Esoteric Happy Endings in Live-Action TV series.
- The 100 ends with the remnants of humanity being assimilated (or “ascended”) into an alien hive mind, becoming immortal “beings of light” without pain or individuality. The explicit other option is the aliens exterminating humanity with an unstoppable chemical weapon. However, Clarke can’t “ascend“, due to the hive mind seeing her crimes as too grave (Clarke herself points out how arbitrary this logic is), so her friends stay behind to live mortal lives on Earth with her. However, the hive mind explicitly states that they can’t have any children and won’t be able to ascend when they die. In the view of most fans, this essentially means humanity has been condemned to extinction in all but the most technical of terms, rendering all of the struggle of the series moot. Clarke and her friends will die without a future or a legacy, and the last one to die will die miserably alone. Meanwhile, the genocidal alien hive mind is free to continue its campaign of assimilating species and exterminating those it finds unworthy.
- Accused (2023): A recurring issue many viewers had with episodes is that, even when the ending of the episode is framed as having a happy ending, it can be bogged down by the various details that the episode itself is keen to ignore.
- "Jack's Story" leans more on the "sweet" side of Bittersweet Ending, as while his fiance leaves him, he is cleared of the rape charge, and Clara is gotten away from her rapist step-father. However, Jack is convicted on illegally transporting a minor across state lines without parental authority since he did take Clara out of Texas to get the abortion pills, meaning he is more than likely going to lose his teaching license in Texas, and either be forced to search for a different line of work, or move to another state entirely to continue teaching, and even that doesn't bode well since such a conviction would be a black mark on his record. What's more, while Clara's step-father is arrested, he's a Villain with Good Publicity due to teaching Sunday School, and being a "man of god" means there's no guarantee he'll be convicted and that Jack won't still be Convicted by Public Opinion if he chooses to remain in Texas.
- "Jiro's Story" sees Osamu freed from his abusive care facility and now happily living with Jiro and his family. However, Jiro never resolved the issues with Videla that got him unjustly suspended, and had to bail on the trip that would have gotten Videla's agent to drop the complaints against him since he had to save Osamu, meaning Jiro could very likely lose his job. What's more, he had to plead guilty to the assault and kidnapping charges, meaning he now has a criminal record, and it's never said if the facility will actually face punishment for what their staff did to Osamu, nor if they did or will continue to do something similar to their other patients.
- "Morgan's Story" sees Morgan cleared of the false drug dealing charges against her, and free to be with Ari and Kashir as she pleases. Eric however is arrested for his unwilling part in the Frame-Up, and considering he's a cop, his chances in prison don't look great. Even worse, Jason is still not done with trying to ruin Morgan's life, and is last seen approaching Ari from within the woods after he wanders off to get something that was thrown back there, giving the impression he is about to kidnap Ari.
- "Jessie's Story" has Jessie and Kara warmly welcomed by Dominic, Will, Fern, and even Andrea despite the latter being the most hurt by Kara and Dominic's affair, with the six all set to now be a close and happy family. The fact though that Jessie and Will have been romantically attracted to each other for some time though only to learn they're siblings is largely swept under the rug, Kara and Andrea's "reconcilliation" comes rather easily, and the years worth of lingering issues between Jessie and Kara regarding Kara's behavior is all but forgotten in favor of ending on a "happy" note.
- In Babylon 5, Marcus Cole sacrifices his life to save that of his beloved Susan Ivanova, using an alien machine that transfers Life Energy. His body was placed in cold storage, however, and there was a strong implication that he was Only Mostly Dead until they could work out a way to replace his Life Energy without killing someone else. J. Michael Straczynski then wrote a prose spin-off short story "Time, Death and the Incurable Romantic", in which Marcus does get resurrected, three hundred years after Susan's death. He then steals Susan's DNA from her tomb, has a duplicate of her created, implants it with Susan's memories up to shortly before the incident that led to her life-threatening injury, and maroons them both on an uninhabited planet, deceiving the duplicate into believing that she's the original Susan and it's still 2261. This was apparently considered to be a happy ending for both of them, but it absolutely horrified many fans who saw it as a grotesque, abusive violation of the duplicate's right to self-determination.
- Battlestar Galactica''s features Lee, after the Colonials find the planet to be known as Earth, deciding to send the entire fleet of ships into the Sun so that humanity can start with a clean slate and avoid the Vicious Cycle. Although intended as an explanation for why none of the Colonials' technology has been discovered by modern day humans, it had unfortunate side-effect of carrying an accidental Ludd Was Right message. Without modern technology, most of the survivors would have greatly shortened life expectancies and greatly reduced quality of life, with the timeline indicating that humanity would not evolve into an agrarian society for another 140,000 years.
- El Chapulín Colorado features an episode where the title character stops a former astronaut-turned-Space Pirate from firing a laser weapon that will destroy the Earth when fired. As he reaches the asteroid the pirate is in, defeats him and takes him back to Earth, a female angel-like creature comes across the asteroid and fires the weapon, accidentally vaporizing the Earth. Cue Laugh Track and credits roll.
- Cold Case:
- "Family" can be seen as this. Yes, the killer and the kidnapper do end up being arrested for their crimes, but the fate of the mother and daughter is unlikely to end well; the girl is still damaged from her years of growing up without a father, her knowledge of her mother abandoning her at birth (and in a garbage can, no less) and being exposed to the harsh world of foster care (or it was in her case). The mother, on the other hand, lives hand-to-mouth in a group home, virtually has no skills to come by and is seen as still emotionally wrecked by the end of the episode, even with the Hope Spot between the two women reuniting and all.
- This also applies to the victim's daughter in "Gleen". Her mother was viciously murdered when she was only five years old, it still deeply affects her in the present day, twenty years later, and even with a caring and well-rounded supporter at her side (in the form of her father's fiancée), she outright admits to Lilly that she may as well kill herself if it's found out that her father was the one who killed her mother. He did and Lilly does end up arresting him, but out of respect to her, she can't bring herself to put the cuffs on him in front of her.
- The bastard father from "The Brush Man" is finally arrested for murdering the salesman who tried to intervene with the abusive situation of the man's family. However, this still does little to undo the 40-plus years of torment he inflicted onto his wife, who's nowadays an alcoholic and his son, who hasn't accomplished much with his life due to all of his underlying issues.
- The ending of "Ghost of My Child" is supposed to be one of the more moving and happy of the series; it ends with Priscilla, a recovering drug addict and struggling single mother, finally reuniting with the son she thought had died in a house fire as an infant. The fire had been used to cover up his kidnapping by a childless social worker and her husband. The couple are arrested and the child is removed. Except it's been three years since he was taken from Priscilla, while he seems to recognizes Pricilla he's likely too young to understand that he's being taken from his kidnappers and given back to his rightful parent — from his perspective, he would experience it as being ripped away from the only life, parents, and home he's known and given to a stranger. Returning him may be the right decision (certainly legally, and arguably morally as well), but it's probably going to be a lot more complicated and traumatic for him than the upbeat ending montage would seem to imply.
- Criminal Minds: The unsubs of "Mosley Lane" are a couple who have been abducting, abusing, and murdering children for years. One victim's mother has been driven to alcoholism and destroyed her life, reduced to bugging the BAU every time there's a child abduction in the area on the off chance it's related to her son's case. Eventually, she turns out to be right, the team stops the couple, and it turns out the woman's son has been alive all this time! Hooray! Except for all the other mothers whose children were killed along the way, including one whose son was killed a matter of days before he could have been saved. But it's okay, because the surviving boy tells his mom that he never forgot her and only died because he wouldn't help the unsubs abduct another child. That's right, the survivor's been helping with the abductions all along. While it was a matter of self-preservation forced on him from a very young age, the fact of the matter is that he's been complicit in helping other children be murdered for years and seems to think that it's alright because they never forgot their biological parents. So the principled boy with a grieving but otherwise well-adjusted mother is murdered at just about the last possible moment, while the (albeit unwilling) accomplice to his murder goes home to a loving but unstable mother who's unlikely to be able to provide him the help he needs to deal with his trauma and adjust back into society, to say nothing of all the other children who have been killed along the way. While Criminal Minds is no stranger to Bittersweet or just plain unhappy endings, this episode ignores the bitter elements and plays it as a triumph, whereas other episodes with long-term kidnap victims ("Edge of Winter," "Hostage," etc.) draw attention to the fact that not everyone survived and even the survivors will have a long road to recovery ahead of them.
- Degrassi: The Next Generation: Spinner and Emma's Accidental Marriage (and deciding to STAY MARRIED). Especially frustrating, since the characters hardly even interacted before that.
- Doctor Who:
- "Mindwarp" ends with Peri's body becoming the host to Kiv's brain before King Yrcanos supposedly finishes her. However, it is revealed later in the season that Peri in fact did not die and actually went on to rule Krontep alongside Yrcanos as his queen. While this is portrayed as a good thing, it should be noted that Peri showed no interest in Yrcanos the entire story and objected to the notion of becoming his wife. Expanded material has offered different versions of what becomes of Peri, though Nicola Bryant prefers her original fate in "Mindwarp".
- In "Love & Monsters", one of the characters becomes a face on a paving slab (long story) and she cannot move, eat or feel. She also will never age. Worse, it's stated that she and her human boyfriend still have a love life. This is presented as a good fate for the character. On the other hand, Word of God has said her boyfriend is an Unreliable Narrator, so there's the possibility that she hasn't suffered this fate. Instead, it may be that she and the rest of their friends are dead and her boyfriend's gone insane from the events of the episode. As for the slab...best not to think too hard about it.
- At the end of "Blink," Sally has a photo of a Weeping Angel, but in season 5, we find out that Weeping Angels can project themselves through images, meaning that that photo is probably going to turn into another Angel. Fortunately, Sally gave that photo to the Doctor, who can hopefully dispose of it. But regarding the original Angels, the only thing keeping them immobilized is one bare lightbulb, which could burn out at any moment, and which they telepathically turned off earlier in the episode. Yeah, Word of God made the situation less ominous by describing the Angels in "Blink" as weak scavengers, but there are always more Weeping Angels out there. Any statue could be a Weeping Angel — maybe they all are! (On a less dire note, the "happy" ending features Sally and Larry making a living by running a video store...which probably is going to end up failing, since the episode took place in 2007, right before video stores started becoming obsolete.)
- "Last of the Time Lords." So the Doctor defeats the Master, hits the Reset Button, and the entire Year of Hell has been undone. This is easily the happiest season ending of any in the RTD era. It wouldn't even be all that esoteric except for a few "little" things. Martha Jones and her family still remember this horrific, PTSD-inducing year. America still lost its President (who, despite being an unflattering Expy of George W. Bush, seemed like a good man who didn't deserve to die). Britain lost its best political minds when the Master gassed them all, and also lost a courageous woman whom the Toclafane tortured to death for resisting the Master. Speaking of the Toclafane, the final, definitive fate for humanity is that in the last generation, all of the humans (even the best of them) will within that generation degenerate into monstrous, childish thrill-killers, making everything on the show that has anything to do with humanity feel completely pointless.
- "Hell Bent" (the Series 9 finale) has the Twelfth Doctor defy his people and risk all time and space to save Clara Oswald from her fixed-point death by removing her from her timestream just before she dies, intending to mind wipe her of memories of him and return her to Earth. In the Bittersweet Ending, the Doctor repents and ends up being mind-wiped of his memories of her, leaving him free to move on with his life, while the now-functionally immortal Clara ends up with her own TARDIS and fellow functional immortal Ashildr/Me. She decides to go back to Gallifrey and her death "the long way 'round" in pursuit of new adventures, as the universe will hold together so long as she returns at some point. The problems with this come from several angles, only one of which was addressed in the televised continuity by this Doctor's Grand Finale and departure of writer/showrunner Steven Moffat, meaning they might never be revisited:
- Clara can never return to her old life on Earth; though by this point it means little to her compared to a life of adventure, it's still pretty sad for her loved ones and colleagues who will only know her to have died a mysterious death. Since the universe is holding together, what finally gets Clara to return to her extremely painful death? Will she remember she has to go back? Be forced into it? Screw up so badly that death seems the only way to atone?
- The Doctor didn't take Me on as a companion because as a virtual immortal himself both of them would become detached from mortals and even villainous — a problem she was already struggling with and an indirect contributor to Clara's death (she was Trapped in Villainy and had to betray the Doctor, and Clara messed that up). Thus, the women could become what the Doctor feared — and he wouldn't be able to stop them — unless they acquire mortal companions. As well, can Clara be happy with a companion who's virtually an anti-Doctor given how much she came to love and need him?
- After millennia spent pining for them and defending them, the Doctor is now a fugitive from his people and Gallifrey — again — for his actions during his Sanity Slippage. Rassilon and his cronies are the types who would seek Revenge for his bloodlessly overthrowing and exiling them, and The Doctor left a power vacuum at the top by abandoning his Lord President post.
- The Doctor suffered mightily just to save Clara, as depicted in "Heaven Sent". Earn Your Happy Ending should come into play given how the Whoniverse tends to work, but instead he, a torture victim, is given No Sympathy whereas Rassilon the murdering dictator is. He gives up his Tragic Dream, and undergoes Mind Rape — whereupon Clara and Ashildr/Me randomly dump him on Earth, leaving him wandering about reconstructing the few Clara-related memories he retains and seeking his TARDIS, last seen abandoned in London. The Framing Device has Clara (whom he no longer recognizes) return the TARDIS to him and he moves on, but he isn't rewarded for choosing the path of right and has been robbed of his right to grieve and rage. As it's unknown how much time passes between this story and "The Husbands of River Song", how long is the Doctor left bereft and brooding without a Morality Chain (a key reason why he went crazy)? Sure, he has the TARDIS, but it can't hug him. For the record, the Mind Rape is the one aspect of this ending addressed and undone (and only at the very end of the Twelfth Doctor's life, shortly before he regenerates).
- In "Smile", the Emojibots and Vardy kill a whole bunch of people due to not understanding that grief isn't a virus, but they end up being reset and agreeing to a contract with the awakened colonists afterwards. Problem is, nowhere there do we see the Doctor address the original problem at all, so there's no reason to believe the robots won't do the same thing after someone else dies in a few weeks/months/years' time. Nor does he explain to most of the colonists that their friends and family might be dead after the massive misunderstanding either.
- Later in the same season, "The Lie of the Land" ends with Bill Potts undoing her Deal with the Devil with the Monks; they not only flee Earth and free humanity from enslavement but cause almost everyone on the planet to forget the events of the past six months, with the Doctor and Bill among very few exceptions. Unfortunately, during those six months, dissenters to the Monks were imprisoned, forced into labor camps, and even executed. What will become of people who lost loved ones but can't remember what became of them and why, and of the still-living victims of the Monks' reign? Worse, Bill and the Doctor technically have culpability in the Monks' reign of terror. Granted, she made her deal to save the doomed Doctor's life partially because she knew he was their last best hope to get rid of the Monks altogether. He served as the Monks' Propaganda Machine only as a cover for his resultant plan. But they still ought to feel remorse over all the people who suffered and died in the interim; instead they're more concerned with her overdue essay on free will (overdue because of the Monks). Suddenly "Last of the Time Lords"' Reset Button, though imperfect, doesn't seem so bad.
- Years after "The Family of Blood" came out, the current writers wrote an "epilogue" where Thirteen rescues Sister of Mine from the mirror. Yay, a little girl can go on to have a happy life! ...except that's not a little girl, that is a homicidal alien who killed a little girl and possessed her corpse. Thirteen essentially just granted a murderer an early parole because she looks friendly.
- Dollhouse has a Bittersweet Ending at best, but some people are divided on the "Happy Ending" for Echo and Paul, in which Paul dies, but Alpha makes an imprint of Paul's personality for Echo to upload into herself. Questions whether it would be so great to share a body with your true love, if Paul would be more significant than the other hundred or so personalities inside Echo, and some just didn't like the pairing, which started out as Paul Loving a Shadow and The Dulcinea Effect and became serious offscreen during a three-month Time Skip.
- Game of Thrones: The show ends with Westeros choosing a system of electoral monarchy instead of a hereditary one because of all the problems they've had. However, in the show's other place where it was practiced, the Iron Islands, it just became a rubber-stamp for Greyjoy after Greyjoy to be elected until they got awful leaders like Balon and Euron, and in the books it ended with an Ironborn using the opportunity to slaughter his rivals. Add to it Sansa deciding to just declare Northern independence even after Bran's elected and it leaves serious doubts that they'll be able to avoid either informal hereditary rule or instability. There's also Bran who is the Three-Eyed Raven and has supernatural powers that let him see the past and present, making an omniscient ruler who can see everything. While the narrative guarantees that he's benevolent, the circumstances on how he became king after the deaths of Cersei and Daenerys made a lot of viewers suspect at best he's indirectly responsible for Daenerys' downfall, at worst, actually enabled it through selective sharing and omission of information, which makes Bran come off as an ambitious asshole.
- House Stark's future looks to be especially grim as well. With Bran being likely physically and emotionally unable to father children, House Stark is going to be extinct through the legitimate male line. Arya is going on a voyage that no one has ever come back from, including one of her own ancestors, and Jon seems perfectly content to just manning the now non-existant Wall.
- Gossip Girl ends with the reveal that Dan Humphrey is Gossip Girl, the blogger who stalked and terrorized the other main characters for years. That wouldn't be so bad if the main heroine and the object of his obsession, Serena, didn't consider the reveal to be the hottest thing ever since he did it all to get her. Everyone else seems fine with it too. In fact, his plan gains him the respect of all the other characters and he finally becomes one of them.
- Blair & Chuck could only get their happy ending by effectively murdering Chuck's father as he's thrown off a skyscraper rooftop during a fight between the father & son, and they get married simply to avoid having to testify against each other.
- The Haunting Hour:
- 'A Creature Was Stirring" wants us to believe that the family is happy at last: the parents are no longer going to divorce and they all "have each other", as they put it. Then you realize that they lost everything they had, except for the clothes they are wearing, they are homeless and they have nothing to eat. There's just no way that they'll survive the winter, unless they have neighbors or relatives they can stay with, but happy endings on a show like this are few and far between.
- "Terrible Love": Maggie finally finds love after class nerd Stuart orders Cupid to fire his love arrow at her. Yes, never mind that the effects of the love arrows are permanent (since the "love potion" inside the arrows are common human hormones and Cupid told Maggie that one hit is enough), which is why Cupid can't, in good conscience, shoot two arrows at the same target, as a hyperdose leads to love-induced insanity (as seen with Brendon), meaning Maggie will be in love with a nerd whom she hardly knows forever (though it is payback for Maggie trying to make a hunk in her class fall for her, even though she doesn't know much about him). And, what if Stuart makes the mistake of asking Cupid for another hit?
- "Near Mint Condition": Ted is able to defeat Mangler by decapitating it with a katana he previously bought online and he and his brother decide to tape its head back on its body, pack it up so tight that it can't escape, and put it for sale online. Considering how advanced the robotics on the toy seem to be, what's stopping it from repairing itself and going after whoever buys it next?
- The canon ending to "Spaceman": Our protagonist has learned that his neighbor's son is really a ghost who wants to play space with him because he wants friends. When the elderly mother catches them talking, she politely asks him to leave so her deceased son can move on, but the protagonist decides that he's perfectly willing to stay and play spaceman with her dead son every day, and we end on a happy note of them playing with their imagination. This would've been heartwarming if it didn't have a child agreeing to play with a dead child's corpse and entertain a madwoman's fantasies for the rest of his life. The alternate ending, where the boy realizes how insane the reveal is and is forced to play with the dead kid's spirit forever, throws a lampshade on just how disturbing the situation is once viewers really think about it.
- How I Met Your Mother: Barney and Robin divorce and the Mother dies, all so that Robin and Ted can get back together 20 years in the future. By the reaction of the kids — essentially, "Mom's been dead for 6 years, go bang Aunt Robin, Dad!" — this is meant to be the ultimate happy ending of two long-lost lovers. You wonder if the writers realize that the blue french horn, which Ted holds up for Robin at the end, has become an object of derision and tragedy in the fanbase. There's also no real reason to believe Ted and Robin are actually going to work out this time since the show had previously spent quite a bit of time deconstructing their relationship and ultimately showing them as incompatible. Most of the issues that caused them to break up in the past haven't been resolved, nor have they ever managed to overcome them in their numerous attempts to get together in the past. It's worth noting that the ending was planned and in part filmed (the parts with the kids) years earlier. As a consequence, many of the reasons for the ending not working (establishing Barney and Robin as a Fan-Preferred Couple who'd have to be broken up and the various issues the writers had to raise in the Ted/Robin relationship to explain these two single supposedly "perfect for each other" people not being together all these years) hadn't been developed yet. Additionally, the ending relied on the romantic trope of making a big "romantic gesture" and living happily ever after. Unfortunately, the long-running nature of the show meant it ultimately subverted this trope by having characters making these gestures repeatedly only to definitively not end up with the person they made the gesture to, thereby showing how it's definitely not guaranteed.
- Kamen Rider Decade does this in a couple of arcs due to forgetting What Happened to the Mouse?. Yaaay, the Grongi are defeated, and all the millions of people who have been turned into Grongi have ceased to exist when the main villain was destroyed! Aweso- wait, what? Using the secret weapon that's the last hope of the few surviving humans on the world where monsters and dark Riders rule, the Riders defeat a few enforcers before leaving forever, taking said device with them! New toy, yay— wait, what?
- Kamen Rider Gaim has the protagonist win the war for the Golden Fruit, and rather than keep his new godlike powers on Earth he moves to a lifeless planet far away, saving Earth from destruction at the hands of the Helheim Forest. Helheim's avatar ultimately approves of this outcome and moves on to the next world to overrun while tempting its occupants to war with one another. The ending appears to be predicated on the audience believing that Helheim is in fact just a mindless plant and doesn't bear any blame for the worlds it invades and ruins, but its avatar being one of the most intelligent and philosophically-driven characters in the show means it instead comes across as a Karma Houdini.
- Kamen Rider Zero-One ends with the Greater-Scope Villain who caused the entire plot getting off scot free after a hazy redemption, the topic of Humagear rights going unaddressed even though it's clearly shown some Humagears resent being used as tools, The Hero's cute Robot Buddy effectively gone forever, her killer allowed to go free after being Easily Forgiven, and As also getting away, able to create more Arks as she sees fit.
- The King of Queens: While Doug and Carrie did work things out in the series finale, it is a bit unsettling that Carrie was willing to sacrifice her marriage for an apartment. One has to wonder how much she really loves Doug if living in Manhattan was more important to her than living with him.
- The Stephen King miniseries The Langoliers ends with the main characters running towards the camera and leaping into the foreground laughing and smiling — just in case you were in any doubt that this is meant to be a happy ending. Don't think too hard however about the innocent blind girl who was stabbed to death, the black guy who was also stabbed to death, Mr. Toomy who was eaten alive (who is implied to have been a good person destroyed by his abusive father), and the guy who just heroically vaporized himself to save all of your lives. In addition, none of you will be able to explain what happened to the hundreds of other people on this flight who disappeared into thin air when the police start to investigate. At best, the authorities will think they are mad, and at worst, they will be tried for hijacking and kidnapping.
- The finale of Lost could certainly be seen this way. Everybody from the Island remains friends in the afterlife, except for the ones you don't see for some reason. Okay, fine. But why does Sayid have to be with Shannon and lose Nadia? Why can't Locke stay with Helen? Christian Shepherd seems to have dictatorial powers over the lives of people he didn't even really know. Plus, it's implied that several of the characters who outlived Jack led long lives, yet apparently none of them formed any meaningful relationships during the intervening years—so Kate, Sawyer, and Claire all potentially spent decades mourning their respective love interests and never loving anyone else, while Aaron and Ji-Yeon apparently had such empty lives that they entered the afterlife as babies whose only bonds are with their parents. And Miles just gets abandoned and forgotten in limbo, despite his apparent devotion to Sawyer.
- The Man in the High Castle ends with the Japanese having withdrawn from the Pacific States, the Nazi leadership in Berlin replaced with fresh blood, John Smith dead at the hands of the resistance and his subordinate ripping off his Nazi insignia when he's apprised of this, and the Nebenswelt portal being permanently opened and masses of people from other worlds arriving in the Axis world. While Smith's soul was so far gone by this point that the world would be better off without him, it's already pointed out that even if he died he would just be replaced with someone else. The US has been ruled by the Nazi regime for twenty years, with all the indoctrination and fanaticism of rank and file soldiers and citizens that implies. His replacement would have to contend with hardliners and rogue units in the American Reich attempting to depose him, not to mention the Reichsfuhrer in Berlin might just decide that his deal with Smith is null and void with the latter's death. It's a recipe for a civil war. Japan is also still lording over a massive empire in the Pacific and East Asia, with the withdrawal from North America giving them renewed resources to keep those territories under their thumb. And with the Nebenswelt smack-dab in the middle between two formerly oppressed sub-countries, a massive cache of unforeseen and unprecedented wealth and technological potential in the hands of subversive rebels who made it their mission to tick both sides off, it's implied that a second American Civil War is inevitable.
- Masters of Horror:
- "Sick Girl" plays its ending completely straight... except we don't know if the bug's offspring explode out of their parents or if they'll birth the offspring naturally.
- "The Black Cat" is also an arguable example, if you consider what ended up happening to Edgar Allan Poe and Virginia. The creators themselves lampshaded it as "oddly a happy ending for both an Edgar Allan Poe story and a Stuart Gordon film".
- The ITV drama No Return stars Sheridan Smith as a Manchester woman whose teenage son is arrested during a family vacation in Turkey after he's accused of raping another boy. In the series finale, Noah-the son of Smith's character-is found not guilty and given a three-year suspended sentence as the encounter was "almost entirely consensual", and Noah and his family return to England. It's depicted as a happy ending but think of the implications: Noah now has a criminal record, he'll have trouble getting into university or finding work, his family are now thousands of pounds in debt-not helping the fact his father quit his job-and the case making international news and the resulting fallout will stay with them for years to come.
- Once Upon a Time ends with Regina being crowned 'The Good Queen' of the united realms of story, which seems like a happy ending on paper...except Regina never wanted to be queen. She only became one because her abusive mother murdered her stable boy lover so she could marry King Leopold and achieve her ambitions, rather than what she wanted. Regina never wanted power; she wanted love. And now at the end of the series, her Second Love is Deader than Dead and with Henry now grown up, she's effectively still alone.
- Rebelde Way: The series tries to present the season two finale as some wonderful, happy ending where true love triumphed, the students beat the bad guy and reformed the school...But it's not all sunshine and roses as the show implies. Aside from the fact that the series completely romanticized Teen Pregnancy (never even alluding to all the emotional and economical problems a sixteen-year-old having a child will have), the finale also failed to address the huge problems both of the main couples had over the course of the series (Manuel dismissing Mia and cheating on her, Marizza misjudging Pablo) and tries to paint a picture of all being forgiven and true love saving the day. For a series that was recommended for trying to tackle real subjects in a realistic manner, this poorly thought-out ending seemed to have come out of some fairy tale kitsch desire.
- Roswell ends with the teens marked for death by the FBI Special Unit and forced to leave their families and loved ones and go on the run. Also, Max decides they need to give up on trying to return to their home planet and just worry about themselves, dooming their people to remain slaves. Yet somehow, the show tries to spin this as a positive ending, abruptly cutting from Liz's father crying over her farewell note to the teens smiling like loons as Max and Liz get married in a country chapel and the show ends on Liz grinning into camera as a voiceover announces, "I'm Liz Parker and I'm happy." Er, why?
- Sadakatsiz: Discussed In-Universe by Volkan in regards to Asya's happiness. He realizes way too late (they are long divorced because he cheated on her) that Asya's happiness lies in a peaceful life with her loved ones. She loves the comfort of having a routine where she can enjoy her son, husband, and friends' company. A life where she can help others in her job. In Volkan's words, she created her own cocoon of happiness in her small house. Volkan, by contrast, felt bored and inconsequential to her, as if he was merely part of the decorations. Something that Asya tells him wasn't true at all, he was important to her to the point of him preferring another woman hurts immensely.
- Seinfeld is an example for an esoteric nonplussing ending. Larry David likely only intended to write an episode that is extremely absurdist, and a setting to have a large number of characters Back for the Finale, and when talking about the finale, had never hinted at any intentions or stipulated that the show was intended to be about jerkasses. So the four main characters being sent to prison resulted in fans being unhappy.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: "Past Tense Part II" ends on a real high note, with the promise that the human-rights violating Sanctuary Districts will close and that real effort would be made to help the people inside find the jobs, homes and medical care that they need. According to Sisko this is one of the most momentous days in human history and helped pave the way for the Federation (as we see when their actions accidentally wipe it out). Unfortunately, as anyone who is up on their Trek history knows; this episode is set two years before the Third World War. Everyone you see in this episode grinning about how bright their futures now are? Were either killed in the atomic hellfire and radiation of nuclear war, gunned down (or worse) by the enemy or (ironically) found themselves in refugee camps that were just as bad if not worse than the Sanctuary Districts were.
- Star Trek: Enterprise: In "Dear Doctor", Archer and Phlox decide not to give the Valakians and Menk a cure to their illness, likely dooming both races to extinction, and this decision helps Phlox gain new respect for Archer? The excuse was that the Valakians were fated to die according to evolution, and so it would somehow be immoral to cure them. It was supposed to be character affirming as Archer does the 'right' thing no matter how hard it is, but even if we accept this warped Hollywood Evolution, most people don't think that some 'evolutionary plan' is more valuable than billions of lives. This can be blamed on Executive Meddling since the story was supposed to end with Archer and Phlox at odds with each other (Archer wanting the cure, Phlox opposing it), but executives didn't want any disagreements between them. This itself is a meta-example Esoteric Happy Ending, as the executives were happy that they were able to avoid having a proper ethical dilemma and argument in the episode, which is the kind of thing that typical Star Trek viewers generally WANT in the show.
- Because Supernatural takes place in a Crapsack World, nobody was counting on a 'happy' ending, but it's a matter of some debate what exactly we got. The brothers had a push-pull relationship for most of the show but it feels pretty tragic for Dean to die young in a kind of meaningless way, leaving Sam to grow old alone, eventually finding a blur-wife and Dead Guy Junior. Dean and Sam are shown reuniting in heaven (sorry, blur-wife, whoever you were!). It was probably intended to be uplifting...ish.
- The Twilight Zone (1959) episode "Mute" is about Ilsa, a little girl whose parents never speak verbally to her, because they are training her to become psychic. She and her parents are psychic and can communicate very well, but after they're killed in a fire, she is sent to live with foster parents who are unaware of her psychic abilities and try to get her to speak normally. At school, her teacher basically torments her and makes her life a living hell until she finally begins speaking. Another psychic couple shows up wanting to adopt her and continue developing her psychic powers, but the girl turns them away, saying she'd rather stay with her foster parents. As the couple leaves, they comment that it was just as well that she stayed behind, as her psychic abilities had been destroyed by the horrific treatment she'd received at the school. It is stated by pretty much every adult character that this is a happy ending for Ilsa, in spite of the fact that she was tormented at school and lost a paranormal ability in the process. (The author has claimed that her original parents treated her more as a science experiment than a daughter, but there's nothing in the final version of the story to suggest that.)
- "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross": Salvadore Ross is killed by the father of his girlfriend after selling him his compassion. As much as he had it coming, he's still left a ton of people in his wake including an old man with a broken hand he claims will never heal, another elderly man who lost his fortune and house while young, and his girlfriend who now has a father with absolutely no compassion whatsoever. Though Tropes Are Not Bad, because this serves as a reminder that regardless of his Heel–Face Turn, he still did a lot of terrible things to achieve this Heel–Face Turn and needed to pay for his actions.
- "A Short Drink From a Certain Fountain": Flora is certainly getting punished for marrying an older man purely for money, but one might wonder whether her husband will get "punished" along with her, given that she's stuck with him for the next 18 years or so and might not be happy about it. Though, it was implied Harmon's brother who despises Flora and cares deeply for Harmon will regularly check up to ensure Flora's maintaining her responsibilities.
- The Twilight Zone (1985): "Leprechaun Artist" is hated enough because of the boys getting off with their horrible attitudes, but there is no indication the parents were broken out of their trance.
- The Twilight Zone (2002):
- "The Executions Of Grady Finch" ends with the killer dying after being crushed underneath a statue. Great, except everybody is convinced he's innocent except the lawyer he confessed to, so now they'll go on a wild goose chase for the killer. And the victim's son who tried to shoot him for getting away with it never got any closure in hearing Grady finally confess and got arrested for attempted murder .
- "Azoth the Avenger is a Friend of Mine" ends with the abusive dad being turned into an action figure. However now young Craig only has a single parent left, and losing one of the breadwinners of the family can put them into serious financial problems and even poverty, as many who escape violent relationships in real life can find out. And good luck explaining to the police what happened to the father.
- War of the Worlds (1988) ends with the Morthren leader (Malzor) dead and the threat vanquished, and the heroes triumphantly walking at sunrise as a heroic theme plays... except a cursory thought into the circumstances of the ending reveal that nothing is solved. The remaining Morthren (36 in total) will attempt to integrate into the world — a place where the air is so toxic to them that getting cut in any way will eventually severely weaken (if not outright kill) them, unless they're put in a recovery machine, not to mention food they can't eat, dwindling resources and no way of getting back home. Even then, there's an unresolved Sequel Hook of a secondary Morthrai invasion force (the villains from the first season) that were set to arrive in five years. Whatever the case, Blackwood and friends make it clear to themselves that "they're done with all of it." "Nice morning", indeed.
- Who's the Boss?: Tony gives up what was practically his dream job (as a college baseball coach) because Angela was unhappy in the small college town Tony coached in, practically hitting the Reset Button.
- Without a Trace: At the end of the episode "Hold On To Me", a man finally finds his missing son after searching for him for six years. But in the interim, his marriage has fallen apart, he has no relationship with his daughter because he's neglected her in his quest to find his son, and the son in question clearly doesn't remember his family (he was only 2 when he was kidnapped) and there's the distinct possibility that he might never be able to rebuild his relationship with his family.
