The 11 Most Memorable Cliffhangers From The 2014-2015 Season

Love them or hate them, cliffhangers are a part of scripted television and they are here to stay. The most recent TV season ended with a ton of loose ends, leaving audiences waiting (not so) patiently for answers in the fall. With just a few months to go until we see how our favorite characters get out of their most recent jams. we thought we’d re-visit a few of the best ones from the biggest broadcasters that truly caught us off guard.

Bonus: The Good Wife

While the show is honestly one of the best dramas on TV, a lot of time it does fly under the radar with mainstream viewers. Regardless if you are not watching The Good Wife, find time to catch up because it’s a fantastic series.

The Good Wife has always found a way to end things with a twist, but as we’ve seen over the show’s six seasons, the producers don’t have to wait until the finale to shake things up. This year was different though, as audiences were preparing to say goodbye to fan favorite Archie Panjabi (who won a Emmy for role as Kalinda Sharma during the show’s first season).

While Kalinda quietly disappeared into that good night (on her own terms…naturally) it was Julianna Margulies’ character that offered up the biggest twist. Not long after she left Lockhart Gardner to start Florrick Agos, she was preparing to strike out on her own again, but this time with longtime rival Louis Canning (Michael J. Fox).

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11. Chicago Fire/Chicago P.D.

Given how often the worlds of Fire and P.D. intersect and given that Fire’s most recent capper will no doubt involve the P.D. team, it seemed best to combine the two into one entry.

Fire’s finale packed a few big twists, but the biggest one was saved for last when Matthew Casey’s (Jesse Spencer) plan to work with P.D.’s Hank Voight and Antonio Dawson (Jason Beghe and Jon Seda) to bring down  a mobbed up strip club owner (Eric Mabius) was exposed and Casey found one of the club’s girls dead in his home. All of this while Casey’s ex-girlfriend Gabby (Monica Raymond) learned their one night stand resulted in her being pregnant.

Meanwhile over on P.D. Voight’s squad was still putting together the pieces from the death of one of their own at the hands of a sadistic serial killer (played by the brilliant Dallas Roberts). In the aftermath, Voight’s defacto surrogate daughter Erin Lindsay (Sophia Bush), still hurting from the loss, turned in her badge and turned towards her deadbeat mother (Markie Post).

Good luck Hank…you’re going to have a busy fall fixing these messes.

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10. The Last Man On Earth

Some people may not like Will Forte’s type of humor, but they have to respect what he and co-creator Phil Lord and Chris Miller accomplished with The Last Man On Earth. While it looked like it could be a one-trick pony, it turned into a pleasant surprise as Forte went from learning he may be the last man on Earth to learning a few other men (and women) survived.

Though the biggest twist came in the show’s final seconds when it was revealed Phil’s brother is still alive and well…namely because he’s not technically on Earth, but hovering above it in space. Of course what really sent people into overdrive was seeing former Saturday Night Live star Jason Sudeikis as his brother.

Should make for an interesting second season.

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9. How To Get Away With Murder

Fans knew going into this Shonda Rhimes-produced series that there were going to be twists and turns around every corner. In fact, the series at different points went so far down the rabbit hole audiences weren’t sure where the show’s writers were going to go next (a Rhimes series staple).

After solving one of the two central murder mysteries introduced into the pilot episode at the halfway mark, the show ramped it up in the finale revealing Professor Annalise Keating’s (Viola Davis) right-hand man Frank Delfino (Charlie Weber) was the one who ultimately killed Lila Stangard (Megan West).

Yet the question soon became who killed Rebecca Sutter (Katie Findlay), after the one-time prime suspect was found dead in the show’s closing minutes by a confused Annalise and Frank who looked each more stunned than the other.

Class is about to be back in session, but who is schooling who?

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8. The Flash

While Marvel has the stronger film presence, DC has the stronger TV presence and its double-shot of The Flash and Arrow has solidified that presence (at least for now).

With The Flash, the series had been racing to the season end by slowly dragging out a few big reveals, including having the characters learn what we already knew…Dr. Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh) had a serious secret.

In fact, Wells wasn’t actually Wells, he was Eobard Thawne (Matt Letscher), a time traveler looking to get back home by “speeding up” certain events that essentially set up everything we watched over 24 episodes.

In the end, Wells/Thawne was defeated when their distant relative Eddie Thawne (Rick Cosnett) took his own life to thwart the same timeline Eobard was taking advantage of all along. The problem was the same type of rector that gave Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) his powers is up and running and sucking everything into it like a black hole.

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7. Arrow

While The Flash’s finale was very fast and furious, Arrow’s finale was the culmination of a longer slow burn. The entire season had revolved around Oliver Queen’s (Stephen Amell) battle with Ra’s al Ghul (Matt Nable) and the game of mental chess finally reached its end game.

In the end, Team Arrow helped defeat Ra’s al Ghul but, with Oliver’s world completely blown up in the aftermath of their feud, he walked away from his Arrow persona and took off from Starling City with girlfriend Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) in tow.

Meanwhile, Oliver’s long-standing feud with Malcom Merlyn (fan favorite John Barrowman) jumped a level as ultimately it was revealed to audiences that Merlyn would instead become the next Ra’s al Ghul setting up what will likely be a focal point of next season….that is if Oliver picks up his iconic bow again.

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6. Gotham

And the DC tri-fecta continued to impress with Fox’s Gotham also ending on a high note as James Gordon (Ben McKenzie) found himself in between the endgame of the fud between mobsters Carmine Falcone (John Doman) and Sal Maroni (David Zayas).

When the dust settled, Falcone’s was in self-imposed exile, Maroni was dead and mutual acquaintance Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith) had seemingly plunged to her demise….leaving the even more unhinged Oswald Cobblepot (rising star Robin Lord Taylor) now firmly in control of the city.

The other big plot point was young Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz) and loyal butler Alfred (Sean Pertwee) discovering Bruce’s dad Thomas had a “Bat-Cave” size secret of his own. It’s still going to be awhile until young Bruce wears the cowl of the bat, but his evolution into the Batman persona will definitely continue to be a big part of the second season.

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5. The Blacklist

The first season of The Blacklist was very well received, but its finale seemed to be lacking a little. This was probably because, despite the death of a main character, the cliffhanger wasn’t that strong. Producers upped their game a little in the season two ender as the puzzle pieces have firmly been shaken up.

Following Liz (Megan Boone) being implicated in the murder of a high-ranking government official, the team found itself in disarray with Harold Cooper (Harry Lennix) out as leader and Donald Ressler (Diego Klattenhoff) in…with his first directive being to hunt down Liz, who he let escape into the waiting arms of Red (James Spader).

Season two of the series was a little uneven but, right around the show’s midseason return (after the Super Bowl), the plot started building and audiences finally began to get answers…a trend that will hopefully continue into season three.

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4. The Big Bang Theory

We’ve seen many emotional moments and finales over the history of The Big Bang Theory, but the eighth season capper was an emotional gut punch the likes of which we’ve rarely seen on the series.

With the emphasis mostly being on Leonard (Johnny Galecki) and Penny (Kaley Cuoco) figuring out their complex relationship, the audience wasn’t expecting a last minute twist involving Sheldon (Jim Parsons) and Amy (Mayim Bialik).

After one of Sheldon’s trademark eccentric moments pops up at yet another inopportune time, Amy decides to end things with the awkward genius after becoming convinced he’ll never be ready to commit to a long term relationship. Yet, in a stunning twist, Sheldon reveals to the audience (and fittingly his Gollum statue) he WAS ready to commit and had in fact bought a ring.

Who said comedies can’t be emotional?

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3. Scandal

Here’s a show that doesn’t subscribe to the “hold for the end” mantra…Shonda Rhimes and her team will go for the throat whenever they feel like it. Of course, that doesn’t mean they won’t pay a little extra attention to the finale, which in years past has certainly offered up its share of memorable jaw-droppers.

This year’s though was equally impressive as Team Pope finally brought down Command (aka Papa Pope, aka the amazing Emmy winning Joe Morton). Yet it was how they took down “Daddy Dearest” that made it so fitting. Instead of getting him for his crimes as the head of B613, they framed him for embezzlement: a trick out of his own playbook.

Meanwhile, all was not quiet at the White House as Lizzy North’s (Portia de Rossi) power play resulted in her promotion to Chief Of Staff, Cyrus’ (Jeff Perry) dismissal and First Lady Mellie (Bellamy Young) again getting the cold shoulder from her husband Fitz (Tony Goldwyn) who turned to longtime mistress Olivia (Kerry Washington) in the show’s closing moments.

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2. Game of Thrones

The thing with huge broadcasters is that some of their shows do not fair so well while a select few flourish with viewers and ratings. HBO, on the other hand, just keeps pumping out massively successful shows like Game of Thrones, which has taken on one of the largest fanbases in TV history.

Fans of the show have to be almost as tough as the Iron Throne, as no character stands a chance against the plot line. Favorite characters get killed off just as quickly as the most hated. The finale of season five shook audiences to the core because, through everything they had endured in terms of violence and character deaths, it was almost a certainity that Jon Snow (Kit Harington) was going to be a survivor; however, he was stabbed by his fellow members of the Night’s Watch and left to bleed out in the snow.

Now, fans are grasping on to any thread of hope that Snow will survive and be a continued presence on the show, but they have to wait until season six to find out.

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1. Grey’s Anatomy

This may be cheating a little as Grey’s Anatomy’s biggest cliffhanger didn’t happen in the finale, but it certainly reverberated throughout the final few episodes and was truly the definition of a game-changer.

First, let’s be realistic….Seattle Grace/Grey-Sloan Memorial has never been a safe place to work. That actually may be a under-statement as, over the show’s run, the characters has had to contend with everything from natural disasters to unhinged individuals with weapons and, of course, a plane crash that killed off two series regulars.

Yet the biggest and most emotional twist came (ironically) away from Seattle where Dr. Derek Shepherd, doing what he does best, met an untimely end helping people in need. Audiences know on a Shonda Rhimes series that nobody is safe, but this was a Game of Thrones/Walking Dead-like twist involving one of the show’s core original characters that viewers still aren’t over!