Despite recent controversy over its sale to Netflix, HBO Max remains one of the best streaming platforms for original content. Beginning as a pay-cable service in the 1970’s, the company pioneered the subscription model and has since gained a reputation for uncompromising prestige TV. From Sex and the City to True Detective, HBO has repeatedly raised the bar.
Yet even the best shows flub the ending more often than not. Game of Thrones remains one of HBO’s most popular series of all time, and is notorious for a hated final season and finale. It can be difficult to keep a show consistent across seasons and years, and even more difficult to wrap everything up in a way that satisfies an audience. On occasion, however, HBO has managed to pull off a perfect final hour, and the five episodes of TV below are their best finale’s ever.
5) The Wire, “-30-”
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A happy ending was never promised or expected in the conclusion of David Simon’s The Wire. Its series finale, “-30-,” was a painfully realistic and unsentimental end to the story. Rather than sensationalize events or force emotional payoff, the episode closes with Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West) walking away from the Baltimore Police Department, saying, “Let’s go home.” The final montage, set to “Way Down in the Hole,” emphasizes the show’s final takeaway: that despite everything that has happened to these characters as individuals, the drug trade continues, and the game never changes.
The realism and honesty of The Wire’s finale are exactly why it’s so perfect. It allows its characters to evolve, putting punctuation marks on all their stories. Yet it also doesn’t attempt to “solve” the larger problem, and stays faithful to the reality that new politicians inherit the same corrupt structures. Cops take over familiar desks, and nothing a single individual does is going to change that. The devastating truth is better than any false triumph or tragedy the writers could have come up with.
4) The Sopranos, “Made in America”
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The Sopranos’ finale episode, “Made in America,” was extremely controversial and even hated when it first aired. However, today, the episode is recognized as a masterpiece, and the final moment a stroke of genius. David Chase’s decision to cut to black during the dinner scene with Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) and his family that shocked audiences in 2007, sparking years of heated debates and thinkpieces. Many viewers were furious that night, feeling cheated out of an answer after six seasons of investment.
With distance, the brilliance of the episode is clear. Chase deliberately rejected providing a clear answer to the central dramatic argument because, as he has said himself, he didn’t want the show reduced to “crime doesn’t pay” or “crime does pay.” Instead, the finale traps the audience inside Tony’s permanent anxiety. Some fans have even posited that the cut-to-black is symbolic of the audience themselves getting whacked. Earlier in the episode, Tony’s heartbreaking final scene with Uncle Junior (Dominic Chianese) strips away any meaning with “This thing of ours” is already forgotten. While the final season has its flaws, “Made in America” remains a perfect ending to an iconic series.
3) Succession, “With Open Eyes”
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Succession’s finale, “With Open Eyes,” is a pretty ruthless distillation of Jesse Armstrong’s series, the perfect proof to Logan Roy’s (Brian Cox) observation that his children are “not serious people.” Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Shiv (Sarah Snook), and Roman (Kieran Culkin) enter the final episode convinced that one of them will claim their father’s throne. Each sibling believes they’ve learned from past failures, and each is wrong.
The episode exposes the emotional immaturity and weakness in each character, including Kendall’s sad desperation, Shiv’s self-obsession, and Roman’s insecurity, all of which collide in messy, almost operatic confrontations. Meanwhile, Matthew Macfadyen’s Tom secretly understands the game better than any of them. The decision not to reward any of the entitled Roy children and instead give the crown to the serviceable “puppet” Tom is thematically brilliant and, in hindsight, the only way the show could have ended.
2) The Leftovers, “The Book of Nora,”
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Even from episode 1, The Leftovers revels in enigma. In the series finale, “The Book of Nora,” creators Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta once again choose not to explain the Sudden Departure in any literal terms, either scientific or supernatural. Instead, they narrow the focus to Nora Durst (Carrie Coon) and Kevin Garvey (Justin Theroux), now reunited years after drifting apart.
The show never confirms if Nora is telling the truth in her story, but what ultimately matters is that Kevin believes her, and it’s hard to get emotional as he chooses their connection over knowing the truth. The finale argues that faith, love, and memory matter more than certainty. By refusing to solve its central mystery in the external sense, The Leftovers achieves a highly satisfying emotional resolution that also signals the audience to let go of their incessant desire to figure out what “actually” happened.
1) Six Feet Under, “Everyone’s Waiting”
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The general consensus among TV fans is that no series finale has ever wrapped up its characters more completely than Six Feet Under’s “Everyone’s Waiting.” Given that every episode opened with a death, it was only logical that Alan Ball’s drama would eventually have to culminate in a direct confrontation with the theme of mortality. Still, no one was ready for how beautiful or emotional it would be.
The episode centers on Claire Fisher (Lauren Ambrose) leaving Los Angeles to start her life, while the rest of the Fisher family comes to terms with change and uncertainty. Yet what everyone remembers is the final montage, set to Sia’s “Breathe Me,” showing the eventual deaths of every major character. Michael C. Hall’s David, Frances Conroy’s Ruth, Peter Krause’s Nate, and the rest are given their endings, which span decades. It’s sentimental, and somehow profound without being pretentious. The sequence essentially transforms the show’s fixation on death into a celebration of life, and a reminder that every moment matters.
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