The 25 Best Season Finales Of All Time

The season finale is one of the most rewarding experiences of watching scripted television. Many series have had great seasons that failed to follow-through on superb set-ups come finale time, but most rise to the occasion and deliver a conclusion that both works as a single episode of TV and a pay-off for a season-long investment.

With HBO's terrific crime series Boardwalk Empire concluding its third year at the end of the week, all eyes are on the Prohibition-set drama to wrap up the warring conflict between Atlantic City boss Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) and Gyp Rosetti (Bobby Cannavale) in a grand fashion similar to the stunning resolution of the second season's conflict between Nucky and protégé-turned-foe Jimmy Darmody (Michael Pitt).

We have no doubt that the Boardwalk boys will deliver, and to celebrate what's sure to be a much-discussed finale, Complex is counting down the 25 best season finales of all time. It's a definitive list of all of the coolest twists, cruelest cliff-hangers, and edge-of-your-seat conclusions in television history, drama and sitcom (but excluding series finales).

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Written by Frazier Tharpe (@The_SummerMan)

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Season: 2
Air Date: 5/11/06

Leave it to a quirky comedy like The Office to end on a dramatic moment. The Steve Carell penned script finds Jim (John Krasinski) and Pam (Jenna Fischer) taking one huge step forward when they finally share a kiss...and then one equally sized step backward when she resolves to go forward with marrying Roy (David Denman).

At least "Casino Night" has brilliant moments of levity in between the Jim-Pam saga, like the revelation of Kevin's (Brian Baumgartner) Police cover band, Scrantonicity, the hilarity derived from Dwight (Rainn Wilson) and Angela's (Angela Kinsey) secret relationship, and the inadvertent love triangle Michael finds himself in when he invites both Jan (Melora Hardin) and Carol (Nancy Walls) to Casino Night.

Season: 2
Air Date: 12/1/09

SoA concluded its best season to date with a bang. We were so invested in seeing Jax (Charlie Hunnam), Clay (Ron Perlman), and the club get their due revenge on the racist scumbag Ethan Zobelle (Adam Arkin), who ordered Gemma's (Katey Sagal) brutal gang-rape at the beginning of the season, that we, like Jax, were completely blindsided when the episode ended with his infant son's kidnapping.

The reasons in which the third party, the IRA-connected Cameron, does the deed are a little contrived, but the thematic implication is clear: pursuing vengeance only begets more violence, no matter how righteous the cause. Following that thread, Jax's murder of Zobelle's right hand, AJ (Henry Rollins), is robbed of triumph when his young son practically bears witness, and Gemma barely gets to savor taking out Zobelle's equally ruthless daughter before the unscrupulous ATF agent Stahl (Ally Walker) complicates things for her.

But the episode is most notable for its climax, which finds Jax, who has spent the season at odds with Clay, calling on the old man for help. At the moment he receives the call he and the club are staring at a finally defenseless Zobelle, but upon hearing that his family is in trouble they wordlessly turn their back on him. In SoA's early years, before the back-stabbing and double-crossing, brotherhood came first.

Season: 2
Air Date: 5/13/10-5/20/10

When Fringe first debuted, J.J. Abrams was still the producer with the Midas touch behind hits like LOST and Alias (and Felicity, if you were into that kind of thing), so audiences were troubled when Fringe wasn't an instant winner like his previous works. The uneven sci-fi series got it together by the end of season two, however, delivering a blockbuster two-part finale that finally capitalized on all the series and the talent behind it had to offer.

In the world of Fringe, a second universe exists parallel with ours, and its inhabitants are secretly plotting war. When Peter (Joshua Jackson), recently revealed to be a native of "that side," is taken, the super-powered Olivia (Anna Torv) resolves to do the unthinkable: venture to the Other Side and bring him back. Armed with brain-addled genius Walter Bishop (John Noble), the enigmatic William Bell (Leonard Nimoy), and a couple of equally empowered individuals, Olivia crosses universes and discovers just how different things are over there.

On Earth-2, fringe events plague the island of Manhattan regularly, and Fringe Division agents are publicly celebrated heroes in sharp contrast to the covert operation that they are over here. Walter is the Secretary of Defense, the man behind all of the small-scale attacks on Earth-1, and somehow Peter figures into his ultimate plot.

In the effort to get audiences to return, Abrams gave us great special effects that depict the differences in Earth-2, some small and some huge, and action sequences like the knock-down, drag-out fight between Olivia and her ruthless Earth-2 double. And the final twist is pure J.J. Abrams—simple, yet genius, leaving the viewer thirsty for the next season.

Season: 4
Air Date: 12/13/09

The shocking conclusion to Dexter's fourth season is so good that it has fans convinced to this day that all of season four was equally on-point. It wasn't, with a middle section that strained to create reasons why Dexter (Michael C. Hall) would let his prey, fellow serial killer and unhinged family man the Trinity Killer (John Lithgow), live. "The Getaway" is great, though, because it makes Dexter pay for his misguided reluctance.

After being denied his man multiple times throughout the episode, Dexter finally gets Trinity during a thrilling final sequence, only to return home to find his infant son in a puddle of his mother's blood, and his wife—poor, innocent Rita (Julie Benz)—dead in the bathtub, her life taken by Trinity. However low Dexter sunk after, that chilling sight will be talked about for years to come.

Season: 7
Air Date: 11/22/09

Season seven of Curb finds Larry David, the real-life man and the fictionalized bald asshole, triumphant. Despite a steadfast claim that the world will never see a true blue Seinfeld reunion, Larry gets to have his cake and eat it too, by dedicating the season's plot to fictional Larry staging a reunion—with Jerry, Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, and Michael Richards all fully participating—just to win his wife Cheryl back.

What we see of the reunion special is genuinely funny, but most importantly Larry's roundabout scheme succeeds. Instead of a saccharine ending, though, Cheryl is instantly reminded in one sitting of everything she loved about Larry...and everything she hated. Leave it to Larry to ruin a reconciliation with his estranged wife because she "doesn't respect wood."

Season: 2
Air Date: 12/11/11

Boardwalk often gets unnecessary complaints regarding its measured, deliberately-paced storytelling. Sure, it can move slow, but it rewards your patience beautifully with fantastic conclusions, like the the one-two narrative punch of powerhouse penultimate season two episode "Under God's Power She Flourishes" and the finale "To the Lost."

The finale is barely a year old, but it entered the pantheon of classic TV moments instantly, thanks to one of the boldest creative decisions of all time. The best writers place story first, and while many fans were outraged and saddened by the loss of a major, beloved character, none could argue that the decisions each character makes isn't true to the person we've spent two seasons learning about, and the story itself.

Season: 7
Air Date: 5/16/96

Most sitcoms are interested in preserving the status quo. Plenty of dramedies like Friends or The Office move to progress their characters' relationships, but for straight-up comedies that thrive mostly on their formula like Seinfeld, developments such as marriage are simply out of the question.

The problem is, George Costanza (Jason Alexander) is just too much of a non-confrontational weasel to end the engagement he never really wanted to Susan Ross (Heidi Swedberg). His freedom from the impending nuptials comes by way of one of the most controversial twists of fate in sitcom history, when George's unrelenting, character-defining cheapness inadvertently leads to Susan's death, thanks to a remarkably inexpensive batch of wedding envelopes that turned out to be toxic. (She died from licking them.)

Seinfeld and the gang were always an amoral, apathetic bunch, but America wasn't quite ready for their understated, barely-there reaction to Susan's sudden demise, but years later the general consensus is that it was a darkly genius move on Larry David's part, and really, the only way the situation could have resolved itself, thematically, anyway. We could probably come up with fifty different ways we'd have envisioned Susan dying before we got to "toxic envelopes."

Season: 1
Air Date: 2/25/98

Cartman sets out to uncover his paternity and, as the title suggests, the mission is near impossible due to his mom being, quite literally, a dirty slut. The identity of his dad could literally be any of the various male supporting characters on the show, and not only did Matt Stone and Trey Parker leave the unbelievable reveal until the second season, they didn't reveal it until the second episode.

Season: 5
Air Date: 5/13/10

"Swan Song" should've been the end, if you couldn't tell from the title. By The CW's impossibly low ratings standards, Supernatural is a hit, but back when the network had grander ambitions, a Supernatural renewal wasn't always a sure bet. So when the series defied the odds long enough to actually see its end-game through—the monster-hunting Winchester brothers battling the Devil himself—everyone assumed it would achieve the cult series pipe dream and bow out on its own terms.

Alas, The CW came to rely on the show's fan base, so instead of being a great series finale, "Swan Song" is merely another season ender. A pity, since it would've sent the series out on a high note; the following seasons have unwisely tried to match the stakes of a Hell-on-Earth apocalypse, with uneven results.

Anyway, the episode finds the Winchesters plotting to thwart both Lucifer (Mark Pellegrino) and the bureaucrat-like angels who want to see an apocalyptic battle between Heaven and Hell play out. In the Supernatural universe, angels and demons can only inhabit this dimensional plane through human vessels. An entity like the Devil can't be hosted by just any scrub, and as fate would have it, Sam Winchester (Jared Padalecki) is his one true man-suit.

Desperate and without any better ideas, Sam has the notion that if he lets Lucifer possess him (demons can enter a person at will but angels have to be granted permission, even fallen ones) he can stay in the driver's seat as it were long enough to let his brother Dean (Jensen Ackles) re-open the gates of Hell, and sacrifice himself by jumping in. Of course, Sam fails spectacularly at mental tug-of-war, which is to be expected when the opponent is Satan.

As the Devil-as-Sam plots his apocalypse, Dean plans to appeal to him one last time. Meanwhile, the history of the show's de facto third character, the Winchesters' 1967 Chevy Impala, is narrated amidst the doom and gloom. It sounds corny, but the end result is a genuinely affecting climax that is somber and thus very fitting. It would've been a hell of a conclusion to five years of sibling strife and ghost-hunting.

Season: 7
Air Date: 5/17/01

Friends somewhat shamelessly saved the biggest events in its characters' lives for sweeps/finale time but that never cheapened the moments themselves. There are plenty of great finales to choose from, like Ross (David Schwimmer) Freudian-slipping Rachel's (Jennifer Aniston) name during his marriage to Emily, or Monica's (Courteney Cox) proposal to Chandler (Matthew Perry), but ultimately we had to go with their actual wedding that concluded the sitcom's seventh season.

Chandler's inevitable case of cold feet is compounded when the gang learns Monica may be pregnant. Meanwhile, Joey (Matt LeBlanc) struggles to make the nuptials in time, stuck on-set of movie that could be the big break he's been waiting for, opposite a hilariously pompous thespian played by Gary Oldman.

Of course, the wedding goes down as planned, with the appropriately heartwarming exchange of vows between Monica and Chandler, and the shocking reveal that the positive pregnancy test actually belongs to Rachel.

Season: 4
Air Date: 5/18/97

X-Files always delivered come finale time, but the emotionally charged "Gethsemane" stands out amongst the pack, thanks to the reveal that the alien presence may indeed be a hoax. As if that weren't enough, a shadow of a doubt is also cast upon the disappearance of Mulder's (David Duchovny) sister, and the episode ends with his [apparent] death. Many consider the following years to be wildly uneven, all the more reason to treasure "Gethsemane."

Season: 1
Air Date: 5/17/00

Assassination attempts are an inevitable plot for a series centering around the President of the United States, but no one expected The West Wing to go there as early as its first season finale. Aaron Sorkin once again flexes his dramatic muscles, cutting the episode amidst the chaos, leaving the cast scrambling around frantically and the audience completely unaware of who's been hit and who survived.

Season: 5
Air Date: 5/22/01

Buffy's third season finale, which saw the gang concluding the "High School Is Hell" allegory by literally blowing up Sunnydale High is great, but for this list we had to settle on the bleak fifth season ender, "The Gift."

For once, the eponymous vampire slayer (Sarah Michelle Gellar) does not survive a battle unscathed. The prima donna god Glory has just opened a portal to her realm, and the only way to close it is by spilling Buffy's sister Dawn's (Michelle Trachtenberg) blood. After a particularly rough season that saw her experience her boyfriend's departure, her mother's sudden death, and exhaustion from trying to keep Dawn safe, Buffy ends her pain for the world and her sister's sake by jumping into the portal herself. The Summers girls' bleed the same, and the sacrificial act effectively closes the dimensional tear, but renders Buffy lifeless too.

Thanks to network disputes, this was very nearly the end (the series jumped ship from The WB to UPN to air the final two seasons), and what a somber series finale it would've been, with a final shot displaying Buffy's headstone. The dark episode is also noteworthy for Giles' quiet, cold-blooded murder of Glory's human host. After five years of demon-fighting at great personal cost, everyone finds themselves contemplating dark choices and facing grim realities, a theme continued in the series infamously bleak sixth season.

Season: 6
Air Date: 5/21/95

The Simpsons' parody of the classic Dallas "Who Shot J.R.?" (attempted) murder mystery is the series' only two-parter. As fans awaited the conclusion during the summer of '95, the shooting moved past parody to genuine mystery as the identity of the culprit became a hot topic in its own right. And while there were laughs, of course, "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" is actually pretty dark, all things considered. Without a doubt, it marks one of The Simpsons' highest peaks of cultural relevance.

Season: 3
Air Date: 11/8/09

As a rule, cable dramas (or the best ones, anyway) don't sit still. Plot developments that broadcast television would have teased out for as many seasons as possible back in the day, instead play out in a timely fashion, if not even sooner. And so Mad Men adheres to the new world order in grand fashion by essentially blowing its world up. Days after JFK's assassination, the Draper marriage crumbles, complete with the heartbreaking "Dad Won't Be Living Here Anymore" conversation with the kids and nasty shouting matches before shared history gives way to an amicable split.

Meanwhile, Don (Jon Hamm) decides to at least regain control in his professional life, marshaling the agency's best, brightest, and most necessary (Harry Crane, accidentally winning yet again) to take back the reigns of their agency under the oppressive British owners and take on Madison Avenue as the newly formed Sterling Cooper Draper Price.

Contrasting with the domestic ugliness, the rest of "Shut the Door. Have a Seat" has a cool, '60s-caper feel as Don and Roger (John Slattery) covertly assemble the new team one at a time. And while Don ultimately fails at keeping one of the women in his life, he succeeds at maintaining his relationship with another, delivering a heartfelt speech to protégé-turned-punching bag Peggy Olson (Elizabeth Moss) to stay with the home team. The revitalizing shake-up teed the Emmy darling up for its fourth, and best season yet.

Season: 5
Air Date: 5/13/09

By the time "The Incident" aired, a sizable chunk of LOST's audience had jumped ship, complaining that the series had jumped shark. While that's not true (and that term is criminally overused), the beginning of the fifth season is arguably one of the roughest stretches in this brilliant yet uneven show's history. Lucky for us, we don't give up on our favorites as easily as the rest, because the back half of season five is immensely rewarding, culminating with this excellent finale.

With each finale, LOST peeled the curtain back on its expansive mythology a bit further, and "The Incident" honors that tradition with the reveal—and contextualization—that this series is really about ordinary, flawed human beings caught in the middle of a centuries old conflict between gods, namely the oft-whispered about deity Jacob (Mark Pellegrino). This is deftly executed with a set of flashbacks that relates our characters to Jacob, reassuring the audience that the show hasn't lost sight of the people we've spent five seasons with, yet hinting that everyone's fates are intertwined, and always have been.

The lynchpin of the episode is Locke (Terry O'Quinn), who in the present day leads a quest alongside Ben (Michael Emerson) to finally meet Jacob face-to-face. The result of that meeting will go down as one of the coolest twists on television, and more than validates the bumpy road taken to get to this moment.

After all of that, we haven't even mentioned the eponymous Incident, a mysterious on-island event obliquely referred to on the series as early as season two, that necessitated the pushing of the hatch button every 108 minutes. After spending much of the season stuck in 1977 (time travel, the less said about that, the better) Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly), Sawyer (Josh Holloway), Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Hurley (Jorge Garcia), and Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) find themselves with front row seats to the ominous event—and may be even the cause of it.

Season: 2
Air Date: 3/3/06-3/10/06

By the end of its second-season, SyFy's low-key, genius, politically-charged thriller had perfected not only the art of the finale proper, but the mid-season cliff-hanger as well. When season two—considered the series' strongest—resumed it built towards a cutthroat presidential race between the increasingly ruthless Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell) and the traitorous, spineless genius Gaius Baltar (James Callis).

The race is colored by the discovery of a habitable planet on which the fleeing fleet—the last vestiges of humanity after the Cylons, vengeful robotic servants turned terrorists, nuked all of the human planets in the pilot episode—could finally settle down and make a home. Baltar winning the election turns out to be the worst thing for the fleet, as his self-serving actions inadvertently lead the pursuing Cylons right to their doorstep, precisely one year after they've settled.

His quick surrender, and the fact that the fleet has grown comfortable and thus unprepared to run or do battle, leaves the tens of thousands of humans at the mercy of Cylon invaders. Admiral Adama (Edward James Olmos) is forced to take the defenseless battleship and run for the time being, but he awesomely promises "We'll be back." Don't let the goofy name fool you—this was one of the best dramas of the past decade. Get familiar on Netflix.

Season: 4
Air Date: 12/10/06

Many consider The Wire's fourth season to be unquestionably the series' best, in most part due to the heartbreaking way it weaves the coming-of-age of four Baltimore boys into the tapestry of the city's corruption and moral decay. Though some of their stories continue in the fifth and final season, "Final Grades" is a conclusion in its own right, as Michael (Tristan Wilds) effectively sells his soul to Marlo Stanfield and his crew, Randy faces a particularly gut-wrenching life in the system, and the bratty yet sympathetic Namond is the only one to achieve an honest-to-goodness happy ending. (Dukie's equally gut-wrenching woes are extended into season five.)

Meanwhile, the series bids goodbye to a fan favorite as the Stanfield crew achieves total domination even in the face of a murder investigation into their Vacant House Tombs, Jimmy (Dominic West) prepares to go back into Homicide, a move that will almost certainly cost him his personal happiness, and Mayor Carcetti's (Aiden Gillen) pride compromises his politics. On a series that specialized in harsh realities, "Final Grades" represents a very high (or low) point of that theme.

Season: 4
Air Date: 12/8/02

The dissolution of the Soprano marriage was inevitable, what with Tony's (James Gandolfini) rampant infidelity and lies, but that didn't make the physically violent shouting match between Tony and Carmela (Edie Falco) any less ugly.

After learning about both Irina and Svetlana, Carmela finally calls Tony out on all his bullshit, ultimately throwing him off the entire premises after he briefly holes up in the pool house. The sight of Tony packing up and driving off as A.J. (Robert Iler) watches from the window is one of the series' best moments, hands down.

Season: 1
Air Date: 12/18/11

So what if "Marine One" isn't even a year old yet? The tense conclusion to Homeland's superb first season was an instant classic. Clocking in at nearly 90 minutes, the finale is both a master-class in suspense and execution. With high stakes, and the fresh, unconventional telling of a familiar plot, all eyes were on the Homeland writers.

Despite a near-perfect season, an effort to honor the conclusion they were building up to—while also keeping the show viable for years to com—left a 50-50 chance that they'd stick the landing, but probably drop the ball. Thanks to an ingenious two-pronged assassination plot, some faulty vest wiring, and a well-timed, affecting phone call, "sticking the landing" doesn't even begin to describe "Marine One's" accomplishments.

Season: 4
Air Date: 10/9/11

Walter White (Bryan Cranston) finally defeats the diabolical Chicken Man, but at the cost of a big chunk of his soul. Both Walt and Gus (Giancarlo Esposito) realize that Jesse's (Aaron Paul) loyalty is ultimately where victory lies, and the duplicitous way in which Walter wins his partner back (non-fatally poisoning his girlfriend's kid and blaming Gus) is reprehensible, and a major stepping stone in his journey from mild-mannered teacher to meth drug lord.

That's to say nothing of the genius plan that finally takes Gus out, which wraps up an epic, decades-long conflict and makes fantastic use of Uncle Tio's (Mark Margolis) bell. The revelation that the finale's title was to be taken literally stands as one of the craziest moments of television.

Season: 1
Air Date: 5/21/02

The strains of filling out a 24-episode season usually showed somewhere around the middle during each "day" of the hit FOX action series, but by the final hours 24 would always get its act together (at least for the first, mostly flawless five seasons) and deliver a satisfying conclusion. Each finale from Days 1-5 would be eligible for this list, like Day 3's underrated and understated closer, or the marvelous shootout at the L.A. Coliseum that caps off Day 2, but it would be irresponsible to overlook the first season finale, one of the series' most infamous episodes.

24 was itself an exercise in breaking typical TV-conventions, and the first finale didn't let up, eschewing an inevitable happy ending for a dark twist that solidified it as both a buzz-worthy show and a significant trailblazer for the medium. Counter-terrorism agent Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) survives, but not with the family that he'd been fighting all day to save intact.

After saving presidential candidate Senator David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert) and his own daughter (Elisha Cuthbert) from vengeful Victor Drazen (Denis Hopper, still cool despite a hilariously bad Serbian accent), and outing CTU mole Nina Myers (Sarah Clarke), Jack returns to the agency to discover Nina's final act of treachery was putting a bullet in his wife Teri (Leslie Hope), who had walked in on her attempting to flee. The hero saving the day only to end it cradling his dead wife while the clock ticked silently was a dark moment for TV, and one that has been emulated many times since.

We're also treated to the fracturing of the soon-to-be presidential Palmer family, as the long-simmering showdown between David and his scheming, Lady Macbethian wife Sherry (Penny Johnson Jerald) finally comes to a head.

Season: 3
Air Date: 3/21/80

You may not have ever seen a single episode of Dallas, yet there is simply no way you've watched anything else in the years since "A House Divided" aired without seeing a reference or 20 to the infamous, popular mystery of "Who Shot J.R.?"

The disgusting manner in which oil magnate J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman, R.I.P.) conducted his business out of Southfork ranch gave just about every other cast member reasonable motive to cap the bastard. "A House Divided" can reasonably lay claim to jump-starting the concept of ending television seasons with cliff-hangers, but even if it didn't, the rabid fan and media response was a frenzy not seen over any other series then, and quite possibly to this date. The eight-month gap left the nation, and even Queen Elizabeth, with bated breath, leading to the theft (and subsequent return) of the season four premiere script from the production company offices.

Season: 2
Air Date: 5/4/03

Nowadays most of the dramas worth watching are on cable, which means audiences have to suffer an excruciating wait—sometimes nine months, sometimes 17—between seasons. A simple three-month wait sounds trivial in retrospect, but believe us, the summer of 2003 spent waiting to see the resolution to Alias' jaw-dropping cliff-hanger was a cruel one.

J.J. Abrams solidified himself as an auteur not to be fucked with long before he took his producer talents to Hawaii for LOST. In fact, he was more hands-on with this balls-to-the-wall spy actioner than almost any of his other series. The finale, written and directed by him, finds CIA super-spy Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) squaring off with her nemesis Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin), whose main ally happens to be Sydney's duplicitous mother, an ex-KGB agent.

That emotionally-charged confrontation isn't even the episode's main talking point, though. That honor goes to the physically-charged, knock-down, drag-out brawl between Sydney and her roommate Francie (Merrin Dungey), whom she discovers is a double agent planted by Sloane. Alias boasted some of the best action choreography ever seen on TV (then and now) and it's on full display as Sydney and Francie effectively fuck the apartment up with knives, roundhouse kicks and, of course, plenty of bullets.

When Sydney passes out after winning the fight she awakens in Hong Kong, with a mysterious scar on her stomach. The revelation that follows is quite possibly the best television cliff-hanger of all time.

Season: 3
Air Date: 5/23/07

Yes, LOST is on here twice. Is that a cheat? Maybe, but love it or hate it, LOST is inarguably one of the most significant series of this generation and the greater overall TV conversation. Is it surprising that the most emulated series of the past five years would have more than one noteworthy finale? Is it surprising that one of those finales could also be viable for GOAT status? It shouldn't be.

LOST didn't create the flashback narrative technique, of course, but it mastered it in an impressive manner that spawned much acclaim and imitation. It also threatened to suffocate the show. Three seasons in, it was painfully clear that creators Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse were straining to continue to create character-centric flashbacks that resonated and enriched the castaways back-stories. Flat tales like the story nobody really wanted to know about Jack's tattoos, Locke being a gullible fool for the 47th time, or Sayid facing a personification of his shady past yet again left the once rapturous audience bored, while others were saddled with increasingly ridiculous additions to their bios (Kate was once married? Desmond was a monk?).

So how did Lindelof and Cuse rejuvenate the series? By abandoning their bread-and-butter format for a bolder one, and setting an end date for the series that would effectively kill all wheel-spinning in favor of renewed momentum and the promise that all of the island shenanigans would build to an actual, straightforward conclusion. The declaration that LOST was back in the game would be summed up with one game-changing scene: a Jack flashback that ended with a mysterious meet-up with a woman who would turn out to be...Kate?!

The intrigue doesn't stop there, as the flash-forward(!) ends with a future, despondent, alcoholic Jack screaming that they "have to go back." For three seasons we figured the series' end-game would center on the castaways finally getting off the island; the reveal that there was much, much more at stake was simply ingenious.

The masterful twist wasn't the only aspect that makes "Through the Looking Glass" an instant classic. The on-island events are just as, if not more, poignant, as the castaways finally take down the antagonistic island cabal The Others, and set the stage for a rescue team that we discover may have more sinister plans in mind. All of the action is underscored by Charlie's underwater sacrifice to point the "rescuers" in the right direction, as the series sends off one of its most beloved characters in a fittingly emotional fashion. LOST would still have its problems during its final three years, but this is the episode that convinced many to stay with it, while convincing the rest of us that we were watching something truly historic unfold.