History Main / DramaBombFinale

* Despite most of the series only being shown through previews, ''Manga/HoshiiroGirldrop'' manages to pull this when its 11th episode was previewed in the ''Manga/PopTeamEpic'' anime. What normally would show snippets of a lighthearted {{Music Stor|ies}}y inbetween Daichi and Sosogu's budding romance instead shows [[spoiler:a flashback of Daichi losing his memories of Sosogu after an incident where she sacrificed herself, and him growing to lover again despite the memory loss.]]

* Despite most of the series only being shown through previews, ''Manga/HoshiiroGirldrop'' manages to pull this when its 11th episode was previewed in the ''Manga/PopTeamEpic'' anime. What normally would show snippets of a lighthearted {{Music Stor|ies}}y inbetween Daichi and Sosogu's budding romance instead showd [[spoiler:a flashback of Daichi losing his memories of Sosogu after an incident where she sacrificed herself, and him growing to lover again despite the memory loss.]]

* ''Series/{{Dinosaurs}}'' is a lighthearted sitcom featuring a family of talking dinosaurs, though episodes often focused on modern social issues. The GreenAesop series finale ends with [[spoiler:corporate greed causing an ecological disaster so severe that it plummits the world into an ice age that [[EverybodyDiesEnding wipes out the dinosaurs]]]].

* ''LightNovel/{{Dokkoida}}'' did this with its final two episodes. The show had been an episodic StatusQuoIsGod comedy, but the last two episodes were [[MoodWhiplash substantially]] more serious than the rest of the show, and included some truly epic action.

* ''Series/{{Dinosaurs}}'' is a lighthearted sitcom featuring a family of talking dinosaurs, though episodes often focused on modern social issues. The series finale ends with [[spoiler:corporate greed causing an ecological disaster so severe that it plummits the world into an ice age that wipes out the dinosaurs]].

* ''{{Series/Dinosaurs}}''. It's a comedy series about dinosaurs that suddenly ends with a GreenAesop in which [[EverybodyDiesEnding they all go extinct]].

* The final episode of ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' subverts this. The plane malfunctioning with the main cast in it certainly sounds like this trope, but it lasts for all of a minute (with the characters continuing to say funny things, even) before going right back to the show's usual pure comedy.
* ''Series/{{Coupling}}'' does a slightly different version of this. It's not a death, but a birth, the culmination of the pregnancy that's formed the basis for a lot of the comedy in the fourth and final series. But the final few minutes are played completely serious.
* Subverted on ''Series/EverybodyLovesRaymond''. A doctor announces that they are having trouble resuscitating Raymond after a very minor surgery, but seconds later he is completely fine. Debra then made everyone swear not to let Raymond's mother know about the near-death experience, since it would bring out the worst in her motherly overprotectiveness. The episode did have a little more emotion than usual, but otherwise it had the same tone as any other episode of the series.
* Season Six of ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' (otherwise ''not'' a low-key show) went along somewhat slowly. Then [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds Willow went insane in the last four episodes]].
* Most of the light hearted ''Franchise/SuperSentai'' series, such as Go-onger, follow this trope. The darker ones, however, (such as Changeman or Liveman) are serious already so the finale episodes generally are of the same tone as the rest of the series.
** ''Power Rangers Turbo'' does this. [[spoiler: all of the Rangers' weapons are destroyed, Zordon is captured, the Command Center is stormed and destroyed, and Divatox is moments from laying waste to Earth before she is called off by ''Bigger Bad'' Dark Spector. Justin stays behind while the four remaining Rangers, depowered, go into outer space on a possible suicide mission.]]
* ''{{Series/Lexx}},'' which had for the most part had been humor of the WTF variety, turned quite dramatic in the final episode, most notably [[spoiler: the death of the Lexx, Kai's return to life only to die, and the destruction of Earth]]. (Although to be fair, some of the show's subplots and backstories were kind of tragic to begin with.)
** The [[spoiler: destruction of Earth]] was actually a very clever part of it; ''Lexx'' being the show it is, very few viewers doubted that it would happen as soon as it was shown on-screen, but as season four progresses, it seems to become increasingly unlikely, to the point where the audience is seriously questioning whether or not it will happen with many close-calls ultimately prevented by the crew instead of caused by them like usual. The finale seems to take this further, with the crew trying to ''save'' it from a different threat [[spoiler: until 790 pulls the trigger.]] By the time it finally happens, the audience has essentially been fooled into thinking LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt applies, and it's genuinely dramatic instead of a gag like it's been for the entire rest of the show.

* The last episode of the fifth season of ''Series/CurbYourEnthusiasm'' ends with [[spoiler: Larry's death]]. It doesn't last, though.
* ''Series/RedDwarf'' ended Series 6 with "Out of Time", a typical funny episode. However, they are attacked by their evil corrupt future selves right at the end (literally within the last 3 minutes), and one by one fall, until only Rimmer is left to do a LastStand, and it ends on a cliffhanger.
* ''Series/DowntonAbbey'' appears to be making this officially a thing. The first series ended with the announcement of World War 1; the second series ended with [[spoiler:the arrest of Bates on the charge of murdering his obnoxious wife. The war itself was pretty anti-climactic and had little serious impact on the family that wasn't somehow reversed]]. The third [[spoiler:looks like it's going to avoid it, with Mary and Matthew blissfully welcoming their son, until Matthew dies in a car crash in the final moments.]]
* ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'' finished with everybody dying in series one, two, and four. The fourth, which until then had used life in the trenches for BlackComedy, did ''not'' play this for laughs. The over-patriotic George suddenly realizes "I don't want to die", Baldrick asks why they can't just go home, and Blackadder's desk-jockey rival is horrified to learn General Melchett's sending him to the front so he won't miss the fun.
* ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'': While Season 3 was certainly the most intense season by that point, the season's major story-arcs had all but wrapped up (Cole and Phoebe being the sole exception) and the last few episodes had been meandering towards the end, when suddenly magic is exposed, Piper is ''shot dead'', time is reversed, Phoebe and Leo are trapped in the underworld and [[spoiler:Piper and Prue are stuck on the surface, grievously injured and ''without a healer''.]] Cut to credits.

* Parodied on an episode of ''Series/WorldsDumbest'': Judy Gold imagines a sitcom about a woman and her pig (which were the focus of a segment), which would end with the pig falling in love and the woman making a bacon sandwich and crying while eating it before a fade to black.

* ''Videogame/EarthBound'' spends most of the game being a quirky, silly, absurdist take on [=RPG=]s with a generally [[SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism idealistic]] tone, but in the final area of the game, [[spoiler:the game drops all humour, transfers the party's conciousnesses into robots, and sends you into a cavern in the past to destroy a monster before it can destroy the world.]]

** "[[Recap/StarTrekLowerDecksS3E10TheStarsAtNight The Stars At Night]]" already [[DownerBeginning starts on a sad note]]--[[spoiler:Freeman has caused Mariner to resign from Starfleet and torpedoed her own reputation in the process. The entire ''California'' class is set to be decommissioned in favor of the automated ''Texas'' class, and Freeman's attempt to prove her crew is better through a mission race fails due to a delay on one of the planets. Things get better when she realizes the USS ''Aledo'' violated the Prime Directive, but then Rutherford realizes that the ''Aledo'' runs on the same type of AI he used to create Badgey, resulting in it coming to light that Admiral Buenamigo, who commissioned the ''Texas'' class and is a friend of the Freeman family, is an InsaneAdmiral who has been deliberately setting the ''Cerritos'' up to fail for the ''Texas''-class sales pitch. Then Buenamigo grants the ''Aledo'' autonomy against Rutherford's warning, resulting in the ship murdering him, activating two more ''Texas''-class ships, and ravaging Douglas Station. The ''Cerritos'' is eventually forced to lure the unhinged ships away from the station, almost leading to its destruction when the ''Aledo'' survives an ejected warp core. Fortunately, Mariner saw the crisis on the news and has rallied the entire ''California''-class fleet to save the heavily damaged ''Cerritos'', returning to Starfleet once everyone's back at Douglas Station.]]

** "[[Recap/StarTrekLowerDecksS3E10TheStarsAtNight The Stars At Night]]" already [[DownerBeginning starts on a sad note]]--[[spoiler:Freeman has caused Mariner to resign from Starfleet and torpedoed her own reputation in the process. The entire ''California'' class is set to be decommissioned in favor of the automated ''Texas'' class, and Freeman's attempt to prove her crew is better through a mission race fails due to a delay on one of the planets. Things get better when she realizes the USS ''Aledo'' violated the Prime Directive, but then Rutherford realizes that the ''Aledo'' runs on the same type of AI he used to create Badgey, resulting in it coming to light that Admiral Buenamigo, who commissioned the ''Texas'' class and is a friend of the Freeman family, is an InsaneAdmiral who has been deliberately setting the ''Cerritos'' up to fail for the ''Texas''-class sales pitch. Then Buenamigo grants the ''Aledo'' autonomy against Rutherford's warning, resulting in the ship murdering him, activating two more ''Texas''-class ships, and ravaging Douglas Station. The ''Cerritos'' is eventually forced to lure the unhinged ships away from the station, almost leading to its destruction when the ''Aledo'' survives an ejected warp core. Fortunately, Mariner has seen the crisis on the news and has rallied the entire ''California''-class fleet to save the heavily damaged ''Cerritos'', returning to Starfleet once everyone's back at Douglas Station.]]

* [[TheMovie The finale]] of ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'' has one of Eddy's scams backfire and seriously injure the neighborhood kids to the point the kids seek to kill the Eds, regardless of legal or holy consequences. It also shows [[spoiler: Eddy's older brother routinely abusing him, and the movie ends with the Eds finally being accepted by the other kids, with no SnapBack or ResetButton or anything.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks'':
** The first-season finale. A captain from a previous episode is ambushed by a monstrous-looking frakensteined spaceship and her ship is destroyed with no survivors. The ''Cerritos'' nearly suffers the same fate but for Captain Freeman's quick thinking and she is severely injured. [[spoiler:Shaxs dies in a HeroicSacrifice to save the ship and rips out Rutherford's implant in order to allow his escape, leaving Rutherford with no memories of the first season. Then the crippled ''Cerritos'' is attacked by three more of these enemy ships -- and then the ''Titan'' (Captain Will Riker's ship) pulls a GunshipRescue.]]
** The second-season finale. The ''Cerritos'' is dispatched to support the ''Archimedes'' in a FirstContact mission. It goes south when the ''Archimedes'' is disabled by an {{EMP}} and nearly crashes into the planet in question when the ''Cerritos'' pulls a risky stunt to save both the ''Archimedes'' and the planet. Freeman then carries out the mission in question, and the crew celebrates her success when three Starfleet officers arrive...[[spoiler:and arrest Freeman for allegedly destroying Pakled Planet and lead her off the ''Cerritos'' in handcuffs. To be continued...]]

* ''{{Series/Dinosaurs}}''. It's a comedy series about dinosaurs that suddenly ends with a GreenAesop in which [[KillEmAll they all go extinct]].

[[folder: Visual Novels]]

* The last act of ''WebVideo/DoctorHorriblesSingAlongBlog'' has aspects of this, but it didn't come out of nowhere; the setup for the sudden attack of tragedy had clearly been building since the beginning. However, it was significantly aided by the usual(ly) Creator/JossWhedon [[DiabolusExMachina cruelty]].

* The infamous Website/YouTube channel "Behind the Meme" ended with SomethingCompletelyDifferent. Instead of the usual meme description, it is a five part video of the creator falling into depression and [[DrivenToSuicide committing suicide]] (the last episode was taken down and replaced with one that narrates what happened over [[RelaxOVision innocent stock footage]], though the original video was reuploaded elsewhere on [=YouTube=]). A postscript video was later released explaining that the finale videos were a dramatization of how he felt, and that he wants his subsequent videos to move in a different direction than covering memes.

* Series/ThatMitchellAndWebbLook:

* The first season finale for ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks''. A captain from a previous episode is ambushed by a monstrous-looking frakensteined spaceship and her ship is destroyed with no survivors. The ''Cerritos'' nearly suffers the same fate but for Captain Freeman's quick thinking and she is severely injured. [[spoiler:Shaxs dies in a HeroicSacrifice to save the ship and rips out Rutherford's implant in order to allow his escape, leaving Rutherford with no memories of the first season. Then the crippled ''Cerritos'' is attacked by three more of these enemy ships -- and then the ''Titan'' (Captain Will Riker's ship) pulls a GunshipRescue.]]

* The first season finale for ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks''. A captain from a previous episode is ambushed by monstrous-looking frakensteined spaceships and her ship is destroyed with no survivors. The ''Cerritos'' nearly suffers the same fate but for Captain Freeman's quick thinking and she is severely injured. [[spoiler:Shaxs dies in a HeroicSacrifice to save the ship and rips out Rutherford's implant in order to allow his escape, leaving Rutherford with no memories of the first season.]]

** Season 2 instead has "Cherry Blossoms", when the Matsuno family takes a devastating emotional blow when [[spoiler:Matsuzou nearly dies and is hospitalized]]. The brothers actually do try getting jobs and shaping up this time, but all of it is quickly subverted again when [[spoiler:a plane crashes their house and the brothers end up in hell for the ''real'' finale.]]

[[folder:Anime andManga]]

* ''{{Series/Dinosaurs}}''. It's a comedy series about dinosaurs that suddenly ends with a GreenAesop in which [[KillEmAll they all go extinct]].

[[folder:VideoGames]]
* The VisualNovel ''Heart de Roommate'' is for the most a fluffy slice of life comedy with the odd burst of drama for flavour, generally kept upbeat even through the more serious second half of the game by the cheerful, quirky characters. Then you get to the downright dark finale, featuring an honestly suicidal new character with a very dark backstory and a nasty NonStandardGameOver for the incautious. The [[ClassReunion epilogue]] on the other hand is a straight BittersweetEnding, actually made all the more effective by the [[GrowingUpSucks previous happiness.]]

* ''VisualNovel/HatofulBoyfriend'' does this ''twice.'' The first game is mostly an extremely silly dating sim involving birds, then you unlock the "Bad Boys' Love" route [[spoiler:which opens with the ''dismemberment'' of the former protagonist and ''ends'' with an attempted genocide.]] Then comes the sequel, which is two silly, light-hearted chapters, one rather surreal chapter, and then [[spoiler:the entire cast being imprisoned in the afterlife and nearly forced into an AssimilationPlot by the vengeful spirit of a bird murdered by one of the love interests.]]
* ''VisualNovel/MysticMessenger'' is generally a light-hearted game that still has humorous moments and dialogue even when things [[CerebusSyndrome start getting more serious]] at the end of a character's route. The secret endings that resolve all the game's plot threads and mysteries, however, are 100% ''heavy'' drama featuring [[spoiler:an abusive relationship, a character being KilledOffForReal, and a BrainwashedAndCrazy character attempting to strangle his brother]].

[[folder:WebComics]]
* ''Webcomic/CtrlAltDel'' ends with one in the [[http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20121124 "Endings... And Beginnings"]] strip, which was entirely serious.

[[folder:WebOriginal]]

[[folder:WesternAnimation]]

* Creator/TatsuyamaSayuri's ''Manga/HappyHappyClover'' series is mostly lighthearted and fun but the series started taking a very serious tone starting in volume 4 and especially volume 5. The fifth volumes stories while still lighthearted start getting more serious until the grand finale where Rambler is trying to save the forest animals from an oncoming forest fire and Clover sacrifices her life to prevent the fire. She gets better though.
* The final ''Manga/UruseiYatsura'' story arc, "Boy Meet Girl", and its anime film adaptation "The Final Chapter" is considered this: a stranger who appears on earth named Rupa claims to be Lum's fiance, while the climax of the story arc has Lum and Ataru repeating a game of tag, where, if Ataru fails, then everyone's memories with Lum will be erased [[spoiler: Ataru wins when he shows Lum her old horns to show that he cares for her.]]

* ''Anime/{{Potemayo}}'' attempts to do this by revealing the back story of Sunao's mother in the second to last episode, as well as aming it seem that Potemayo and Guchuko were dead in the final episode, although they turned out to be merely unconscious and recovered by the end of the last episode.
* ''Manga/AndYetTheTownMoves'' Does this by having Hotori write a story, and then be hit by a truck while she is reading of her failure to get the story published. While there is still some humor in this episode, it still ultimately gets played in this way.

* Episode 24 of ''Anime/OsomatsuSan'' sets one up, with the segment "Letter" being about almost all of the Matsuno brothers quitting their {{NEET}} lifestyle and moving out of their parents' house one by one to get jobs... except for Osomatsu himself, who stays behind and is clearly broken up about his brothers leaving. Then episode 25 [[spoiler:completely averts this when Osomatsu gets an invitation to play a baseball game and the rest of the brothers immediately quit their jobs in order to participate, returning to the show's usual comedy. This is a GagSeries, after all]].

* The final ''UruseiYatsura'' story arc, "Boy Meet Girl", and its anime film adaptation "The Final Chapter" is considered this: a stranger who appears on earth named Rupa claims to be Lum's fiance, while the climax of the story arc has Lum and Ataru repeating a game of tag, where, if Ataru fails, then everyone's memories with Lum will be erased [[spoiler: Ataru wins when he shows Lum her old horns to show that he cares for her.]]