Greatest TV Cliffhangers of All Time

These shows kept the world in suspense better than anyone.

Greatest TV Cliffhangers of All Time

The idea of television cliffhangers goes back to the late 1970s. It started with an ABC show called "Soap," which was a parody of daytime soap operas and had the first cliffhanger in TV history.

Since then, the cliffhanger has been perfected to expert levels across all genres of television. The best cliffhangers transcend a show's fanbase and enter into popular culture.

These are the greatest television cliffhangers of all time.

Note: We had one rule — one show, one cliffhanger. Series finales were not included since those aren't cliffhangers but definitive endings to a story.

30. The Moldavian Massacre, 'Dynasty'

Warning: This content contains spoilers.

Episode: "Royal Wedding" (Season 5, Episode 29)

Air date: May 15, 1985

Starring: John Forsythe, Linda Evans, John James, Heather Locklear, Emma Sams, Joan Collins, Diahann Carroll, Ali Macgraw

Bottom line: "Dynasty" and "Dallas" were the two signature nighttime soap operas of the 1980s (sorry, "Falcon Crest"), and in that mode, "Dynasty" had the right to pull off its own epic cliffhanger.

Five years after "Who Shot J.R.?" took over the country, "Dynasty" rolled out its own buzzy season finale that became known as "The Moldavian Massacre." It had one of the crazier final shots of all time, with all of the guests at a wedding, seemingly shot by revolutionaries, piled up on top of each other.

Not as impactful as the "Dallas" cliffhanger but still worth mentioning.

29. You Saved the Cheerleader, 'Heroes'

Episode: "How To Stop An Exploding Man" (Season 1, Episode 23)

Air date: May 21, 2007

Starring: Milo Ventimiglia, Hayden Panetierre, Masi Oka, Zachary Quinto, Jack Coleman, Adrian Pasdar, Ali Larter, Leonard Roberts, Greg Grunberg

Bottom line: One of the best first seasons in television history belongs to "Heroes" — an epic take on the superhero genre that became a national obsession.

Made in the pre-streaming era, the first season is a marathon of 23 episodes capped off by "How To Stop An Exploding Man." The season finale pays off with a huge battle between the villain, Sylar, and our heroes.

It showed how good the season was by leaving us with a pair of amazing cliffhangers — Nathan Petrelli flying his brother, "The Exploding Man" Peter Petrelli, into the sky where we just see a huge explosion, and our most beloved hero, Hiro, phasing back to samurai-era Japan.

28. Jack Takes the Slow Boat to China, '24'

Episode: "Day 5: 6:00 a.m-7:00 a.m." (Season 5, Episode 24)

Air date: May 22, 2008

Starring: Kiefer Sutherland, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Kim Raver, Jean Smart, Gregory Itzin, James Morrison

Bottom line: While the great "24" seemed to get more and more ridiculous every season, we still loved it. And never was the show more at the top of its game than in its fifth season, with a labyrinthine plot once again unwound and the world saved by our hero, Jack Bauer.

But that's not where the twist comes in. That hits when we realize Jack is missing, then our last time seeing him is on a tanker boat, badly beaten, headed to China as retribution by the evil Chang Zhi.

You can make a good argument this was the show's apex.

27. Leaping Into Dallas, 'Quantum Leap'

Episode: "A Leap For Lisa" (Season 4, Episode 22)

Air date: May 20, 1992

Starring: Scott Bakula, Dean Stockwell, Roddy McDowall, Deborah Pratt

Bottom line: "Quantum Leap" was one of the most beloved sci-fi television shows of the 1990s thanks to its crazy time-hopping plot and two charismatic lead characters, Dr. Sam Beckett (played by Scott Bakula) and his hologram guide Al (played by Dean Stockwell).

The show didn't do many multi-episode arcs or have many cliffhangers into the final few seasons, but the biggest twist was in the season four finale, when Sam leaped from a young version of Al into Lee Harvey Oswald.

Viewers had a great offseason of speculation about whether the show would lean into the conspiracy aspects of the JFK assassination, which was cool. The payoff was, well, you can watch for yourself.

26. Are You Alone?, 'Mad Men'

Episode: "The Phantom" (Season 5, Episode 13)

Air date: June 10, 2012

Starring: Jon Hamm, John Slattery, Elisabeth Moss, Vincent Kartheiser, Christina Hendricks, Alison Brie, Alexis Bledel, Julia Ormond, Jessica Pare

Bottom line: Most "Mad Men" fans will tell you that the real cliffhanger in the series was at the end of season four, when protagonist Don Draper impulsively marries his secretary.

They're wrong. There's something about the way season five ends that really takes your breath away when we see Don walk into a bar and order an Old Fashioned. Then the two women walk up to him and ask him if he's alone.

It's a credit to Jon Hamm as an actor that he conveys everything we need to know in the look he gives them. And we're left to wonder about his reply and the implications.

25. Dearly Beloved, We Are Gathered Here for Memes, 'The O.C.'

Episode: "The Dearly Beloved" (Season 2, Episode 24)

Air date: May 19, 2005

Starring: Benjamin McKenzie, Mischa Barton, Peter Gallagher, Adam Brody, Kelly Rowan, Rachel Bilson, Alan Dale, Logan Marshall-Green

Bottom line: This was the most famous episode in the run of one of the greatest teen TV dramas of all time.

"The O.C." capped its second season by having Marissa Cooper shoot and kill reformed bad boy Ryan Atwood's older brother, Trey, and the still pic of actress Mischa Barton holding the gun was one of the first memes to go viral.

In a cool aside, the actor playing Trey, Logan Marshall-Green, has gone on to have a pretty impressive career.

24. Panic Attack for the Ages, 'Mindhunter'

Episode: "Episode 10" (Season 1, Episode 10)

Air date: Oct. 12, 2017

Starring: Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany, Anna Torv, Hannah Gross, Cameron Britton

Bottom line: Netflix's brilliant "Mindhunter" came from one of the greatest directors of all time, David Fincher, and explores the creation of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit — aka the people who hunt serial killers.

At the end of the first season, one of our main characters, on-the-edge Special Agent Holden Ford makes the decision to visit serial killer Ed Kemper at the hospital after a suicide attempt.

When Kemper, played in eerie fashion by Cameron Britton, realizes he has Agent Ford alone and relays to him he can kill him, then puts his hands on his shoulders, you may have found it hard to breathe in your own living room. As he sprints down the hallway away from Kemper and collapses in a panic attack, we feel it. And it's terrifying.

23. This Is the Worst Trip I've Ever Been On, 'Outer Banks'

Episode: "The Coastal Venture" (Season 2, Episode 10)

Air date: July 30, 2021

Starring: Chase Stokes, Madelyn Cline, Madison Bailey, Jonathan Daviss, Rudy Pankow, Drew Starkey

Bottom line: If you don't know what's up with Netflix's "Outer Banks" yet, feel free to catch up at any time and enjoy it like the rest of us.

If you weren't living under a rock, you probably steamrolled through all the episodes from season two when they were released in July 2021 and followed along as our beloved Pogues, led by John B., chased down a priceless golden cross and got double-crossed at every turn.

Nothing was more shocking than the final minute of the second season when we saw that John B's father was alive and well despite having been "dead" for the previous 19 episodes, with his death technically being the triggering incident for the show's entire plot.

22. Agent Cooper Loses His Grip, 'Twin Peaks'

Episode: "Beyond Life and Death" (Season 2, Episode 22)

Air date: June 10, 1991

Starring: Kyle Machlachlan, Michael Ontkean, Richard Beymer, Kenneth Welsh, Heather Graham, Carel Struycken

Bottom line: Never in television history has there been a more bizarre, beautiful undertaking than director David Lynch's "Twin Peaks" — which got two seasons, a bad movie and an amazing comeback on Showtime some 27 years later.

What viewers got at the end of the second season was something out of a nightmare, with Agent Dale Cooper seemingly caught in some sort of purgatory/demonic portal zone called The Black Lodge. We really wish we could explain it better, but it's almost two bizarre to comprehend.

21. Break on Through to the Other Side, 'Fringe'

Episode: "There's More Than One of Everything" (Season 1, Episode 20)

Air date: May 12, 2009

Starring: Joshua Jackson, Anna Torv, John Noble, Jared Harris, Lance Reddick, Jasika Nicole, Leonard Nimoy

Bottom line: "Fringe" was a sci-fi trip of a show, and it was never better than in its first two seasons. And we got one heck of a cliffhanger at the end of the first season.

That's when Agent Olivia Dunham is transported to an alternate universe and pulled into the office of William Bell. A crazy reveal show he's being played by Leonard Nimoy.

And the final pull-out shot shows she's standing in an office at the top of the Twin Towers.

20. We Write Our Own Destiny, 'Loki'

Episode: "For All Time. Always." (Season 1, Episode 6)

Air date: July 14, 2021

Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Jonathan Majors, Owen Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Sophia Di Martino

Bottom line: The third streaming episode from Marvel on Disney Plus ended up being the best — and having the best cliffhanger of all of them.

The season one finale of "Loki" blew viewers' minds and got a huge boost from the presence of Jonathan Majors as He Who Remains/Kang the Conqueror (although we don't hear him say that). Loki and one of the variants, Sylvie, made their way to the Citadel at the End of Time, but Sylvie cracks, killing He Who Remains, which creates a branching of multiverses that cannot be pruned.

When Loki comes back to TVA, there's chaos, and no one recognizes him, including his homie Mobius. The last shocking thing we see is a statue of one of Kang's variants in the TVA. Then a promise of a second season.

19. One Bloody Valentine's Day, 'ER'

Episode: "Be Still My Heart" (Season 6, Episode 13)

Air date: Feb. 10, 2000

Starring: Noah Wylie, Anthony Edwards, Maura Tierney, Kellie Martin, David Krumholtz, Goran Visnijic

Bottom line: This was one of the few midseason cliffhangers to make the cut. It had a brilliant, violent twist with two of our favorite "ER" characters, Dr. John Carter and Dr. Lucy Knight, stabbed by a schizophrenic man who got his hands on a knife that was used to cut a cake for a Valentine's Day party.

This show resonated because when Dr. Carter is stabbed and falls to the floor, he sees Dr. Knight across from him, pale, bloody and dying after having already been attacked by the same patient.

18. Resistance is Futile, 'Star Trek: The Next Generation'

Episode: "The Best of Both Worlds, Part 1" (Season 3, Episode 26)

Air date: June 18, 1990

Starring: Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Michael Dorn, LeVar Burton, Wil Wheaton, Whoopi Goldberg, Marina Sirtis

Bottom line: This one is for all of our sci-fi heads out there. The absolute nuclear bomb was dropped on geekdom by "Star Trek: The Next Generation" when we saw the evil Borg assimilate Captain Jean-Luc Picard in the season 3 finale.

You had to be a card-carrying Star Trek fan in the late 1980s and early 1990s to truly feel the emotional impact of Picard telling his crew he is now Locutus of Borg and "resistance is futile" before the ever-loyal Commander Riker instructs Riker to fire on the Borg cube.

17. Don’t Feed It the American, 'Stranger Things'

Episode: "Chapter Eight: The Battle of Starcourt" (Season 3, Episode 8)

Air date: July 4, 2019

Starring: David Harbour, Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Winona Ryder, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Noah Schnapp, Joe Keery, Charlie Heaton, Maya Hawke, Priah Ferguson

Bottom line: Say what you will about the second season of "Stranger Things," but they brought the heat with the third season and gave us a huge emotional payoff with the season finale in "The Battle of Starcourt," where our group of kid heroes destroy the local mall in a battle with the Mind Flayer.

We also get the emotional resonance of losing one of the show's main characters, Hopper, but the last thing we see before the season ends is a Russian prison where they're holding a demogorgon captive and feeding it other prisoners, but "not the American."

Is Hopper alive?

16. Sydney Gets a Rude Awakening, 'Alias'

Episode: "The Telling" (Season 2, Episode 22)

Air date: May 4, 2003

Starring: Jennifer Garner, Ron Rifkin, Michael Vartan, Bradley Cooper, Merrin Dungy, Carl Lumbly, Victor Garber, Lena Olin

Bottom line: "Alias" turned lead actress Jennifer Garner into a star and behind the leadership of J.J. Abrams pumped out five seasons of decent to really good television. It was never more at the peak of its powers than with its blistering season two finale.

When superspy Sydney Bristow gets in a no-holds-barred battle to the death with the replica of her dead best friend, Francie, then passes out from exhaustion, she wakes up to quite a shock — she's in Hong Kong and she's been missing for two years.

One of the things that made this show so great was the supporting cast. Yes, that's Bradley Cooper playing Syd's long-suffering best friend, Will, and Terry O'Quinn as another FBI blackhat.

15. Elementary, My Dear Watson, 'Sherlock'

Episode: "The Reichenbach Fall" (Season 2, Episode 3)

Air date: Jan. 15, 2012

Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Andrew Scott, Vinette Robinson, Jonathan Aris

Bottom line: As the episode opens, the loyal Watson chokes out the words, "My friend Sherlock Holmes … is dead," and we are off and running on one of the most epic cliffhanger episodes of all time.

Flashing back three months, we get a modern version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic Sherlock story "The Final Problem," and a stunning battle between Sherlock and his nemesis Moriarty ends with Sherlock committing suicide by jumping off a building to save all of his friends.

It's at his funeral where we get our final twist, in true Sherlock style.

14. Revelation on the Toilet, 'Breaking Bad'

Episode: "Gliding All Over" (Season 5, Episode 8)

Air date: Sept. 2, 2012

Starring: Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Dean Norris, Jesse Plemons, Anna Gunn, Betsy Brandt, R.J. Mitte, Bob Odenkirk, Jonathan Banks

Bottom line: "Breaking Bad" antihero Walter White had taken down all comers over the previous five-and-a-half seasons, managing to even dupe his DEA agent brother-in-law, Hank, who had been unknowingly tracking his alter ego identity "Heisenberg" as Walter became the top narcotics trafficker in the Southwest.

It's only in the season five midseason finale that Hank, while using the bathroom, finally realizes that Walter actually is "Heisenberg" thanks to an assist from a copy of Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass."

The episode aired in the fall of 2012, with no new episodes for almost an entire year.

13. The Gift of Death, 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'

Episode: "The Gift" (Season 5, Episode 22)

Air date: May 22, 2001

Starring: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Nicholas Brendon, Allyson Hannigan, Michelle Trachtenberg, James Marsters, Anthony Head

Bottom line: Showrunner Joss Whedon didn't know if "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" would get renewed for a sixth season, so he wrote the season 5 finale as if it were the series finale. And it paid off with one of the greatest cliffhangers of all time.

Buffy was told by the slayer that originally trained her that her "gift" was death, which Buffy interpreted in a lot of different ways over the years. Was it her ability to kill? Was it her ability to get over the deaths of loved ones?

In the end, with the fate of the world on the line, she realized her gift would be her own death as she threw herself into a cosmic portal that was part of a ritual to bring about the end of the world, saving all of us.

12. Just Like His Father, 'Dexter'

Episode: "The Getaway" (Season 4, Episode 12)

Air date: Dec. 13, 2009

Starring: Michael C. Hall, John Lithgow, Julie Benz, Jennifer Carpenter

Bottom line: You cannot ratchet up the pressure any more in a television show than the season four finale of "Dexter" in which our serial killer/hero tracks down The Trinity Killer, played brilliantly by John Lithgow, as some of the own secrets of his past become uncovered.

After Dexter finally takes down The Trinity Killer and resolves in his own mind to stop killing — and thinking he's shepherded his family to safety — he returns home to find a nightmare scenario.

The Trinity Killer had already been to Dexter's house, where he'd killed his wife and left his young son sitting in his mother's blood. Just like what happened to Dexter when he was a baby. Brutal.

11. Not Where They Thought They Were, 'The Good Place'

Episode: "Michael's Gambit" (Season 1, Episode 13)

Air date: Jan. 19, 2017

Starring: Kristin Bell, Ted Danson, Manny Jacinto, William Jackson Harper, Jameela Jamil

Bottom line: One of the great television plot twists of the last decade was brought to us by the comedy "The Good Place" starring Kristin Bell and Ted Danson, who were also the only two cast members told about the season one twist beforehand.

It's hard to keep a secret in the social media era (or avoid spoilers), so it was hard to avoid the fallout when Bell's character, Eleanor, comes to the realization that what she and her compatriots have thought was "The Good Place" all along is actually "The Bad Place."

And the reason they're all there is because they were terrible people.

10. Who Gets to Meet Lucille? 'The Walking Dead'

Episode: "Last Day On Earth" (Season 6, Episode 16)

Air date: April 3, 2016

Starring: Andrew Lincoln, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Steven Yeun, Danai Gurira, Norman Reedus

Bottom line: What's amazing about "Last Day on Earth" isn't that it was a great episode overall, as many on this list are, but essentially it was just for its last few minutes.

That's when we get to meet the leader of the Saviors, Negan, for the first time, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan. He has captured our group of survivors led by Rick. We also get to meet Lucille, Negan's baseball bat wound tight with barbed wire.

As Negan tells Rick that one of his group must die for taking so many of his men, we don't get to see which one as Negan beats the person to death. And fans got to speculate who caught the business end of Lucille until the start of the seventh season.

9. They Took the Baby, 'Sons of Anarchy'

Episode: "Na Triobloidi (The Troubles)" (Season 2, Episode 13)

Air date: Dec. 1, 2009

Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Kate Sagal, Ron Perlman, Johnny Lewis, A.J. Rollins, Adam Arkin, Ally Walker, Maggie Siff, Mark Boone Jr., Tommy Flanagan, Ryan Hurst

Bottom line: The brutal, sometimes brilliant "Sons of Anarchy" from creator Kurt Sutter was based on William Shakerspeare's "Macbeth," but instead of the Danish royalty, we get a Northern California biker gang.

This show lived and died by its cliffhangers. And there were many. But none hit like when our beloved antihero, Jax Teller, had his infant son kidnapped by the IRA at the end of season two.

The sight of Jax screaming at the end of a dock as his son is taken away left us shook.

8. He Did Put a Ring on It, 'Grey's Anatomy'

Episode: "Who's Zoomin' Who?" (Season 1, Episode 9)

Air date: May 22, 2005

Starring: Patrick Dempsey, Ellen Pompeo,T.R Knight, Katherine Heigl, Kate Walsh, Isaiah Washington, James Pickens Jr., Justin Chambers, Sandra Oh

Bottom line: As "Grey's Anatomy" stretches into its third decade on television, we can look back on the first season with a certain amount of clarity and fondness of how simple things were back then. Not every cliffhanger has to do with someone dying.

In this case, you could hear the gasps from coast to coast in the season one finale when Meredith Grey's love, Derek, gets a surprise visit at the hospital from his wife, Addison.

Here's the thing. We didn't even know Derek was married. Mic drop moment.

7. Who's Been Hit?, 'The West Wing'

Episode: "What Kind of Day Has It Been?" (Season 1, Episode 22)

Air date: May 17, 2000

Starring: Martin Sheen, Allison Janney, Rob Lowe, Moira Kelly, Dule Hill, Richard Schiff, John Spencer, Bradley Whitford

Bottom line: While "West Wing" creator Aaron Sorkin used "What Kind of Day Has It Been?" as the title for episodes across many of his different shows, it's most memorable moment came in the season one finale of "The West Wing." This cliffhanger left us wondering if President Josiah Bartlett had been shot by white supremacists.

What's so great about this episode is how Sorkin plays out the drama at the end. As we hear "GUN!" and shots are fired, we see all of the senior staff and president tackled to the ground by Secret Service. Then a pan out of the chaos. Then all we hear is "Who's been hit?!" repeated twice.

Sorkin is truly the master.

6. Everybody Was a Suspect, 'The Simpsons'

Episode: "Who Shot Mr. Burns? Part 1" (Season 6, Episode 25)

Air date: May 21, 1995

Starring: Nancy Cartwright, Harry Shearer, Yeardley Smith, Dan Castellaneta, Julie Cavner, Hank Azaria

Bottom line: This playful take on the famous "Dallas" cliffhanger of "Who Killed J.R.?" puts Homer Simpson's evil, longtime boss, Mr. Burns, in the crosshairs of one of his myriad enemies.

The plot — Mr. Burns wants the local elementary school's recently discovered oil well — is hilarious, and the two-episode arc that continues with the first episode of season seven is perhaps the most beloved in the history of the long-running series.

5. The One With the Cliffhanger, 'Friends'

Episode: "The One with Ross's Wedding" (Season 4, Episode 23 and 24)

Air date: May 7, 1998

Starring: David Schwimmer, Matthew Perry, Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc

Bottom line: Even for one of the greatest comedy sitcoms of all time, few moments can compare with when Rachel decides to crash Ross and Emily's wedding in Great Britain, replete with an epic dressing-down by guest star Hugh Laurie on the flight over the Atlantic Ocean.

The episode, which has been widely pointed to as one of the best in the entire series, enters the pantheon of great cliffhangers in the final moments when Ross is taking his vows and accidentally swaps out Emily's name. With Rachel.

The finale was watched by 21 million people but didn't get a very good reception from the British, who hated how they were portrayed.

4. Duttons vs. Everybody, 'Yellowstone'

Episode: "The World is Purple" (Season 3, Episode 10)

Air date: Aug. 23, 2020

Starring: Kevin Costner, Cole Hauser, Wes Bentley, Luke Grimes, Kelly Reilly, Kelsey Asbille

Bottom line: Taylor Sheridan's epic tale of a family of wealthy landowners in Montana led by Kevin Costner's John Dutton, a sixth-generation cattleman, seems to get better every season.

And it was never better than in the third season, when the series closed out things in a breathtaking display of violence against the Dutton family — all of whom we're left wondering about their fates. Was Beth killed in the explosion? Did Kayce manage to fight off the gunmen?

And there's Costner, hit in a drive-by and seemingly (maybe) saved by the cell phone he hates so much.

3. That Snow Looks Cold, 'Game of Thrones'

Episode: "Mother's Mercy" (Season 5, Episode 10)

Air date: June 4, 2015

Starring: Kit Harington, Lena Headey, Jonathan Pryce, Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams, Peter Dinklage, Emilia Clarke

Bottom line: We could have selected almost any of the first seven season finales from "Game of Thrones" for this list, but the one that gets the nod is season five, when viewers around the world were left to wonder if beloved hero Jon Snow's fate was truly to die in the snow at Castle Black, stabbed to death by fellow members of The Night's Watch.

The reason this particular cliffhanger was so spellbinding was because author George R.R. Martin's novels on which the show was based had not progressed Jon's storyline beyond when the show did, and we all spent a year wondering if he was alive or dead.

Technically, it turned out to be both.

2. Who Shot J.R.?, 'Dallas'

Episode: "A House Divided" (Season 3, Episode 25)

Air date: March 21, 1980

Starring: Larry Hagman, Mary Crosby, Mary Powell, Linda Gray, Patrick Duffy, Victoria Principal, Keenan Wynn, Jim Davis

Bottom line: You cannot accurately convey what a frenzy television viewers were spun into thanks to the season three finale of "Dallas" after an entire nation was left with the question: "Who shot J.R.?"

Played by the late, great Larry Hagman, J.R. Ewing was the apex villain on television in the 1980s. He was a Texas oilman so encompassed by greed and deceit that you loved to hate him. Which meant he had a lot of enemies.

When he's shot in his office in the final moments of the season three finale, it sparked interest in the show that we can't fathom today. Hagman was even given an audience with Queen Elizabeth, who pressed him on the shooter's identity and whether he lived or died, to which he politely refused.

The bottom line? When the shooter was finally revealed in the fourth episode of the next season, a staggering 83 million Americans tuned in, along with an audience of 350 million worldwide. Including the queen, presumably.

1. We Have to Go Back!, 'Lost'

Episode: "Through the Looking Glass" (Season 3, Episode 23)

Air date: May 25, 2007

Starring: Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, Terry O'Quinn, Naveen Andrews, Daniel Dae-Kim, Josh Holloway, Jorge Garcia, Elizabeth Mitchell, Dominic Monaghan

Bottom line: The greatest cliffhanger in the history of television belongs to "Lost" — a two-fisted double episode that sent the internet spinning in a pre-social media era, which was no easy task.

What really brings home a cliffhanger? Having more than one cliffhanger. After three seasons of flashbacks, we see our hero, Dr. Jack Shepherd, borderline suicidal and battling his demons across Los Angeles, attending a funeral for which he is the only attendee. And then finally, we see the realization that it's not a flashback. It's a flash-forward, and he's off the island somehow.

The last thing he screams at Kate, his former love — "We have to go back!" — had us screaming in our living rooms. Isn't television great sometimes?