz drama's May 15 episode. But did both survive the final installment?
As the eight-season saga was wrapping up, the primary question on fans' minds was will Jamie really die as Frank (Tobias Menzies) predicted?
Jamie seemed to think his fate had been sealed as he planned his will and said a gut-wrenching goodbye to Claire before heading into battle with his men.
A bloody battle against Ferguson's army ensues, with Jamie's band of brothers eventually claiming victory. However, Jamie comes face to face with Ferguson and knocks Ferguson to the ground.
Just as it seemed that Jamie proved the prediction wrong, Ferguson pulled out a gun and shot the protagonist.
As a devastated Claire lied next to Jamie's lifeless body, a montage replayed every major moment from their travels through different time periods as Jamie's ghosts wandered through the collection of memories.
Back on the mountain, Claire’s hair turned bright white, seemingly confirming the prophecy that her healing powers would reach full potential when her hair turned white. The two then gasped for air a second before the screen went black.
It seemed that it's up to fans to decide if they believe Jamie is really dead, or did the power of their love breathe life back into their bodies.
Of course, the final cliffhanger wasn't the only twist in Outlander's final chapter.
During the penultimate May 8 episode, Percy Beauchamp (played by Michael Lindall) and the time-traveling Captain Richardson (Ben Lambert) were both killed off.
After Richardson kidnapped Lord John Grey (David Berry) in a mission to help the British win the Revolutionary War instead of the U.S., Grey shot his captor dead.
Starz
Later, Grey met with Beauchamp to demand that he sign a document confessing his involvement in Richardson's kidnapping as well as denying his love affair with Grey. While Beauchamp agreed to sign as a way of hiding their romance from the world (effectively saving Grey's life), he later killed himself with a shotgun.
While bidding farewell to the series—and several of its characters—was certainly emotional for fans of Diana Gabaldon's historical book series, the goodbye was equally gut-wrenching for the show's main cast members after a decade of working together.
"It didn’t really hit me ever when I was playing anything until our very last day," Balfe told Elle in an interview published May 8. "The last scene that Sam and I filmed together in Jamie and Claire’s bedroom was a seven-page dialogue scene, and the stuff that we were saying to each other as we were saying it had all of these double meanings for our lives and the whole experience, saying goodbye to Claire and the whole thing."
While fans debate their opinions of Outlander's epic conclusion, keep reading to look back at more TV series that divided fans with controversial series finales.
Brian Bowen Smith/SHOWTIME.
Shameless
The series ended its 11-season run on April 11, 2021. Frank Gallagher (William H. Macy) is diagnosed with the coronavirus in a hospital and soon dies while on a ventilator—a most harrowing cautionary scene amid the current pandemic. The character, who rarely wore a mask, was initially hospitalized after displaying more severe symptoms of his alcohol-related dementia and after suffering a suspected suicide attempt by overdose.
As he passes away, he imagines himself rising up above the rooftops while sitting in a chair in his hospital gown as he narrates a letter, filled with words of "advice," that he left for his family. In the post-credits, his body, saturated with ingested alcohol, is cremated, with explosive results.
Despite much hope among fans, Emmy Rossum, who left the show in season nine in 2019, did not return for the finale to reprise her role of Frank's eldest daughter Fiona Gallagher. However, old footage of her was included in short family flashbacks experienced by Frank.
Aside from his final accession, the finale also left even more up in the air: Lip (Jeremy Allen White) gets an offer to sell the family's home and hopes to start a new life with Tami (Kate Miner), their son Freddie and his brother Liam (Christian Isaiah). Debs (Emma Kenney) plans on moving to Texas with her daughter Franny (Paris Newton) and a new girlfriend. Ian (Cameron Monaghan) and Mickey (Noel Fisher) accept their new yuppie lifestyle. Carl (Ethan Cutkosky) embraces a new position in the police department that will allow him to stay true to himself. Kev (Steve Howey) and V (Shanola Hampton) plan a move to Kentucky.
One thing does conclude nicely: Lip is acknowledged for stepping up and doing what Frank never succeeded in doing for his family.
ABC
Roseanne
Fans were stunned when ABC's groundbreaking sitcom signed off after nine seasons with the titular heroine (played by Roseanne Barr) revealing that the entire final season had been a figment of her imagination, with her beloved husband Dan (John Goodman) having not actually survived his heart attack in the season prior. It was a callback to the character's desire in the early seasons to become a writer by having Roseanne sitting at a typewriter, writing a different ending to her story, but it left viewers feeling like their time had been wasted in the worst way. When the show was revived in 2018 after 21 years, it forgot all about its controversial ending. Little did we know, something even more controversial was on the way...
ABC
Dinosaurs
When ABC decided it was time to end this family-friendly sitcom starring puppet dinosaurs after four seasons, the creators decided to do it in the most depressing way possible by having its main character, Sinclair family patriarch Earl, trigger a catastrophic extinction event that would not only kill every main character, but his entire species. Bleak.
Hbo/Kobal/Shutterstock
The Sopranos
David Chase's game-changing HBO mob drama ushered in modern day's golden age of television. It also delivered one of the most controversial finales ever with a simple smash cut to black just as something—maybe nefarious, maybe not—was about to happen to the show's iconic antihero, Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini). Did he meet his maker while feasting on a bowl of onion rings with his family? And did Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) ever finish parallel parking? We will never know.
CW
Gossip Girl
Five simple words are all we need to explain why this iconic CW drama's finale missed the mark: Dan Humphrey was Gossip Girl. In what world?!
HBO
Game of Thrones
Daenerys (Emilia Clark) suddenly a fascist villain? Bran (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) the king? The Iron Throne melted down?! By the time the iconic HBO series reached its denouement in May 2019, a lot of fans were left wondering how this could've possibly been the best ending after eight epic seasons. And more than a year later, many of them are still asking that very question.
HBO
Girls
If you hated the way Lena Dunham's HBO comedy ended, with a half-hour that focused merely on Hannah Horvath with a bit of Allison Williams' Marnie thrown in, helping to raise Hannah's baby, may we suggest you think of it as merely an ill-advised epilogue and allow the penultimate episode—which saw Hannah saying goodbye to all of the titular girls in a truly emotionally effective half-hour—to act as the show's true finale. That's what we do, at least.
Randy Tepper/Showtime
Dexter
Watching Showtime's serial killer thriller, one got the impression that the titular murderer (played by Michael C. Hall) might eventually have to, you know, pay for his many, many sins by the time all was said and done. Instead, his poor sister Debra (Jennifer Carpenter) met her demise and he escaped Miami to restart as...a lumberjack in Oregon?! Never has a series finale more nakedly telegraphed the idea "We like this character and may want to do more with him some day" before.
ABC
Lost
When Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse decided to end the mind-bending ABC mystery by getting metaphysical rather than giving some, you know, concrete answers about what had been going on for the last six seasons, not everyone was exactly thrilled. So, the island was purgatory, right? Right?!
Ron P. Jaffe / ©CBS / courtesy Everett Collection
How I Met Your Mother
After nine seasons of listening to Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor) deliver one of the most long-winded stories in the world on the CBS sitcom, detailing how he met the mother of his children, fans were understandably horrified by the tossed-off way it was revealed that she'd been dead all along and Ted was, in fact, seeking his kid's permission to pursue their aunt Robin Scherbatsky (Cobie Smulders). It was, uh, a choice.
NBC
Seinfeld
When the iconic NBC comedy signed off in 1998 after nine seasons, original co-creator Larry David returned to really drive home how little the show's core four characters had learned—and how kinda awful they'd been all along. A parade of returning guest stars testified about all the horrible things that had befallen them as a result of Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld), Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), George (Jason Alexander), and Kramer's (Michael Richards) extreme selfishness and, in the end, a judge threw them in jail for a full year as a result of it. And fans were PISSED.
For the latest breaking news updates, click here to download the E! News App
English (US) ·