Live-Action TV / Wham Episode

Let's just say it now: Every. Grand. Finale. EVER. With that out of the way, some more specific examples are listed below.

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2 Broke Girls: "And Not-So-Sweet Charity": After a season and a half of building up the money to rent a space for their cupcake store, Max and Caroline accept a buyout offer from the new owners and pay off their debts. That leaves them in the same position they were at the beginning of the series, but with even less money—though lucky for them, the shop was hit by a car shortly after, so while it does indicate there's no going back at this point, the timing also couldn't have been better either.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.:
- "End of the Beginning": S.H.I.E.L.D. finally catches up to the Clairvoyant, only for Ward to shoot him dead. Skye and Coulson realize that it was set up a little too neatly, and that the Clairvoyant isn't a psychic, but a high-level S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Fitz discovers May's mole-line, and during the confrontation over that, the Bus is remotely hijacked and begins heading to the Hub, where Victoria Hand prepares to kill everyone aboard. The Stinger features a scene from Captain America: The Winter Soldier, showing Nick Fury being attacked by the Winter Soldier.
- "Turn, Turn, Turn": The Wham Episode to end all wham episodes. In addition to integrating the big twists from Captain America: The Winter Soldier (namely, that S.H.I.E.L.D. has been infiltrated by HYDRA since it’s inception, events at the Triskelion have effectively destroyed S.H.I.E.L.D., and Nick Fury is apparently dead, all massive on their own) into the series, the episode has its own: May was reporting to Fury, and picked out the team to deal with Coulson should his resurrection have side effects. Victoria Hand is a loyal agent whose actions at the end of the previous episode are motivated by mistrust of Coulson. Garrett is the Clairvoyant and is working for HYDRA. But the biggest twist? Grant Ward, a main character on the show, set up to be The Hero, was a HYDRA mole the whole time, and kills everyone on board the plane escorting Garrett to the Fridge so that he can free him. This episode uproots the entire premise of the show, and nothing in the show was ever the same again.
- "What They Become": Triplett is killed. Whitehall is killed. Raina and Skye are Inhumans and undergo Terrigenesis, gaining as-yet-unknown powers. Skye's father is Calvin Zabo, AKA Mister Hyde, and Skye herself is Daisy Johnson, AKA Quake, and in the comics a member of the Avengers. And there's at least one more Diviner out there, maybe more, held by what one can only assume is another faction of Inhumans.
- "Scars": Everything seems to be going okay. The Avengers have just pulled off another victory, HYDRA is destroyed, Lincoln is fine, Skye and Cal get some decent closure, and Jiaying and Gordon catch on to Raina's tendency to manipulate people. Even the diplomatic meeting between the Inhumans and S.H.I.E.L.D. seems to be going alright. Then Jiaying reveals that in order to reproduce Terrigen crystals they'd had to grow them from Diviners, which leaves the crystal laced with the same metal - harmless to potential Inhumans, deadly to muggles. She uses it to kill Gonzalez, then shoots herself in the shoulder before limping into view of everyone and telling them that S.H.I.E.L.D. tried to kill her and that they've declared war. Oh, and also Bobbi wasn't on a plane with May to scout ahead, it was Kara out for revenge. She lands the Quinjet where Ward is and he ICEs Bobbi, the two kidnapping her for something unsavoury that Ward intends to end with Bobbi's death.
- "Maveth": Simmons lets out Andrew Garner, aka Lash, as a distraction and also to protect her. He goes right back to killing Inhumans, including the ones in the stasis pods. Meanwhile in the alien world, Fitz finds out all this time that Will, the man who helped Simmons back to Earth, has been possessed by "It." Coulson also finally kills Ward, crushing his heart with his artificial hand. Not only do Fitz and Coulson get off the planet...but so does Ward, the new host for "It."
- "The Team" is a massive game changer that sets the tone for the remainder of Season 3: "It" (or rather, Hive) infects Daisy with his spores, converting her to his side. She then proceeds to return to the Playground, using a Paranoia Gambit to dissolve the Secret Warriors, before stealing the remaining Terrigen crystals and the Kree artifact connected to Hive and fleeing the base, unleashing an attack that causes massive damage as she does.
- "The Real Deal": Fitz/Simmons FINALLY get married. They needed a ring. Deke, the guy who followed the SHIELD team back from the future, did the grunt work, finding a lovely ring at a pawn shop in the town near The Lighthouse. As Coulson performs the ceremony, Deke and Deathlok stand watching the service awkwardly. Deathlok asks Deke about the ring. Deke says he chose a ring that reminded him of the one his mom wore that she said was his grandmother's. Viewers everywhere gasp in collective shock as they realize that Deke is Fitz/Simmons' grandson!. Cue a buttload of YouTube Reaction Videos.
Every Season Finale of Al fondo hay sitio is like this, and it gets worse each season. For starters, Season 1 ends up with Isabella discovering that Miguel Ignacio is cheating on her with his secretary, while Claudia finds out the old secret between Francesca and Nelly and plans to use it in her revenge.
Alias:
- An incredibly startling example is the episode "Phase One", which aired after the Super Bowl in 2003. Sydney was suddenly able to bring SD-6 crashing down, take down The Alliance, and hook up with Vaughn, essentially changing the entire premise of the show. This falls under the category of Retooling as well as a Wham Episode. Francine gets Killed Off for Real by her Doppelgänger in the same episode. Especially notable as this wasn't a premiere or Cliffhanger finale. This happens in the middle of Season two with almost no warning.
- The end of "Almost Thirty Years", where The Man Behind the Man is revealed to be Sydney's mother, who is not only still alive, but the KGB agent Jack was accused of being.
- The end of "The Truth", when Sydney wakes up in an alley, with a new scar, and goes on to discover that she's missing 2 years of her life, everyone thinks she's dead, Vaughn has married, etc.
- And before all of these was the pilot, which is two hours of Wham in a one hour cannon. Sydney's fiance is killed after she tells him she's a spy for the CIA, she finds out she's not a spy for the CIA and she actually works for the bad guys, SD-6 is trying to kill her, and her estranged father is a total badass spy who's also a double agent for the real CIA.
Alice in Borderland: Episode 3, which completely shifts the status quo of the series with the infamous 7 of Hearts game, resulting in the deaths of 3/4 of the main cast to that point.
American Horror Story: Murder House blew a lot of minds with "Rubber Man", in which the person behind the mysterious titular character's mask was revealed as fan-favorite Tate Langdon.
Angel:
- "Reunion": Angel locks the entire Wolfram & Hart Special Projects Division in a room with a pissed off Darla and Drusilla, then returns home and fires Wesley, Cordelia, and Gunn.
- "Happy Anniversary": Downplayed, but Angel reveals to Lorne that he fired his team to keep them away from that kind of dark territory, as he thought it would do more damage to them than firing them and staying away from them, despite that they would've rather prevented Angel from doing anything as horrible (or more horrible) as what he did to Wolfram & Hart's lawyers, as they cared about him.
- "A Hole in the World". A primordial evil devours Fred whole; and the cute stuffed animal Higgenbotham introduced at the start as Fred's security blanket, when at the end she tearfully begs that she needs Higgenbotham, but Illyria has devoured so much of Fred's soul that Fred realizes that she no longer remembers who Higgenbotham is, and throws a third Chekhov's Gun onto the heap with Lorne, whose behavior the rest of the ep seems out of character: he violently decks someone when before he was a pacifist, and is almost hesitant about seeking his contacts for help.
- "Sleep Tight" takes the status quo that had been built up in Season 3 and straight up murders it. Wesley kidnaps Connor in a misguided attempt to keep him safe, only to get his throat slit and left to die as a reward. A four-sided confrontation goes down between Angel, Lilah, Sahjahn and Holtz over what happens to the boy, and Holtz winds up taking Connor with him through a portal into a hell dimension. Cue two months of reruns.
- "Lineage" reveals just how drastically Wesley's changed from his introduction in Buffy. He's gone from a stuttering, smitten, stickler for rules to a man whom his father points out is working for the enemy, and who ends up gunning down his father without hesitation when the man threatens Fred, to Wesley's own horror. When Fred offers up that Wesley must've known deep down that his father was a robot, Wesley corrects her, saying he was absolutely certain he was killing the real deal. In a lesser series this would've meant Fred realized the depths of his affection for her, but not on Angel. Wesley spends the final moments of the episode awkwardly trying to reconcile with his abusive father, who angrily and dismissively admonishes his son for calling him at such an early hour.
- "Forgiving" in Season 3. The ending scene when Angel visits Wesley in the hospital, where he's recovering from having his throat cut. Angel has what starts out as a normal, calm conversation, assuring Wes that it was Angel talking, not Angelus. cue Angel's face contorting with rage, not vamping out, but even scarier, and doing his level best to kill Wes in his hospital bed!!
- "Hi, dad."
- "Home". Angel and crew are offered the LA branch of Wolfram & Hart, with Angel as CEO. They take the deal.
The first episode of Apple Tree Yard manages to be this. It starts out as a fairly standard affair drama (albeit one that we know will end in Yvonne being put on trial), then takes a much darker turn in the final minutes of the episode when Yvonne is raped by her co-worker George, with her affair subsequently complicating things further.
The first season finale of Arrested Development reveals that George Sr. has been building houses for Saddam Hussein's army in Iraq. Also, Gob tries to take over the Bluth Company, Tobias and Lindsey have marital issues, George-Michael has a girlfriend, and George Sr. is on the run.
Archie Bunker's Place: The Season 2 opener "Archie, Alone," where Archie refuses to accept the fact that Edith had passed away. He eventually does, in a memorable scene where he goes into their bedroom to look for something but finds one of her slippers, triggering a torrent of tears and grieving.
Arrow 8x01: Earth-2 is wiped out by an antimatter wave, with only three confirmed survivors: Laurel Lance (Black Canary, formerly Black Siren), Linda Park (Dr. Light), and Shay Lamden (King Shark).
Ashes to Ashes (2008):
- 1x08's revelation that Gene was the one who took young!Alex's hand after the explosion that killed her parents.
- 2x08, where Alex is shot by Gene in 1982, wakes up in 2008 to her daughter, only to find Gene speaking to her through her television in "the real world".
- Season Three kicks off in a big way: Gene has gone on the run for shooting Alex; Ray has made DI and is in charge of Fenchurch East; Chris and Shaz have broken up; Alex gets back to 1983 and discovers a file on Sam Tyler hidden in Gene's cabinet; and DCI Jim Keats, who claims to want to help Alex and has been nothing but genial to everyone suddenly turns around and tells Gene he hates him and he's going to bring him down. Oh, and Gene did something terrible three years ago (coincidentally, around the time Sam "died" in this universe) that Keats will expose. Welcome to series 3, everybody!
- Both seasons 2 and 3 have a clear Wham Episode around Episode 6/7. In the second season it's Martin Summers spectacularly averting Never the Selves Shall Meet by arranging a meeting between himself, Alex Drake and his younger self. He then shoots his younger self in the face and leaves a hysterical Alex to hide the body. Season three has the death of Viv and Jim Keats crossing the Moral Event Horizon from 'creepy Designated Villain' to 'literally Satanic'.
In the Season One finale of Atlantis it is revealed that Jason's father is a Leper and his mother is Queen Pasiphae, but only to the audience. Jason still doesn't know
The A-Team has the season 4 finale, "The Sound of Thunder," in which General Fulbright (the Inspector Javert figure who'd been hunting them for half the season) comes to the main characters for help in freeing a group of prisoners of war being held in Vietnam, and is shot and killed at the end of the episode. This was shocking not only for featuring the death of a major character but for featuring any death at all. For four seasons, the series had run essentially as a live-action cartoon, the fact that everybody fired guns but nobody ever died being part of the fun.
Band of Brothers has a couple:
- The appropriately titled "The Breaking Point" has six prominent members leave Easy Company: Hoobler dies after the Luger he looted from a German goes off and severs the main artery in his leg, Guarnere and Toye lose their legs during an artillery strike, Buck has an emotional breakdown and is transferred out of the unit, and Muck and Penkala are killed by a direct hit from artillery, while in their foxhole no less. And that's before the unit attacks the fortified town of Foye, taking even more casualties.
- "Why We Fight" has Easy Company stumble upon and liberate the Landsberg concentration camp.
Bates Motel:
- The penultimate episode of season four has Norman Bates gassing the house in an attempt at murder-suicide with his mother Norma. Norman survives, but Norma doesn't. While it was a Foregone Conclusion that Norma would die given the source material, it was still shocking to see her go as she was still one of the show's two main protagonists.
- The following episode also qualifies as it not only confirms that Norma was Killed Off for Real, but it also shows Norman's delusions about "Mother" finally coming to completion.
- Every episode of Season 5 save the finale counts. If each episode doesn't have a HUGE ending, each episode still has something HUGE happen in it.
The new Battlestar Galactica does this kind of thing with awesomeness, and on a (very) regular basis:
- In "33", the first series episode, we start out in the middle of a situation, with five days of non-stop running, 50,000 humans left, and The Hero wipes out 1,500 of the survivors to "save the day". A week after the genocide. (Oh, and that guy's alive.) To bring this into perspective; 1,500 deaths out of a 50,000 total is 3% of all humans killed by the hero. This would be similar to killing about 200 million people on present-day earth.
- Honestly, the pilot mini-series, with a strongly POV'd view of a believable apocalypse wham'd a lot of fans of the original or Space Opera in general.
- In "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II", Commander Adama stages a military coup, Gaius Baltar finds out the "shape of things to come" (it's a child), Sharon learns that she's a Cylon, and then she shoots Commander Adama twice in the chest.
- In "Resurrection Ship, Part II", the Resurrection Ship is destroyed, robbing Cylons of their capacity to resurrect; Admiral Cain and Commander Adama nearly assassinate each other but hold off; Cain is killed anyway by Gina, the escaped Cylon on Pegasus; Roslin promotes Adama to Admiral in the wake of Cain's death and the Pegasus has truly joined the fleet.
- In "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II", Baltar becomes the new President; Cylon sleeper agent Gina blows up the Cloud Nine (among other ships); the narrative skips forward a year - everyone is living on New Caprica, Starbuck, Chief Tyrol and Lee Adama are married, and just about everyone is captured by the Cylons.
- In "Exodus, Part II" (beginning to notice a pattern with the part two's, anyone?), Colonel Tigh euthanizes his wife, the Pegasus is destroyed, everyone escapes New Caprica, Baltar goes to join the Cylons, and the crew complement of the Pegasus are merged with Galactica.
- In "Crossroads, Part II", Baltar is surprisingly acquitted, Roslin's cancer comes back, four characters are revealed as Cylons (including one who was all but ruled out before then), and Starbuck comes back from the dead (after being gone for three episodes) before telling Apollo that she's been to Earth.
- In "The Ties That Bind", the Cylons break off into two separate factions and start an Enemy Civil War, and Tory executes Cally by throwing her out the airlock.
- "Guess What's Coming to Dinner?" A big fat hybrid-induced jump, that's what.
- In "Revelations", they finally find Earth! Except it's been devastated by some nuclear apocalypse.
- In "Sometimes a Great Notion", Dualla goes on a lovely date with Apollo, kisses him goodnight, and, once she's alone in her quarters, promptly shoots herself in the head. The 13th tribe of humanity were in fact, Cylons. And the fifth is Ellen Tigh, who's dead. Maybe.
- In "The Oath", Gaeta of all people, having suffered the cumulative effects of one too many Wham Episodes and a case of Break the Cutie and Freakout, leads a godsdamned mutiny against Adama, leading to the Galactica going through an extended period of bloodletting as comrades turn on each other in large numbers.
Batwoman (2019): "Armed and Dangerous". Jacob disbands The Crows, once he learns how abusive and corrupt the whole organization has become, to his shame.
Being Human (UK), S3E8: Sure Mitchell's had his suicidal moments, but surely he's not all that serious when he asks George to stake him. Then while George is explaining why he won't they get interrupted by a new vampire character who looks to be a new antagonist. George brandishes a stake, but the other vampire isn't concerned. So George turns and stakes Mitchell to save him from being forced to kill to protect his friends..
Better Call Saul:
- Season 1:
  - "Pimento": When Jimmy is yet again turned down by HHM when delivering the Sandpiper case, he then eventually learns the truth: it turns out that Chuck has been secretly undermining Jimmy the whole time—as in gave Howard orders before not to hire him when he first got his degree and then used Jimmy's phone the night before the meeting about Sandpiper to call Howard and once again reiterate not to bring Jimmy into HHM. Chuck's disgusted by Jimmy's attempt to be a lawyer and thinks that he's nothing but a scumbag. Before Jimmy finds out, Howard tells Kim the truth in confidence and to spare Jimmy's feelings, she tells him to take the deal to relinquish the case for a price.
  - "Marco": Jimmy's good friend Marco dies—and it's revealed that's how he got his pinky ring, but then is offered a job working at Davis & Main on Sandpiper in lieu of the job he thought he was going to get at HHM thanks to Kim putting in a good word for him. However, Jimmy has second thoughts about the job and realizing morality and following the rules always holds him back, he vows that those things won't get in the way again, indicating his very first step to taking on his identity as Saul.
- Season 2:
  - "Nailed:" Chuck's integrity is thrown into question by Jimmy's forgery of his Mesa Verde documents. He ends up having an EMS attack in a copy center when trying to find evidence of it—and falling and suffering a horrible head injury as a result. Mike pulls off a heist on one of Hector's trucks and later learns that an innocent bystander was killed by Hector for stumbling upon the driver.
  - "Klick": Mike is warned to not go through with his attempt to take out Hector by someone powerful who's been keeping eyes on him (every episode of Season 2's first letter rearranged spells out "FRING'S BACK") and Chuck fakes his retirement—in the wake of his injury, trauma and humiliation in the previous episode—in order to guilt Jimmy into confessing to sabotaging Mesa Verde's files—which Chuck secretly recorded.
- Season 3:
  - "Witness": Mike's pursuit of whoever warned him leads to Los Pollos Hermanos where Jimmy randomly encounters Gus and upon learning about Chuck recording him, Jimmy angrily forces his way into the house while berating him and destroying the tape—somethign Chuck didn't quite expect—only to realize that both Howard and the PI are there to see it and will now back-up Chuck on the crime just committed right in front of them.
  - "Chicanery": While cross-examining Chuck, Jimmy exposes and proves that his condition and negative reaction to electricity is not a physical one, but a mental one by having Huell Babineaux plant a fully charged phone battery on him and not telling him about it for nearly two hours. Chuck loses it and blurts out his resentment and mistrust toward Jimmy in front of everyone as a result of the prosecutor saying he has Schizophrenia and then realizes he's now wrecked his own credibility in the process—and begins to realize his condition actually isn't what he thought it was.
  - "Fall": Daaaaamn. Nacho's plan to kill Hector fails and is forced to tell his father to give in to Hector's demands, leading his father to disown him. Thanks to Jimmy tipping off Chuck's malpractice insurer about his mental illness, the insurer seeks to double HHM's premiums. Chuck turns against Howard when he demands that Chuck go into retirement, and takes HHM to court in a breach of contract lawsuit the firm can't afford. Jimmy engages in a cruel scheme where he turns his elderly clients against one of their friends so that the woman will agree to an early Sandpiper settlement and earn him a hefty payday. And Kim, who has taken on an ungodly workload to keep her firm with Jimmy afloat, falls asleep at the wheel and has a car accident.
  - "Lantern": Nacho's plan to give Hector a heart attack works, only for Gus to notice. Along with him and Kim being forced to shut the doors on WM due to loss of funds, Jimmy purposely leaves on his mic in a plan to confess to driving Irene away from her friends, destroying his good standing as an elder attorney and opening him more to his future as Saul. Finally, trying to permanently sever ties with Jimmy and suffering a horrible mental breakdown because of it—Chuck kills himself after being dismissed from HHM—Howard paying him out of pocket to protect the firm and condemning him for his pettiness—burning his house down.
- Season 4:
  - "Smoke": In the aftermath of Chuck's death, Howard confesses his own feelings of responsibility and how he thinks ousting Chuck from HHM led to his fatal breakdown. Rather than take responsibility for his part—getting Chuck's insurance canceled by letting word of his illness slip—Jimmy instead chooses to deny it and lean into Howard's guilt.
  - "Breathe:" It doesn't take long for Gus to figure out Nacho's role, and once he has the proof, he kills Arturo in front of Nacho and uses this knowledge to blackmail Nacho into working for him.
  - "Widersehen": Werner flees from the facility when his request to take time off to meet with his wife is denied, Lalo looks into Gus's business more closely while Nacho continues to be dragged along for the ride and Jimmy is denied the chance to have his suspended license back due to not talking about his relationship with Chuck at all—to which Jimmy spews Blatant Lies over how he doesn't think about or miss Chuck at all, before projecting onto Kim that she thinks of him as a lowlife like Chuck did.
  - "Winner:" Jimmy makes a compassionate speech about Chuck to the bar association, convincing them to reinstate his law license. Immediately afterwards, he admits to Kim that he didn't mean a word of it and intends to no longer practice under his own name, signifying his final transformation into Saul Goodman. Also, Mike is forced to kill Werner when Lalo is on Werner's tail and everything is at risk.
- Season 5:
  - "Bagman": Jimmy is nearly killed in the desert by gunmen sent to prevent him from delivering Lalo's bail, is saved by Mike who then guides him through the desert, the Esteem is ultimately severely damaged and abandoned to a ditch by Jimmy and Mike and Kim goes to see Lalo and her involvement increases—with Mike telling Jimmy that "she's in the game now."
  - "Something Unforgivable": Jimmy and Kim start hatching a plan to destroy Howard's career, Mike and Gus make arrangements to have Lalo killed with Nacho assisting in the gunmen being able to enter through the gate. This however results in Lalo killing everyone sent for him, discovering Nacho—who's now running for his life—betrayed him and setting out on the war path against all his family's enemies.
- Season 6
  - First Half:
  - "Rock and Hard Place": Nacho dies, and does so on his own terms—meaning with Mike's help, he allows himself to be captured by the Salamancas while insisting a rival gang that has nothing to do with Gus was who he was working with—and who was actually responsible for the hit on Lalo, says he doesn't regret it while confessing to causing Hector's stroke and then getting a gun to shoot himself in the head to avoid a far more painful and unpleasant fate instead.
  - "Hit and Run": Upon discovering she and Jimmy are being followed, Kim meets Mike for the very first time who tells her he was having them watched because Lalo is alive and wanted to make sure he knew if Lalo came to them at any point—and that Mike is telling her because he thinks she can handle the truth better than Jimmy. Kim ultimately decides not to tell Jimmy as well.
  - "Axe and Grind": Upon the discovery that the judge they're making it look like Jimmy is bribing is currently in a cast—meaning they can't use the photos in which the look-alike is not wearing a cast—Jimmy suggests to Kim that they should call it off for now rather than try to fix it with only so much time. Kim after a moment of reflection, demands to go forward no matter what.
  - "Plan and Execution": Lalo discovers that the line is bugged when he attempts to call Hector and make him aware of his next plan, so he lies about striking Gus at his house next while surveying the super lab site from a storm drain on the outside. Mike arranges to make sure Gus is heavily guarded and protected when Lalo shows up, meaning guys are all stationed directly there and nowhere else as a result. Saul and Kim's plot to end the Sandpiper case by discrediting Howard goes as planned despite the last-minute complication. Howard later appears at their home to chew them out for their actions, but Lalo arrives shortly after and kills Howard so he can interrogate the couple.
  - Excluding the Grand Finale "Saul Gone", the rest of the sixth and final season—the Final Six—counts:
  - "Point and Shoot": Lalo sends Kim to kill Gus—but it's really a distraction, Jimmy is tied up and forced to remain at the condo with Howard's body and the trauma of Lalo saying he will come back and question him again stays with him for years and Gus is captured by Lalo and taken to be executed at the super lab as Lalo films it, but then Gus is able to step on the switch to turn off the lights and shoot Lalo dead with the concealed gun he earlier hid there. Mike then oversees as Howard and Lalo's bodies are buried underneath the bedrock of the super lab.
  - "Fun and Games": Gus decides to continue with his desire to ruin the Salamancas further rather than move on and have a peaceful and content future while Mike tells Manuel what happened to Nacho and receives Manuel's ire for thinking that picking sides when it comes to gang on gang violence matters in any way. Kim eventually cracks under the pressure of living the lie about what happened to Howard, has her law license withdrawn, packs her bags and prepares to leave Jimmy believing the two of them together constantly ruins the lives of everyone they encounter as well as admitting she knew Lalo was alive but chose to say nothing so that they could move forward with the scam on Howard which she now severely regrets. She also say that she thought things would end between them because he'd want them to hide and forget about the plan. Cue a Time Skip going forward many years later to when Jimmy is now in full swing in his role as Saul and is about to meet Brandon "Badger" Mayhew in a matter of days.
  - "Nippy": In present day, Gene manipulates Jeff and his friend into a massive robbery of merchandise from the mall only for the purpose of extorting them and guaranteeing their silence about him being Saul—all while now getting the taste for schemes and cons again as a result.
  - "Breaking Bad": Saul is advised in a flashback by Mike against working with Walter White because he's way too new and ignorant to the business—which Saul clearly ends up ignoring when he goes to see Walt at his high school anyway and in present day, Gene ropes Jeff and his friend into a scheme that involves drugging rich guys and taking their money and/or other info in their house—only for Gene to get Jeff to help finish an aborted scam against a cancer patient in which Gene actively has to force his way into the house by means of breaking a window and unlocking the door.
  - "Waterworks": Jimmy speaks to Kim for the first time in years, Kim confesses to the conspiracy against Howard Hamlin and the true circumstances of his death, Kim meets Jesse Pinkman in a flashback, Gene's plans get Jeff arrested when he tries to flee from the police and crashes his car and Gene's true identity is uncovered by Marion, who calls the police on him after he all but threatens her—forcing him to now flee for his life.
The Big Leap, season 1 episode 6, "I Should Have Gone to Motown". Brittney finds the letter Reggie left for Gabby and realizes she's why he dumped her, so she airs the secret about Gabby getting pregnant from her teacher on live television. This causes the entire cast and crew to turn on her, but also gets the letter in Simon's hands, who passes it off to Gabby and leads to her and Reggie getting together.
The finale of Blackadder Goes Forth. The entire Blackadder series is a fairly light, humourous take on various historical periods, with Goes Forth taking place during WWI. The episode begins with orders coming that the crew are going to make a push across No Man's Land, and the tone of the episode gets progressively darker and gloomier as the characters begin to accept and realize the gravity of what awaits them. The final scene ends with a "good luck" from Blackadder as they climb out of the trench and it is strongly implied that they don't make it very far.
- Their fate is confirmed by the script, whose stage directions conclude with the words "They won't get far." The final moments of the episode itself cements this as it shows the scene of conflict dissolve to reveal the same warzone, many years later, as a poppy field.
- Actually three out of four seasons of Blackadder end with the death of the complete regular cast. But what makes the final scene of Goes Forth so heartbreaking to watch is its rather chilling realism that was absent before, playing the deaths for laughs rather.
Black Mirror:
- "The National Anthem", the pilot episode of the anthology series, is the series' wham episode, and quite possibly the most wham episode in television. British Prime Minister Michael Callow is awaken early morning to an emergency meeting with his staff and shown a video of beloved Princess Susannah pleading for her life. Unable to contain the video as it had been posted to YouTube and seen by 50,000 people before being taken down, he asks for the kidnapper's demands, which his staff is reluctant to tell Callow. Does her captor want money? Someone released from prison? No. The fiend's demands are far, far worse. He demands Callow to have sex with a pig on live TV.
Blue Mountain State is a comedy series built firmly upon the Rule of Funny. The acts committed by the team shown in the show would get a real NCAA team in serious trouble with the NCAA but hey, it's a comedy, so that kind of talk is brushed aside. Then comes the end of season 3. It turns out that the NCAA has been investigating BMS and the Goats are in serious trouble.
Boardwalk Empire has had a number of shocking events, but none measure up to the last five minutes of episode 10 of Season 2, "Georgia Peaches". While Jimmy drives off to sell booze in Princeton, Manny Horvitz decides to kill Jimmy in retaliation for the failed hit Jimmy put out on him. He walks into Jimmy's house and finds Angela and her lover, then shoots them both in cold blood (despite Angela's terrified pleading that she has a child).
- Hell, the last three episodes of Season 2 are all about this. "Under God's Power She Flourishes" features the revelation that Jimmy and Gillian pretty much did it when he was in college, and ends on Jimmy murdering the Commodore. Then comes "To the Lost," where the whole scheme collapses and Nucky ends killing Jimmy. "I am not seeking forgiveness."
Bones:
- In the first season finale, "The Woman in Limbo," Brennan determines that a set of bones in limbo belong to her mother. Her characterization had previously revolved around her parents' disappearance when she was a teenager. Over the course of this episode, she goes from being the daughter of two long-missing science teachers to the daughter of two career criminals who were on the run. This revelation and her father being around sporadically from this point forward changed her characterization substantially.
- The season three finale, "The Pain in the Heart," which concludes the season-long Gormogon arc with the revelation that Zack is the apprentice.
- The episode "The Critic in the Cabernet" is full of them. Brennan wants a baby - Huh? She wants Booth to be the sperm donor - Wha?! But wait, is that Stewie? And what's that you say? - BOOTH HAS A BRAIN TUMOR?!
- The season five finale, "The Beginning in the End," in which Brennan and Booth both leave the Jeffersonian to fill a higher calling outside the country.
- The penultimate episode of season six, "The Hole in the Heart" could also qualify. Vincent Nigel-Murray is gunned down by Broadsky, and Brennan and Booth sleep together. Though the true ramifications of the latter don't surface until the following episode.
- The season six finale, "The Change in the Game." Brennan is pregnant with Booth's baby. The status quo with never be the same.
- The premiere of season 10, “The Conspiracy in the Corpse” becomes one in the end as Sweets dies without much warning.
- The season 12 episode where Max dies counts as well. The family will never be the same.
Boy Meets World: "We'll Have a Good Time Then..." ends with the death of Shawn's father Chet.
Caprica: "End of Line" certainly lives up to its title.
Carnivàle, episode "New Canaan". Series finale. Four words: "This is your house."
- Also, the season 1 finale. The "Holy Shit!" Quotient is through the roof.
- "Day of the Dead", for "I did it for you." The resident Bitch in Sheep's Clothing evolves into a Magnificent Bitch.
- "Babylon" and "Pick A Number"; Dora Mae is brutally murdered, at the end of the first, then at the end of the second, it's revealed what's in store for her.
Castle has several of these.
- The most notable is the season three finale "Knockout". Let's review: Beckett and Castle have a UST-fueled fight about their relationship which ends with Beckett kicking him out of the Precinct for good, Mongomery was the third cop involved in Beckett's mom's murder, Montgomery performs a heroic sacrifice to take down Lockwood, Beckett is shot in the heart at Mongomery's funeral, and Castle confesses his love to Beckett before she loses consciousness. A major character dead and UST in shreds—essentially, three seasons worth of canon down the drain. Oh, and Alexis wants to move out.
- All of the episodes that deal with Beckett's mother's murder probably qualify as this, but "Knockout" is, by far, the biggest... at least until "Always". After a season of trying to get her to steer away from her mother's murder, a vic who broke into Montgomery's house for his files jumps her right back into it again. Esposito's right behind her, but Ryan and Castle aren't so gung-ho: Castle walks away from Beckett after yet another UST-fueled fight about their relationship, and Beckett decides to go on a rogue mission to get the killer...without telling Gates, and without Ryan backing her up. This confrontation has her hanging of a building, only thinking of Castle, until Ryan and Gates ride to her rescue. Gates makes Beckett and Espo turn in their badges...and Becket resigns on the spot. Esposito is no longer on speaking terms with Ryan. And Castle? Just deleted his file on Beckett's mother's murder...when she knocks on his door, apologizes profusely, and starts kissing him. But it ain't over, now that the people who planned Beckett's mother's murder has found Mr. Smith, the guy who's got the information that's preventing them from just taking her out...which was the reason for the break-in of Montgomery's place in the first place.
- "After The Storm" finally reveals the mastermind behind Johanna Beckett's murder, Senator William H. Bracken.
- "Veritas" brings Bracken to justice.
Charmed:
- "All Hell Breaks Lose": The episode where Prue dies
- "Charmed Again": there is a fourth sister.
- "Charmed and Dangerous" where the Source of All Evil is vanquished with the new source becoming Phoebe's fiancé.
- "We're Off to See the Wizard": Phoebe is pregnant and joins Cole (now the Source of all Evil) as his queen.
- "Oh My Goddess": Where Leo becomes an Elder and leaves his family behind.
- "Forever Charmed": The grand finale.
Cold Case's 4th season finale "Stalker", at the end of which Lilly is shot.
- Makes the pair with "Into The Blue", in which we find out at the end that Lilly has dreamed the whole episode after her car has been thrown into the river; she is rescued in the final minutes of the episode. Not only that, we also hear her father's letter to her, in which he tries to explain to her why he left her, her mother and her sister.
- The seventh season finale (which ended up being the series finale after the show was cancelled) has Lilly find out that her sister, Christina, has a baby. Due to the aforementioned cancellation, the audience never gets any details; for that matter, it's never explicitly confirmed that the baby is Christina's, though the implication is clear.
Colony actually starts with one and just goes from there:
- "Pilot" has Will receiving an offer to help the CTA, but only if the CTA helps him find info on what happened to his missing son Charlie.
- "Blind Spot" not only has the CTA capture "Geronimo" (though Will suspects it's not actually him), but in its final scenes Will's boss Phyllis reveals she knows Katie is a spy and tries to flip her, only to be assassinated by the resistance.
- "Zero Hour" has Will revealing that he knew his wife was part of the resistance, but far more importantly, we get our first glimpse of one of the "Hosts". After it's been killed.
- The Season One Finale, "Gateway", reveals that Snyder is finished as Proxy, and the Bowmans have possibly been under covert surveillance for quite some time. As well, Bram and his teacher are caught and arrested for trying to sneak out of the bloc through the underground tunnel, and we get our first glimpse as to what Will's son Charlie has been up to in the Santa Monica bloc.
- In "Free Radicals", the Red Hand manages to blow up a critical shipment and destroy a Host ship. Meanwhile, we learn that the Hosts plan to empty the LA Colony within two years.
- In "Good Intentions", it is rather abruptly revealed that the Hosts have decided Warden Snyder's labor camp is more trouble than it's worth and with about a minute's warning, proceed to smash it flat, with Snyder barely being evacuated in time.
- In "Taman Shud", the Bowmans are busted by the eager-beaver Bob Burke, and Will and Katie have to move fast to secure their children and escape into the Resistance with Broussard.
- The Season 2 finale "Ronin" sees the majority of LA (including Maddie) rounded up to be taken to the Factory, while Snyder helps the Bowmans escape, only for it to be revealed that he's acting to lead the Authority to the Resistance.
Community: Season 3's episode "Basic Lupine Urology" ends with the (supposed) death of Star-Burns. Season 5's "Basic Intergluteal Numismatics" reveals that the character actually didn't die, but ends with the reveal that Pierce died, which leads to the gang immediately calling off their search for the Ass Crack Bandit (who put a quarter up Troy's ass) in order to properly mourn.
The Company You Keep: The end of "Against All Odds" has Charlie taken by unknown men to a van.
Criminal Minds likes to pile on the tension and do this with the ends of episodes, then devote the next episode to fixing whatever they've done:
- "The Fisher King Pt. 1" has Elle arriving home to find the UnSub waiting for her, and two gunshots ringing out. In "The Fisher King Pt. 2", we have Elle fighting for her life and Reid staying in the house with Garner despite the pipe bomb.
- "Aftermath," the season 2 episode in which Elle murders a suspect in cold blood is an early and rather more traditional example, in that nothing is fixed, afterward. She just leaves the team the next episode and says that her leaving "is not an admission of guilt".
- The two-parter "The Big Game"/"Revelations" in season two. Reid got kidnapped by a UnSub with Split Personalities and was injected multiple times with Dilaudid which results in his addiction battle that lasted for many seasons after. He's been clean since season three but references to it are spread throughout the rest of the series.
- The season 2 finale, "No Way Out (2): The Evilution of Frank." A serial killer goes after people the team has saved and Gideon hits his Despair Event Horizon.
- At the end of "Lucky", Garcia's date says "I've been thinking about doing this all night", and shoots her point-blank in the chest.
- One of the SUV's exploding at the end of "Lo-Fi", which continues in "Mayhem" with Joyner close to death, Hotch screaming for help that won't come, Morgan chasing the UnSub down into the subway and almost getting electrocuted, and Morgan driving the ambulance with the bomb in it and only jumping out a split-second before the bomb goes off.
- "...And Back" has a Trauma Conga Line for the team with the Turner murders, and they arrive back in Virginia exhausted. Hotch goes home, fixes himself a drink, and turns around to find Foyet in his apartment, who proceeds to shoot at him.
- "100" is one of the biggest Wham Episodes in the entire series. Seeing Hotch cry is the most heartbreaking thing in the world. The resolution to the Reaper arc, and a hell of a Despair Event Horizon. Hotch listened to Haley get murdered by the Reaper over the phone and then Hotch killed him with his bare hands. It was the right thing to do, considering that the Reaper was also planning to kill Hotch's young son Jack as well.
- While nothing can top the trauma of "100," "Our Darkest Hour" packs a hell of a punch. L.A. is instituting rolling blackouts to prevent city-wide power failure during a heat wave. A serial killer (played by Tim FREAKIN' Curry is using the blackout schedule to hunt his targets in total darkness. The public gets hysterical and forces the police to cancel the blackouts. Later, the team realizes that the lead detective (Spicer) on the case has a connection to Curry; Curry killed his parents. And he has Spicer's family. And then the entire city goes black. Morgan and Spicer go to Spicer's childhood home, but don't have time to wait for backup. Curry gets the drop on them, restraining Morgan and holding Spicer at gunpoint. Then Curry kills Spicer in front of his sister and daughter. He leaves Morgan and the sister tied up while he drags the girl out of the room, crowing about how much fun he's about to have. NO ONE on the team knows where Morgan is, and there's no way to contact him. Cut to black.
CSI:
- The eighth season finale. Savvy audiences will compare it with the previous season finale, and its outcome, but then they remember that Gary Dourdan left the show and they're hit with the realization of his character's fate.
- Also season six’s finale revealing that Grissom and Sara are an Official Couple.
- “One to Go,” Grissom’s departure episode.
CSI: Miami: The episode in season 3 that ended with the death of Tim Speedle.
CSI: NY:
- The season 2 episodes "Grand Murder at Central Station" and "Heroes," with Aiden getting fired/quitting and later being found Stuffed in the Fridge.
- Season 5's finale has Angell’s death.
Dallas may have set the standard for this trope with their 3rd-season closer "A House Divided." For the love of God, the entire TV-watching nation went into paroxysms over "Who Shot J.R.?" As the Internet did not exist then, TV Guide and other current-event magazines were flooded with mail, all expressing the letter-writers' pet theory. It was the main story on some newscasts. The speculation lasted for eight months, and did not let up even a little bit, until the 4th-season episode "Who Done It" (which was not the season premiere but the season's fourth episode). The shooter was revealed at last, and this episode was very whammy in itself; 76% of all TV viewers in the nation were tuned in. Wham!
Damages does this almost constantly, especially in Season 3.
Degrassi:
- The franchise's first Wham Episode came in Season 1 of Degrassi Junior High when Spike turned out to be pregnant at 14, a real shocker in a (then) public-television kids' show in 1987.
- In Degrassi High, another WHAM Episode happened when Claude killed himself. At school. And Snake found the body. Less Wham-y but still big were also Erica getting an abortion, Dwayne having HIV, and in DJH, Shane jumping of the bridge resulting in permanent brain damage. The last act of School's Out was pretty WHAM-y as well.
- Degrassi: The Next Generation is reputed for its drama, but nothing compared to Rick shooting Jimmy in season 4. The fallout from that lasted for years.
  - And then, three seasons later, JT gets stabbed, resulting in the first major character ever getting killed off on that show.
  - Season 10's half Season Finale, "All Falls Down," was hyped to be on the same level as "Time Stands Still" and "Rock This Town" as mentioned above.
  - "Dead and Gone," Season 11's half-season finale, wasn't nearly as hyped but managed to be almost as WHAM-ish as "Time Stands Still," even though Nobody died or was paralyzed or anything.
  - In season 12's "Bitter Sweet Symphony," Campbell Saunders commits suicide.
Designated Survivor:
- "The Blueprint" shows that MacLeish not only knew Catalan from the Army, but committed war crimes in Afghanistan.
- "The Oath." The previous President's Chief of Staff is still very much alive and in hiding from the Conspiracy, Aaron may be involved, along with MacLeish's wife, and the episode ends with an attempt on Kirkman's life that results in at least one character seriously wounded.
Season 3 of Desperate Housewives has "Bang." Bree snidely informs Laurie Metcalf that her husband had an affair, instigating her to take a supermarket hostage with Lynette, Edie, and Susan's daughter inside. This intense episode managed to tie all the housewives plotlines together as well as kill off an extremely annoying character in a surprisingly poignant way.
Dexter. Season 4 finale, "The Getaway," and the Season 6 finale. Both "wham" moments happen in the last few moments of the episode. The second one has almost no foreshadowing.
- "Hungry Man." Season 4, episode 9 might just be the biggest Wham that's not a finale. Dexter and a couple other members of Miami Metro go to Thanksgiving at Arthur's, and we see how awful and abusive Arthur really is towards Rebecca and Jonah. Lesson learned: always be thankful for your family.
- The Season 7 premiere, "Are You...?", carries a mini-Wham following up on the last finale. So Deb caught Dexter finishing off last season's serial killer, but seems to buy his story that it was a psychotic break. It looks like it might take her the season to put two and two together... but nope! By the end of the episode, she's learned all about his hobby, and she's not happy.
Dinosaurs was a family comedy with dinosaurs. Combining this trope with Sudden Downer Ending, the final episode involved the father causing an ice age that will kill all dinosaur life.
Dollhouse:
- "Man on the Street," which was meant to be the big turning point of the first season is a quadruple wham. One of the handlers is a seriously bad egg. The Dollhouse is keeping much better tabs on Ballard than we'd realized. Echo got a secret imprint. And the Dollhouse is a much bigger deal than we'd previously assumed.
- "Briar Rose": Alpha returns, and Echo is his lover.
- In the next episode "Omega," there's a Doll on a permanent engagement who we've long thought of as another member of the cast. And that Doll has a history with Alpha.
- And the ultimate Wham Episode, "Epitaph One". You know how Ballard says The World Is Not Ready for Dollhouse technology? He had no freaking idea.
- "The Public Eye" and "The Left Hand."
- After "Belonging," It's starting to look like S2 is a wham season rather than just an episode. Not to mention that we know Epitaph One is coming...
- "The Attic" - The whole episode seemed like Dollhouse's answer to "Restless," but then came the end, which truly shocked the show's tiny audience. Adelle is actually a hero and has a plan to take down Rossum!!! Holy s***!
- So, you know how Echo needs Caroline's memories in order to identify the head of Rossum corporation? Well, at the end of "Getting Closer" she finally gets those memories. Oh my god holy crap what is this I don't even
- The finale, "Epitaph Two," makes a complete 180 from the ending of the penultimate episode. After seeing Echo take down Rossum, destroy their facility, and kill off its chief executive, we learn that her removal of Rossum's infrastructure caused their tech to leak into the black market, where China got hold of it and created a mass-remote-imprint-bomb that turned the entire world into "Epitaph One". It then proceeds to un-WHAM itself right back when Topher fixes everything for good.
Downton Abbey:
- The season 2 premiere revealed Sybil and Branson had been in a secret relationship for the past 2 years.
- The 2012 Christmas special, "A Journey to the Highlands": With the arrival of a baby boy with the woman he loves and the future of his family secured, Matthew is blissful at this point in his life. But then, after leaving the maternity hospital, Matthew dies when he crashes his car. Gut, meet punch.
Dracula (2013): "Come To Die" sees the various tensions built up over the first season come to a head: Lord Davenport tries to get Revenge by Proxy on Grayson for his son's death by having Mina attacked. Grayson retaliates by manipulating Harker into killing Davenport; stricken by guilt and the knowledge of how much Grayson has been using him, Harker sleeps with Lucy. Meanwhile, Lady Jayne breaks off her affair with Grayson to focus on hunting down Dracula, who the Order of the Dragon now knows for a fact is in London. And as the cherry on top, Van Helsing finally takes steps to avenge his family's murder by kidnapping Lord Browning's children.
- "Four Roses" builds on the events of the previous episode, and sets things up for the finale: Dracula declares open war on the Order, even as Harker joins their ranks and they prepare to sabotage Grayson's resonator to fail catastrophically. Van Helsing prepares his own endgame against Browning, while his alliance with Dracula teeters on collapse. Mina and Harker's relationship ends, due to her feelings for Grayson and his affair with Lucy; when Dracula learns of the latter, he turns Lucy into a vampire as punishment.
- And of course, the Season Finale, "Let There Be Light": The public demonstration of Grayson's technology is a catastrophe, killing a lot of people. Dracula knows that Harker betrayed him. Van Helsing turns Browning's children into vampires that feast on their own father. Renfield is stabbed by Van Helsing when the former learns that he destroyed the machine allowing Grayson to walk in the light. Lucy is turned into a vampire and bites her mother. Jayne confronts Dracula but dies in the process. Van Helsing, having found his revenge, now sets his sights on Dracula and has recruited Harker for the cause. And lastly, Dracula and Mina finally have sex.
Due South:
- "Juliet Is Bleeding". Someone in the Mafia orders a bomb planted in Ray's 1972 Buick Riviera. Poor Louis.
- "Burning Down the House". Ray Vecchio has disappeared, a complete stranger is claiming to be him, and Fraser's apartment is burned by an arsonist.

E-H

Soap Operas generally try and do this every episode or, at the least, every few episodes, with varying success, so listing them all would be pointless. One of the most famous soap opera cliffhangers, however, was the 1986 Christmas episode of EastEnders where 30.1 million viewers (of a population of 56 million) saw Den serving Angie divorce papers in the closing minutes. Only one broadcast has since got a higher number of viewers: Princess Di's funeral.
Elementary has one of these in the episode before the season 1 finale, and the finale itself, with the reveal that Irene Adler is actually alive, not killed by Moriarty as Sherlock had thought. In fact, in the first half of the season finale, it's revealed that she actually is Moriarty.
In season 6 of ER, the episode 'Be Still my Heart' ends with Carter getting stabbed by a schizophrenic patient and bleeding out in curtain 3 while everyone else has a Valentine's Day Party, and from his position on the floor, sees a blood-covered Lucy also lying hidden on the floor on the other side of the bed, staring back at him. This ending managed to be truly shocking in spite of being hyped by the promos. They don't get discovered until the end of the next episode's teaser.
Eureka:
- "Twice In A Lifetime": Every single weirdness has happened because the future has been altered by Henry to avert his girlfriend Kim's death because of the mysterious Artifact. And in the following episode, Henry discovers that the accident that killed Kim and had three men die of Spontaneous Combustion, with series regular Nathan Stark being saved in the nick of time, was caused by Beverly's removal of a minuscule component. Also, the discovery that Allison's son Kevin was down there too.
- Then they do it again with "I Do Over". Due to a lab accident, the day that Allison and Stark are supposed to get married keeps getting repeated over and over, and Carter is the only one who remembers. He convinces the scientist who caused the mistake that it's repeating, and the scientist dies trying to fix it but failing. Finally, he convinces Stark and Fargo that it's happening, and Stark figures out how to fix it, and that someone needs to be inside the chamber to fix it. He volunteers. The problem is fixed, and Carter goes up to the chamber...as Stark fades away into nothingness.
  - And again in the first episode of Season 4. It fundamentally altered the dynamics of the characters and the entire town itself and has no sign of being fixed anytime soon.
  - And again in the first two episodes of Season 5, first with the apparent change in the main characters' relationships thanks to four years having passed only to be revealed as everyone from the Astraeus crew as having been put in a scientific Lotus-Eater Machine, then with The Reveal of Senator Wen as the true villain behind Dr. Barlowe—complete with an in-universe Moral Event Horizon that leads Beverly to Heel–Face Turn.
The Event: at the end of "For the Good of the Country", Raymond after confirming the death of the Vice-President looks in a mirror and briefly morphs into a younger version of himself.
The Expanse has had a few:
- The series starts off with a bang in "Dulcinea" with the destruction of the Canterbury.
- "CQB" has some amazing ship-to-ship and squad-to-squad combat and the out-of-nowhere death of Shed Garvey.
- "Salvage" features the true Reveal of the protomolecule.
- "Critical Mass" answers the Driving Questions about the Canterbury and Julie Mao plots.
- "Leviathan Wakes" reveals the monstrous things The Conspiracy is truly capable of.
- "Doors and Corners" features another cool Space Battle and reveals more about the protomolecule.
- "Godspeed" and "Home" are based on the climax of the first novel, and as such are packed with Wham Shots, Wham Lines, and reveals. Made even more shocking since you'd expect them to be the end of a season, but are actually just under halfway through.
- "Immolation". Mei and the other children are rescued, The Conspiracy is finally brought down for good, and the protomolecule births an Eldritch Abomination on Venus which flies off to parts unknown.
- "Abbadon's Gate". All ships are convinced/forced to shut down their reactor core. That reassures the station they are not hostile, releasing the ships and reopening all 1300 remaining ring gates into habitable systems. Holden is certain this is the start of a new bloody gold rush.
- "Guagamela". Three asteroids hit Earth, killing Gao and trapping Amos in the underground prison where Clarissa is being held. Fred Johnson is assassinated by Sakai^note, who steals his protomolecule sample. The Martian parliament is bombed. Marco makes a public broadcast announcing the formation of the Free Navy and threatening to use the protomolecule against Earth or Mars if they dispute the Belt's right to control the outer planets and the worlds beyond the Ring.
- "Babylon's Ashes". Marco Inaros gets eaten by aliens.
Farscape, the season one episode "Nerve". Up until this point the series had been a relatively standard space opera, albeit with lots of creativity and a couple of great episodes along the way, but with "Nerve" the plot suddenly kicks in a big way and things will never be the same again.
- In the middle of the second season, the episode "Beware of Dog" confirmed that John wasn't just under stress - he really was starting to lose his mind.
- The season 2 finale, "Die Me Dichotomy". Possessed nearly completely by Scorpy-Neural-Clone Harvey, John sends Aeryn's Prowler crashing into a frozen lake. After her cryo-funeral, John submits to the neural-chip-removal surgery that has a good chance of killing him. The chip is removed, but the resulting neural damage reduces the ultra-verbal Crichton to speaking gibberish. THEN, Scorpius invades the medical facility, kills the surgeon, and leaves John screaming aphasically on the table. (Until the next series.)
  - Scorpius: "John Crichton, I condemn you....to live!"
- And then there's the Season 4 mid-season finale, where John winds up in space in with nothing but a space suit between him and vacuum, separated from Moya by a wormhole she hadn't gone through, and what's more, the planet he's floating above is Earth. Things are indeed changing from this point forward.
- You want a wham episode, "Won't be fooled again" would qualify. Complete with Gaslighting, Mind Rape, Driven to Madness, and plunging the entire show into Darker and Edgier with the speed of a freight train, changing the whole dynamic between our John and Scorpius, introducing our lovely Scarrans, and setting the stage for many a Journey to the Center of the Mind to come.
- Every finale ever. Every time the show turns up the "Holy Shit!" Quotient, you get either a wham episode or a wham-episode-arc. How much "wham" in the episode is usually proportional to the size of whatever explosion John has set off. And you get extra wham points if a main character dies. Example: Talyn and Crais.
- The "Unrealized Reality" arc. It pretty much pulled the ground out from beneath the universe. The moral of our story? DO NOT get the space-time coordinates of a wormhole exit wrong. Bad things happen...
- "Eat Me" seems like a standard one-off episode at first, with Crichton, D'Argo, Chiana and Jool on an abandoned Leviathan full of zombie-like creatures. The Mad Scientist Monster Lord responsible has the power to "twin" - creating "equal and original" sets of a person. D'Argo and Chiana's "twins" die, but in the end, there are two very much alive Crichtons. Also, those on Moya find a badly damaged Talyn and an unconscious Crais - suggesting something very unpleasant attacked them and is still on the hunt. This all kicks off storylines that echo throughout the rest of the season.
In Firefly's relatively short run, it only managed to get in a couple of Wham Episodes.
- "Heart of Gold," where at the end Inara announces she's leaving the ship because she's getting too attached to Mal.
  - If the series had continued, we would've learned that she's actually leaving because she has a terminal disease.
- There was also "War Stories," where we get one hell of a whammy regarding River, who was previously just a broken, insane girl with some Psychic Powers. Then she gets the gun from Kaylee, and we get our first extremely blunt and direct look at what the Academy was really doing to her.
While The Flash (2014) has been showing us small reveals in almost every episode's stinger, the true Wham happens in 1x15, "Out of Time", where Cisco realizes that Dr. Harrison Wells is the Reverse-Flash, who finally introduces himself as Eobard Thawne, shows his mirror image trick... and brutally murders Cisco. However, Barry then ends up rewriting that day by accidentally going back in time to yesterday.
- Two episodes later, we find out that the real Dr. Wells was killed by Eobard Thawne not long after he killed Barry's mother. He took Wells' face and identity and sped up the construction of the particle accelerator by over a decade, all in an attempt to permanently restore his powers and return to his own time.
- Season Two's first Wham Episode is "Enter Zoom", wherein Barry has his first encounter with the titular Big Bad. It ends up like an adaptation of Knightfall, with Zoom brutally beating Barry and ultimately breaking his spine.
- Episode 2x15, "King Shark", has the horrific stinger reveal that Zoom is Jay Garrick!!
- Episode 2x18, "Versus Zoom" has more Wham: The biggest is Zoom's return to Earth-1, but in that time we learn Zoom's backstory, find out that Zoom isn't Jay but Serial Killer Hunter Zolomon, discover how Zoom and "Jay" were able to exist at the same time in 2x13 and 2x14, hear Iris confide in Caitlin that she thinks she's meant to be with Barry, see Cisco use his powers to reopen a breach to Earth-2, watch as Zoom kidnaps Wally, and witness Barry forfeit his speed to Zoom in exchange for Wally's life. Then Zoom decides to steal Caitlin away in the final few seconds of the episode, with Barry now powerless to stop him!
- "The Race of his Life," the Season Two finale: Picking up where "Invincible" left off, we see Zoom impaling Henry who dies in Barry's arms, Zoom revealing his plan to eradicate the entire Multiverse and leave only Earth-1, Barry using a Time Remnant to summon the Time Wraiths to carry Hunter off, turning him into the infamous Black Flash in the process, the Man in the Iron Mask from Zoom's lair being revealed as the real Jay Garrick and Henry's Earth-3 self, Barry and Iris cementing their feelings for one another, and finally, Barry going into the past yet again and this time saving his mother, setting up the infamous "Flashpoint" story arc for Season Three.
FlashForward (2009), which had been pretty slow-moving plot-wise for a long time, had a huge wham episode in the form of "The Gift", in which Al Gough kills himself in order to save a woman he knows from his flash forward will die in an accident he causes (obviously, he's alive in his flash forward), proving that you can, indeed, fight fate.
- Revelation Zero
Flashpoint has a few, usually having to do with something happening to a team member.
- "Between Heartbeats": Jules is shot and seriously wounded, so much so that her survival is not assured. By the end of the episode, she's expected to survive, but it takes her half a season to work her way back onto the team.
- "One Wrong Move": Lew dies.
- "Fault Lines"/"Personal Effects": Ed gets shot, and the entire team is put on probation. Also, Sam and Jules are back together.
- "Priority of Life": Jules, Sam, and Parker's jobs are all on the line when a superior finds out about Sam and Jules' Secret Relationship.
  - Coming on the heels of this, "Slow Burn" becomes a rare positive example when the team learns that they're being let off the hook.
- "Broken Peace": Ed has to shoot a teenage girl who was trying to protect her mother. Although it's the right call, it has severe reprocussions: Raf leaves the team because he can't accept that kind of morality, and Ed suffers a severe trauma reaction that troubles him throughout the season.
- The series finale: One-time team member Donna Sabine is killed, Parker is injured and forced to retire, Ed takes over as Sergeant, and Sam takes Donna's place as the leader of Team Three. On a happier note, Sam and Jules are married with a baby.
Forever:
- "Skinny Dipper" has Henry see absolute confirmation of Adam's immortality and finally knowingly encounter him face-to-face.
- "The Night in Question" reveals why Abigail left: She'd found a lovely cottage upstate, and intended to have Henry move in with her there, but then she encountered Adam; she ultimately ended up committing suicide in the hopes of protecting Henry from him.
The Frasier episode "Back Talk", which is set up as a fairly standard episode featuring Hilarity Ensuing from Poor Communication Kills...until the very last scene, where Daphne casually asks Frasier to clarify a single throwaway statement of Martin's from much earlier in the episode, and he answers with the painkiller-induced Wham Line: "Oh, he meant Niles. He's crazy about you."
Friends:
- Season 1 finale - Rachel finds out about Ross' love for her but he comes back from China with a new girlfriend.
- Season 2 finale - Monica and Richard break up. Chandler's chat mate is Janice.
- Season 3's Wham comes mid-season with Ross and Rachel's breakup.
- Season 4 finale - Ross screws up his wedding and Chandler and Monica hook up.
- Season 5 finale - Surprise Vegas weddings.
- Season 7 finale - Rachel is pregnant.
- Additionally, the late season 6 episode "TOW Paul's the Man" has Monica making a fake wedding engagement with Chandler as a practical joke. After it's found out everything goes back to normal... until the last few minutes where it's revealed that Chandler, who's an infamous commitment-phobe, plans on keeping the date and proposing to her.
Fringe:
- "There's More Than One of Everything" (1x20). William Bell lives in an alternate universe where the Twin Towers never fell, Jones sees Bell as a father figure, and, oh yes, Peter died before he turned ten and the one we know was kidnapped by Walter from an alternate universe.
- Season 2: William Bell causes himself to explode so the energy will send Olivia back to our universe. But it's the wrong Olivia, and Walternate has the right one trapped in a cell on the other side.
- Season 3: Peter has served his purpose, so he doesn't even exist anymore.
- Season 4: "Letters of Transit" gives us a glimpse at Season 5's future in which the Observers have taken over and rule humanity.
On Glee:
- The storyline of Kurt being bullied by Karofsky reached a turning point in "Never Been Kissed," where Karofsky forcibly kisses Kurt. The next episode, Karofsky threatens to kill him if he tells anyone—Kurt doesn't, and ends up transferring schools as a result.
- There's also "Grilled Cheesus", where Burt has a heart attack and the audience is lead to believe he's going to die. It ends with Kurt holding his hand and sobbing, asking him to wake up. Burt then gives Kurt's hand a gentle squeeze.
- "On My Way", that starts with Dave Karofsky trying to kill himself after being outed, which leads to Sue Sylvester and Sebastian (the bad guy from the Warblers) both having Heel–Face Turn s and ends with Quinn getting hit by a truck.
- "The Break-Up" Finn and Rachel break up again after she reveals that she kissed Brody. Brittany and Santana break up over distance and Kurt and Blaine break up after Blaine reveals that he cheated on Kurt. Let's just say that there isn't very much glee on Glee.
- "Thanksgiving" ends with Marley collapsing onstage during Sectionals, resulting in the glee club losing Sectionals for the first time ever.
- "Shooting Star": A gunshot goes off at school, sending the entire school into lockdown in what is easily one of the most terrifying few scenes ever done on Glee. It ends up being Becky who accidentally shot off the gun and Sue takes the blame and she ends up fired.
- In a tragic case of Real Life Writes the Plot, Season 5's third episode, "The Quarterback", in which Finn's death is dealt with.
- The season six premiere "Loser Like Me": After a six month time jump, we find out that Rachel's TV show failed miserably, Kurt and Blaine called off their wedding and broke up, Blaine got cut from NYADA and is now coaching the Warblers, and the former Glee club members were all sent to other schools.
Girl Meets World:
- 2x12 "Girl Meets Yearbook": Farkle puts on a completely different persona throughout the episode as does Riley. In the end, Riley reverts back, but Farkle keeps the persona and only goes back to using his own name. Maya, while pretending to be Riley, realizes that Riley's feelings toward Lucas are not actually romantic, but that she subconsciously thinks of him as her brother.
Good Luck Charlie has a few:
- "Girl Bites Dog": Spencer is cheating on Teddy.
- "Can You Keep A Secret?": Spencer and Teddy get back together.
- The Movie, Good Luck Charlie, It's Christmas: Amy is pregnant.
- "All Fall Down": Spencer moves to Boston, PJ drops out of college to attend culinary school, and termites destroy the Duncan house.
The first season finale of The Good Place. Up to then, we thought we were watching a sitcom about a bad person who gets sent to Heaven by mistake. But while the others discuss who should go to the Bad Place, an offhand comment makes Eleanor realize they've all been in the Bad Place from the start.
The Good Wife: Season 5's "Hitting the Fan". As the episode title suggests, this is not an episode for the fainthearted. Alicia and Cary's plan to leave Lockhart/Gardner is exposed, half the cast gets fired, Lockhart/Gardner and the newly formed Florrick, Agos, and Associates go head-to-head in nasty battles over clients, Will's love for Alicia has turned to hate, and Diane's judgeship is endangered. Whew.
- And again in 5.15 "Dramatics, Your Honor" when Will is shot dead in court.
Grey's Anatomy:
- It pulled off two Wham Episode twists in the same episode. Halfway through the post-Super Bowl episode "It's the End of the World", a simple surgery becomes a bomb threat, and the end of the episode results in a character stabilizing the bomb panicking and fleeing, leaving the title character to keep it stable.
- And then in part 2 ("As We Know It"), the doctors have successfully defused the bomb and give it to the bomb squad leader, who takes it out only to have it explode in his hands.
- The season 5 finale: O'Malley joins the Army, and none of his friends like it, so they plan an intervention. Later, a guy comes in with a totally crushed face; he saved a girl from being hit by a bus only to be hit himself. He tries to convey something, but can't hold a pen to write. The gang gets ready for the intervention only to be told O'Malley left that morning instead of working a full final shift. And then the guy with the crushed face conveys something to Meredith that tells her... he's O'Malley.
- In the same finale, Izzie wakes up from her cancer surgery only to find that she has damage to her short term memory, meaning she can't remember anything that happened even a few minutes ago. After building up most of the rest of the episodes (Karev and Yang make Post-it notes to direct her to the answers to her questions), she finally gets that short term memory back...and then collapses in Karev's arms. The last scene is a dream sequence of Izzie getting in a hospital elevator to the ground floor...and finding O'Malley in an Army uniform waiting for her. (The surprise, though, was mitigated by the fact that we knew George's actor wasn't coming back for Season 6, but Izzie's was...at least, for that season.)
- The season 6 finale: A widower, distraught over Webber and Shepherd deciding his wife couldn't be saved and obeying a DNR she made three years earlier, returns and asks for directions to Shepherd's office. And then pulls out a gun and shoots Reed right between the eyes. And that's just the beginning of the carnage. Even the unborn aren't safe; Meredith miscarries, having just revealed said pregnancy to one person (and the audience).
- The season eight finale, the plane crash, Lexie's death, and Owen firing Teddy.
- The season nine premiere: Mark Sloan dies.
- The season eleven episode "How to Save a Life": Derek's car is t-boned by a truck. He's rushed to a hospital, only to be misdiagnosed and left brain-dead. By the time Meredith arrives, all she can do is have the doctor pull the plug.
The Hannah Montana episode "I'll Always Remember You", from the final season. After Hannah's career is jeopardized and Miley finds she's unable to attend college as herself or Hannah, Miley finally reveals her dual identity to the world. The remaining episodes of the series deal with the reaction and repercussions of The Reveal.
Harper's Island, episode 12, "Sigh": Trish, after having seemingly successfully escaped John Wakefield, sees Henry and runs out to him, thinking she's safe, only to find out that Henry is the second killer and be stabbed to death by him.
The frequent plot twists in Heroes regularly shed new light on existing character relationships and allegiances.
- But the revelation that in four years, Sylar will make a Heel–Face Turn has to top most of them. AND THEN HE EXPLODED!!
Highlander had two of them. Season 2 had 'The Darkness', which ended with Tessa's death and Richie's Immortality manifesting. Then there was season 5's ending: Duncan takes Richie's head in a psychotic,demon-induced haze.
Homicide: Life on the Street:
- "Crosetti": Much to the shock and grief of the entire unit, Crosetti commits suicide.
- "The City That Bleeds": Bolander, Howard, and Felton are all shot while serving an arrest warrant by an unknown assailant, leaving them fighting for their lives in the hospital. Barnfather stops being an Obstructive Bureaucrat for once and gives Giardello his full support on catching the shooter; Gee creates a task force composed of detectives from multiple different units to track down the shooter.
- "Work Related": Pembleton suffers a stroke during an interrogation, and his doctor admits he doesn't know when he'll recover.
- "Betrayal": Following an emotionally grueling case, Bayliss confesses to Pembleton that he was molested as a child by his uncle. When Pembleton tries to comfort him, Bayliss is outraged and ends their partnership.
- "Partners and Other Strangers" and "Strangers and Other Partners": Felton is found murdered after an undercover operation he was involved in went wrong, and the department sets up as a rotation program that causes Howard and Howard to be Put on a Bus and Falsone and Gharty to join the unit.
House has quite a few:
- The season one episode "Three Stories" has House holding a lecture on diagnostic medicine. About two-thirds into the episode, the ducklings (and the audience) figure out that one of the patients he's talking about is himself. The rest of the episode then tells us what happened with House's leg and essentially what screwed up his relationship with Stacy.
- Season four's "House's Head" focuses on House having been in a bus crash and being unable to remember anything from just before the crash happened, except that someone on the bus is sick and needs help. He realizes that he saw a symptom in the driver and goes through a variety of methods to try and trigger his memory and save the driver. It turns out that the driver wasn't the sick person at all — Wilson's girlfriend Amber was.
  - The subsequent episode, in which he struggles to figure out the diagnosis only to learn that it's too late to do anything for her.
- Season Five has a whole chain of Wham Episodes, starting with Kutner's sudden and unexplained suicide and then having House suffer increasingly upsetting hallucinations. In the second to last episode of the season, we get House and Cuddy finally sleeping together, only to find out in the season finale that most of that episode was a hallucination; House was alone the entire night, and he just started hallucinating that Cuddy was there instead of Amber. The "lipstick" he toys with throughout the episode is actually a bottle of Vicodin after he hallucinated beating his addiction. He then sees Amber and Kutner in a hallucination. The end of the episode has House check into a psychiatric ward, no longer able to tell what is real and what is not. Can I get an order of "OMGWTF" to go?
- The episode in season three where House was a jerk to the wrong patient (police detective Michael Tritter) had a VERY big uh-oh when the patient fought back in a way that put House on the defensive, and which very thoroughly impacted half of the season.
- The season three finale has House lose all three members of his staff, leading to a big cast-expansion in the following seasons.
- There's also "Finding Judas", the Trope Namer, in which House discovers the guy selling him out to Tritter is Wilson.
- The season six finale, "Help Me", also probably qualifies. House and Cuddy getting together changed the status quo for sure.
- And then it changed again when he drove his car through her living room...
- And now we have Season 7 Episode 17. After the end of a long story arc with House and Cuddy's relationship, we get what seems to be a "standard" House episode. Homeless guy who lies about his identity, but according to House, everyone lies anyway, right? Weird things in his digestive tract, but we've seen several patients who are dumb enough to eat bad things and this guy is homeless, right? The poor guy has guilt issues, but after a near-death experience thinks that God may be giving him a second chance... and for crying out loud, he is diagnosed with schizophrenia (not the reason he's sick, though), so let's all cut him some slack. So after several false diagnoses, they figure out what's wrong and fix him up and send him on his way. And then it turns out the patient is a serial killer who eats his victims' bodies. All the clues were right there, and he almost confesses the whole truth at one point, and everyone missed it. In particular: those bone fragments in his intestines? Probably human bones.
- The last few episodes of the series are a wham storyline: Wilson has cancer, a nightmarish round of chemo doesn't stop it from becoming terminal, his lifespan drops from 3 years to 5 months because he gives up on chemo, Chase resigns, one of House's pranks means he'll be in prison for the rest of Wilson's life. In the series finale, House fakes his own death to be with Wilson for his last 5 months alive, Chase takes over House's old job.
The season three episode "Sandcastles in the Sand" from How I Met Your Mother ends with the surprise hookup between Barney and Robin.
- "Natural History": One minute Robin and Barney are having fun touching things they're not supposed to in a museum. The next, Barney learns the truth about his father.
- The season six episode "Bad News" ends with Marshall's dad dying.
- The sixth season finale ends in a perfect uproar, with Lily telling Marshall she's pregnant, Robin realizing that she's still in love with Barney and the wedding flashforward of Ted serving as someone's best man that had been alluded to all season actually getting a chance to continue long enough to reveal that Barney's the groom...although the identity of his bride is a mystery.
  - Annnnd now we know that the bride is none other than Robin. Boom, plot twist!
- The season seven episode "Disaster Averted" ends very much like "Sandcastles in the Sand". Except that this time, both Barney and Robin are dating other people.
- The season seven episode "The Rebound Girl" ends with Robin telling Barney (with whom she's cheated on her current boyfriend) that she's pregnant.
  - This is followed up by the next episode, "Symphony of Illumination", where She's not pregnant! And it's because she's infertile. She also never becomes a mother, according to future Ted, so she won't adopt.
- The series finale. We find out that Barney and Robin got divorced three years after their wedding, Robin drifts apart from the gang, Lily and Marshall have a third child, Barney has a daughter with one of his conquests, Tracy (The Mother) died from an undisclosed illness six years before Ted started telling his kids the story, and the reason Ted has been telling his kids the story was to see if they were okay with him pursuing Robin.
How to Get Away with Murder:
- Season 3's first episode flashes forward several weeks to reveal that Annalise's house is going to burn down, and someone close to her dies in the flames.
- Season 3's Winter finale reveals the person under the sheet to be Wes, who we had been tricked into thinking was safe by a flash-forward set before the fire, rather than after. He is also revealed to have died before the fire began.

I-L

iCarly has had several, usually involving the Love Triangle relationships between the main trio characters.
- Starting in mid-Season 2 "iKiss", Sam reconciles and mends fences with Freddie after exposing his dirty secret, as it turns out that they don't truly hate each other's guts, then in "iThink they Kissed", Carly finds out about their first kiss in private and acts jealous.
- In "iSpeed Date" Sam's softer side is shown and Carly enjoys a Dance of Romance with Freddie.
- The episode "iSaved your Life" in Season 3 features Freddie and Carly embarking on a romantic adventure, where Carly becomes smitten with Freddie (who just risked his own life to rescue her and injured himself), only for Sam to break them up by warning Freddie that Carly only admires his actions because of hero worship, which causes him to amicably break up with Carly on good terms, but they agree to remain as friends. Following this major Creddie romance in Season 3 put to rest, this is where the Sam/Freddie story arc comes into play in the second half of Season 4.
- The Season 4 finale "iOMG", which was a shocking Cliffhanger with plot twists, flips the romantic agenda on its head by having Sam kissing Freddie, much to Carly's shock. When the show comes back they enter a 4-episode Story Arc, but break up in "iLove You".
- "iOpen A Restaurant" in Season 6 shows that Freddie still has feelings for Carly, even after everything he endured from Sam and tries to subtly rekindle their romance by asking her out in the hopes of getting back together, then the finale "iGoodbye" finally ends the speculation when Carly comes up to Freddie and initiates a Last-Minute Hookup.
The Indian Detective:
- The 2nd episode reveals that a matchbox found by Doug in Mumbai with the trident insignia was found in the interior of a van, indicating that Doug's right about a smuggling operation that was aborted at the last minute.
- The 3rd episode shows Aarav was assassinated for talking to Doug and his death is made to look like a suicide.
Inspector Lynley episode 3x04 "If Wishes Were Horses"; in short order Helen is shot, suffers a miscarriage in the hospital, leaves Lynley to stay with her sister, and Havers is shot by the murderer of the week. It all makes for a very dramatic cliffhanger leading into season four.
Jane the Virgin: "Chapter Twelve." In which...
- Milos, the man responsible for deforming Petra's mother, catches up with Petra and fakes Petra's murder to prove to his ex that her mother was pretending to be wheelchair-bound. (It works.) Plus, the acid he threw was meant for Peter's mother all the time.
- Jane gets to write an episode of The Passions Of Santos - in which Santos, played by her dad Rogelio, is Killed Off for Real.
- Oh, and Sin Rostro turns to be Rafael's stepmother/his sister Luisa's ex-lover Rose, who ends the episode by killing Rafael's dad.
- Chapter Fifty-Four manages to up this in the last few minutes, in which Michael is Killed Off for Real, then going into a three-year Time Skip where we see Jane and a 4-year-old Mateo preparing for someone's wedding.
Kingdom (2019):
- The season 1 finale reveals that the zombies rest not because of daylight, but because of the heat. This is realized just as winter is approaching in Korea... Oh, and the Queen is not actually pregnant, but has a whole room-full of surrogate mothers whom she's counting on to deliver at least one son.
- The season 2 finale shows that someone is deliberately spreading the resurrection plant throughout Korea and also that the young king is still infected with the parasitic worms.
The season 6 episode of Kitchen Nightmares, "Amy's Baking Company", is quickly becoming the most notorious episode of the entire show. It starts out innocently enough, but we quickly learn that Amy and her husband Samy may be the most psychotic owners Ramsay has ever had to work with. To wit:
- Amy spends practically the entire episode ranting and shrieking at pretty much anyone who questions her; Customers, her employees, even Ramsay himself. At one point, she brutally fires a waitress simply because she asked a question.
- Samy, meanwhile, is shown to outright steal tip money from his employees and keeps it for himself and, in a deleted scene, physically attacks a customer who complained that his pizza (a single pizza) was still not done after two hours.
- Near the end, it turns out that the couple had hired Ramsay not to help their restaurant, but under the impression that he would be their sniveling Yes-Man who would suck up to them and their restaurant in order to counter "internet bullies". In the end, Gordon outright abandons them because he considers them a lost cause, a first for the series.
The Knight Rider episode "Junkyard Dog" dumped its sentient AI vehicle Kitt into a pit of acid. We'd seen him destroyed and bashed up before, but never systematically disintegrated back to a bare chassis. He's notably shaken by this and so is the audience.
L.A. Law: The season 5 episode "Good to the Last Drop," wherein recurring character Rosalind Shays steps into an empty elevator shaft and falls to her death.
- Another wham comes earlier in Season 5, at the end of "God Rest Ye Little Gentlemen." One of the subplots of this Christmas Episode concerns Leland convincing the members of the firm to represent Rosalind (who, to put it mildly, has had a history of conflict with McKenzie-Brackman) against a savings-and-loan-fraud charge. At the end of the episode, it's revealed that Leland and Rosalind have become lovers.
- In fact, Season Five could have been called "Season Wham!" Michael is fired from McKenzie-Brackman and goes to war against the firm; Stuart and Ann separate (they eventually reunite); Corinne divorces Arnie, who suffers a psychological breakdown; Abby and C.J. share a kiss (considered scandalous in 1991); Leland passes the senior partnership over to Douglas; Victor and Grace start a relationship and Grace gets pregnant, not long after Victor's brother is killed by a drunk driver—and those are just a few examples of the whamminess of the season.
Law & Order generally avoided these... up until the Sixth Season finale, "Aftershock". With this episode, the show abandoned the usual "cops investigate, then we get a trial" formula to follow the main characters throughout their day after they all witness the execution of a murderer they put in prison. Curtiz cheated on his wife, McCoy reveals his history as an abused child, and Briscoe falls back into his alcoholism after nearly a decade sober. But the real wham doesn't come until the ending moments: Assistant DA Claire Kincaid is giving a drunken Lenny Briscoe a ride home when the car they are in is struck by a drunk driver. Briscoe isn't seriously hurt. Claire is killed instantly. Her death would haunt several of the main characters (especially Jack McCoy, who lost a lot of his "carefree liberal" attitudes in favor of a harder prosecutorial line) until the very end of the series.
- The Season 16 finale “Invaders” had the Detectives investigating home invasions and murders connected to counterfeit DEA badges. It seems an only semi out of the ordinary episode. That is until the two killers abduct ADA Alexandra Borgia bind her, gag her, beat her and leave her in a car-truck where she dies from choking on her own vomit. The rest of the episode is the characters going to extremes as a means of getting the two robbers. McCoy stages a faux trial to try to force the supplier of the fake badges to give up the two men. He sets the man up to get released and meet with the two men, not knowing the police is standing by to watch for them. The corrupt DEA agent gets a Karmic Death and the two killers are apprehended. McCoy’s ethics come under question, but the killers will still be prosecuted to the full extent of the law no less.
Law & Order: LA: "Zuma Canyon"
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
- "Loss".
  "No, no, no, no, no, stay with me, Alex, you're going to be just fine, you're going to be just fine, now, stay with me. Alex, stay with me, Alex, Alex, Alex, Alex? Alex? Alex?"
- "Cold" ends with ADA Novak being suspended and Detective Lake being arrested after committing a Vigilante Execution on a fellow detective who had raped two girls.
- "Undercover": Olivia goes undercover in a women's prison to find out who's been dealing drugs while raping an inmate and her daughter. She finds out just who the guy is when he tries to rape her, too, coming dangerously close before Fin saved her. Even then, the experience leaves its mark on her for a long time afterward.
- "Smoked": Stabler is forced to shoot the victim's daughter dead after she shoots the people responsible for her mother's rape and murder, accidentally kills an innocent bystander and hesitates in surrendering when her mother's killer taunts her. Though an extremely dramatic and harsh ending for the Season 12 finale by itself that likely would have still had an effect on Season 13, became even more Harsher in Hindsight with the announcement that Christopher Meloni was leaving the show.
- "Scorched Earth" became this because of the subplot and the episode's ending which connected to the ending of the previous example, though fans who knew about Meloni's standing with the show had a good idea for where it was going. Essentially, it's revealed in the subplot that Stabler was deeply traumatized from the shooting and being forced to do what he did that he sought counseling, a leave of absence and Cragen reveals to Benson that in the end, he decided to resign.
Law & Order: UK:
- The uber-grim episode "Deal" appears to be ending on a high note—the murderous drug dealer has been convicted and sent to prison, and DS Brooks' daughter has just given birth to a baby boy. But as DS Devlin and CP Philips are escorting their young witness to juvenile hall, a car pulls up, shots ring out, and Devlin is fatally injured pushing the other two to safety. Even knowing that actor Jamie Bamber was leaving the show didn't make this moment any less shocking for the viewers.
- Some would say the real "wham" came at the beginning of the next episode, "Survivor's Guilt", where it was confirmed that Devlin had died—recall that he was clearly still alive at the end of "Deal", even if badly hurt, thus giving viewers hope that he might survive.
Legends of Tomorrow: "Compromised". A breaking speech from Sara lets Damian Darhk in 1987 learn of his eventual defeat and death, so he decides to Screw Destiny and team up with the Reverse-Flash, setting up the Arrowverse version of the Legion of Doom.
Leverage season finales tend to be these.
- "The Maltese Job", the season 2 finale. Sophie returns, and Nate goes to jail.
- "The Big Bang Job", season 3 finale. Eliot worked for Damien Moreau. Also features the first on-screen killing by a Leverage team member; and he does a lot of it.
- "The Radio Job", one episode before the season 4 finale. The season-arc villain is Victor Dubenitch, and the warehouse with Jimmy Ford in it blows up.
- "The Long Goodbye Job," which is the season 5 finale and the series finale. Ellen Casey: "Mr. Ford, how did your friends die?" Of course, their deaths are faked as part of a very elaborate con. And, in fact, it's not entirely clear how much of the episode, such as Sam's pediatrician being a client, was real and how much was Nate's unreliable narration. And it doesn't stop there. At the end of the episode, just when it looks like Nate is about to go to prison for the rest of his life, the driver of the car is revealed to be Sophie. Finally, the team has gained access to "the Holy Grail of the ones who got away with it," and is celebrating. Nate announces that he intends to retire and immediately proposes to Sophie, who says yes and will retire with him. The bonus is that he uses her possible real name, Lara.
Life On Mars itself had one of these in the last episode. Somewhat justified because it is, y'know, the final episode. But it's significant in that it gets not one wham, but three.
- First we find out that Sam Tyler was actually an undercover name taken by a man named Sam Williams in 1973, who was undercover, trying to find corruption in Gene Hunt's division. Morgan tells us that Sam has been suffering from hallucinations like this all his life.
- Then, after a dramatic shootout where every member of the team is shown to be wounded, Sam wakes up. And finds out that his room in the hospitals is labeled Hyde 2612.
- Finally, with Sam back in 2007, Sam kills himself. There's a reason it was voted #1 TV show ending of all time.
- And then there's the US version, whose ending went completely the other way on the popularity scale.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power:
- Udûn:As Galadriel and the Númenorian army rush to the Southlands, Adar and his orcs lay siege to the remaining villagers of Tirharad, seeking to reclaim Sauron's sword. The Númenorian cavalry makes it in time and saves the remaining villagers from Adar. Galadriel interrogates Adar who informs her about Sauron's true plans, and how he killed the Dark Lord for his deeds. Galadriel brings some light about who are Adar's orcs: they are the Moriondor, they were Elves from Beleriand, kidnapped and twisted by Morgoth. Galadriel and Halbrand finally confess their feelings for each other, but the nature of their confession is left ambiguous. Turns out that Adar's true plan was to provoke Orodruin's eruption. He secretly sent Waldreg to activate the mechanism that triggers the destruction of the dams, leaving a huge torrent of water to deep into's Orodruin's magma chamber. The episode ends with the birth of Mount Doom and complete destruction of the Southlands.
- Alloyed: Galadriel travels with Halbrand to Eregion to heal him as he was badly injured in the pyroclastic flow. There, he recovers and quickly befriends Celebrimbor, who allows him to wonder around his workshop and even help him process the mithril. Galadriel becomes suspicious of this sudden friendship and starts to dig again into Halbrand's past. In Numenor, the old king dies. Meanwhile, the Harfoots fight the three worshipers of Sauron to save the Stranger from them. At first, they thought he was amnesiac Sauron, but it turns out the Stranger is one of the Istari. Galadriel learns that Halbrand is Sauron and confronts him. He traps her into an illusionary world where he asks her to rule together Middle-earth, but Galadriel refuses and Sauron flees after. The Stranger decides to head for the Lands of Rhun together with Nori, and is heavily hinted he is the future Gandalf. The episode ends with the forging of the Three Elven Rings and Sauron Walking Into Mordor.

M-P

MacGyver had a few:
- "Blood Brothers" from Season 4 includes a number of flashbacks to a defining episode of Mac's childhood, in which he accidentally killed one of his best friends with a gun that they'd stolen to play with. This episode gave a powerful rationale for the character's well-established refusal to kill or use guns, and also signaled the series' growing shift towards using real social issues as a backdrop for their stories rather than simply sending the hero on generic adventures.
- "The Challenge," later in the same season, kicks this trend into high gear and is probably the darkest episode of the entire series, featuring the lynching of a close friend by local racists who disapproved of the charity/club he ran for inner-city youth. We don't see the event itself, but the aftermath and Mac's reaction to it are more than enough.
- "Blind Faith" from Season 6 was also a game-changer for revealing that Pete Thornton suffered from glaucoma, which the character would continue to deal with for the rest of the series. This combined the series' attention to real-world issues with Real Life Writes the Plot, as actor Dana Elcar had in fact been recently diagnosed with that illness.
Magnum, P.I.: One of the first Whams was when Thomas asks Ivan, "Did you see the sunrise?"
The Mentalist:
- Episode eight from season two, "His Red Right Hand", might count: after a series of episodes dedicated to developing a relationship between Bosco's and Lisbon's team, with Jane eventually winning Bosco's trust enough so that Bosco agrees to keep him up to date on the Red John case, Bosco's secretary guns down Bosco's team. Bosco dies at the end of the episode, after a Dying Declaration of Love to Lisbon.
- The season three finale finally concludes the hunt for Red John's mole (started all the way back in episode 9, "Red Moon"), culminating with Patrick killing an impostor pretending to be Red John in the middle of a shopping mall, consequences be damned. And then, the season four premiere reveals that the man he killed was a Red John lackey, not Red John himself.
- Season four ends with the revelation that Patrick and Red John have shaken hands, providing a somewhat viable scope of suspects for Jane to work with.
- Season five ends with Jane narrowing his suspect list down to just seven names, and in return, Red John declaring that he's going to come out of "retirement" and start killing again.
- Mid-season six episode "Red John" is the biggest wham of all, in which Patrick finally confronts and kills the Big Bad himself.
Merlin:
- Episode 2x12, "The Fires of Idirsholas" - In order to break the spell on Camelot, Merlin has to kill Morgana (the 'source of the magic'). So he attempts to poison her. Morgause saves her but then teleports them both out of Camelot to an uncertain fate. Merlin then frees the Dragon, who, in the trailer, is seen wreaking fiery havoc on Camelot. Holy shi-
- In episode 3X13 Morgana takes over Camelot, outs her magical powers to the world, and is defeated by Merlin and Gaius. Meanwhile, Arthur and Guinevere share a kiss in the central courtyard of Camelot (thus exposing what was previously a Secret Relationship) and Uther becomes unable to function as king, being too traumatised by Morgana's betrayal.
- That's nothing compared to Episode 4x03. Uther dies and Arthur is crowned King of Camelot.
- Episode 4x09. Guinevere is enchanted into betraying Arthur and is banished from Camelot. We all knew that she was destined to do so, but after Lancelot's death, we thought that would be one legend ignored. Nope.
Monster Garage shows that even Reality TV isn't immune to a Wham Episode. Just look at the "Grim Ripper" episode: for the first time, the crew failed to complete the build.
Mystery Science Theater 3000:
- Episode 512. It seems like a typical episode, with a running storyline about Gypsy trying to get Joel off the satellite, with the help of a temp at Deep 13 played by head writer Michael J. Nelson, who had played many other guest roles before on the series. The Wham doesn't truly hit until after the movie. When Joel tries to do the letter reading, Gypsy activates the "expulsion", and Joel disappears in a flash of smoke. Then the Hexfield opens up. "Hey, guys, look at me! I'm on my way to Earth! Pretty crazy, huh!" Yes, he actually escaped. Frank's expression sums up the whole thing.
- It doesn't stop there. Once Dr. F and Frank desperately think of ways to continue the experiment, Mike comes on camera asking them to sign his time card. The Mads stop and laugh. Dr. Forrester says, "Of course I'll sign your time card, young man. In fact, I think you're going to be working for me for a long, long time."
NCIS:
- The final scene of season four and the season five premiere reveal that not only is Tony's girlfriend the daughter of arms merchant La Grenouille, but his entire relationship with her was part of an undercover operation to take La Grenouille down. This pays off a year's worth of careful and subtle foreshadowing and casts an entirely different light on many of the events of the season, as well as on Tony's characterization.
- The second season finale has Kate takes a bullet for Gibbs. Gibbs kills her shooter... Kate gets up, groaning from pain she still has despite a bullet-proof vest taking the hit. Tony comments on her heroism, Gibbs says that for once, Tony's right. Kate's response?
  "Wow, I thought I'd die before I ever got a—" (gets sniped in the head by Ari)
- And then there's the season six finale where Ziva decides to stay in Israel, only for us to then see her being brutally tortured, as well as finding out she was actually a mole at NCIS for her father and had been lying the whole time.
- Also the season 5 finale, "Judgment Day," in which Jenny Shepherd is killed. And that's just the end of part 1, part two adds the team being split up by the new director.
- The season 9 finale "Till Death Do Us Part": the fucking Navy Yard is blown up, with Gibbs, Abby, Tony, Ziva, and Tim caught in the blast, and Ducky has a heart attack at the news. Damn.
- "Past, Present and Future". Ziva, severely traumatized by both the death of her father and the subsequent attempt on her life, resigns from NCIS and returns to Israel in disgrace, going into hiding.
- "Family First" Tony finds out he and Ziva have a daughter, Ziva is presumed dead from an explosion, and Tony decides to leave NCIS to care for said daughter. Emotional roller coaster from start to finish.
- "Daughters'': Ziva's back!
NUMB3RS season 4 finale: in the last 5 minutes, not only does Megan Reeves get a Fond Farewell lasting exactly 38 seconds (!), but Charlie loses his security clearance due to an act of protest against anti-terror policies...and yet the show promises it's To Be Continued.
- The previous season finale, "The Janus List", was also a pretty major one, specifically the last five minutes of the episode. Except it actually turned out to be a subversion, since the Wham in the next episode is that the twist in "The Janus List" was a fake.
The Office (US) pulls off one of these almost every season, usually as part of the season finale.
- In the Season 2 finale: Jim gets promoted to a new job away from Scranton! And before he leaves he confesses his feelings to Pam! Later, he kisses her!
- In the Season 3 finale: Jan gets fired and shacks up with Michael! Jim ditches his girlfriend to ask out Pam! Ryan the temp gets promoted to Michael's Boss!
- In the Season 4 finale: Jan is pregnant! Andy proposed to Angela — and she accepted! Jim didn't propose to Pam! Angela and Dwight naked in a cubicle!
- In the Season 5 finale: Pam is pregnant! Not as shocking as other seasons, but still pretty exciting!
TheOrville had the 2-parter 'Identity' in the middle of the second season, where it's revealed that the Kaylon never intended to join the Union, and were just gathering data in preparation for a genocidal quest to wipe out all organic life in the galaxy, making them a bigger threat than the Krill.
Oz, being a prison drama, is chock full of them:
- "The Routine": The Anyone Can Die tone is set for the series when Dino Ortolani, set up as a main protagonist, is burned alive in solitary confinement.
- "A Game of Checkers": A dispute between two inmates over a game of checkers rapidly escalates into a Prison Riot that leaves Em City a ruin and several characters dead, compromised, and/or traumatized.
- "Escape from Oz": Beecher learns too late about Keller's conspiracy with Schillinger and gets his arms and legs broken for his troubles.
- "A Cock and Balls Story": Adebisi gives a smuggled gun to an emotionally traumatized inmate, who kills four people in Em City. The incident starts a chain reaction that leads to McManus being fired as manager of Em City, Querns taking his place and Adebisi practically running the cell block for the first half of the season.
- "A Town Without Pity": Hughes, a former CO manipulated into becoming a psychotic Malcolm Xerox by Adebisi, tries to assassinate Governor Devlin.
- "You Bet Your Life": Adebisi loses control of Em City and ends up being killed by Said in self-defense.
- "Famous Last Words": Oz is rocked by a gas explosion in the prison cafeteria.
- "Impotence": Augustus Hill, the Character Narrator and Greek Chorus of the whole show, is fatally shanked.
- "Sonata da Oz": Said, one of the main protagonists since the first episode, is suddenly shot to death by a new character.
- "Junkyard Dawgs": Ryan O'Reily's mentally-impaired younger brother Cyril is executed while Devlin arranges Glynn's murder.
- "Exeunt Omnes": Sweet merciful lord. Keller tries to prove his love for Beecher by staging Schillinger's death during a performance of Macbeth. When Beecher rejects him anyway, Keller kills himself and makes sure Beecher gets on the hook for capital murder because of it. Keller makes sure to have a toxic white powder sent to the Aryans in the mailroom before he dies, leading to Oz being evacuated and a somewhat Ambiguous Ending for the show.
Parks and Recreation has some:
- The second season finale; Pawnee's government literally just shuts down, the office is thrown into chaos, and Mark quits, never to be seen or even mentioned on the show again.
- "Harvest Festival"; The Harvest Festival comes up and almost everything that could possibly go wrong for the gang does. In the end, though, everything works out, signifying the beginning of a better future for the department.
- The season 4 finale and first two episodes of season 5; Nick Newport Sr. is Killed Off for Real, Chris flies over the Despair Event Horizon after he loses yet another girlfriend, and Leslie wins the city council election.
- "Recall Vote"; Leslie loses the recall election and gets kicked off the city council.
People of Earth:
- "Snake Man and Little Guy", the Season 1 finale: Ozzie uncovers suppressed memories of being abducted as a child, along with the other future StarCrossed members. The aliens' superiors arrive on Earth. The episode ends with Gerry finally being abducted.
- "The Truth Hurts": Agent Foster and the Reptilian hitman both crash Ozzie's secret meeting with Walsh, which results in Ozzie Taking the Bullet for Walsh and dying in front of Foster.
Person of Interest in the third season episode where Detective Carter finally manages to bring down HR, only to be shot and killed at the end of the episode.
- This is trumped by the third season finale though where Samaritan is brought online and most of the main cast has to go into hiding.
Police, Camera, Action! has had many, many occurrences of the Wham Episode in its 18 years of existence.
- The 1996 episode Driven to Distraction featuring new fonts in the graphics and an even more serious tone than before.
- The 1997 episode On Your Bike, first one to feature international footage and a Cold Open, which the rest of the series (excluding the Very Special Episode) would use - the cold open, that is. Improved montage of 1995 footage in the Title Sequence.
- The 1999 series, as it did not use a montage of 1995 series footage in the Title Sequence. Also, newer softer graphics were added.
- The 2002 series, after it was Un-Canceled.
- The 2007 series was a total Wham Episode, more like a Wham Series, given that it added a co-presenter (Adrian Simpson) and all footage was cropped and zoomed.
- From December 2008 onwards, Alastair Stewart and Adrian Simpson were replaced by Gethin Jones of Strictly Come Dancing fame, and every episode was a Very Special Episode. Much of the humor of the older episodes was lost.
Political Animals: In the season one finale "Resignation Day," Air Force One crashes and the President is presumed dead.
Power Rangers has several Wham Episodes in each season, ranging from revelations about a character to their command center being infiltrated, if not destroyed.
- At the end of Seasons 3 of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, the command center is utterly destroyed.
  - Semi subverted at the beginning of Power Rangers Zeo as it rebuilds itself into the Power Chamber.
- At the end of Power Rangers Turbo, the Power Chamber is destroyed, this time forever and Zordon is captured.
- In Power Rangers Lost Galaxy, they actually kill off one of the team members, Galaxy Pink: Kendrix! Though she returns in the finale.
  - Continuing from that, in the following episode, Karone, who was the Big Bad of the previous series (Astronema), becomes her replacement!
- In Power Rangers Operation Overdrive the revelation that Mack is, and always has been, an android created by Hartford.
- In Power Rangers RPM which is really dark on its own but Episode 11 titled "Doctor K" takes the cake and rest of the food. Viewers are forced to watch the drama of a little girl's personality being warped by the US Government, the origin of the (second) biggest genocide in the series, and showing a young girl having a breakdown because she blames herself for the destruction of the majority of life on Earth. And she is correct!!!
- The second-to-last episode of Power Rangers Beast Morphers by revealing that Big Bad Evox is actually the reincarnation of RPM's Big Bad, Venjix, accidentally created by Nate as a kid messing with the Cell Shift Morpher infected with Venjix. And now Evox is at full power and ready to perform genocide again.
In Powers the season 1 finale is this, with Retro Girl's murder.
Primeval has quite a few.
- The end of Season 1, where Nick gets back from the past and finds Claudia has been Retgoned.
- The finale of Season 2, with Stephen's redemption, Heroic Sacrifice, and Cutter's salvation.
- A rare mid-season example - 3.3, where Nick is murdered.
- Then there's 3.10, with Helen's plan to wipe out the human race, her death, and Connor, Abby & Danny being trapped in the past.
- The finale of Season 4, when Ethan's identity is revealed, Danny arrives back through the anomaly to the past, and Matt reveals his identity to Emily.
- The penultimate episode for Series 5. Anomalies open all over the world. Connor's attempts at stopping Philip fail, and he gets sucked into the future.
- And then, of course, the finale of the entire series. Specifically, the end.
The season four finale of Psych, especially the last two minutes.
- The season six midseason finale. After a case at Shawn and Juliet's couples' retreat vacation, Gus finds Shawn's lost Nintendo DS. Gus hears a rattle from inside the DS and opens the battery compartment to discover an engagement ring hidden inside; Shawn had been planning to ask Juliet to marry him.
- The season six cliffhanger: Henry figured out that two of his partners were on the take, and tells the third, who says, "$50,000 was a lot in those days." Henry mentions that he never said how much it was. Former partner shoots Henry and leaves him on the beach. Shawn meanwhile has pieced it all together independently, and is rushing to the same beach. ANNNNND now we're on summer hiatus.
- Season 7 finale: Chief Vick has been replaced, Lassiter is demoted, and the new chief will no longer work with Psych.

Q-T

Quantum Leap's third season finale, "Shock Theater", which has Sam given electro-shock therapy and causes his mind to become unhinged, leaving him to start taking on the personalities of past people he's leaped in to, and if he's in this state too long Al will lose him forever. Al manages to get the unhinged Sam to go through the same procedure again... right during a thunderstorm, which causes a freak accident that causes Sam and Al to completely switch places, leaving Sam back home and Al now leaping into someone.
The last episode of Season One of Queer as Folk (US) has Justin getting smashed in the head with a baseball bat, and the episode ends with Brian and Michael sitting outside his hospital room, Brian in tears, and nobody knowing what's going to happen to Justin. This packs even more punch when you think of all the things that Brian's been through in that season, and that is what makes him cry.
The Series VI finale of Red Dwarf, "Out of Time". The crew's evil future selves show up, one thing leads to another and the two Starbugs end up fighting. Most of the crew die in sequence. Rimmer runs through the ship to destroy the time machine, and it ends with Starbug being blown up. While given a Cliffhanger Copout next episode, it preludes the Darker and Edgier series 7.
- The Series X finale involves Rimmer finding out that the man he thought was his father wasn't, and his actual father was the family gardener. Rimmer then takes a level in badass and comes up with a plan to defeat the four simulant ships attacking them.
When Dan gets drunk and goes gunning for his father after his mother is institutionalized, Roseanne reveals a deep secret...his mom has a lifetime of mental illness & had been committed several times throughout his childhood, with dad providing a cover story to explain her absences. After years of hating his father for, in his POV, driving his mother insane, Dan realizes he's been wrong. With Roseanne offering her support, he collapses into tears and immediately seeks forgiveness from his father. A superb and moving episode.
Rescue Me's episode "Happy" saw a character death that forever altered the characters on this show, especially Tommy.
- "Brains": Tommy and Johnny find out the truth about their long lost half brother. Probably the show's first real Wham moment.
- "Twilight": Tommy's brother gets shot on a stakeout.
- "Commitment": After being taken off active duty, the Chief makes peace with his gay son, and ties up all his other affairs, then gets dressed up, and commits suicide.
- "Yaz": At the end, Tommy's father dies. What makes this unusually Wham-worthy is that, on a show full of people dying violently before their time, an old man dying peacefully at a baseball game is somehow that much more effective.
Revenge:
- "Chaos". The person killed in the series-opening flashforward was Tyler, not Daniel, who appears to be the one who killed him (though it's later revealed that's not entirely the case).
- The first season finale, "Reckoning". Emily calls off her engagement to Daniel only to find her chances with Jack ruined by Amanda revealing she's pregnant, the plane carrying Victoria (and all the evidence that could exonerate David Clarke) explodes, Charlotte overdoses, and Emily learns that her mother is still alive.
- Season 2 has "Sacrifice". By the end, Jack's been shot, the Amanda's been blown up, and Amanda is dead.
- Also from Season 2, "Engagement". Aiden kills Takeda when his mentor confronts him about interfering with Emily's mission, Charlotte reveals to Daniel that she's pregnant, and at the end, the entire city's power is cut, presumably by the Carrion program.
- And Season 2's finale, "Truth" delivers in spades. To recap: Takeda's fiancée is revealed to have been on Flight 197, Grayson Global is blown up by the Initiative, who Conrad has been working with for the entire season (and Conrad attempts to capitalise on the explosion by having Jack killed in it, but fails), Declan dies, Aiden and then Nolan are arrested for the attack, Conrad wins the election, Aiden and Daniel fight over Emily, and it's implied that Daniel may have shot Aiden, Jack goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge of his own and attempts to assassinate Conrad, Victoria's long-lost son Patrick arrives on her doorstep, and to cap it all off? The final line of the season? Emily reveals her true identity to Jack. And they had the sheer audacity to leave all this on a cliffhanger.
- The season three finale. At this point, Amanda and Nolan are set up to become the new Big Bad with how vicious they have become. After they kidnap Charlotte to force Conrad to confess he has a Villainous Breakdown where he threatens his daughter, who is secretly bugged. She finds out Jack was involved and has him arrested. Victoria kills Aiden and has him set up to torture Emily. She reacts by attacking her with a shovel and uses the shrink involved in the murder to have her committed. And Conrad is released from prison and promptly murdered. By David Clark.
Revolution: The first season finale "The Dark Tower". Nora Clayton dies, Sebastian Monroe is on the run from Tom Neville's coup, and the power is restored...at which point Randall Flynn launches nukes at Philadelphia and Atlanta, then shoots himself. And it's revealed he was working for the American Government in Exile hiding out in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Since Randall completed his mission, the American government intends to return and retake what's theirs.
Ringer's one season was ripe with this to the point where it's easier to enumerate the non-wham episodes.
Robin of Sherwood in the finale of the 2nd season, kills off Robin Hood — then has a 3rd season. In the same vein, the BBC's Robin Hood killed off Maid Marian in the second season finale. Proof that Wham Episodes are not always good things, as this development definitely wasn't received the way the writers had hoped.
Scandal: It can be safely agreed that the episode "Defiance" is this, due to President Fitzgerald actually being shot at the end. The episode "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" reveals at the end that the President's assassin is none other than Huck, one of the members of Olivia's team!
- Though nowadays it has easily been usurped with the episode "Run!" Which opens with a less than polished Liv running for her life, from what or to what yet to be acknowledged. The episode then flashes back to were it was left off in the Winter Finale. Liv's abduction, as Jake and Pope and Associates try to piece together what happened to Olivia. It then Flashes back again and shows how here abductors evaded Liv's people, and the devastating consequences others had paid for these people to get their asset. The rest of the episode focuses on Liv in captivity, in some hellish dungeon in the Middle East, and ends with Liv shooting her Jerkass jailor during her fateful escape, after being dared she doesn't have the guts, and the revelation that Olivia's Middle-Eastern Prison, is actually in the middle of an indoor staging area, somewhere in the USA, and that her reporter friend, whom she thought was murdered for her insubordination, is one of the masterminds behind the entire abduction.
Scrubs was a veritable master of the melancholy Mood Whiplash, but there are a few big moments that really kill in the show:
- Both major episodes featuring Ben Sullivan ("My Occurrence" and "My Screw-Up") are considered two of the biggest emotional gut-punches of the early seasons. "My Occurrence" features him getting diagnosed with leukemia, and "My Screw Up" features his death from said leukemia.
- The last three episodes of the third season feature J.D.'s gradual realization that he doesn't love Elliot anymore—right after she finally decides to leave her boyfriend Sean to be with him.
- The Season 5 episode "My Lunch" sees Dr. Cox making the worst mistake of his medical career, leading to the deaths of three patients—which affects him so badly that he's forced to take a leave of absence from Sacred Heart, leaving J.D. (and the audience) unsure whether he'll be back.
- The finale of Season 5 features a twofer. Shortly after Dr. Cox and Jordan discover that Jordan is unexpectedly pregnant with their second child, J.D.'s new girlfriend Kim reveals that she's pregnant with J.D.'s child. Turns out that J.D. accidently impregnated her on their second date.
- The Season 6 episode "My Road to Nowhere" ends with J.D. and Kim breaking up after she suffers a miscarriage—capped off by The Reveal that she lied about miscarrying, and she's still pregnant with J.D.'s baby. This is later followed up in "My Conventional Wisdom", where J.D. finds out that she lied, and she asks him to take her back so they can raise their baby together.
- Season 6's "My Turf War" ends with Keith proposing to Elliot, spurring J.D.'s realization in the next episode that he's still in love with Elliot.
- Season 7 opens with a one-two punch. The first episode "My Own Worst Enemy" ends with Elliot breaking off her engagement to Keith. Then the second episode ends with the birth of J.D. and Kim's baby.
- Season 7's "My Dumb Luck" ends with Dr. Kelso stepping down as Chief of Medicine at Sacred Heart.
The Secret Circle: "Witness", which ups the "Holy Shit!" Quotient with its revelations that the members of the old Circle were killed by witch hunters, not their unrestrained power, and the fire itself was started to kill Cassie's father, John Blackwell — but he turned it back on the hunters and escaped, and IS STILL ALIVE. Oh, and Adam's dad, Ethan, was present at the old boat and has his own dark side, demonstrated when he used the crystal to nearly drown Charles.
- "Crystal" kills off Jane and reveals that Diana is Cassie's half-sister.
- "Traitor" reveals that Nick is alive and has killed a number of the witch hunters.
- "Prom" kills Nick off for good and reveals that Blackwell arranged for the Circle to be born — oh, and Diana discovers to her horror that Charles killed Amelia.
- "Family" outdoes them all, fitting for a season finale — the Circle gets unbound by the creation of the Crystal Skull, Jake kills Eben and Charles drowns himself to get rid of the demons, Blackwell plans to kill all witches without Balcoin blood and build a Circle of pure darkness, and Cassie and Diana manage to turn the tables on him after the latter's own dark magic is unleashed...oh, and Diana leaves with Grant at the end, unable to handle everything that's happened, though not before making some kind of peace with Cassie. However, it seems that the other four Balcoin witches have arrived in Chance Harbor and are already connected to Cassie and Diana... It's a shame the show's been canceled.
Sesame Street: The most famous example was the "Goodbye, Mr. Hooper" episode. Actor Will Lee, who portrayed beloved storkeeper Harold Hooper, had passed away December 7, 1982, and it was decided that his character had also died (offscreen). The death was addressed with the episode of November 24, 1983 (Thanksgiving day), where Big Bird tries to look around for Mr. Hooper in order to give him a drawing of him. His adult friends – all in clear emotional pain, as they also loved and mourned his death – remind Big Bird that Mr. Hooper had died. Big Bird doesn't see this as a problem, saying, "I'll just wait until he gets back" ... to which Susan – trying to maintain her composure but (like the real life Loretta Long) – gently tells Big Bird, "When people die, they don't come back." "Never?" sobs Big Bird, to which the adults tearfully confirm just that. Big Bird eventually accepts Mr. Hooper's passing, and in the end the episode was lauded as successfully helping kids (and families) understand the concept of death and that everyone cries when someone they love dies.
Sex/Life: "This Must Be the Place"; Trina tells Billie that due to Cooper and Devon patching things up after the "party" at their place, she laments that she'll have a little less freedom. This apparently inspired Billie to run to Brad's apartment. However, Cooper is seen looking at a tracker app to see where Billie was going.
Sherlock:
- "The Great Game" is one with the appearance of Moriarty.
- Even more so is "The Reichenbach Fall", which ends with Sherlock being totally discredited, Moriarty killing himself, Sherlock faking his own suicide, and John going back into therapy. In fact, "Reichenbach" is so much this that all resulting fanfic, and in fact the fandom itself, can be divided into "pre-Reichenbach" and "post-Reichenbach".
- "His Last Vow" is arguably even more so. Mary Morstan turns out to be a liar who used to be an assassin. Sherlock's solution to defeating Magnusson, since his plan didn't work, is to just shoot him. He is "exiled" by Mycroft, but he is soon needed back in London, where every single screen is saying "Did you miss me?" alongside Moriarty's face.
The Season 1 finale of Six Feet Under, in which we find out that Nate has AVM.
- Not to mention the season four episode, "That's My Dog". Yikes.
- Despite being set up by the famous Narm cliffhanger, "Ecotone" has one. You don't think they'll go there, but in the end... Nathan Fisher. 1965-2005.
Sleepy Hollow ends its first season with the episodes "The Indispensable Man" and "Bad Blood", which both qualify. The first puts both Andy Brooks and Captain Irving the bus in different ways — the former is transformed fully into a demon by Moloch and last seen in a collapsing tomb, while the latter takes the blame for crimes committed by his possessed daughter and is arrested. But that pales to the events of the actual season finale. To sum up, Abbie takes Katrina's place in Purgatory in order to free her, ending up imprisoned by Moloch. Death/The Headless Horseman causes Jenny's car to crash, with her survival uncertain. And in the biggest shock of all, the last few minutes reveal that Henry Parish, the Sin Eater, is actually Ichabod and Katrina's supposedly dead son Jeremy, and is also the Horseman of War. He then hands Katrina over to Death, and leaves Ichabod Buried Alive.
- "The Akehda", the midseason finale of Season 2, ends with several bangs. When the heroes go to face the risen Moloch and stop him from unleashing Hell on Earth, Irving dies from wounds received while dueling and destroying Henry's War avatar with the Sword of Methuselah. Then, Henry manages to capture the others and claim the sword, only for Moloch's casual dismissal of Henry — who had convinced himself that Moloch was his Parental Substitute — causes him to snap and kill Moloch with the sword. That's right, they kill off the Big Bad, and they're only halfway through the season.
Sliders, "Exodus, Part 2": The entire series flips on its head when the crew not only meet a general who has the coordinates to Earth-Prime (and are forced to chase him as he hops from dimension to dimension) but meet a new team member (Maggie) and lose another (Professor Arturo, who sacrifices himself to prevent Quinn from being shot by Rickman).
Smallville:
- In Season 5, Jor-El saves Clark's life but tells him that only death can pay for life and that he will lose someone he loves. "Reckoning" starts with Lana getting killed, but Jor-El allows Clark go back in time to change that resulting in the death of Jonathan, Clark's father.
- "Gemini".
Soap has a good few of these, odd since you learn in the very first episode that Burt killed Mary's first husband (it's only a wham when she finds out). Learning that Carol, pregnant with Jodie's baby and been going on about them being together since her introduction, leave Jodie at the altar was a big one.
- Another is when Danny gets shot through his kidneys whilst defending a crime witness and needs a transplant. Jodie (his brother) says he'll give one of his kidneys because Mary, their mother, isn't healthy enough. Except she tells him that they aren't 100% brothers because Danny is really Chester's child (Chester being Jessica's (Mary's sister) husband). Which made the entire show more complicated.
Sons of Anarchy is a show with a few Wham-ish episodes, but the season two finale upped the ante quite a bit. Gemma is on the lam after Stahl frames her for the murders of Edmond Hayes and Polly Zobelle, only one of which Gemma actually killed, Cameron Hayes kills Half Sack after he tries to attack him when he threatens to kill Jax's son in return for his own son's death (who was actually killed by Stahl), then proceeds to kidnap Abel and tie Tara up. When they hear that Abel has been kidnapped, the club leaves Ethan Zobelle, who they had pinned down just moments earlier, and he gets away (to make matters worse, he hasn't been seen or mentioned since so it is very likely he got away with all that he did. Goddamn Irish.
- The finale of Season 3 also qualifies, though in a more positive note. Yes, Jax, Clay, Bobby, Happy, Juice and Tig are going to prison and Stahl outed Jax as a rat in front of the club... But that was all part of their plan. Then, Chibs and Opie get their long-awaited revenge on Jimmy O and Stahl, respectively. It was truly a great day to be a member of SAMCRO.
- Episode 12 of season four takes it a step further, with Opie gunning Clay down. Prior to that, in episode eight, we saw Clay killing Piney, literally within the last seconds of the episode.
- And then there's Season 5. It has a wham episode pretty early in, killing off Opie only three episodes in! And then there is the finale... Otto bites off his tongue to avoid testifying, Tig kills Damon Pope with a gun that's covered in Clay's prints, which causes him to go to prison with a contract put out on his head by Pope's right-hand man, and Tara goes to prison for her accidental assistance in Pamela Toric's murder.... Damn.
- Sweet and Vaded of season six has two whams: plot A gives us a heinous bad guy (seriously, the approval for this inclusion was universal) the likes of which we have rarely if ever seen on TV. Plot B has Tara's insane plan to get away from Gemma's threats of being fist raped in prison...she tries to goad her into a fight before screaming and slamming herself on a table, spilling a lot of blood she had drawn from herself earlier. Her boss and Unser rush in and claim Gemma made her have a miscarriage, and when Jax tends to her Tara gets him to sign custody away from Gemma and promise she will never get near her kids.
- In Episode 11 of Season 6...Jax finally kills Clay, along with most of the IRA's key stateside players. He then doctors the scene to make it look like Clay killed the three Irish as a result of a arms deal gone bad, freeing the club from both the albatross of its former President and the blood money of the gun trade.
Special Ops: Lioness:
- The QRF team finds out the simulated SERE op on Cruz was sanctioned by Joe in "The Beating" from Cody. He tells them to take it up with her if they don't like it. It doesn't save them from getting a beat down by the QRF team and Cruz, who nearly kills Cody before being pulled off.
- "The Lie is the Truth" has the op to capture or kill Asmar Amrohi as Operation Yellow Jacket. Also, the CIA's control on the op is being yanked out unofficially due to the San Antonio op.
- "Wish the Fight Away" has Aaliyah and Cruz get close. Really, really close. This starts to conflict with Cruz's mission.
- "Gone Is the Illusion of Order" has Ehsan find out Cruz's true identity through a facial recognition database search.
Season 3 of Suits introduces several new characters after Pearson Hardman merges with a London firm to become Darby Pearson. One is Ava Hessington, an oil executive who stands accused of murder because her company bribed the dictator of an unnamed African country to allow a pipeline...just days before the environmentalists opposed to it were killed. Another is Stephen, a charming British lawyer who arrives to help Harvey handle her defense. In the last scene of season 6, Mike discovers that the dictator was Stephen's college buddy, and Stephen arranged the meeting between Ava and the dictator so that he thought he was being paid to commit murder, while she thought she was paying him to grant building permits.
Due to Superstore’s setting in Missouri, an area with a lot of tornados, most viewers probably thought nothing of the offhanded comments throughout the show about tornado drills and the store’s lack of tornado readiness. However, in the season two finale aptly titled “Tornado”, the titular storm hits the store, complete with impressively realistic footage of the store being destroyed and the roof being ripped off. The employees are terrified for their lives the entire time, and the scene of the traumatized employees emerging into the store after the storm and seeing the state of damage is especially poignant for a sitcom.
Survivor has several of these per season by virtue of its contestant elimination, but arguably none was more shocking or important than Survivor: Borneo 7th episode, "The Merger", when Gretchen, the beloved leader of the fan favorite Pagongs, was voted out by the Tagi alliance. Gretchen was arguably the first contestant voted out for strategic gamesmanship rather than social/survival reasons, and was the first elimination that *no one* saw coming.
Stargate Atlantis "First Contact". Season 5 was plodding along, it looked like the series wasn't going to be renewed and it was like a sick sheepdog being taken to the barn to be shot. Then wham — a favourite character from SG-1 (Daniel Jackson) arrives, a new species is introduced possessing technology that easily gets through the Lantean/Ancients tech that was always the reliable fail-safe for our heroes, pretty much everything else gets a huge shakeup. And then in the conclusion, it is revealed that the new enemies are, in fact, rogue Asgard. At the end of this two-parter, the show returns to the status quo, but given SG-1's track record of bringing back years old plots down the line, in all likelihood we would have seen them again if the show hadn't been canceled.
- "The Daedalus Variations" as well; the starship Daedalus mysteriously and suddenly appears in orbit with no explanation, and the team goes aboard. They find it's jumping from universe to universe on a regular basis. A lot of the universes seemed like they were foreshadowing future events, including an enigmatic and implacable alien race that also manage to come aboard the ship and wipe the floor with the crew. There's no doubt these aliens would have shown up in the prime universe in a later season, but the show didn't last long enough.
Stargate SG-1 has a few, but one that stands out for many fans is season 7's "Heroes". O'Neill gets shot in the gut, and Samantha Carter absolutely falls apart upon her return to Earth, which, seeing as how she's been explicitly in love with O'Neill for several years, leads viewers to think he's the one who died. Then a previously unintroduced member of the SGC is seriously wounded, a red herring to make the viewer think he'll be Killed Off for Real. But part of the way through his videotaped "final message" to his wife, the viewer realizes that the person that died was Dr. Janet Fraiser, Carter's best friend, a fact hammered home a few seconds later by her brutally sudden caught-on-camera death scene.
- "Camelot": The Ori have invaded the Milky Way... and they just curb stomped a combined Tau'ri/Jaffa/Asgard/Lucian Alliance armada.
- "Meridian": The one where Daniel dies. No, this wasn't the first time it happened, but he spent the entire episode dying this time, and he stayed that way for a whole season.
- "Forever in a Day": Since the pilot, rescuing Daniel's wife had been one of the main subplots. Teal'c kills her in this episode.
Star Trek: The Next Generation:
- "Skin Of Evil", the Season 1 episode where Tasha Yar dies. Let's not forget that this is the franchise that codified the Red Shirt as the person who dies while the main characters are fine, and that the only major character death in the franchise up to that point had been undone shortly thereafter. Tasha being Killed Off for Real was a fairly large deviation from what most people had come to expect from the series, and as such it was understandably shocking.
- In "Q Who", Q introduces the Enterprise to the Borg, to make the point to the Federation that they aren't able to handle every threat in the galaxy. This encounter seriously shakes the Federation's confidence.
- Perhaps the greatest Wham Episode in the history of the Star Trek franchise, "The Best of Both Worlds", is absolutely shocking. After a drawn-out battle with the Borg - away missions, sneaking around, confrontations - the Enterprise receives a hailing message from the Borg Cube. It's Picard. And he's a Borg.
  - I am Locutus
  - "Mr. Worf: Fire."
  - This was an even larger one at the time, as due to contract disputes there was no proof that Patrick Stewart would be back next season.
- The appearance of "Tasha Yar" at the end of the "Redemption" episode is a major failure to perform this trope, in that it is clearly intended to be a Wham Event, except that the Half-Human Hybrid, Time Travel angle never affects any story at all, and Sela is just another scheming Romulan commander scheming her schemes until she's replaced by the next scheming Romulan commander.
Star Trek: Voyager had a few:
- "State of Flux", in which Seska is revealed to be a Cardassian spy who has been selling Voyager's technology to the Kazon.
- "Blood Fever", in which the crew learns that they are approaching Borg space.
- The two-part episode "Scorpion" introduces the audience to Species 8472, an alien species even more dangerous than the Borg, which leads Voyager to arrange an alliance with the Borg, as well as Seven of Nine, a human who was assimilated when she was still a child and is ultimately disconnected from the Borg collective. Afterwards, she becomes a member of Voyager's crew, providing valuable insight on the Delta Quadrant.
- "Message in a Bottle", a mostly comedic episode where Voyager finally succeeds in contacting the Federation to tell them that they are alive.
- "Thirty Days", in which Tom Paris gives in to his hatred of his father, and breaks the Prime Directive, resulting in him being demoted to Ensign, forced to endure thirty days of solitary confinement in the Brig, ostracized by the crew, and practically coming close to undoing five years of goodwill and redemption over the course of the series. However this marks a turning point in his character, as he practically vows never to let this happen ever again. He redeems himself over the rest of the series, begins to make peace with his father, gets promoted back to Lieutenant at the end of Season 6, and by the end of the series, gets married to B'Elanna Torres, and have a daughter. By the final episode, Tom's transformation is complete, with him being content with his lot in life.
- "Pathfinder", where Barclay manages to establish a permanent method of communication between the Federation and Voyager.
Star Trek: Enterprise: After two seasons of episodic adventure, "The Expanse" sees Earth attacked by the mysterious Xindi. Seven million are dead and this was only the weapons test. To save Earth, the crew embark to the Delphic Expanse with 1) Trip grieving over the death of his sister and wanting revenge, 2) T'Pol quitting the Vulcan High Command to help in the mission and 3) Archer realizing he's going to have a lot of tough decisions to make in the future.
- The destruction of Florida radically alters the theme of the show. "Man, poor Florida..."
  - Now see, why'd they have to go and blow up the mother from Good Times? Hasn't that poor woman suffered enough having to listen to Jimmy "J.J." Walker all the time?
- You're watching an episode in Season Four and you're greeted with a flashback to Star Trek: First Contact where the Vulcans meet Zefram Cochrane. The Vulcan does the salute, says "Live long and prosper", and Zefram fumbles and lowers his hand... And grabs a shotgun, blowing the Vulcan away as the other humans rush the ship. Welcome to "In a Mirror, Darkly". Welcome to the Mirror Universe.
Star Trek: Discovery: In "Vaulting Ambition", Burnham finds out that the Gabriel Lorca who has been leading the Discovery crew is not the Lorca of the Prime Universe but is instead his mirror universe counterpart, who manipulated everything for the first half of the season to get Burnham to lead him back to his universe so he could depose the Emperor.
Stranger Things:
- "Battle of Starcourt": Billy makes a Heroic Sacrifice and dies at the hands of the Mind Flayer, Hopper is presumed dead, Eleven loses her powers and is taken in by Joyce, and the Byers move out of town, taking Will and Eleven to California and breaking up the Party, and the Soviets have a fully grown Demogorgon in their control.
- "The Massacre at Hawkins Lab": The origins of both Vecna and Dr. Brenner's experiments, along with the truth behind the lab massacre, are revealed: Vecna was originally Henry Creel, the telekinetic son of Victor Creel who used his powers to kill his mother and sister (then framed Victor for the murders). He was later taken in by Dr. Brenner and became the first child (labeled "001") in the Hawkins Lab program, eventually growing up to become the orderly that "assisted" Eleven. After regaining his powers, 001 slaughtered the rest of the children and orderlies, but a telekinetic fight with El sent him tumbling into the Upside Down (with the same shot from the season premiere), where the dimension's lightning transformed him into the terrifying monster he is now.
Supernatural fans are still reeling from the third season finale, "No Rest For The Wicked", which had Dean getting sent to hell for the summer, Sam's powers coming back and Lilith only just starting her reign of terror.
- The discovery that Mary knew the YED in "All Hell Breaks Loose".
- "Changing Channels" seems like a goofy episode until you get to the last part and- oh, wait, the Trickster is actually the Archangel Gabriel and he's pretty bitter over the way his brothers and are always fighting and doesn't want to have to see it.
- 'Hammer of the Gods' has Gabriel faking his death for the nth time, other gods complaining about how they were here before the angels- then Lucifer turns up and kills Gabriel.
- The trilogy of "What Is And What Should Never Be/All Hell Breaks Loose". "What Is" set up how much of a broken basket case Dean really was and "All Hell" took it to astonishing new lows (selling his worthless soul). The demon gets killed (but it's an anti-climax if there ever was one), a whole new war has begun, Dad gets out of hell and Sam might have come back wrong. Yay?
- The Season 1 finale has Sam, John, and Dean barely escaping from YED at the very end of the episode, heading for the ER, only for the Impala to be slammed midconversation by a demon-driven semi. Fade out with everyone incapacitated (or worse) on the side of the road...
- "Lazarus Rising". Dean crawls out of his grave, fresh from Hell, which is pretty standard stuff for these guys. They spend the episode searching for the baddie that brought him back, and when Dean and Bobby finally manage to summon it for questioning at the end of the episode, it turns out his resurrection was performed by something we didn't believe existed in this verse- an Angel of the Lord (and a Badass Longcoat Angel of the Lord at that). Because God commanded it. (!) Because we have work for you. (!!!) Guess we're not just chasing around the freak of the week anymore...
- Every time Supernatural ups the "Holy Shit!" Quotient we get a Wham Episode. Notables from season 5 alone include: "The Song Remains the Same" (notable for revealing not only the origin of Azazel's plan but Mary and John's own shocking pasts), "Point of No Return" (for the jaw-dropping developments with Dean... and for the ridiculous amounts of really obvious Ho Yay between Dean and Castiel (talk about catering to your audience...)), "Hammer of the Gods" (where the HSQ hit the roof and just kept on going), "The Devil You Know" (thank you, Crowley), "2 Minutes To Midnight" (Introducing the Cosmic Entity Death (which threw the show into Go Mad from the Revelation proportions)), and "Swan Song" (if you don't know why it's on this list, then you haven't seen it).
- Season 6 had a few Wham Episodes, but by and far the biggest is (naturally enough) the season finale "The Man Who Knew Too Much". Castiel - as per his own Story Arc for the season - finally jumps off the slippery slope from Well-Intentioned Extremist to full-blown Knight Templar: he breaks the wall in Sam's mind - returning his memories of Hell and putting him in a coma - before killing Balthazaar and absorbing all the souls of Purgatory. He then proceeds to declare himself the new God and demands that the heroes bow down to him.
- Season 7 midseason finale "At Death's Door". Bobby dies; that is all.
- Season 8, episode 1 "We Need To Talk About Kevin" has Dean escaping from Purgatory by working alongside (and demonstration friendship with) a vampire. It also goes on to reveal this season's plot—shutting the Gates of Hell forever.
- 8x22 and 8x23, "Clip Show" and "Sacrifice" were back-to-back Wham Episodes (though this is to be expected, as they were the two final episodes of the season). In "Clip Show" Crowley begins killing off everyone the Winchesters have ever saved—supporting characters such as Sarah Blake are killed while Crowley gives them an ultimatum: Make a deal with him to stop working to shut down Hell, or everyone they've ever met dies. "Sacrifice" ups it even further with Sam using Crowley for the third trial, and the revelation that he doesn't care at all if he dies in the process. Then Metatron betrays Castiel, kills Naomi, and uses Castiel's grace (rendering him human) to forcibly evict all the angels from Heaven and make them fall.
- Ho ho ho, the season 9 finale has to be the absolute worst in the series - and that's saying something! To name a few in the episode: Metatron decides to become the new Jesus(!) Cas is captured by Metatron's flunkies (!!) Dean is killed by Metatron (admittedly not unprecedented) and then Dean becomes a demon(!!!). That's right, that thing that he's been hunting since the show began!
- The Season 12 finale is probably one of the biggest: Lucifer kills Rowena and Castiel before Crowley of all people performs a Heroic Sacrifice to activate a spell to trap Lucifer in a post-apocalyptic Alternate Universe. Lucifer is trapped, but not before dragging Mary in with him. Meanwhile, Lucifer's Nephilhim son is born, already fully grown.
- The Season 14 finale, though... After every Big Bad and cosmic horror the Winchesters have stood up to and antagonized, who has it out for them now (and which sets up a story arc for the very last season)? Chuck, aka God Himself, goes from mild-mannered to literally-raise-the-dead scary just because the Winchesters are tired of being His favorite entertainment as cosmic chew toys and don't want to play ball.
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles has a few, like the car bombing at the end of "What He Beheld."
- "Hello, Mister Ellison. My name is John Henry."
- John's "I knew the whole time and did nothing" speech to Jesse. He goes from emo!John to John Connor in one scene.
- "On The Lighthouse." There's a second machine intelligence operating in the present of similar design to John Henry, based on Cyberdyne technology. And it wants both John Henry and the Connors dead.
- Nothing compared to "Adam Raised a Cain." Our heroes find out about John Henry, and Weaver finds out about our heroes. Derek is dead. Sarah is captured by police. In one episode, everyone becomes exposed, and the team gets cut down to John and Cameron alone.
- "Born To Run" had far more Wham than any of those. John Henry has taken Cameron into the future with him, and John and Catherine Weaver follow after them. Now it's just John and Weaver in the future, where they shortly meet Derek Reese, who lets slip that in this universe - presumably due to John's teleportation into the future - John Connor never existed. And then Kyle Reese and Allison (from Palmdale) show up. Then the show was canceled.
Episode 7, series 3 of The Thick of It starts off like any other episode before it turns into several people outright attacking Malcolm (the series' resident chess master and Magnificent Bastard) and culminates in him getting sacked in the last couple of scenes.
Third Watch has a lot of these, but the most memorable is the season five finale "Monsters" where the hospital that the entire Third Watch is at gets gunned down by Donald Mann's people.
- Also in the season five episode "Purgatory", Doc keeps the paramedics and the firefighters hostage in the firehouse after suffering a mental breakdown as a result of the 9/11 attacks, Taylor's death, his fiance leaving him, and the changes at the firehouse.
- Not to mention in "The Price of Nobility," when a major character dies...and there's still thirty minutes left to the episode.
Titus has a few:
- "Mom's Not Nuts": We're introduced to Titus' mother. And yes, she is nuts.
- "Episode Eleven": The other characters visit Ken in the hospital after he has a heart attack and crashes his car. They then find out he didn't really have a heart attack but crashed the car doing something very dangerous. In retaliation, they decide to play a cruel prank on him (because it's what Ken would do), but this causes him to have a heart attack for real.
- "The Smell of Success": An incident at a car show in a past episode comes back to bite Titus in the ass, and Titus High Performance ends up bankrupt. In the end, he starts drinking again, and Erin leaves. (In the next episode, he tries to get her back again.)
- "The Pit": In an attempt to rebuild their image, Titus High Performance competes in a drag race, and Titus crashes his car and is in a coma in the next episode.
- "The Wedding": Titus and Erin attempt to have an impromptu wedding, but everybody shows up and Titus' mother ends up shooting her abusive husband. (This was actually supposed to air earlier in the season, but Fox moved it to the end.)
- "Tommy's Not Gay": Tommy's father comes out of the closet, and surprisingly, Tommy is angry about it (not for being gay, but to lying to his mom all those years).
- "The Trial": Titus' mom goes on trial for murdering her husband (See "The Wedding"). Titus helps her get off, and she isn't happy about it, so she takes Ken hostage.
- "The Visit": Titus' mom escapes from the nuthouse, just as the child services officer comes to determine if they can adopt Amy. Turns out, his mother's dead, having committed suicide some hours before.
- "The Protector": Titus and Erin find out Amy was molested as a child by one of her classmates' father. (Like "The Wedding", this was supposed to air earlier in the season.)
The '80s Canadian preschool series Today's Special, one of the early staples of Nickelodeon, has three episodes that tend to stand out in its fans' memories:
- "Butterflies": The gang befriends a butterfly named Hazel... only for her to die of old age.
- "Wishes": The gang finds a magic coin that will grant each of them one wish, and Jeff the mannequin plans to wish to be a real person and finally get to live outside the store... but his friends misuse their wishes and he's forced to use his wish to help them instead, and they don't even think to apologize or comfort him, leaving him sadly staring out the window and thinking of what could have been.
- "Phil's Visit": The ultimate one. A photographer comes to the store, becomes friends with Muffy Mouse... and turns out to be a rage-prone alcoholic. It was obviously made to teach kids how to cope with alcoholic adults in their lives, but still, it earns a spot on the Clueless Aesop trope page for a reason.
Torchwood has had a few. "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" and "Reset" were pretty shocking, but "Exit Wounds" beats them both for sheer "wham".
- Torchwood: Children of Earth is pretty much one great big wham miniseries, between the destruction of the Hub, Ianto's death, and the United Nations collaborating with the militaries of the major world powers to abduct 10% of the Earth's children and surrender them to an alien race. Probably the biggest individual wham is the revelation that the reason the Four-Five-Six are essentially interstellar druglords who deal in prepubescent children because their hormones are euphoric among their species.
- "Adrift" was pretty wham, too. That scream pretty much sets the stage for the next episodes.
- Torchwood: Miracle Day has "The Categories of Life" and "The Blood Line".
Trial & Error has Josh and his legal team find out that another suspect for Edgar's murder has committed suicide and confessed in her suicide note. This is enough to get Lavinia declared not guilty. She even gives Josh a lovely thank you note which has similar handwriting to the suicide note as well as a word misspelled the same way in both. Now Josh has to deal with the fact that he just got a killer acquitted.
True Blood has the season four finale. Sookie dumps Eric and Bill both. Tara gets shot in the head. So does Debbie Pelt. Jesus gets stabbed to death. Nan Flanagan gets staked. Russell Edgington escapes from his chained grave. The Authority puts out kill orders on Bill and Eric. And the season closes on Sookie cradling Tara's bleeding body, crying desperately for help.

U-Z

Ultimate Force, a British SAS show, killed off 3 of the 5 man band in the first 5 minutes of Season 3, including the central character, and put its mission control on a bus, as part of a retool to a longer format.
The Vampire Diaries, While nearly every episode ends with a shocking cliffhanger, a notable one is the first season finale, Founders Day, in which fan favorite Anna, the mayor, and all remaining tomb vampires die, Caroline ends up in the hospital after a car accident, and Katherine returns, stabbing John.
- Another one with "The Sun Also Rises", the penultimate episode of the second season. Here we have the deaths of Jules, Jenna, and John, Elijah's betrayal, the official breakup of Matt and Caroline, and Damon revealing to Stefan that he's dying.
- "Murder of One" reveals that killing an Original kills every vampire that they have ever turned (and any vampire descendants), ergo killing them all would kill all vampires.
- The next episode turns Alaric into an original.
- "The Departed" reveals that Elena actually met Damon first and kills off Klaus AND Alaric. It ends with Elena dead before she wakes into the transitional stage to becoming a vampire.
  - Klaus isn't really dead though, he took Tyler's body.
Veronica Mars, "Not Pictured." Veronica was raped at Shelley Pomroy's party. Aaron is dead on Duncan's orders. Weevil is in jail for murder. And, oh yeah, Beaver's a raging psychopath who blew up the bus, raped Veronica, and threw himself off the roof of the Neptune Grand. Damn.
Victorious: The episode "The Worst Couple" ends with Jade and Beck breaking up. This is especially surprising due to the show's tendency to invoke Status Quo Is God. For comparison, the last episode where Jade and Beck broke up ended with the two getting back together.
Walker, Texas Ranger: The majority of Season 9's "The Avenging Angel" isn't really much of a wham episode, at least not until the end after the villain responsible for murdering the titular wrestler is arrested: CD Parker has died, and after his funeral, the Bar and Grill he was once the proud owner of has to close down and the Rangers are left to take a Long Last Look as they bid their final goodbyes to their fallen comrade. C.D. died supposedly of a heart attack, but it's not until the Grand Finale, "The Final Show/Down" does the real cause of death get revealed.
- Walker: The seventh episode, "Bar None" ends with three different shocking twists. Geri is paying hush money to the man who went to prison for Emily's death; Stella's boyfriend Trevor goes to visit his father in prison - it's Clint, the man Walker put away while undercover. Trevor sells out Walker's real identity to Clint; Micki's mother, Adriana, is arrested.
Watchmen (2019):
- "Little Fear of Lightning" reveals that Wade Tillman/Looking Glass was in Hoboken when Vedit unleashed the Squid in 1985, Seantor Keene is a member of the White Supremacy group the Seventh Kalvary, and Wade learns the truth about the Squid and that Veidt rigged the election in Robert Redford's favor. Wade is then forced to betray Angela to Laurie, Angela downs a bunch of Nostalgia pills to try to escape arrest, and Keene sends Kalvary members after Wade
- The following episode "This Extraordinary Being" sees Angela learn her father Will Reeves was Hooded Justice. This is doubly so as In-Universe in the comics, it was speculated Hooded Justice was Rolf Muller, a long-dead German strongman with Nazi sympathies, whereas not only is Will still alive (and probably the only one of the Minutemen left), he was a former member of the NYPD like original Nite-Owl Hollis Mason and became Hooded Justice to fight against racial injustice after seeing the systemic racism and corruption in the force. The only accurate piece of In-Universe speculation was that Will was in a relationship with fellow Minuteman Nelson Gardner/Captain Metropolis—which was an extramarital affair on Will's part as he was married. Will's time as Hooded Justice also ended up destroying his family as his wife and son left him after he massarced a sect of the Klan. Angela is also shown at the end to be in the care of Trieu.
- "An Almost Religious Awe" continues this with the reveal that the Seventh Kavalry intend to capture and destroy Doctor Manhattan, then become beings like him. It's also revealed that not only is Doctor Manhattan not on Mars, but he has been living on Earth as Angela's husband Cal all along. Additionally, Wade managed to escape and take out the people Keene sent after him.
Weeds does this several times:
- Between seasons 2 and 3, a drug deal gone bad destroys Nancy's entire business and puts her in the service of a thug named U-Turn.
- And that is nothing compared to the end of season 3, where a fire destroys her entire neighborhood and she moves to a city just north of the Mexican border.
The West Wing: Leo's actor having heart trouble required rewriting of the storyline to accommodate the situation, creating dramatic and permanent changes to the storyline. Leo was originally set to become Matt Santos' Vice-President; however, the actor's sudden death from a heart-attack resulted in half the season having to be rewritten to accommodate this, beginning with a powerful episode that deals with Leo having an off-screen death and focussing on the reaction of the cast members who find his body.
Westworld: Bernard and Theresa are exploring an abandoned house that's not on the park's map. Theresa finds a schematic (of Bernard) and shows it to him, prompting the Wham Line "It doesn't look like anything to me", revealing him to be a Host. Then Ford shows up and we get a Wham Shot of Bernard coldly and brutally murdering Theresa at Ford's order. A double whammy, you might say. The first season finale is a major one, as well, when Ford turns off the safeties on the Hosts and triggers a Robot Uprising.
At the end of the White Collar fall finale, we find out that the main villain responsible for holding Kate hostage and using her to blackmail Neal is, in fact, the FBI.
- That's not the Wham part. The part that kicks you in the teeth is that it's Peter.
- But then we find out it's not Peter, and that Neal's original suspicion, OPR Agent Fowler, was correct. And then the MacGuffin is revealed: some music box.
- Season 1 finale: Music box mystery closed (sorta), Kate found, Neal heads toward a plane that will carry off Kate and him to their government approved happily ever after ... and then the plane blows up in Neal's face while Kate was on it.
- Then there's the season 2 summer finale: Mozzie gets shot through the heart. White Collar just loves these.
- And then, in the second season finale, we find out why all the fuss and ridiculously complicated treasure hunt throughout the whole season happened: it led to Nazi treasure worth uncountabillions. Then it gets incinerated. All that art and gold gone forever - and then a burned scrap of Neal's painting falls in front of Peter.
The Wire had a few, often positioned at the second last episode of a season. Particularly, in the penultimate episode of season three, McNulty finally has a lead on the guy he's been chasing three years, Stringer Bell! Before Stringer gets killed by Omar Little and Brother Mouzone.
- Whenever a main character on The Wire gets shot - not necessarily fatally - it tends to be a Wham Episode. In the first season, when Kima gets shot on a stakeout gone wrong, it shakes up most of the other characters. McNulty goes into burnout, feeling responsible, Rawls and Landsman come out of the office and show themselves to be brilliant field cops, and on the criminal side, the Barksdale shooters panic and go into hiding once they discover their victim's identity.
The events of the season 1 finale of WMAC Masters. What was once an Anvilicious Aesop-of-the-day show becomes a mystery thriller.
Yellowjackets: Events in "Edible Complex", both in the past and the present. In the past, the group (except for the horrified Coach) finally gives in to cannibalism. In the present, Lottie admits to being there at the scene of Travis's death and failing to save him. Shauna lies to the police about Adam's disappearance and they know she lied. Misty makes contact with a fellow citizen detective. And Taissa hallucinates her son's presence at her home and later she and Simone get into a car accident.

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