Book Ends - Television Tropes & Idioms

"It's like poetry, it's sort of, they rhyme."

— George Lucas, in reference to the Star Wars prequels, in a quote the Plinkett reviews will never forgive.

Matching scenes at the beginning and end of a story, often to show how things have changed through the course of the episode (or to demonstrate that they haven't changed at all). Often uses Ironic Echo.

In kid's shows, the trope is extensively used to visually illustrate the characters applying the lesson they learned today (at least until the next episode), which, conveniently, perfectly coincided with the issue presented in the beginning. Ya'know, just in case they didn't catch it.

In any work, a way to show whether Character Development occurred by giving them a chance to react as they had before, or not.

Compare and contrast Here We Go Again, How We Got Here, Where It All Began. See also Callback.

Warning: Book Ends don't always spoil the ending, but usually they do. So, watch out for spoilers ahead!

Examples

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Anime & Manga

In Twentieth Century Boys, the final scene is a recollection of the first, but from a different viewpoint.
Monster ends when Tenma saves Johann from dying via shot to the head, an event that bears pretty obvious similarity to what started the whole thing.
Near the beginning of the first episode of FLCL, Mamimi offers Naota the rest of her canned juice, but he protests "You know I don't like the sour stuff," and eventually tosses it aside. At the end of the episode, after all the craziness with the giant robots coming out of his head, he gets another offer of sour juice, and this time takes a reluctant gulp.
- Additionally, the series opens and closes with narration by Naota saying "Nothing ever happens around here. Everything is ordinary", even though during the series we have clearly seen that it's anything but ordinary.
  - This line is also accompanied both times with a short scene where Naota has put money in a vending machine and a girl (Mamimi before, Ninamori after) pushes a button for a drink he didn't want first.
Revolutionary Girl Utena has varoius scenes around the Academy, including Utena's meditative reverie being interrupted when she is glomped by Wakaba. The last episode has those very same vignettes, replaced with Wakaba's meditative reverie being interrupted when she is glomped by another girl. The implication is that as far as the bulk of the student body is concerned, the previous year and everything that the main characters went through never happened. Only Anthy and her brother seem aware that anything took place.
The third season of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha begins with a young Subaru shouting for help while she's trapped in a burning airport, and Nanoha coming to save her in the nick of time, congratulating her for doing well to survive and assuring her that she'll bring her to a safe place. Subaru's Where Are They Now Epilogue has two young children shouting for help while trapped in a sinking ship, and Subaru saving them in the nick of time while echoing the same words Nanoha told her many years ago.
The last chapter of the Fist of the North Star manga has Kenshiro wandering the desert, exploding thugs. It brings a tear to one's eye.
Both the first episode of Neon Genesis Evangelion and the ending of End of Evangelion have what are colloquially known as the "bookend Reis," which appear in the distance for about 5 seconds while Shinji is looking, then disappear without a trace. As with nearly everything else in NGE, no explanation is forthcoming, and it's all left up to interpretation.
- Bookend Rei doesn't appear in the Original TV Ending if your wondering, however.
This is done somewhat in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai, though not at the very beginning and end. In Matsuribayashi-hen, we see Takano Miyo walking through the woods in the rain, trying to escape from her Orphanage of Fear. In the last episode, she's again walking through the rain in the woods, this time running from her former subordinates who've turned against her. It also clearly shows her missing a shoe in both scenes, in case the audience didn't put it together.
Betterman begins and ends with Keita and Honoki on a deserted island.
In Betterman's happier counterpart and "king of all book ends" Gaogaigar. Mamoru and Galeon come to the Planet Earth seeking protection from the Zonders. After the last episode Mamoru and Galeon leave the Planet Earth to protect it's people from the Zonders.
The first and last chapters of the Death Note manga have echoing sorts of scenes on the streets.
- In anime as well; it takes it a step further by having post-Kira Light passing his younger counterpart.
Madlax effectively opens and ends with the titular Action Girl receiving a call from her liaison who informs her about a new mission. Only that in the first episode, she is alone at the time while in the last one, she is accompanied by a deserter army sniper who previously killed her best friend and possible love interest and who is also her possible love interest. It got a bit complicated along the way, indeed.
Kyoshiro To Towa No Sora opens and ends with the lead girl meeting a "prince" in a flower field who offers her to come with him.
Saikano begins and ends with Shuji describing Chise. The circumstances of the first description are light-hearted, while the circumstances of the second one constitute one of the most crushing examples of a Downer Ending in all of anime.
The last scene of the ARIA series depicts Akari embarrassing her new apprentice by happily staring at her, just like Alicia did to Akari at the beginning of the series.
The first season of Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex begins and ends with Major standing on a rooftop, and Batou appearing in a helicopter rising past it.
Blue Drop starts with a man and a woman talking on a shuttle in orbit around earth. In the last scene of the show it becomes clear that the woman is Michiko on her way to a peace talk with the Arume, 30 years after the events that are depicted in the series.
The Uta Kata TV-series begins and ends with Ichika narrating how much the autumn mornings remind her of summer, when she still had a chance to be with Manatsu.
The first episode of Wolf's Rain begins with Kiba the white wolf lying in the snow. Most of what follows is apparently a flashback. The scene is repeated in the final OVA episode, though it's not quite the end.
Code Geass: Lelouch's statement in the first episode of the first season, echoed in the second season's Grand Finale, Foreshadowing his choice of death by Heroic Sacrifice.
- Also, season two's first episode has him announce himself as Zero, the man who destroys worlds and creates worlds. The last episode has something similar as his Famous Last Words.
The end of the final episode of Paranoia Agent repeats several shots from the opening of the first, showing people trying to avoid responsibilities and obsessing over insignificant things. The implication is that nobody's learned anything from the events of the finale, and it could easily happen again.
RahXephon's first scene after the title is of Ayato working on a painting before going off to school. The final scene of the show before the credits is of him finishing the painting at age twenty-nine before he shows it to Haruka.
- And the after-credits final scene is a flashback to the original inspiration of the painting.
The final episode of the (first) Fullmetal Alchemist anime seems does this, when Alphonse starts reciting the "Humankind cannot gain..." speech from the first episode; after the first two sentences, the speech is changed to reflect what they've learned from the events in the series.
- The same thing happens in the manga, although we don't know who's speaking the lines.
- And in the manga, the first confrontation with a villain features Ed announcing that he's going to show Cornello why he's a third-rate charlatan nowhere near the Elrics' level. At the end of Chapter 107, after punching the crap out of an Eldritch Abomination that just ate God, he tells him to get up because "it's time you learned why you're not in our league!" Heads exploded.
- On the very first page of the manga, Ed is shown in a train station with a suitcase and his red coat. On the very last page of the manga, he is shown like this again, but is this time leaving instead of arriving.
The first and last episode of Michiko to hatchin begin in the same way with Hana cooking omelettes.
The series finale of The Big O repeats the first part of the driving scene and opening narration from the first episode. The difference is that Angel and Dorothy are standing nearby and the road is smoother. It is open to interpretation, but this might indicate that this iteration of Paradigm City's reality may go more smoothly than last time.
In the beginning of the first episode of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, a short black-and-white clip is shown where Nozomu is hanged, with all the students grabbing on to him and each other to form some sort of human pyramid and it turns out that the rope is attached to a giant Meru's cellphone. This clip is played again at the end of the very last episode of the second series, which, not counting the OVA series, is the final episode altogether.
Millennium Actress opens and closes with the same sequence showing Chiyoko taking off for the stars. Also, earthquakes seem to play a similar role in Chiyoko's life.
In the prologue of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, a character on the bridge of what appears to be Super Galaxy Dai-Gurren remarks "All the lights in the sky are our enemy now, huh?" In the epilogue, old Simon says, "All the lights in the sky are stars." ^*
^{"...the stars where our Spiral friends await."}
- Also, the first song that you hear in the series (after the opening sequence) is also the last song played and the very end of Lagann-hen. Both of the lines above are also said when this song plays in the background.
Cowboy Bebop does this subtly. The first episode, "Asteroid Blues" begins with just Spike and Jet as the crew of the Bebop, along with Chief Laughing Bull making one of his trademark cryptic predictions, as well as Spike commenting on how he died once before because of a woman. At the end of "Hard Luck Woman", Faye, Ed and Ein leave, leaving Jet and Spike alone on the Bebop and completing one book end. The final episode, "The Real Folk Blues (part 2)" ends with Chief Laughing Bull making a cryptic prediction on Spike... Who attacks his old syndicate and dies because of a woman.
- Also happens in The Movie, with Spike calling a criminal out on their threats to hurt people.
The first chapter of Eyeshield 21 has a two-page color spread with Sena running, Hiruma pointing, Kurita ready to charge, Mamori holding a football and smiling, and a few other characters. The final chapter has a two-page color spread with those characters in basically the same positions (but still showing their growth over the series) and all the other important characters that have been added to the story.
- In fact, the entire last chapter of Eyeshield echoes the first one in many different ways. Sena enters a new school (college this time) gets headhunted to join the football club, and even plays the sister team of the same team he played in his first high school game. The difference is that this time his team's lineup is different, and it's implied that his chief rival in college ball will be Hiruma, who led Sena and the Devilbats to the national championship.
The first episode of Sailor Moon begins with Usagi saying "I'm Usagi Tsukino, 14 years old, junior high student. I'm clumsy and a bit of a crybaby. That's it." She then becomes Sailor Moon in that episode. The last episode ends with her saying "I'm Usagi Tsukino, 16 years old, high school student. I'm clumsy and a bit of a crybaby, but I'm actually the agent for love and justice, Sailor Moon."
- Also, the closing episode of the first season repeats scenes from the first episode to show life going on after Usagi's wish resurrected her friends.
Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou begins and ends with the titular shopping trip to Yokohama by Alpha, and both conclude with a scene of Alpha being greeted upon her return from Yokohama.
Bokurano's manga ends with children from another Earth being introduced to Zearth's cockpit by Kokopelli and Dung Beetle, just the same as the protagonists were in the beginning. The first and last pages also have the same monologue.
D.N.Angel begins with a reporter speaking into a camera as police run towards a building, then cuts to Dark and Krad charging at each other. The last episode of the series shows this scene again, indicating that in reality that scene was a flash forward.
Somedays Dreamers begins and ends with Yume at Shibuya in Tokyo, one of the most crowded crossings in the world—with the marked difference that in the end she has gained courage to cross it by herself.
The final scene of Now and Then Here and There takes place at the twin smoke stacks where Shu first met Lala Ru.
Darker Than Black begins with the police trying to catch Louis, a Contractor with gravity-cancellation powers. He gets away, only to run into Hei, who, despite Mao's protests, kills him. The first season ends with Hei sparing someone who really deserved to die thanks to Kirihara's protests, then shows the police chasing a Contractor with the same gravity-cancellation ability Louis had- but this time they catch the guy by entangling him with cables shot out of a fancy new upgrade to their handguns.
The second arc (and the first major storyline) of Dragon Ball is about Goku training for and competing in the Budokai. Several later arcs revolve around the Budokai. The anime is renamed Dragon Ball Z after Goku finally wins the Budokai and the story changes tone, and the manga ends right in the middle of a new Budokai.
Macross Frontier introduces us to the main protagonist, Alto Saotome, while he's training in his EX-Gear and flying within Island One's domed city, with him wishing to fly in an endless sky. The series ends with him ejecting from his Valkyrie and flying in his EX-Gear, in the endless skies of their new planet.
In the first chapter of Ai Kora, Maeda clobbers the guy who burned down the boys' dorm and was trying to do the same to the girls' dorm when he takes Sakurako hostage. The same guy shows up in the very last chapter, trying to burn down the girls' dorm again. He takes Sakurako hostage again, this time at gunpoint, and Maeda (who had been missing for four months after accidentally taking an airplane to England) makes his triumphant return by kicking the guy in the head and rescuing Sakurako.
The first volume of My Lovely Ghost Kana starts and ends very similarly on the surface, but also shows how much things have changed in a few short months. In the beginning, Daikichi is buying food and beer at a convenience store and overhears the occult-obsessed owner talking to his assistant about how someone finally moved into an apartment building rumored to be haunted. Daikichi walks back to the apartment he just moved into and is welcomed energetically by Kana, the resident Cute Ghost Girl who excitedly goes through his grocery bags looking for beer, which she hasn't had in years. In the end of the first volume, Daikichi is buying food and beer at the same convenience store, and the occult-obsessed owner is talking to his assistant about the strange circumstances by which Daikichi miraculously survived being buried alive. Daikichi walks back to the apartment he's come to call home and is welcomed energetically by Kana, who hugs him affectionately, having developed from Pretty Freeloader to Magical Girlfriend.
Gunslinger Girl opens with Jose taking a walk with Henrietta, overlooking the city as the bell tower rings. The final shot actually reuses those frames, albeit without the dialogue.
The first season of the anime version of K-On! begins with the main character Yui waking up late for her first day of high school, slipping and falling before heading out the door, where we see her jogging along her route to the campus. The last episode of the first season ends with a repeat of this before the ending concert, grabbing her guitar and running back, starting to slip, but catching herself before falling.
Gundam 00's first season ended with a letter from Setsuna to Marina. The second (and final) season ended with a letter from Marina to Setsuna, narrated over the final battle.
Ouran High School Host Club ends with a little spiel about the host club that opened the first couple of episodes.

Comics

Part of the opening scene of Bone has Smiley Bone unexpectedly charging Phoney Bone a dollar for a random tattered map he found on the ground. Phoney's angry reluctance to pay this impromptu fee causes Fone Bone to chide him that they're lost in the middle of the desert, so he should cough up the dollar. The very last scene repeats this occurrence, with the map replaced by one of their food rations.
In the first set of Elf Quest, there's a book end that occurs within the main storyline while Cutter and Leetah have been struck by "Recognition", a biological imperative that's trying to force them to mate and have kids. In one scene Cutter knocks on the window of Leetah's hut to demand why she's continuing to resist, and she angrily rebuffs him. It's probably not a spoilerworthy surprise that she eventually gives in, and the scene is bookended by Cutter knocking at her window again, only this time it's to invite her to make love under the stars. Aaaah.
Watchmen begins and ends with a red-stained smiley. (And every chapter ends with a panel visually reminiscent of the first panel of the chapter.)
- Also by Alan Moore, Batman's The Killing Joke
The Sandman, more subtly than most examples, begins and ends on the words "wake up".
Cable and Deadpool begins with Deadpool sitting alone in his shitty apartment, watching TV and lusting after Bea Arthur. The scene is revisited in panel-for-panel recreations a couple of times throughout the series, and then the final issue ends with Deadpool sitting alone in his shitty apartment, watching TV... and then being joined by his friends.
A one-issue set of bookends happened in the first part of The Phantom Affair, in the X Wing Series comics. "When you are a child◊, the world is full of wonders. When you grow up◊, though, wonders tend to have more mundane explanations." "The world is◊ full of wonders when you're a child. But sometimes, just sometimes, even a grown-up can meet with one."
Titans (as in grown-up Teen Titans) # 15 has this example of Aquaman at the start of the book, an outcast of his people, leading Atlantis, and Tempest, Aquaman's former sidekick Aqualad, as an outcast of his people, leading Atlantis.
The Astro City story "In Dreams" starts and ends with Samaritan dreaming about flying.
Rising Stars begins with a burst of energy hitting a small town, giving unborn children super powers. By the end of the series, the last surviving member of The Specials (who now has all the energy of all the deceased specials combined) has built a spacecraft, and uses it to find another inhabited world and crashes down like a fireball, starting the whole process over again.
The most recent Punisher: War Journal's first issue involved Frank killing Stilt-Man. The last issue was about Frank deciding not to kill the Stilt-Man gang.
Transmetropolitan: The first issue is Spider driving down from the mountain, the last issue is Royce driving up the mountain. Some of the panels are staged almost identically, with Royce in Spider's place. Additionally, it incorporates an off panel Brick Joke involving a beating Spider promised to a toolboth attendant in issue 1.

Films - Animation

Some notable examples from the Disney Animated Canon:
- Lampshaded in Disney's Pinocchio. Near the beginning of the film, the Blue Fairy brings the eponymous puppet to life, and Geppetto celebrates by activating all his music boxes and dancing. He does the same thing at the end of the film when Pinocchio Becomes a Real Boy, and Jiminy Cricket remarks, "Well, this is practically where I came in."
- Bambi and The Lion King begin with the births of Bambi and Simba, respectively, and end as the respective protagonists have Babies Ever After.
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame is bookended by Clopin asking to figure out, "Who is the monster and who is the man?" and also to "sing the bells of Notre Dame." This is even referenced by the commentators.
- The Princess And The Frog begins by showing the evening star, then fireflies flying down from the night sky onto New Orleans. The film ends by showing fireflies flying up from New Orleans into the night sky, encircling two evening stars.
- Aladdin starts with the Peddler singing "Arabian Nights". Aladdin and the King of Thieves ends with the Peddler singing a reprise of "Arabian Nights".
The Triplets of Belleville begins and ends with the previous scene being shown on a TV screen, accompanied by the only real lines of dialogue in the film.
The opening shot of Toy Story and the final shot of Toy Story 3 are of a blue sky with uniquely-shaped white clouds, those of Andy's old wallpaper. (3 also starts with a sky, making both a film- and a series-wide bookend)
Spirited Away has the family walking through the tunnel with the mother chiding "Chihiro, don't cling like that, you'll make me trip."

Films - Live Action

At the beginning of Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan, Spock gives Kirk a copy of A Tale of Two Cities as a birthday present. Kirk opens it and reads out "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times." At the end he recites from memory, "It's a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done before. A far better resting place I go to, than I have ever known." Bones is confused, but Kirk just says that he understands Spock's message.
- Similarly, Star Trek V The Final Frontier uses the scenes of Kirk, McCoy and Spock at the campfire (singing "Row, row, row your boat...") as bookends to the movie.
- In the 2009 Star Trek, a scene near the end of the first act features a special assembly of the Starfleet Academy, then immediately cutting to a scene of the Captain of the Enterprise addressing his crew before the depart. The end of the movie features another special Academy assembly and once again cuts right to the Captain of the Enterprise addressing his crew before they take off.
Charly, based on the book Flowers for Algernon, begins and ends with Charlie Gordon playing on a swing in a playground.
An early scene in Star Wars: A New Hope features Luke Skywalker gazing out at Tatooine's binary sunset. Revenge of the Sith ends with Owen and Beru Lars in the same position holding an infant Luke and also watching the suns set.
- Likewise, the first line of A New Hope and the last line of Revenge of the Sith are both spoken by C-3PO.
2001: A Space Odyssey has shots of the Earth, Moon, and Sun, accompanied by "Thus Spoke Zarathustra". There's a theory that the opening shot is actually from the Star-Child's perspective, and that the rest of the film is a flashback.
Pirates of the Caribbean ends its trilogy with Jack Sparrow in a one-man dinghy, having lost the Black Pearl to Barbossa; as an echo of his iconic introduction in the first film. And the trilogy really opens (before the title) and ends (after the credits) with a child singing a song about piracy.
- Near the start of the first movie, Pintel finds Elizabeth in a closet, and growls a menacing "'Ello Poppet." In the end, as Elizabeth is saying her goodbyes, Pintel waves with a sorrowful "Goodbye Poppet."
The film version of Sin City begins with an unnamed hitman claiming his victim before the opening credits. He is not seen again until the end of the film when a character who turned traitor encounters him in an elevator. He introduces himself to both of them the same way.
Director Terry Gilliam is an obvious fan of this trope and uses quite regularly:
- Time Bandits begins with the map of the timeholes being unrolled across the screen, and finishes with it being rolled back up.
- Twelve Monkeys begins and concludes with closeups of the main character when he was a child.
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas begins with Hunter S Thompson (Raul Duke) driving to Las Vegas and ends with him driving from the city.
At the beginning of Labyrinth, Sarah is rehearsing a speech for a play, but can't remember the last line. At the end, she remembers the line, which is the key to defeating Jareth. (Really more Chekhovs Gun or Arc Words.)
Citizen Kane opens on a "no trespassing" sign before moving in closer to Kane's mansion. At the end, when the audience but not the characters learns the secret of Kane's final word "Rosebud," the camera retreats from the mansion and ends on the same sign, signifying that Charles Foster Kane will forever remain a mystery.
Juno begins and ends with a shot of a chair, with the narration explicitly pointing it out.
Bride of Frankenstein opens with Mary Shelley, played by Elsa Lanchester, telling the story of Frankenstein. As she begins relating the sequel, she spreads her arms wide... and at the end of the film, the Bride of Frankenstein, also played by Lanchester, makes the same gesture.
The film Notting Hill begins and ends with the song "She". There is also a walk through the seasons scene which starts with a pregnant woman and ends with the same woman holding a young child.
The Mask of Zorro begins and ends with a man recounting his adventures to his baby, seeing his wife, and saying that he never did anything that foolish again.
Saving Private Ryan opens and ends with a shot of the American flag.
The Other Boleyn Girl starts and ends with 3 children playing in a meadow.
Forrest Gump starts and ends with a shot of a floating feather.
The Jerk ends with the hero singing and dancing on their porch just like at the start.
The 1932 drama Grand Hotel opens with a character stating of the title locale: "People come, people go...nothing ever happens." At the film's end, and following numerous dramatic episodes, the same character repeats the line with unknowing irony.
Serenity starts and ends with majestic, sweeping shots of the ship, quickly interrupted by a part falling off the ship and Mal asking "What was that?"
- Before the opening credits, The Operative makes a short speech about ((the power of love}}. At the end, Mal makes a short speech about the importance of love.
The Maiden Heist begins with Christopher Walken staring in wonder at a beloved painting. It ends with a guard at the Danish museum looking at the fake painting and getting the same reaction.
An alternate ending for 28 Days Later has the protagonist dying in the hospital that he woke up in.
The Searchers begins with the camera moving from a darkened interior, through an opening door, to the spectacular vista of the Utah desert. The reverse happens at the end.
The Bourne Ultimatum ends with Jason Bourne being shot at from behind, falling into water, and being lost and presumed dead by his pursuers. This directly mirrors the events preceding the first film, where we first meet Bourne being rescued from the ocean, having been shot in the back and left for dead by Wombosi and his men.
- And like The Bourne Identity, it turns out that he's not quite dead although unlike TBI, Bourne swims away under his own power in TBU.
When Trumpets Fade begins with Manning giving his wounded friend Bobby a piggyback ride. The film ends with Manning being given a piggyback ride by Sanderson.
Total Recall begins and ends with Quaid and Melina looking towards the Martian horizon.
The Men Who Stare at Goats begins with a flashback of General Hopgood attempting to run through a wall... and failing. At the end, it features Bob attempting to do the same thing... and succeeding.
Pulp Fiction begins and ends with Pumpkin (AKA Ringo) and Honey Bunny.
American Beauty begins and ends with an aerial shot of the residential street the majority of the story takes place at.
Shaun of the Dead is bookended with shots of the title character shambling in a zombie-like fashion after waking up in the morning.
V for Vendetta begins and ends with a British landmark getting blown up to the tune of the 1812 Overture on November 5th. The fact that everything else is so different between the two events shows just how much can happen in a year.
Starship Troopers, the movie, begins with Rico watching the ad to enlist as soldier, and ends with him starring in an otherwise identical ad.
Lawrence Of Arabia begins with Lawrence's death in a reckless motorcycle accident. The rest of the film, which is told in flashback, ends with Lawrence being driven along a road in a jeep, while a man on a motorcycle speeds by and recklessly passes him.
Glengarry Glen Ross starts and ends with a shot of a passing train.
Blue Velvet begins with shots of rose gardens and smiling firemen and ends with the same images.
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button: A particularly sad example involving a clock.
Pretty Woman: The Happy Man walks by both near the beginning of the film and at the end, telling us that this is Hollywood, the Land of Dreams, and asking, "what's your dream?" The first time his appearance is ironic, the second time it is meant to be taken at face value.
Hellboy Compare the opening monologue:
Dr. Trevor Bruttenholm: What is it that makes a man a man? Is it his origins, the way things start? Or is it something else, something harder to describe?
- To the ending monologue:
  Agent John Myers: What makes a man a man? A friend of mine once wondered. Is it his origins? The way he comes to life? I don't think so. It's the choices he makes. Not how he starts things, but how he decides to end them.
The Lovely Bones has Susie's narration of "My name is Salmon, like the fish. First name, Susie. I was fourteen years old when I was murdered on December 6th, 1973." said near the beginning and at the end of the movie.
The Av Club review of the Marmaduke movie notes that it book ends itself with a fart joke. Which pretty much sums it up.
The Big Red One Begins with TheSargent (played by Lee Marvin) stabbing a German claiming that the armistice has been signed at the end of World War One, and returns to base to find out that it actually had. Repeated almost exactly at the end of World War Two but when he finds out the war ended, he goes back and saves the life of the man he just stabbed.
Eight Legged Freaks starts and ends with Harland's radio broadcast.
Gojira ends with Godzilla dying with his remains sinking to the bottom of the ocean. The 2003 film ends with Kiryu (a cyborg version of the original Godzilla) dying and his remains sinking to the bottom of the ocean.
Shane begins with him riding into the valley on a clear morning and ends with him riding away in the middle of the night.
The King And The Clown begins with Jaeng-sang and Gong-gil on a tight-rope doing their usual routine and ends with their final performance.
Five Hundred Days Of Summer has three, Tom examining his relationship with Summer in each. The Simon And Garfunkel song "Bookends" even plays during one of them.
The film Temple Grandin begins and ends with Temple looking right into the camera and saying "My name is Temple Grandin!" While in the beginning, she was standing in front of a closed room, at the end it's in front of a wide-open sky.

Literature

Finnegans Wake ends with a half-finished sentence that is completed by the book's first sentence, so it's more of a loop. Samuel Delany does the same thing in Dhalgren.
Lolita begins (in both the foreword and the novel proper) and later ends on the eponym; the forward begins, "Lolita, or the Confession of a White Widowed Male, such were the two titles under which the writer of the present note received ..."; the novel proper begins, "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul." and ends "And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita."
The first and last conversations Aziraphale and Crowley have in Good Omens involve the strangeness of God making the forbidden fruit so accessible and tempting, and wondering what He's really up to with His game.
The first and last sentences of Isabel Allende's novel The House of the Spirits are exactly the same: "Barrabás came to us by sea...."
The Warhammer 40000 novel Desert Raiders uses the first paragraph of the book in its epilogue to show that a Tallarn regiment had traveled back in time through the Warp to create the very incident they were supposed to be investigating.
Voldemort dies as a spell intended to kill Harry Potter backfires. Now are we talking about Philosophers Stone or Deathly Hallows?
- The spells backfire because somebody else died to save Harry
- Then, after a years-long timeskip, young Potter leaves to attend the same school as his parents.
Watership Down opens with "The primroses were over," and ends with "where the first primroses were beginning to bloom."
The first book in The Dark Tower opens with "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." The last book ends with those same words because the entire series is a Groundhog Day Loop (with a small twist).
In Monica Hughes's Invitation to the Game ends with the main character writing the first letter of the story itself.
The third book of Traci Harding's trilogy ''The Ancient Future", ends with Noah/Selwyn reading out the first line of the first book.
At the beginning of Number The Stars by Lois Lowry, Annemarie is running playfully with her friend on the street. At the end, she's running to deliver a package that will allow the friend's family to escape the Nazis.
The book The Heart of Valor by Tanya Huff has scenes at the beginning and ending that are introduced almost exactly the same way: the main character, a Marine, is on a balcony in a space station looking down at the new recruits.
Blade of Tyshalle by Matthew Woodring Stover has the "A tale is told of twin boys born to different mothers" passage appear right after the book begins (after the ending quotes) and right before it ends (second-to-last page).
The Hobbit begins and ends with Gandalf visiting Bilbo in his home at Bag End.
- Also, both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings start with a party (with correspondingly-similar chapter titles), and if you have one of the printings where the first chapter of LOTR is stuck onto the end of The Hobbit, that's at least one more right there.
The Demonata book Bec begins and ends with the book's tagline "Screams in the dark". The first time is the titular charecter/narrator (who possesses perfect recall) recounting the tale of her birth. The last time is when she is being slowly eaten alive by numerous demons while trapped in a collapsed tunnel.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms begins and ends with the same song about the futility of war.
A Darkling Plain ends with Shrike recounting the opening sentence of the first book in the series word-for-word.
Starship Troopers, the book, begins with Rico as a soldier being briefed by his lieutenant and preparing for a drop, and ends with Rico as a lieutanant briefing his soldiers for another drop.
The Outsiders end reveals that the book is an nonfiction essay the protagoinst wrote for school; it ends with the same sentence as the beginning as he reports that he wrote down "[the first sentence...]".
The Pillars of the Earth: The book begins with a hanging, and the second-last scene in the book is another hanging. The first sentence in both scenes is the exact same.
The second Sherlock Holmes novel, The Sign of Four, begins and ends with Holmes bored and taking cocaine. This is used to emphasize the fact that although, as Watson says, Holmes is the one who "did all the work in this business," he's also the only one who doesn't seem to get anything out of it.
Baltimore, a novel by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden uses a tense for this: the beginning and ending sections are both written in present tense, versus the rest being written in past tense.
James Swallow's Warhammer 40000 Blood Angels novels Deus Encarmine begins on a grave world, and Deus Sanguinius ends on one. Both chapters open with fighting and end with a Blood Angel reflecting in the chapel.
The British publication of A Clockwork Orange begins and ends with almost exactly the same passages, only with different names for the people in his gang. Several chapters, including the first and last, also start with the phrase, "So, what's it going to be then, eh?"
- Just a note, not every publication of this book includes Chapter 21 (at least, not in America). In other words, it doesn't end with a similar passage to the beginning. However, most, if not all, recent publications generally include it.
The Shadow of the Wind begins and ends with almost identical scenes where a man takes his young son to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books.
The last books of The Thrawn Trilogy and the Hand of Thrawn duology end with the same line spoken by Mara Jade to Luke Skywalker. "Hang on, I'll come with you."
The Deltora series ended in a very similar manner, with a quote taken directly from the beginning of the series. The final chapter in the series is even called "Full Circle".
Nick Kyme's Warhammer 40000 Salamanders novel Salamander opens and ends with the death of their captain from treacherous attacks, and the company's coping with it. Coping better at the end than the beginning.
In Stephen King's The Green Mile, Paul Edgecomb originally bookends the manuscript he's writing, starting and ending with, "This happened in 1932, when the state penitentiary was still at Cold Mountain. And the electric chair, of course." However, the events of the book conspire to have him write of the mouse and his blessing from John Coffey.
Beyond The Western Sea begins "Just before dawn - that moment when time itself seems to stand still, when the whole world teeters on the edge of possibilites. . ." and ends with "She felt herself teetering on the edge of possibilites."
In Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, the book begins and ends with Richard going out to a bar with friends, disliking it, going outside, a friend coming out to see him, and something uncanny happening, though the sequence of the last two are reversed.
In Isaac Asimov's short story "In a Good Cause—", there is a short prologue-scene (in italics), of which the first sentence is led into at the end of the main story and repeated verbatim (also in italics).

Live Action TV

The first shot of the first scene of Lost is Jack's eye opening. The final shot is his eye closing.
- More then that. The last few shots are Jack retracing his steps back through the bamboo grove he runs through in the Pilot. He even passes the shoe tangled in a bamboo tree. He lies down and faces right, and Vincent comes running out of the jungle. It was one hell of a bookend.
  - Proof that they weren't entirely lying when they claimed to know the ending of the show all along. They actually did know the final scene, just nothing that had anything to do with the plot.
Used in many episodes of Third Watch, often with the same song playing at the beginning and end of the episode.
- Not only that, the entire series: The first sequence in the first episode concludes with Sully's trademark "Crap". The last scene in the last episode does, too.
In the Greys Anatomy episode "(As We Know It)", a scene with George viewing Christina and Izzie washing 'splodey bits of bomb-squad-guy Dylan out of Meredith's hair was a bookend for the opening scene of the two-part episode — wherein George has a wet dream of the same three women showering together.
- Also, one episode opened with Meredith dreaming of a threesome with her two love interests ended with her and her two friends lounging on the bed eating ice cream. Another started with McDreamy pulling Meredith out of a bathtub, which turned out to be foreshadowing for a dark and dramatic ending.
Especially well done in M* A* S* H "A War for All Seasons." The episode opens with a boisterous New Year's Eve party, which turns quiet when Col. Potter makes his toast. "Here's to the new year: may she be a damn sight better than the old one, and may we all be home by the end of it." The episode takes place over the course of a year, and ends with the next year's New Year's Eve party. Poignantly, Col. Potter makes the same toast he did at the previous party.
Homicide: Life on the Street begins and ends with a conversation between two detectives just as they're about to perp sweat a suspect. The conversation is the same in both cases ("If I could just find this damn thing, I could go home...") and one of the detectives appears in both.
Doctor Who, "Army of Ghosts/Doomsday": "This is the story of how I died...".
- The TV movie begins and ends with the Doctor sitting in the console room of the TARDIS reading HG Wells' The Time Machine and listening to a jazz record, before the jazz record abruptly sticks and jumps. The first occurrence was a moment of sinister foreshadowing; the second is lampshaded ("Oh, no - not again!").
The very first episode of Seinfeld began with Jerry commenting about the second button from the top on George's shirt being in an odd place. At the end of the series finale, as the group sits in their prison cell, Jerry once again brings up the shirt button and quotes verbatim the first lines of the first episode. Larry David mentioned that he wanted the show about nothing to end right where it began, therefore going nowhere.
The pilot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer features a final scene in which Buffy, Xander, and Willow walk off exchanging light-hearted banter, followed by Giles commenting "The world is doomed." The series finale features a scene in which Buffy, Xander, and Willow walk off exchanging light-hearted banter, followed by Giles commenting "The world is definitely doomed."
- In this scene (as Buffy and friends prepare to make their final stand at Sunnydale High) she sends off each of her allies to their posts until she is completely alone. The order in which all the others depart is exactly the opposite order in which they first appeared in the series (Andrew first, Xander last).
- Angel's departure in the last episode, where he disappears into the shadows, was also deliberately made to mirror his entrance into the series.
- Also, season 6. Opens with Buffy climbing out of a grave, alone, into a hellish burning Sunnydale being invaded by a demon gang. Ends with Buffy climbing from the earth, with her sister, to see the world as a beautiful place worth living in.
- A subtler and possibly unintentional one from season four: in the premire, Sunday gloats about breaking Buffy's arm, only for Buffy to reveal it's not broken. In the final battle against Adam, Buffy breaks the retractable arm spike he's been using in all his fights, only for Adam to reveal his other arm turns into a machine gun and grenade launcher.
- The episode "Lessons" beginning and ending with the line "It's about power." The first time spoken by Buffy, the second by, well, The First (appearing as Buffy).
The first season of The Wire ends with a sequence showing that despite Avon and D'Angelo getting arrested, nothing has really changed in the projects, including Poot passing on D'Angelo's advice to separate payment and delivery.
- The entire show ends with scenes showing that nothing has changed.
- The first season intro song is used in the final montage.
- And a specific episode example: season 1 episode 6 opens and closes on the same image: Brandon's dead body displayed on the hood of a car, the beginning on the real thing, and the end in the photograph on Lieutenant Daniels' desk.
Star Trek has played with this a lot.
- Star Trek The Next Generation's first and last episodes both feature Q testing humanity's potential.
- In the first and last episodes of Star Trek Enterprise, they visit Rigel.
- Star Trek Voyager's first and last episodes both end with Janeway ordering "set a course. For home." (Tom Paris in the Pilot, Chakotay in the finale, as Paris is heading to sickbay to meet his newborn daughter.
- In two instances, the opening narration is used to imply that "we're back to the beginning" or "it's come full circle":
  - Star Trek Enterprise, at the end of its series finale, uniting all three Enterprise captains:
    Picard: Space, the final frontier... these are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Her ongoing mission...
    Kirk: ... to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations...
    Archer: ... to boldly go where no man has gone before!
  - The new movie, with Leonard Nimoy as Elder Spock reciting the famous lines just before Michael Giacchino's magnificent orchestral rendition of the original ''Star Trek'' theme blasts over the end credits. Trekkies everywhere cried tears of joy.
A subtle version of this happened in House, Season Four. In the beginning, Wilson tries to mess with House's head (stealing the guitar and making him believe he's hallucinating the cottages) so he can do his lecturing thing. At the end of the season, Wilson literally wants to mess with House's head so that House can save Wilson's dying girlfriend. As you can probably tell, one is sadder than the other.
- A much less subtle one happened in Season 5, again with Wilson.
- The first and last episodes of Season One end with the song "You Can't Always Get What You Want".
- There's one that encompasses the end of season 4, the entirety of season 5, and the start of season 6. All of the events leading up to the mindscrew that is the season 5 finale and House's stay in the mental institution begin at the end of season 4, when House rides the bus that crashes and results in Amber's death. When it seems that House is finally cured of all the things that had been plaguing him since then in the season 6 premier, the episode ends with him riding a bus away from the mental institution.
24 Season 4 began and ended on the train tracks.
The Prisoner ended with... the opening credits.
Cheers began the series with Sam Malone coming out of the back room, turning on the lights and opening the bar. The series ended with Sam locking the bar, turning off the lights, and strolling back into the back room.
Roswell started and ended with Liz introducing herself.
Pilot: "I'm Liz Parker and five days ago I died. After that, things got really weird."
Last episode: "I'm Liz Parker and I am happy."
The OC ended with Ryan asking a down on his luck kid if he needed help, the same thing Sandy asked him at the beginning.
The fourth season of Supernatural has a subtle example. The first episode is "Lazarus Rising", the last is "Lucifer Rising".
The title of both the first episode and The Movie finale of Firefly are both titled Serenity.
- The first episode (after the battle of Serenity Valley) opens with a man floating through space, the final episode also ends with a man floating through space.
Malcolm in the Middle concludes both the first and last episodes with the background song "I've Seen Better Days".
The West Wing did this a few times - for example, in "17 People," which begins and ends with the sound of Toby bouncing his rubber ball.
- Also, the entire storyline begins and ends with Josh springing Sam out of a meeting of lawyers to come work for the president, and Sam promptly lampshades it:
Sam: Your showing up does have a nice nostalgic symmetry.
Josh: Style points...
Sam: ...if nothing else.

However, this is only an instance of bookends in-universe; actually the first scene was shown in a flashback in the second series opener, and the second in the last episode but four.

The pilot of Leverage has a scene where the team (minus Sophie, who had not been introduced yet) started out standing in a circle, but then walked away, with an overhead shot. The episode ended with the team (included Sophie this time) standing in a circle and not separating. The season ended with an overhead shot of them (again in a circle) going their separate ways.
Battlestar Galactica episode "Revelations" starts with Kara and Lee looking at an illustration of the Temple of Aurora, supposedly located on Earth. The episode ends with all the characters trudging through whats left of a major city on Earth following a nuclear war. Their main camp is located near the ruins of a domed building that used to be the Temple of Aurora.
- The TV-Movie The Plan has this in two ways. First, the film opens with a shot of the two Cavils from "Lay Down Your Burdens" about to be airlocked. The rest of the film consists of flashbacks, ultimately leading up to the point where they stand in front of the airlock.
  - The second book end is a more meta example. The Plan ends with an altered version of the opening theme of the show. Since The Plan is the very last Battlestar episode to air (excluding spinoffs), having the opening theme as the last thing the audience hears has a certain meaning to it.
The Angel episode "A Hole In The World" begins with a flashback of Fred preparing to leave for LA. The following episode "Shells" ends with another flashback of her getting into her car and driving off to LA.
The first episode of ER begins with an ambulance full of patients and a lagging Dr. Carter. Dr. Greene calls out to him, "Dr. Carter, you coming?" The final episode ends with an ambulance full of patients and a lagging Dr. Greene (the daughter of the man in the pilot). Dr. Carter calls out to her, "Dr. Greene, you coming?"
The original V begins and ends in mountain camp of two different resistance groups.
In the pilot episode of Heroes, Peter catches a cab driven by Mohinder. Peter asks Mohinder if he ever had the feeling he was meant to do something special, and a conversation about destiny and natural selection ensues. In the first episode of Volume Four, after an adventure that put both of them in a bad light (and made plenty of heroes turn on each other), Peter again catches a cab driven by Mohinder and, laughing, asks the same thing. Mohinder says he had the feeling, but was proven wrong.
- The last scene in Volume Five also reflects the pilot, when Claire goes public.
  Claire: My name is Claire Bennet and this is attempt number ... I guess I kinda lost count.
The first and last episodes of Arrested Development intentionally mirror one another, with a very similar occasion (an announcement on a boat) and often identical lines at certain critical moments, although sometimes flipped to different people saying them.
The Curb Your Enthusiasm episode "Vehicular Fellatio'' begins with Larry trying to open a vacuum-sealed package and failing, eventually screaming in frustration. He buys a knife for opening packages. At the end, when he needs it, he finds that it's in a vacuum-sealed package...
At the beginning of Lexx, Kai and some other Brunnen-G pilot outmatched fighters against the Divine Order's flagship, the Foreshadow. With no other means of causing damage, Kai deftly weaves his fighter around the ship's structure, crashes into the bridge just as it seals itself off, and is thrown from his cockpit to the deck. At the end of the series, Kai is using a moth from the Lexx, a small, unarmed transport, to drag a Doomsday Device into the center of an alien spaceship; being at the center of the blast would not normally harm the undead Kai, but Prince appears at the last minute, restoring Kai to true, mortal life. The camera work as Kai makes his run on the alien ship is identical to the first scene, and it ends with Kai crashing and being thrown from his cockpit in the exact same way before dying once again.
The first aired episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 featured the movie, "The Crawling Eye". In the last episode, the movie is once again featured, with the crew noticing that it seems familiar.
The Middleman opened up with Wendy on the phone with her mother complaining about her job and life; it ended with Wendy on the phone with her mother telling her how happy she was with her job and life.
Life On Mars didn't quite open with the line "Word in your shell-like, pal.", but they are the first words spoken by Gene Hunt, upon meeting Fish Out Of Temporal Water Sam Tyler as he arrives in a new, confusing world. They're also the final words Gene Hunt speaks in Ashes To Ashes, to the new arrival in CID who's ranting about his iPhone, after Gene's helped Chris, Ray, Shaz, and Alex cross over and forgotten what his true role is.
Every episode of Criminal Minds begins and ends with a quote that parallels the case and the action surrounding it.
Nip/Tuck begins with Christian meeting Kimber in a bar, who is uninterested until he reveals that he's a plastic surgeon. The final scene of the series has a similar scene with similar dialogue with a similar woman in an airport bar.
At the end of the final episode, Dale "Smithy" Smith has the last line in The Bill with "Yeah, come on. Let's do it", pretty much identical to the opening line of the show's first.

Music

Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon begins and ends with a steady, heartbeat-like thumping fading in/out.
- The Wall begins with someone saying "we came in?" and ends with someone saying "Isn't this where", similar to the Finnegans Wake example above.
- Animals opens and closes with parts one and two of "Pigs On the Wing", which are significantly lighter in tone than the other songs, and serve as a framing device of sorts for the main narrative.
- While not identical, Meddle uses swirling wind sounds at the beginning of "One of These Days" whereas "Echoes" ends with whale songs.
- Wish You Were Here is Book Ended by the two halves of "Shine on You Crazy Diamond". The first half begins with Rick Wright on synthesizer and ends with Wright playing the same synthesizer voice.
The first and last tracks of the Kleptones' mashup album 24 Hours are "Still Start" and "Still Ending". The latter is a more-developed version of the former.
Several Genesis albums do this. Selling England By The Pound ends with a short piece that is basicly a reprise of the opener, "Dancing With The Moonlit Knight". A Trick Of The Tail opens with "Dance on a Volcano" and ends with "Los Endos", which both have many of the same riffs and melodies. The live album Seconds Out plays around with them: It opens with "Squonk", which also has similaries to the other two songs mentioned, and ends with medley of "Dance On A Volcano" and "Los Endos".
Mirrored by experimental rock group Battles begins with a song called "Race: In," which features a recurring xylophone theme. The last song, "Race: Out" sees a brief return of the same theme just before the last repeating guitar pattern.
Both Gnarls Barkley's St. Elsewhere and Friends of Dean Martinez's On the Shore start and end with the clicking of a film-projector. This is pretty much all they have in common.
The track "Close to the Edge", from the Yes album of the same name, begins and ends with the sound of birdcalls over wind and running water.
Coheed and Cambria's second album, In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 does this (sorta).
- It begins with "The Ring In Return", which consists of an intro, then a short musical interlude, and then a male voice saying "Hello, Apollo, where should I begin?". In the lyric book, the last line of the last song (excluding the hidden one) is "Pray for us all...my dear Appollo(sic) I'll be burning Star IV" (the actual line that is sung is just "Pray for us all" over and over.)
- Also, the first album, "Second Stage Turbine Blade", has the song "Devils in Jersey City" (not the first song, but close to the beginning), which has a line towards the end—"Why won't you drive me home?". Towards the end of the album, we have "Junesong Provision", which has a line "To drive down...where's Wednesday? where;s Wednesday?". The last song (The End Complete V: On The Brink) of the last album (No World For Tomorrow) has the last line "so long, amory...please drive me home one last time..."
In Rush's Caress of Steel, the final song has multiple parts. The first and last of which are very similar in both the musical style and (respectively) the first and last lines sung.
Fall Out Boy's album Infinity on High both begins and ends with an audience clapping as if it were a live show.
A couple songs by Panic(!) at the Disco. Namely "Camisado" and "Time to Dance".
Marilyn Manson's Antichrist Superstar album begins and ends with the same spoken line. In addition, a different phrase bookends the final "act" of the album.
- Specifically, the beginning of "Irresponsible Hate Anthem" and the end of "Track 99 (Empty Sounds of Hate)"
- Also, from Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death). There is the sound of an old metal key rattling around in a lock (as if to close the album) on "Count to Six and Die (The Vacuum of All Space Encompassing)", which links to the lock rattling at the opening of "GodEatGod", unlocking the album.
System Of A Down's double-Concept Album, Mezmerize & Hypnotize, begins with a short introduction called "Soldier Side (intro)", and ends with a song of 3-4 minutes called "Soldier Side".
A more unconventional example: Mayhem's second album Grand Declaration of War is a sequel to their earlier EP Wolf's Lair Abyss. The saga as a whole is divided into three sections: I ("Wolf's Lair Abyss"), II (the first half of "Grand Declaration of War") and III (the second half). A riff appears at the very end of "Symbols of Bloodswords", the last track from "Wolf's Lair Abyss", and the album fades out. "A Grand Declaration of War", the first track of part II of the saga fades in with the same riff shifted up a semitone. The riff appears for the third and final time at the start of the track "View from Nihil (Part II of II)", followed by some spoken word vocals and a sample of a nuclear bomb detonating. This concludes part II of the entire saga.
AFI's album Sing the Sorrow has deliberate static between the bonus tracks and after the last one. If you listen to that album on repeat, it is virtually impossible to pick out when it switches from "This Time Imperfect" (the last bonus track) to the aptly titled "Miseria Cantare (The Beginning)".
Queensryche's Operation: Mindcrime concept album begins and ends with the line "I remember now".
Brand New's "Daisy" begins and ends with a woman singing the same operatic passage.
Death Cab for Cutie's Transatlanticism begins and ends with a sound much like a car running.
mc chris's first album Life's a Bitch and I'm Her Pimp begins with Chris' answering machine. This same answering machine message is the last thing you hear on his third album Eating's Not Cheating
Iron Maiden do this on their seventh album, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, which opens and ends with the excerpt quoted in Lucky Seven.
In the Linkin Park remix album Reanimation, the introduction track features a heartfelt tune. The last track, KRWLNG, is revealed to be based around that tune.
Coldplay's Viva La Vida begins with "Life in Technicolor" and ends with "The Escapist" which are both built around the same sample of music by Jon Hopkins.
- "Spies" has the refrain "Spies hide out in every corner, but you can't touch them, 'cause they're all spies." But at the end of the song, "we" get over their control, and song ends "...but they can't touch you, cause they're just spies."
Supertramp's Crime of the Century album starts with a harmonica solo on "School" which is later found in the fadeout of the title track, which ends the album. Many of their concert setlists played off this as well.
- For a more obscure Supertramp example, their self-titled debut offers two versions of the song "Surely": a 30-second one verse clip at the beginning, and a more fleshed-out two verse, three-minute version at the end that centers more on their instrumental talent.
- Roger Hodgson's solo DVD Take the Long Way Home has him playing "Give a Little Bit" twice, once at the beginning and again at the end. The second time, of course, with more feeling (and audience participation).
Electric Light Orchestra's Eldorado opens with a spoken monologue. The final line of this, "High on a hill, in Eldorado", is looped over the album finale.
- The first song ("Prologue") of their album Time also starts with the same snippet of sound that the last song ("Epilogue") ends on.
Brave Saint Saturn's The Light of Things Hoped For begins with "Prologue," a spoken-word piece played over ambient electronic music. This electronic music is reused as the intro to "Daylight," the last track of the album.
Havalina Rail Co's The Diamond In The Fish. The first track is an instrumental song, "The Theme from the Diamond in the Fish". The final track is "The Diamond in the Fish", a longer song that ends with the riff from "Theme".
Sufjan Stevens' Illinois. Though it's quiet, the album begins with the creak of a piano's keyboard cover opening, and ends with the cover shutting.
The intro and outro of Pearl Jam's Ten album.
Agalloch's album The Mantle features the same acoustic guitar riff in the first (instrumental) song "A Celebration for the Death of Man..." and in the end of the next-to-last song "...and the Great Cold Death of the Earth".
Don Mc Lean's "Castles in the Air" closes with the same stanza with which it opens: "And if she asks you why / You can tell her that I told you..."
The Momus album Ocky Milk begins with a single, isolated guitar note a few seconds before the first song starts, and ends with the same guitar note a few seconds after the last song ends.
The Mars Volta's album "Frances The Mute" begins the first song, Cygnus...Vismund Cygnus with the short acoustic piece Sarcophagi, and ends the thirty-two minute song Cassandra Gemini with a reprise of Sarcophagi, in which the song is much louder and clearer and the vocals are much more defined.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers video "The Other Side" starts and ends with a man lying on the ground.
The Notorious BIG's album "Ready To Die" starts with his birth. The last song "Suicidal Thoughts" ends with his death.
Green Day's album "21st Century Breakdown" begins with an introduction track that is echoed on the second last track, "American Eulogy". The second track on the album, "21st Century Breakdown", is echoed in the final track, "See The Light".
Yellowcard's album "Lights and Sounds" begins with the instrumental track "Three Flights Up". The final minute and a half of the final track "Holly Wood Died" is much like the first track, but with different instrumentation.
There are a ridiculous number of Country music songs featuring this.
The Queen album A Day At The Races begins and ends with the same instrumental bit.
The first Trans Siberian Orchestra album begins with "An Angel Came Down," and the story (there are a few non-"story" instrumentals afterwards) ends with "An Angel Returned." The songs have the same tune.
The performance of the so-called Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band opens and ends with a self-titled song. This doesn't end the album, though (it's hard to know if "A Day in the Life" qualifies as an encore).
Sting's album Mercury Falling has its title as the very first and very last words.
"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot begins and ends with lines about "the big lake they called 'Gitche Gumee,'" and how she "never gives up her dead."
Damn near every single Dierks Bentley puts out.

Mythology

The Epic of Gilgamesh starts with a narration that extols the might of the walls of Uruk, which seem to be meant to emphasize the glory of their builder, the king Gilgamesh. Until, of course, Gilgamesh fails to gain eternal life, and in the final line of the epic, he speaks the same passage to his new traveling companion Urshanabi. (Scholarly opinion is divided whether this is intended as Ironic Echo, or an affirmation that true immortality is found in lasting greatness of a man's works.) This makes it Older Than Dirt.
The Bible begins and ends with the Tree of Life.

Professional Wrestling

"Ladies and gentlemen, Shawn Michaels has left the building."

Theater

This is a staple of Theater of the Absurd , especially Eugene Ionesco.
Aria da Capo, a one-act play by poet Edna St. Vincent Millay is interesting in having only three scenes, the first and last of which are nearly identical.
- In music the term "da capo" means exactly this: a piece that begins and ends the same, with something very different in the middle.
  - Not exactly. "Da Capo (al Fine)" means "return to the start and play again until the "Fine" (an indicator in the music where it should end).
God (A Play) by Woody Allen ends with a Closed Loop - the dialog is the same as the beginning, it is suggested that the play could go on forever (like The Song that Doesn't End).
Wicked begins and ends with mostly the same scene ("Good news! She's dead!"), but the tone is very different.
Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Sunday in the Park with George begins with an artist musing about the blank piece of paper on which he is about to start sketching: "White. A blank page, or canvas." A hundred years later, his great-grandson sets out to create a new piece of art, and ends the musical with the exact same words.
The first and last words in Stephen Sondheim's Into The Woods are "I wish", sung on the exact same notes.
- More than that. The play opens with the Narrator saying, "Once upon a time, in a far-off land..." And the last words spoken (not sung) is the Baker the Narrator's son saying those same words to his own son.
Orff's Carmina Burana begins and ends with "O Fortuna."
In Parade, the finale reprises "The Old Red Hills of Home" showing nothing has changed for the next generation.
"Dites Moi" points out what has changed since it was first sung in South Pacific.
No Strings begins with "The Sweetest Sounds" to show that the Official Couple has not met up yet, and ends with the same song after they've agreed to break up and forget that they ever met.
Rent begins and ends with Mark and Roger in their apartment, the former narrating as the latter tunes his guitar, right before Collins comes home after some time away. The Movie shows this by having him call from a payphone outside asking for the key. Mark even lampshades this by yelling, "Don't get your ass kicked this time!" as he tosses it from the balconey (Collins was mugged in the beginning).
- An alternate ending included on the movie's DVD shows that it was originally going to have Book Ends: the movie begins with the lead characters singing "Seasons of Love" on a bare stage, and the alternate ending depicts them singing "Finale B" on the same stage. However, even though that opening still appears in the final film, the ending was replaced because the director felt that seeing Angel return would ruin the emotional impact of his death about 15 minutes earlier.
Sweeney Todd does this, both beginning and ending with the "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd".
The Skin of Our Teeth ends with Sabina starting her first scene of the play over again. She stops midway through to tell the audience the end hasn't been written yet. The play ends.
The overture to Mozart's Don Giovanni begins with a short, somber song fragment that is actually rather boring. The end repeats this song, but with the Don, Leoporello, and the Commander all singing, in such a way that sounds much more awesome.
Janá&# 269;ek's opera The Cunning Little Vixen opens with a frog leaping into the laps of a dozing forester, and ends with the forester returning to the same spot, a frog — the grandson of the original frog — leaping into his laps.
The Solid Gold Cadillac begins with a meeting of the board of directors of the General Products Corporation, and ends with another General Products board meeting, except that McKeever and Mrs. Partridge have replaced the Corrupt Corporate Executives. A little old lady tries to ask a question, but Mrs. Partridge says, "Oh, no! That's how I got my start!" and bangs the gavel to conclude the meeting and the play.

Tabletop Games

Many World Of Darkness sourcebooks begin and end with information related to a specific event. Mage The Awakening has a diary in the front from a student, and ends with a letter from the mage who's teaching said student to that mage's last student, who went bad and was responsible for Awakening the student writing the diary. Promethean The Created has the first and second halves of Mr Verney's interview with a psychiatrist.

Video Games

At the end of the first level of Killer7, Harmon shoots Kun Lan in the hand; Kun Lan catches the bullet and rides its momentum to the top of the Space Needle. At the very end of the game, the same scene is repeated 100 years later in Shanghai. The implication, as Kun Lan mockingly states, is that their battle will never end.
- Also worth noting, is that in one confrontation Harmon says "Are you awake from your dream?" and in the other he says "Are you awake from your nightmare?" potentially implying that this is one of the few ways they pass the eternities. Switching sides so that they both get a chance to be "good" and "bad"
Final Fantasy VII begins and ends with the same shot of Aeris looking into the lifestream, possibly implying that the whole game was a Flash Forward, given her Psychic Powers.
Halo 3 has an excellent example of a bookend in its ending. The Arbiter dismisses the apparent death of the Master Chief with "Were it so easy," mirroring the opening scene where the Chief holds a pistol to the Arbiter's head and all the Arbiter does is dismiss the possibility he either of them could be killed so easily.
- A second example, bookending the entire trilogy, is in the final video unlocked by sitting through the credits. The Master Chief climbs into a cryo tube to wait for rescue, after climbing out of a very similar cryo tube at the start of the first game (the Master Chief's introduction).
- Also, the first and third games both end with you fleeing a disaster that will destroy a Halo ring. The same Halo ring in fact.
  - On a Warthog.
- The most iconic example on par with the cryo tube scenes is the discovery of a new world to explore. In the first Halo, it was Halo, and in the secret end of the trilogy it is the Legendary Planet.
- Halo 1 is an example all on its own: you start on the Pillar of Autumn, making your way to an escape pod before it crashlands on Halo; you end the game on the Pillar of Autumn, making your way to an onboard fighter before the Autumn blows up and takes Halo with it. This can actually be extended to cover pretty much the entire game, since the last half of the game is practically the first half in reverse...escape the Pillar of Autumn which is being overrun by Covenant, board the Truth and Reconciliation to rescue Keyes from the Covenant, fight your way up to the Control Room, explore an ancient structure infested by Flood and release them, fight your way through an ancient structure infested by Flood to find a way to destroy them, fight your way down from the Control Room, board the Truth and Reconciliation to rescue Keyes from the Flood, go back to the Pillar of Autumn to escape Halo which is being overrun by Flood.
Shadow Hearts uses this in all three games. The first game begins and ends with a train ride, Apoina Tower is the first and final dungeon of the first disc of Covenant, and the beginning and bad ending of From The New World feature Shania standing atop a skyscraper.
- You could argue that Yuri's whole story is a giant bookend, as his story begins in Shadow Hearts on a train and, in the good ending of Covenant, at least, ends back on that same train.
Kingdom Hearts (the first one) both begins and ends on Destiny Islands
- The first Kingdom Hearts game begins with a scene where Sora and Kairi are sitting on a curved palm tree and Riku is standing, leaning against it. The second Kingdom Hearts game had a scene after the credits where Riku and Sora are once again at that exact spot, but with their positions reversed.
- Come now, you can do better than that. Every single location is bookended with a logo of the place, and also the game itself. After the prolouge, Kingdom Hearts logo. After the credits, Kingdom Hearts logo.
The Legend of Zelda: Majoras Mask'' actually has ~~TWO~~ THREE book ends:
- One of the very first things you do in the game is play hide and seek with five red-headed children. One of the very last things you do in the game is play hide and seek with five red-headed children.
- Since the game takes place in a Groundhog Day Loop three-day cycle, the same events repeat themselves over and over. In the very first cycle of the game, you have to go up to the clock tower at the end of the third day and face a boss battle that you can only get passed by playing a song on your ocarina. Then, once you play through the entire rest of the game, you have to go back to the same place, at the same time, and fight the same battle, that you can only get passed by playing a different song on your ocarina. The events of the battle unfold radically differently this time around, and once you watch the cutscene you get sent to the final dungeon.
- The opening scene in the game is Link riding Epona through the Lost Woods searching for a long-lost friend. During the end credits, Link is riding Epona into the woods, continuing his original quest.
- Before that game, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time closes with Link approaching Zelda in the castle garden in a parallel to their meeting early in the game. This time we briefly see the Triforce of Courage on his hand, which is probably supposed to be symbolic of something since the whole point of the scene is that Link has gone back in time to live his lost childhood in a world where he never touched the Triforce.
  - There was also another set of bookends in this game. The very first scene with Sheik where you are introduced to the character, and the very last scene with Sheik where she reveals herself to be Zelda, are remarkably similar. They both take place in the Temple of Time and start off with Link running only to stop and turn around to find Sheik standing behind him after she announces her presence with the line "I've been waiting for you."
- As the plot of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker kicks off, Link leaves his hometown with the pirates. In the last scene of the game... Link leaves his hometown with the pirates. The tone of the latter scene is much more positive, though.
  - Exspecially notable is, that the first departing-scene had Link waving his grandma and neighbours goodbye with one hand, stoping for a few seconds, suddenly running foreward a few steps and then starting to wave at them again, but this time with both hands. The second departing has his sister Aryll (who stays behind on Outset) doing this just the same way.
- In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, the first area you go to outside of the forest is Hyrule Castle after you are turned into a wolf and captured. Hyrule Castle is also the final dungeon of the game.
  - At the beginning of the game, Link has someone call for him at his second story window. At the end of the game, this happens again, but this time, Link isn't inside; he is riding Epona out of the village.
  - The final dungeon of the Fused Shadows arc is accessed from a cave at the bottom of Lake Hylia, and the boss is fought at the lowest point in the entire game world. The final dungeon of the Mirror of Twilight arc is accessed by a cannon that is also at Lake Hylia, and the boss is fought at the highest point in the entire game world. Both bosses have the same music, and both eventually involve latching onto and attacking some round object on the boss's back.
In Super Mario Galaxy, the first mission in the first galaxy is titled "Dino Piranha" and has you fighting said enemy. The last mission in one of the optional last galaxies is titled "Fiery Dino Piranha" and has you fighting the boss again, only this time he's on fire.
- The game itself begins and and ends at the Star Festival.
Final Fantasy IX begins and ends with a traveling theater company putting on the same play in the same city, but as a front for a kidnapping the first time and sneaking someone in the second.
Sonic Unleashed ends the same way it began, with Sonic crashing face-first into the ground from a great height, except this time Sonic is cured of his werehog problem, and the unconscious Chip is just an illusion.
- Sonic The Hedgehog 2006, due to a Reset Button Ending, ends by showing how the opening cutscene plays out differently in the new timeline.
Myst begins with a shot of a book falling through a starry expanse, eventually landing at some unspecified location where the player finds it. In the optimal ending of the sequel Riven, the player character jumps into a spatial rift that will- hopefully- take him home, and the last shot is the player character- from his perspective- falling through the same starry expanse. (There are further sequels after this, but they kind of do their own thing.)
Warhammer: Dark Omen begins and ends with a similar conversation between Bernhardt and Klaus. "The crows never lose."
Shadow of the Colossus begins with a shot of a hawk, which flies into the scene from behind the camera, and it ends with a shot of a hawk, which leaves the scene as the camera overtakes it.
Fallout 3 begins and ends with "War never changes."
The 2008 Prince of Persia begins and ends with the Prince walking through a sandstorm, with a voice-over narration asking "What is one grain of sand in the desert? What is one grain amongst the storm?" The difference is that the answer changes from being "nothing" to "everything."
- The Sands of Time trilogy began and ended with the Prince narrating to Farah:
"Most people think time is like a river, that flows swift and sure in one direction. But I have seen the face of time, and I can tell you: they are wrong. You may wonder who I am or why I say this. Sit down and I will tell you a tale like none you have ever heard."
The original Half-Life begins and ends in a tram. The sequel begins on a train, and while it doesn't end on one, the next installment does.
- After the G-Man does his closing monologue, notice that the way he exits is to the right, out of a "sliding door" of light, in a very trainlike fashion.
  - He even ends said monologue with the expression, "This is where I get off."
The final level of the first Ratchet and Clank game begins with the tutorial section on the same planet at the start of the game, albeit with much tougher enemies.
The Good End of Silent Hill 1 has Harry (and Cybil, if you saved her) find infant Cheryl in the cemetery just like in the opening cutscene. If you got the Good+ ending, the opening cutscene of a New Game Plus begins with Cybil in the place of Harry's wife.
- Silent Hill Origins ends with Travis finally being able to access the truck he ditched when he saw the Gillespie house on fire.
- Silent Hill 2 begins and ends with Mary's letter, and depending on which of the Multiple Endings you get, reveals what the rest of said letter reads like.
- Silent Hill 3's Ending Theme Tune is a vocal reprise of the first game's opening theme.
Mega Man X began with the discovery of the Sealed Good In A Can title character and the subverted Sealed Evil In A Can Ensemble Darkhorse. In the Mega Man Zero series, it's revealed that the former ended with both characters sealing themselves (the former to seal something, the latter to seal himself).
Mother 3 has two :
- It begins with it's title logo, half-wooden, half-metallic. When the game finally ends, the Pig Mask Army corrupting the nature is beaten, and the world is reborn as new. The last shot is the same logo, only totally wooden and with a Earth instead of the metal O.
- One of the very first things that happen in the game is a panicked Thomas breaking the doorknob at Flint's house. You finally retrieve it After The End. However, this one may not qualify; if you know where to look, you can learn the whereabouts of the doorknob all throughout the game.
- Earthbound/Mother 2 doesn't actually begin with Pokey knocking at the door, but it happens about 10 minutes in. The final scene is very similar.
In Thief, Garrett is discovered when he tries to pick a Keeper's pocket. In the end of Deadly Shadows, he is almost pick pocketed.
- This is heavily enhanced when Garrett and the pickpocket exchange the same lines as Garrett and the Keeper in the first game:
"That's not for you."
"Please sir, I'm hungry."
"It's not an easy thing to... see a Keeper. (smiles) Especially one who does not wish to be seen..."
A tradition in the Paper Mario series. The first game begins and ends with a party, The Thousand-Year Door begins and ends with Peach obtaining a treasure map, and Super Paper Mario begins and ends with a wedding.
Call of Duty 3 mirrors Starship Troopers with a briefing in the back of a truck from Sergeant McCullen. The game closes on Huxley making a similar speech in the back of an identical truck.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2's Character Roach's storyline begins and ends with the disposal of a lit cigar. Beginning with Captain John "Soap" Mc Tavish's cigar on Cliffhanger and ends with Shepherd's Fire-Lighting Cigar in The Estate.
Grim Fandango opens up with a shot with a miniature mariachi band standing next to an ashtray. The ending has a real mariachi band standing in front of a circular fountain.
The PS 1 Syphon Filter trilogy. The first mission of part 1 and the last mission of part 3 is in the subways of Washingotn DC.
Metal Gear Solid 4 stretches it a bit, but it still fits; after an opening-titles sequence in the Middle East, the story flashes back several days to what kicked off the events, taking place with Snake in the cemetery Big Boss and the Boss are buried at. He salutes Big Boss' grave, and then Otacon arrives to start the plot, arriving by helicopter to give him the appearance of coming out of nowhere. The final scene takes place in this same cemetery, where Big Boss, alive this whole time, appears out of nowhere and after some dialog, salutes the Boss' grave before he dies. Both of these scenes mirror the end of the previous game, where Big Boss stood in the same place and saluted the Boss' grave forty years previous. That scene itself could be considered the actual "opening" bookend depending on plot interpretation.
Fate Stay Night does this — even though Shirou is the protagonist, both the prologue to the entire game and the epilogue to the True Ending of Heaven's Feel (the last route in the game) are played from Rin's perspective.
- Similarly, Tsukihime has Shiki Tohno meeting Aoko Aozaki in the prologue and epilogue.
The finale of Deus Ex: Invisible War takes place on Liberty Island, where the first Deus Ex started.
The true final stage of Raiden IV uses a remake of Raiden II's first stage music.
In Mitsumete Knight, the game starts with the following sentence : "April 1st, 26, in Dolphan Era. An Asian was about to immigrate to the Dolphan Kingdom, as a mercenary.", and then you see the Asian (aka the player avatar) arriving at Dolphan Kingdom by boat ; the first person he meets then is a Customs' Official. At the end of the game, this same Customs' Official is the last person he meets (barring any girl he could have scored during the game), and he leaves Dolphan by boat. If you got the Bad Ending where the Asian got neither the Holy Knight Title nor a girl's confession of love, the following sentence will also appear : "March 16th, 29, in Dolphan Era. An Asian was about to leave the Kingdom, as a man.".
In the Wrath of the Lich King expansion to World of Warcraft, the opening cinematic features a voiceover of King Terenas Menethil speaking to the young Arthas, using Dramatic Irony to contrast with the latter's current status as the titular Big Bad. The final cinematic, upon the defeat of the Lich King in Icecrown Citadel, shows the ghost of Terenas comforting his dying son.
In intro cutscene of System Shock, the Hacker hacks into the Tri-Optimum's Citadel Station's databases to look for the info on Military-Grade Neural Interface. At the ending cutscene, after refusing the job at Tri-Optimum (good move, considering the backstory of the sequel), he is back at the same building, same room as in the intro, hacking into Tetracorp's databases to look for the info on powered armor. Old habits die hard indeed.
Chrono Trigger can end with Good Morning Crono...except everybody's a Reptite.
- In most of the other endings, it closes with the same Millennial Festival that Chrono attends at the start of the game.
Tales Of Symphonia Dawn Of The New World: the story begins and ends with Marta in Palmacosta near the same shop with Emil arriving soon afterwards fulfulling her wish.
Bioshock begins in the water outside a lighthouse, the endings from Bioshock 2 all show the same lighthouse.
It's not the same locale, but in Kirby 64 The Crystal Shards, Stage 1 of Pop Star is almost visually identical to Stage One of Ripple Star and shares the same stage music.
The title screen of Limbo shows a treehouse with a broken ladder and flies hovering over two small corpses. The end shows the protagonist reuniting with his sister near the ladder of a treehouse, then returns to the title screen for maximum impact.
Psychonauts as well, which begins and ends with Coach Oleander giving a speech in the campfire area (aided by Ford, the second time)...well, until that other ending
The first game in the Game And Watch line was called 'Ball' and featured a juggler. The final game, released 11 years later was titled 'Mario the Juggler', and featured the exact same gameplay.
Done in Infinite Space, although not in the beginning. During the first confrontation with Lugovalos near the end of Act 1, Bastian blasted the Vasta star using Krebs exalaser to take down the enemies and prevent their advance to LMC. Ten years later near the end of Act 2, during the final confrontation, Bastian's brother, Dietrich performed a Heroic Sacrifice by doing the exact same thing to prevent the enemies from chasing Yuri.

Web Animation

Red vs Blue has one of the three possible endings as an inverted book end—whereas Episode 1 features the Blues spying on the Reds, who are chatting atop the base, here we have the Reds spying on the Blues doing the same thing.
- This is also the canonical ending.
- Grif and Simmons also once again call shotgun on the new vehicle, this time in reverse.
The first scene of There She Is is Nabi being harrassed by Doki at a drink machine. The final scene is Nabi wiping racist graffiti off of it while sharing a drink with Nabi.

Web Comics

This happened in the first story of Honeydew Syndrome (the first five chapters).
In the second panel of the first strip of 1/0, "Let there be light!" In the second panel of the last strip, "Let there be darkness!"
David Willis loves this trope. Compare the first and second Roomies! strips with the final Roomies! strip, and (to a lesser extent) the first two Roomies! with this Joyce and Walky! which debuted two days after the Walkyverse's tenth anniversary.
Each volume of Ménage à 3 begins and ends with similar scenes. The first volume opens with Gary walking in on Matt and Dillon having sex on the couch and ends with Dillon walking in on Matt and Sandra having sex in about the same position. The second volume opens with Gary having an Erotic Dream about Zii in which she turns out to be a man and ends with Yuki having an Erotic Dream about a girl who turns out to be a female Gary.
Obligatory Penny Arcade example...
8-Bit Theater has Black Mage and Fighter end up lost while searching for a Macguffin in the beginning. In the epilogue, they're once again lost while searching for a quest.

Web Original

Sailor Nothing has the following at the start and end of the Web Novel. "My name is Shoutan Himei. I'm sixteen years old/seventeen years old, going on eighteen in two months, and I'm very tired."
Broken Saints begins and ends with a voice-over monologue by Shandala, starting with "I dream". Both start off much the same, but grow gradually different to reflect the change from the beginning and ending of the story.
The pilot of Cause Of Death begins and ends with a shot of the sunny street, which counters the horrible things that happened inside that house...
Awkward begins and ends with the same discussion between Alex and Lester. The context and roles have changed, but the location and dialogue are the same.
The first episode of Redvs Blue opens with Church and Tucker from Blue team watching Grif and Simmons from Red team talking about the question "Why are we here?" The end of Season Five (episode 100, and the first real break in the story) ends with Grif and Simmons watching Caboose and Church discussing the same question.

Western Animation

Kappa Mikey uses these, in the form of takes of scenes in Lily-Mu, usually with Mikey screwing something up horribly at the beginning and doing it right at the end.
In Cyberchase, a typical episode follows this format: in the beginning the protagonists are trying to find a solution to one of life's many problems, then Motherboard contacts and pulls them into cyberspace to help handle some Hacker-related problem using math, then they're sent back (with very litte time passing in the real world) and are able to easily solve the problem using the math lesson they happened to have just learned.
The Justice League Unlimited episode "Epilogue", which was originally meant as a bookend for the entire DCAU, ends with a scene of the new Batman's shadow cast over buildings as he flies past before taking off into the sky and startling a pair of cops, A reversal of how "On Leather Wings", the fiCrst episode of Batman The Animated Series began.
- When the show was Un Cancelled, the last image of the DCAU is Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman racing towards the screen, with a final zoom in on the Bat-symbol. It isn't a perfect Bookend, but this means that the DCAU began and ended with Batman.
The My Little Pony episode Bright Lights begins with Knight Shade giving a concert near Paradise Estate. The episode ends the same way, except Baby Half Note, Baby Lofty and Baby Heart Throb get to be Knight Shade's backup singers/dancers.
Avatar: The Last Airbender ends the second season as it starts off with the first season: Katara looking overhead and carrying a comatose Aang in her arms. The first scenario is positive, finding the boy in the glacier for the first time to be revived, whilst the latter is generally negative suggesting a total opposite that Aang is dying.
- The episode "Zuko Alone" begins with Zuko riding on his ostrich-horse, angsting and alone, and ends with (you guessed it) Zuko riding on his ostrich-horse, angsting and alone.
- Also, the Opening Narration at the beginning of every episode ends with a shot of Aang that pulls up into the sky to show the title; the very last image of the series mimics this with a shot of Aang and Katara kissing pulling up into the sky to show the words "The End".
  - Similarly, the beginning of the first season finale mimics the Opening Narration perfectly, except for the backdrop being arctic, strongly indicating that, yes, Aang is now ready to save the world.
- There is also a bookend if you look at the story chronologically: Roku, the previous Avatar, was best friends with the Fire Lord in a time of peace. After 100 years of war, Aang is best friends with the new Fire Lord, heralding a return of peace.
Shadow Raiders begins and ends with The Beast consuming a planet. Yes, its ending is a pretty dark variant of Stinger, why are you asking?
The Spectacular Spider-Man seems to be fond of this:
- In the first episode ("Tell me there's something better. Go ahead, try.")
- The final episode of season 2, Norman repeats the line he said in the first episode. "Don't apologize. I never do."
The Danny Phantom episode "Reality Trip" starts off with Jack attacking Danny from his home with an Ecto weapon. The ending does the same, except Jack doesn't miss (played for comical abuse, nothing serious). If anything, it represents everything going back to Status Quo after Danny alters the world with a Reset Button so that the big change of his secret identity reveal is just that—secret identity, including erasing his parents' memory of that knowledge for no apparent reason.
- "Bitter Reunions" has Danny meeting Vlad for the first time, triggering a longstanding arc between the two where Vlad madly pursues Danny as his son. This is ultimately concluded in "Kindred Spirits" when Vlad stages his final, desperate plan to obtain Danny. He fails miserably, resulting in a Villainous Breakdown. The Book End is that Danny calls Vlad a "crazed up fruit loop" in both episodes; the first to start the saga, the last to end it. After that, It Got Worse; they become bitter, bitter enemies.
Both seasons of Legion of Superheroes work like this. First, Superman returns to the Kents' kitchen and muses that just as promised by Bouncing Boy, he's back just in time for dinner: the same dinner they smelled cooking when they left for The Future.
- In the second, Brainiac 5's Ho Yay fantasy of heroically sacrificing himself to save Superman and dying melodramatically in his arms gets twisted around a bit. Superman calls Brainy his hero again, but it's Superman that's dying in his arms.
Moral Orel: Both the first episode aired and the finale are Christmas specials.
The very first shot in Transformers: Beast Machines is a flower growing through a crack. In the very last shot, the camera zooms in on the same flower.
- Another one occurs if Beast Wars and Beast Machines are taken as a single series. Cheetor gets the very first line of Beast Wars and the very last of Beast Machines, reflecting his Character Arc from rookie kid to wise leader.
In Turtles Forever, the final shot is of the cover of Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles # 1 (in live-action), bringing the era of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles under Mirage's ownership full circle.
Code Lyoko uses this trope in many episodes as part of the plot — since, in order to stop XANA, the heroes have to rewind time to before XANA tries to attack the world, often reliving the same things that at the start of the episode, although usually adding some twist with their foreknowledge.