Why TV Finales Matter (And Why They Are So Hard to Get Right)

 

 

 

"While I usually have a vague idea of an ending when I start writing a play, I don’t want everything set in stone. If you don’t map the story out too ruthlessly, it will reveal itself to you in the writing — and there is often a secret subject, something both surprising and inevitable that your mind was holding on to, that ultimately presents itself. Something perfect, like an angel crashing through the ceiling. Or “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” Or the fact that there really is a cabal of devil worshipers living in the Dakota on the Upper West Side. Those are great endings.

The ending should grow out of everything that came before, but also be different from everything that came before. A great ending can be about transformation, in which our central character escapes, or finds true love, or discovers a profound truth and achieves inner wisdom (as in “Mad Men,” except the profound truth was about Coca-Cola). Or it can be about justice, which rains down on those who deserve it and ruins those who don’t. (See every superhero movie.) Or its opposite, the idea that justice has abandoned everyone. (See “The Godfather.”) A good ending can involve a soft, mournful loss of hope. (See Chekhov.) It can celebrate the restored and renewed order that a marriage can provide to a disordered world. (See Shakespeare.) Or it can resolve with the notion that marriage is actually not going to solve anything. (Again, see Shakespeare.)"

read essay by THERESA REBECK