Where Are They Now? Epilogue

""Monty Python. Where are they now? Well, they're here in this cupboard.

...Sad, isn't it?""

- Steve Martin, Parrot Sketch Not Included

A kind of epilogue where we're shown what happens to the characters, places and/or the setting after the series. It usually gets about a minute or two during the last extended credits of a Grand Finale, or a less intrusive version of the closing credits may roll over it.

A staple of the Very Loosely Based on a True Story films, it differs from a Distant Finale in that we get little flashes (such as photographs, still frames, little captions, narration/voiceover, or a Montages of individual clips) that tell us what happened to the characters, instead of a full scene with dialogue or character interaction. If it shows how each character meets his maker, a Deadly Distant Finale. If it happens while the credits are rolling, it might be Creative Closing Credits.

Anime and Manga

 * The last half of episode 11 in Nodame Cantabile Finale where it shows under the credits and the ending theme where everyone is going. Also, a case of All Love is Requited.
 * The last episode of El-Hazard: The Magnificent World ran pastel drawings under its closing credits that showed obvious "after the series" images -- Makoto and Ifurita snuggling under a tree, Allielle in a seifuku, and so on. They may simply be non-canon art pieces, however.
 * Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's did this in the end, skipping the series forward six years, leaving only four more before the new season.
 * The following season, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, did the same thing, though it didn't skip forward as far.
 * The manga of Please Save My Earth closed with a scene showing the seven protagonists settling into their new lives several years later, as well as the circumstances of the spirits of the main couple.
 * Last five minutes of Digimon Adventure 02, specifically the shots that show us what the digidestined's careers are, now that they've grown up.
 * Last five minutes of Digimon Savers (5 years later, and less controversial...yeah).
 * Also used sort of at the end of the fourth movie (2nd in English due to the combining of the first three. While the credits are on we see stills of what the characters got up to more or less directly after the film.
 * Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water concludes with a short epilogue that takes place several years after the events of the series. The epilogue is narrated by Marie, the youngest member of the cast, now a fetching girl of about 18 or so.
 * Canvas 2 has one of these, including a scene which subverts
 * The ending of Blue Drop shows Michiko on her way to a peace talk with the aliens, thirty years after her experiences with Hagino and Mari,.
 * The end of the first season of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni uses this, with what looks like the main cast all enjoying themselves after Keiichi managed to save Rena.
 * Look at the ending again.
 * The final scene of Outlaw Star shows the crew saying their goodbyes and going their separate ways. But wait: in the post-credit stinger, surprise, surprise, they all get back together again.
 * Mobile Suit Gundam Wing Endless Waltz ended with a dialogue-free ending credits sequence that demonstrated what each character did almost immediately following. The extended movie version had completely new sequences that remained dialogue-free, but was a bit more elaborate in what it presented.
 * Most notably including  A somewhat heartwarming scene (though the man in question didn't really leave a body to put in a tomb).
 * The final page/episode of Fullmetal Alchemist depicts.
 * The 2003 anime version does something like this, the last half of the episode showing what everyone's up to after the fallout. That is, until the movie picks up right where the epilogue leaves off at. Whoops.
 * In Aria, Akari explains in a letter to Ai what is going on with several characters, apparently a few years after she took over Aria Company. At the very end there is an even bigger time-skip, showing.
 * In the manga, Akari's letter is not to Ai, but to, although the timeskip event is still the same.
 * Code Geass ends with one of these. The funniest is that Jeremiah, who had been tormented by the derisive name "Orange", ends up accepting the name and living Happily Ever After growing oranges!
 * The credits of My Neighbor Totoro show incidents from the future, starting with the mother's return from the hospital.
 * Similarly, the credits of Kiki's Delivery Service show what happened with Tombo's aviator's club, Jiji and Lily, ect.
 * In the final episode of Tenchi Universe, Tenchi recounts what happens to everyone after he defeats Kagato.
 * The last episode of Prétear goes directly from the final True Love's Kiss to what appears to be the events occurring about half a year after, showing what the characters' lives are now like (and stuffing half of the sequence with a collection of the show's Running Gags).
 * Princess Tutu has one in the last few minutes of the final episode of the series, showing what Kinkan is like after the story ended. It also shows that Fakir kept his promise to.
 * Transformers Victory ended with Jean narrating what happened to everybody after Deathsaurus was defeated. Among other things, we find out that Star Saber and Victory Leo survived.
 * In the Ghost Stories Gag Dub, Satsuki starts to tell a somewhat vulgar one and is cut off. Stories involved her homeroom teacher getting arrested for feeling up one of her classmates and Hajime losing his voice from getting kicked in the balls or something like that.
 * Clannad has this before the Fuko and Kouko portion of the final episode.
 * The ending to the Ai Yori Aoshi: Enishi anime had a series of animated and still images over the end credits, showing glimpses of the characters several years later. The manga goes into more detail, actually resolving the main romantic plotline, and ending with something of a Distant Finale.
 * Part 2 of Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure ended with one of these for all the surviving cast. Of course, given it was scarcely 100 chapters into an (as of now) over 800 chapter series... yeah it wasn't quite done.
 * The collected volume of Chrono Crusade came with a bonus epilogue that functioned like this--Justified by a video . The epilogue was not released in the magazine Chrono Crusade ran in, meaning that fans had to wait for the book to come out to get a clearer idea of what happened after the finale.
 * Steamboy - The Steamboy universe's alternate timeline is show in clips during the credits where
 * The ending of Samurai Champloo does this, showing the three protagonists walking along their individual paths after splitting up and enjoying the scenery while the credits play.
 * Following the deciding battle of Sengoku Basara, time skips ahead a few months to show us the main characters back on their feet and getting ready to fight again, while Masamune and Yukimura meet for their all-important final duel, though the outcome is left ambiguous.
 * Turns out kind of won (Yukimura was being distracted), but didn't get round to finishing the job before a new Big Bad showed up.
 * Fushigi Yuugi has an epilogue which starts off with a letter. A montage of events that occur over approximately three and a half months--particularly Miaka's transition to high school--and then we see Miaka and Yui in high school (complete with montage-filled credits). Keisuke and Tetsuya then set them up with, and... Cliff Hanger!
 * The last few pages of volume 18 (which is the manga form of the second OVA) shows few pictures of the Suzaku Seishi after their rebirth. Nuriko seems to have gotten his wish  Even the cat Tama started a family! Chichiri is also shown, but  . Miaka and.
 * The Ruby/Sapphire arc of Pokémon Special ends by showing what the various side characters of the arc are doing after their brush with The End of the World as We Know It....
 * Also, all of the Pokémon movies end with scenes showing what Ash Ketchum, Pikachu, and his friends are doing following the films' events.
 * The Toradora! anime has one of these in the last episode.
 * Subverted at the end of Irresponsible Captain Tylor: It shows ... until
 * The second half of the final episode of Maison Ikkoku took place months after and illustrated how the lives of the various characters continued on in the months since:
 * The Japanese version of Yu-Gi-Oh!: Duel Monsters has one in the final episode showing the credits montage of the characters returning home and the whereabouts of minor characters.
 * Done at the end credits of Yu-Gi-Oh The Abridged Movie.
 * The extra ending in the final episode of Future GPX Cyber Formula SIN takes place one year after the 2022 racing season, a new racing season opens with some of the racers switching teams and new outfits for the Pit Girls and ending with the marriage ceremony of the main couple.
 * The last episode of Simoun is one of these as well.
 * Tayutama Kiss On My Deity combines this with After the End in an ending that makes little sense whatsoever.
 * The latest cover-story mini-arc in One Piece after the Time Skip is showing what changes all of the people the Straw Hats have known have undergone.
 * In the Fate/stay night anime, the last few minutes before the credits are a version of this. It shows the current antics of most the characters of the Emiya household such as Sakura, Ilya, Rin and Taiga. And then it turns bittersweet and depressing
 * Heartcatch Precure has one as the first half of the episode shows the final battle and the second half shows the group a few months later - . It goes one step further by showing
 * Yu-Gi-Oh 5 Ds shows the epilogue over the last three episodes. After half a year after the defeat of ZONE,  became the new mayor. Akiza is finishing up school and contemplates studying overseas.   becomes a member of the New Domino Police. Yusei   Rua and Ruka received a letter from their parents who want them to leave Domino City to live with them. Jack has been travelling and training.
 * The last episode then shows everyone eight years after.
 * Done in Project ARMS, where we see that
 * The last chapter of Mahou Sensei Negima is largely pictures of the time-skipped girls with a few short paragraphs mentioning how they're living now. Fan reaction to the ending was mixed, not least because of a few important plot points which took place entirely offscreen (Natsumi had another adventure in the Magic World, the twins met some princes and fell in love, ), and a number of other characters fans were interested in were simply not mentioned (such as Fate, Fate's girls, ).
 * The end credits in the series finale of Soul Eater show what almost the entire cast got up to after Asura's defeat. They're mostly lighthearted (such as Maka improving at basketball and Joe finally getting his coffee) and the final seconds show the students together one last time.
 * Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann jumps 20 years into the future to show society is still advancing- but not without giving the viewers a solemn reminder of the events that have passed. It implies ons must accept the course of life and death as it is, or risk tampering with the fabric of existence.

Comic Books

 * The back page of the final issue of British comic Buster gave final endings to all the strips, mostly involving the central concept of the strip being reversed or deconstructed.
 * The final issue of Avengers: The Initiative ended with one of these. Hardball and Komodo reconcile with each other and Cloud 9. Batwing and Butterball replace the U-Foes as North Carolina's state superteam, and are in the market for additional members. Bengal retired, moved to Sunset Park, and opened a martial arts school. Trauma starts Walking the Earth, his exact activities Shrouded in Myth. And... well, there were Loads and Loads of Characters in this series, you really don't need to hear about them all.
 * Oddly, despite writer Christos Gage's obvious intention of this as a sendoff to these characters, whom he expected would never appear again except as C-List Fodder, there was a Post Script Season in Fear Itself: Youth in Revolt.
 * The first issue of the Super Buddies mini-series showed what happened to the members of the Justice League International after their book was cancelled in the 90's. Most of the heroes were in dire straights, such as Fire, who was now running a softcore porn website.

Fan Works

 * The two-part epilogue of With Strings Attached includes a brief AP story that says, in essence, “The Beatles are not reuniting.”
 * My Little Avengers ends with a brief Time Skip showing what happened after the defeat of Loki. In addition to showing what happened to the story's central characters, it also shows what happened to a few of the minor characters,

Films -- Animated
"[[spoiler: Flynn/Eugene: But I know what the big question is? Did Rapunzel and I ever get married? Well I am happy to say after years and years of asking, I finally said yes.
 * The directors and the animators on Lilo and Stitch fought with the Disney Company, and won, to create additional animation and "photo" paintings of what happened to the characters after the events of the film, establishing the new family that they indeed formed after Stitch arrived.
 * WALL-E's closing credits begin with this, before
 * The closing credits of Finding Nemo show that the fish that were living in the dentist's fish tank are all now living happily in the ocean with Nemo, Marlin, Dory, and their friends.
 * In the animated feature of Watership Down, the narrator relates how Woundwort's body was never found and his memory lived on as a sort of lapine boogeyman.
 * Toy Story 3 does this in true Pixar fashion.
 * Tangled combines this trope with Lemony Narrator:

Rapunzel: Eugene!

Flynn/Eugene: Okay, okay. I asked her.

Rapunzel: And we're living happily ever after!

Flynn/Eugene: Yes we are.]]"


 * Ice Age ends with Scrat being frozen inside an ice cube and being washed up onto a tropical island and thawing out after being frozen inside the cube for 20,000 years, only to have his acorn washed away by the tide causing the poor squirrel to substitute his lost acorn with a coconut, causing him to accidentally trigger a volcanic eruption after driving the coconut into the sand.
 * The credits of Cars roll with incidents from the next years about the future of the characters and the revival of the town.
 * Kung Fu Panda runs this as the artwork behind the end credits, showing what the Five and Po get up to after the story.

Films -- Live-Action
"Sally became a world-famous.
 * American Graffiti introduced what was to become the iconic form of the Where Are They Now epilogue: a brief freeze frame of each of the major characters accompanied by subtitles giving their full name and a brief summary of their future lives. One character went on to becomes a famous writer; another was drafted and died in Vietnam.
 * Animal House has a similar sequence with the camera pausing on multiple characters with a short text blurb describing their future, only their fates are all ironic and funny, from the original Neidermeyer getting "killed in Vietnam by his own troops" to "Senator and Mrs. John Blutarsky." The "Double Secret Probation Edition" of the Animal House DVD takes this trope further.
 * Word of God states that Animal House was deliberately parodying Graffiti, especially since both films were set in roughly the same era. Ironically, Animal House itself was so influential that the ironic, funny epilogues soon became the dominant version of this trope, as can be seen from all of the homages and ShoutOuts listed elsewhere on this page.
 * The film The Sandlot ends with the Wonder Years-esque Narrator giving brief descriptions of what the various players wound up doing as adults, which cuts into a final scene showing that Benny ends up as a professional ball player and Smalls becomes a sportscaster.
 * Jean-Pierre Melville's Army of Shadows ended with
 * Nine to Five ends with Animal House-esque text blurbs telling us what each character went on to do with their lives. Dolly Parton's character appropriately became a country singer, and Mr. Hart, the chauvinist boss wound up being karmically abducted by a tribe of Amazons.
 * Canadian Bacon, including some of the following:
 * That Thing You Do, the Tom Hanks-directed film about a young garage band turned one-hit Wonders, ends with a quick wrap-up of everyone's ultimate future over the closing credits. Suffice it to say that the hero and heroine live happily-ever-after, and everybody else gets suitably gently-ironic fates.
 * Also, the No Name Given bass player's name is revealed. Sort of.
 * Legally Blonde had an epilogue that is both this and a Distant Finale, due to the request of the test audiences. It's a full scene with interspersed text blurbs detailing what happened to the supporting characters.
 * Mallrats had one of these, although some of what was shown was pretty weird.
 * Kevin Smith has referred to the movie as his homage to Animal House.
 * Jay and Silent Bob's actually foreshadows the events of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
 * A Fish Called Wanda. This being a comedy, the villain goes on to become Minister for Justice in South Africa. A government desperately trying to hold onto its Apartheid policies. See here for more details. Note the horrible violence.
 * Strike/All I Wanna Do/The Hairy Bird ends with blurbs describing the somewhat ironic fates of the main characters.
 * The Gulf War film Three Kings has a brief montage like this, mentioning that one character is now a Hollywood war movie consultant
 * The mockumentary Drop Dead Gorgeous has text blurbs for several main characters-- except for Amber, who also gets a couple quick scenes showing how.
 * A Mighty Wind.
 * Tim Burton's Ed Wood.
 * Used at the end of the first Young Guns movie, which was kind of invalidated by the sequel. The sequel also made use of this trope.
 * Frankie Lymon's wives (and Little Richard) explain what happened to them in Why Do Fools Fall Inlove?.
 * Biloxi Blues.
 * Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
 * Both Support Your Local Sheriff and Support Your Local Gunfighter finish with Jack Elam's characters Jake and Jug, respectively, detailing the fates of all the characters, including his. ("..one of the most beloved characters in western folklore." "..big star in spaghetti westerns.")
 * Cooley High
 * Played for Laughs in Air America
 * Gettysburg ends with photos of each actor turning into photos of the real people the characters were based on and words below describing their fate after the battle, qhich is also a reverse of the opening credits, where historic photos transition into photos of the actors.
 * Titanic: Rose mentions that Cal . Photos beside her bed reveal some of the life Rose, herself, went on to lead after the sinking.
 * Can't Hardly Wait.
 * Stand by Me has sort of a variant of this, with the adult Gordie describing his friends' eventual fates toward the conclusion of his voiceover narration.
 * Tombstone. The narrator describes what happened to various characters later in life.
 * The Express tells of the futures of Ernie Davis, Jim Brown, Floyd Little and Syracuse coach Ben Schwarzwalder.
 * Cinderella Man
 * Escape from Sobibor
 * Stripes -- another Ivan Reitman film, showing magazine covers illustrating the fates of the characters.
 * Notte Prima Degli Esami, an Italian Teen comedy, does this with polaroids of the main characters and their destinies written on the white part.
 * At the end of Apollo 13 Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell has a voice over telling what happened to him and everyone else involved in the mission afterwards.
 * Miracle does this, showing stills of the characters and saying what they did after the games.
 * The French Connection
 * Unbreakable: the character of Elijah Price is
 * Parodied in Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the Thirteenth
 * The Italian Job - the 2003 version, anyways.
 * The final scenes of Into the Wild show what happened to the various people Chris encountered on his journey.
 * Unstoppable
 * In The Blind Side, it showed what happened to Michael and the Tuohys.
 * The Social Network had text overlayed at the end of the final scene mostly with a focus on the results of the two lawsuits that serve as a framework for the story.
 * Milk ends with one of these, including photographs of the real people portrayed in the film.
 * In Enchanted, it shows that  got married in Andalesia.   opens up a new fashion/boutique business, staying with   After , Nathaniel becomes a successful author, as well as Pip.
 * The Damned United features an end roll that shows the future of its central characters, Peter Taylor and Brian Clough. With some things at the very end left out.
 * The Toolbox Murders ends with it a card stating the film was based on true events, and that the main character spent some time in an asylum before settling down and having a child; it's also mentioned her mother died in a car crash.
 * Little Nicky
 * The King's Speech revealed that Bertie and Lionel remained friends for the rest of their lives.
 * Downfall
 * Remember the Titans
 * Waiting for Guffman
 * Korean film Attack the Gas Station does one of these.
 * Natural Born Killers
 * The Commitments explains where the band members ended up after their breakup.
 * Walk the Line
 * Alpha Dog shows the legal consequences to the individual members of Truelove/Hollywood's crew as a result of the kidnapping and murder of Zach Mazursky/Nick Markowitz at the end. Truelove himself was finally apprehended after eluding the authorities for five years.
 * Americathon
 * Moving Violations ends with the police commissioner driving past one cast member after another, all of them having been pulled over for yet another traffic violation. An on-screen caption proclaims that the lead character was sentenced to traffic school so many times that the county made him the instructor in desperation.
 * At the end of The Cats Meow, Elinor Glyn narrates what became the prinicipal characters after the events of the movie.
 * Anchorman
 * According to He's My Girl:
 * At the end of The Cats Meow, Elinor Glyn narrates what became the prinicipal characters after the events of the movie.
 * Anchorman
 * According to He's My Girl:

Simon had a vision and abandoned singing to.

Lisa gave up sculpting, took voice lessons and got a job with a.

Mason left the music business and started a chain of.

Reggie stayed in Hollywood and opened a beauty salon called.

Tasha works at and sells bibles door to door on the weekends.

Bryan became a major rock star, sold millions of records, and"


 * Blame It On The Bellboy

Literature
"Nathan's gravesite: 'Reserved Staff Parking'
 * Magyk, the first Septimus Heap book, has a "What happened to..." last chapter. Other books in the series have variations, such as "What happened before...", detailing each character's backstory.
 * The twist being that they all detail what happens (or happened) to the very minor characters, those who are named but never shown or shown but never named. A nurse who gets two lines in the book, the never-seen girlfriend of one of the brothers, the gatekeeper's son, etc.
 * The epilogues of Dave Barry's novels Big Trouble and Tricky Business end with a series of short paragraphs explaining what happened to various characters.
 * And he likely borrowed it from his friend Carl Hiaasen, who uses it in many of his novels.
 * The Westing Game has an epilogue describing how every character became rich, famous and influential.
 * By the same author, The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel) has an epilogue explaining how most of the surviving characters lived happily thereafter.
 * The Golden Road by L. M. Montgomery ends with a scene where Sara Stanley (a girl who is always protrayed as slightly otherworldly and magical) receives the inspiration of prophecy and predicts the futures of all of the main characters. Hints dropped over the course of the novel confirm them to be true.
 * JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings did originally have an epilogue, but it was cut for publication. The Appendices do fulfill this role though, especially Appendix A (with the tale of Aragorn and Arwen) and Appendix B, The Tale of Years.
 * The final pages of The English Patient, where we see what the characters are doing after the end of the war.
 * Erich Maria Remarque's novel The Black Obelisk..
 * In Stephen King's The Green Mile, it's not the epilogue, but near the end, during  where Paul describes the eventual fate of his friends.
 * The "Finale" of George Eliot's Middlemarch, in which we discover that Dorothea marries Ron, and Fred and Mary call their children Snape and Dumbledore... er, or something like that. It brings us up-to-date on the forty years or so between the end of the main book, and the time of writing, anyway.
 * Every Dear America book (and those of its Staff Counterpart series My Name Is America) ends with one of these. Unusually for a kids' series, they aren't always happy endings.
 * Same goes for the series' Canadian counterpart, Dear Canada.
 * The last book in the Deltora Quest series ends with one of these, and describes Leif's reign with the exact same wording as King Adin's reign, described in the first chapter of the first book.
 * The Saga of the Jomsvikings ends with a short summary of what later became of the Jomsviking chiefs that survived the Battle of Hjorunga Bay.
 * In In the Time of The Butterflies, based on the true stories of the Mirabal sisters from the Dominican Republic, the last chapter is told in first person by Dede, the only surviving sister. She describes what happened to her sisters' families after they were assassinated by Trujillo.
 * Kill Time or Die Trying does this in the form of last words and gravesite epitaphs for the main characters, mostly Played for Laughs. Some examples:

Allan's last words: 'Bad idea? How bad?'"


 * The Phantom of Manhattan ends this way, briefly describing the fates of the surviving major characters as well as those of Historical Domain Character Oscar Hammerstein and the Manhattan Opera House.

Live-Action TV

 * CBS Schoolbreak Special: The epilogue of the episode "15 and Getting Straight," which dramatized two newcomer teen drug addicts (Drew Barrymore and Corey Feldman) to a 12 step-type counseling program. A teen named Rick seems to have made tremendous progress and has taken to mentoring the teens as he is at the end of the 28-day inpatient program, but most of the other teens believe they don't belong in the program and don't have a problem. David Birney plays the lead counselor, himself an ex-druggie. The irony follows at the end, where Birney's character tells the group that Rick had overdosed; he had run into some old friends who tried to get him to try a new drug, Rick refused at first but when they followed him home and kept hounding him, Rick took the drug and immediately had a seizure. Then follows the epilogue, zooming in on an empty chair. All of the teens that seemed that they weren't going to make it do ... and Rick (whose post-script is saved for last) is dead.
 * Superior Court, a TV courtroom drama from the late 1980s that featured court cases based on actual ones. Each case -- usually one, but sometimes two per show -- was followed with a "where are they now" epilogue, mostly telling what became of the principal characters in each case, but sometimes if a major social issue was addressed, what changed or did not change since the case was heard.
 * Dawson's Creek: The final two-part episode/epilogue, "All Good Things ..."/"...Must Come to an End" is set in 2008, five years into the future. Dawson has become a big-name television producer in Los Angeles (the TV series "The Creek"), Joey has become a successful book editor in New York City, Jack is a teacher at Capeside High and fallen in love with another man, Pacey owns the Ice House, and Jen (a single mother and art gallery) has fallen seriously ill with a congenial heart defect. In the end, Jen dies and everyone gathers (one last time, as it turns out) for her funeral, and two of Jen's deathbed requests are fulfilled: Jack and Doug raise her baby, Amy; and Joey chooses Pacey as her lifetime love.
 * Quantum Leap's somewhat infamous 'Sam Beckett never returned home' captions at the end of the last episode, added on when the show was canceled.
 * Perhaps the best spoof: Eddie Izzard's Glorious stand up show, which cuts from audience applause to a somber tune and some captions telling us that Eddie went to prison for five years and is now called "Jeff", and is living on a duck farm.
 * A mild version, the ending narration of Dragnet, describing the results of the case investigated in the episode over a mug shot of the suspect. This is also frequently parodied in its entirety. Also done in The FBI.
 * Third Watch did this at the end of its finale, "Goodbye to Camelot", revealing what happened to the main and recurring characters in the few years to come.
 * Due South did a similar thing at the end of its finale, "Call of the Wild", although the revealed futures were slightly more obscure and unusual than most other series. For example, Francesca Vecchio was revealed to have 6 "virgin pregnancies".
 * The Wonder Years, it concludes with us actually seeing the adult Kevin and Winnie. The adult Kevin also gives an epilogue about what became of his immediate family: His father, Jack, continues to manage the furniture plant until his unexpected death in 1975 ... after which Wayne takes over the business; mother Norma becomes involved in city politics and business; and Karen and her husband give birth to a son. Kevin and Winnie split up one last time to go to college, he in the United States and she in Paris ... but they remain close friends and write each other weekly for eight years.
 * The Charmed series finale tells us what is going to happen to the protagonists' kids and actually ends with a shot of their grandkids.
 * Six Feet Under closed with a Tear Jerker montage of how each of the main characters would live out their lives and inevitably die, combined with Crowning Music of Awesome courtesy of Sia.
 * Each episode of Band of Brothers had been topped and tailed by interviews with the survivors. After the final episode, the interviewees returned - this time with captions telling you who they were.
 * Also, near the end of the final episode when Easy Company is told that they are going home, Winters briefly narrates the fates of several of the surviving main characters.
 * Finale of The Pacific is similar to that one of Band of Brothers.
 * Paranormal State uses this as an Every Episode Ending.
 * An all-grown up Mabel explains what happened to the supporting cast of Mad About You.
 * Every season of The Wire ended the last episode with one of these set to music. The final one was a heartbreaking use of History Repeats, as we see a lot of the younger characters fall into the roles vacated by previous ones - Dukie is the new Bubbles, Michael is the new Omar, Sydnor is the new McNulty, etc.
 * The final episode of Corner Gas had brief snippets discussing what the characters were doing a few months down the line, which ended up sounding just like the plot of another episode, reinforcing the message of the ending that things weren't really going to change that much.
 * Once an Episode on Cold Case as a Contrast Montage between what the people involved in the case were like then compared to how they are like in the present, if they're still alive.
 * Power Rangers Wild Force: Red Ranger Cole makes his peace with the deceased Big Bad, and uses his talents to help animals. Yellow Ranger Taylor rejoined the Air Force. Black and Blue Rangers Danny and Max (respectively) went on a trip around the world. Silver Ranger Merrick also travels the world, but with his old enemy Zen-Aku (who is apparently Back From the Dead AGAIN) at his side. The narrator is revealed to be White Ranger Alyssa, who is now a kindergarten teacher and has been telling the story of the Rangers to her students.
 * Early series of The X-Files would have this narrated at the end of each episode by either Mulder or Scully.
 * The Newhart finale had one of these, set five years after a Japanese developer had bought the entire town of Stratford, Vermont and turned it into a golf resort. Of course, they then subverted it by having the show - not just the final episode, but the entire series - turn out to be All Just a Dream.
 * Used in the form of text subtitles to show what happened to the various people each week's Undercover Boss met during his week in his company's trenches. Often heartwarming.
 * Community: The episode "The Art of Discourse" ends with a Food Fight and the epilogue. This being Community, it was done as a direct reference to Animal House.
 * While the obnoxious kids have their futures told, the main characters get spoof endings, with Jeff's being that he "banged Mark's mom. Twice."
 * The Friday Night Lights Series Finale ends with a series of scenes that show us what happened to the characters 8 months after the Lions' final State game.
 * Rescue 911 nearly always did this at the end of a segment. Usually, the show filmed the segment's protagonists walking along a beach or walkway, visiting a fun center or public park, or other somesuch. The show also liked to film the protagonists meeting back up with the dispatchers and/or other personnel that rendered assistance. (Plus, if their segment is posted on YouTube, then sometimes the people involved--or those who know them--will post a comment, saying what they're up to today.)
 * Sea Patrol ended with a shot of each character with a one line description about their future.
 * The Red Green Show did this on its final episode. While it didn't cover all the cast members, it did highlight most of the major ones and even one or two who hadn't been seen in a while.

Music

 * Blink 182's video for "First Date" doe this at the end.
 * So does Van Halen's video for "Hot for Teacher"
 * And Korn's Twisted Transistor.
 * The Fugees vid for "Killing Me Softly", appropriate since the entire video (like the title of the album from which this single came) is an homage to Cooley High.
 * Five Iron Frenzy's "That's How the Story Ends" serves as a followup to most of their prior comedic songs. Some of the characters come back from the dead, and others get bridges dropped on them.
 * Bowling For Soup's Punk Rock 101.

Newspaper Comics

 * For Better or For Worse ended its 29-year run on August 31, 2008 with a strip showing what happened to the members of the Patterson family.

Theatre

 * The Crucible by Arthur Miller includes a "Where Are They Now" as a prose addendum after the end of the script. It is often included in the programme notes.
 * At the end of the musical version of Legally Blonde, Paulette gives a brief "where are they now" over Elle's valedictorian speech (and at the same time preventing the audience from hearing the year of the graduating class).
 * Cosi by Louis Nowra ends with the main character giving a monologue on the subject of where the majority of the character had ended up a year after the play's events.
 * The History Boys has one of the most depressing ones. Poor old
 * He gets a (somewhat) happier ending in the film.
 * The stage musical adaptation of Ragtime ends with a number that mirrors the opening, except that introducing themselves, each of the important characters explains what happened to them after the events of the play.
 * The musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee has one of these, though for the children in the bee it goes far into the future.
 * Fools, by Neil Simon, ends with such a humorous summation by Tolchensky, the main male lead.
 * Che gives a two sentence epilogue at the end of Evita.
 * Saint Joan by George Bernard Shaw has one, a kind of dream sequence set in the year when Joan of Arc was officially rehabilitated. It also features a visitor from the 20th century who brings the news of Joan's canonization.
 * Similiarly, the printed copy of Pygmalion comes with a very extensive epilogue chapter detailing the future of Eliza Doolittle, in which she lives out
 * The first production of the musical of Vanities did this; in subsequent productions it was rewritten into a Distant Finale.

Video Games

 * Fallout and its sequel conclude by describing what eventually happens to the various communities you helped (or, alternatively, hindered) along the way.
 * Though even your best intentions and what seems to be the best path can instead turn out very wrong...
 * Also, even most of the good endings are just a less grey ending than normal. Take New Reno, you could have it turned into a place with schools and free, clean water for all...which'll be captured by raiders or forcibly subjugated into the NCR because they don't have any protection. On the other hand, you could leave it in the control of the Bishops, who'll fight for it's place in NCR and turn it into a legitimate city...that'll fight for the rights for drug use, gambling and prostitution.
 * Fallout3 however noteably doesn't have one which was another reason people hated the ending.
 * And, or course Arcanum had this as well.
 * Ditto Knights of the Old Republic II, Neverwinter Nights 2, and its expansion Mask of the Betrayer. Black Isle/Obsidian loves this trope, it seems.
 * Skies of Arcadia ends with several shots of the minor characters and all the crewmembers you gather over the course of the game, with a continuation of what happens to them after the events of the game.
 * Funny enough, the future of the three main characters is left vague. Of course, this has spawned rumors of a sequel...
 * Every Suikoden game ends with a short blurb describing what happened to every one of the characters you recruited.
 * The Fire Emblem series also has this feature, upon completion of the credits short epilogues explain the unique future of all characters who do not die during the story.
 * It was also used for the epilogue of Hasha no Tsurugi, the Alternate Continuity manga of Fire Emblem 6.
 * Jade Empire's ending includes a textual description of every surviving party member's fate, as well as that of at least one of the more memorable minor characters (Sir Roderick Ponce von Fontlebottom the Magnificent Bastard; that's actually his full name).
 * At the end of the Baldur's Gate II expansion pack, Throne of Bhaal, both the PC and every NPC in your party gets a text-based epilogue explaining how they live out the rest of their lives. Some are tragic, and some are very, very funny.
 * Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark too.
 * Live a Live has this:
 * After the final level of Sly Cooper 3: Honor Among Thieves, what happened to rest of the gang after the Cooper Vault job is told, with some being quite humorous or a bit romantic.
 * The second game shows what happened to the Big Bads after they did their time in the slammer.
 * Final Fantasy IV gets one of these. It goes through the fate of everyone who lived through the game.
 * Final Fantasy IX shows some animations of the principle players and their fates some time after the game as
 * The ending scene shows other characters in its epilogue:
 * Bionic Commando (the original NES game) ends with the revelation that the game is a story Super Joe is telling as an old man.
 * In Romancing SaGa 3 this happens, some of the NPCs each of the recruitable characters, minus the ones you recruited and the other 7 that you can choose, each have a small cutscene depending on the actions taken.
 * Valkyria Chronicles shows the fates of the game's main characters via text, while a more elaborate scene for Welkins and Alicia is shown after the credits. The epilogues for the game's side characters can be seen in optional material unlocked in the New Game+.
 * Vandal Hearts has one of the characters writing a book about their adventure and what happened to each character.
 * Ranging nicely from a stamp collection to being a major political player in rebuilding the land.
 * Wild Arms XF has one for each of the main characters except the one missing and presumed dead. Darn it!
 * Wild Arms 4 has one, too.
 * The first Crash Bandicoot game, as well as the racing spin off Crash Team Racing did these, with humorous intent. Interestingly though, one of the bosses, Ripper Roo, is stated as studying and becoming an academic, and in the next game you find him in a gigantic library, and you disrupt his studies. (Un)fortunately Dr Nitrus Brio didn't stick to his bartending...
 * Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door has a variation of this in an e-mail sent to Mario by Goombella.
 * The Nameless Mod, a total conversion mod for Deus Ex, has one of these for just about every named character, ala Fallout. This is in stark contrast to the original game's Ambiguous Ending.
 * 2027, a total conversion mod for Deus Ex, has this at the end of the game as well.
 * At the end of Starcraft: Brood War, there is a summary of what happened to all five of the main characters who survived.
 * Chrono Trigger briefly shows the characters in different times as the main three use their time machine. The remakes extend this with anime cutscenes.
 * Depending on when in the game you complete it, and which sidequests you've completed will alter the ending. Sometimes in minor ways, other times you'll get a whole new ending.
 * The It's a Wonderful Failure bad ending of Laura Bow 2 lists the fates of the entire cast and the unfortunate things that befell them because of your failure.
 * Team Japan's ending in King of Fighters 1997.
 * Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure ends with a collection of photographs (or in The Captain and his nurse's case, a letter) showing what happened to the game's cast of characters.
 * Starting from the second game, the Tokimeki Memorial series make use of such epilogues in the flagship games of both the Standard and the Girl's Side branches of the series.
 * Dragon Age: Origins has this (depending on ) with your character having the chance to talk to all of your companions so far and finding out what their plans for the future are. You can even influence them!
 * During the credits of the original Pokémon Ranger game, you see various Pokémon Rangers doing rangery stuff. And remember the Go-Rock Quads? They're
 * The second half of Cave Story's ending credits features brief, wordless cutscenes, depicting the characters after the story's end. The scenes vary depending on which ending you got.
 * Star Ocean the Second Story has this at the end, showing what all the characters in your party are doing with their lives post-victory over the Big Bad. It all depends on how you've built the character relationships throughout the game.
 * A Link to the Past shows how Link used the Triforce to make people's lives better, and ends with a shot of Link returning the Master Sword to its pedestal.
 * Ocarina of Time shows Link returning to his childhood and leaving the Master Sword in the Temple of Time, he and Navi parting company and young Link returning to Hyrule Castle to meet Zelda.
 * At the end of every single Ace Attorney game (the full game- not just one case) there's an epilogue that shows all the main - all the characters, and what's happening to them after the game ends.
 * That is, every single character who gets a unique model, sans the Judge.
 * Most of them have bugger all information though. Some actually talk about them getting involved with whatever it is they're doing next time you meet them.
 * Not unsurprisingly, this is also done in Ghost Trick by the same creators.
 * The last buyable newspaper in Red Dead Redemption describes how some of the minor characters ended up.
 * The Ending of Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns of the Patriots ends with everything in the series being wrapped up, including
 * Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker both end with timelines offering details of what happened to certain characters or factions after the game.
 * Four of the entires in the Kingdom Hearts series have credits that serve as this. While the former two only show certain characters and worlds, the latter two have epilogues for all the worlds that the heroes have visited.
 * Final Fantasy V has this: one of the surviving characters ( by default) writes to Mid telling him what they and all the other surviving characters are doing since Exdeath was defeated.
 * Conflict Vietnam shows the main characters in a brothel (or something like that) while Cherry,er, Doc gives a voice-over about what happened to everyone. Junior goes home and joins the Black Panthers, only to . Hoss signs on for a tour of duty in Cambodia. Ragman comes home to a some divorce papers and moves to the Rockies with his dog. Doc starts a family and becomes a doctor, his specialty being gunshot wounds.
 * The epilogue of The Reconstruction takes place one year after the finale, and shows what all the characters have decided to do with their lives -- in a few cases, it also finishes their Character Arcs. Especially important because.
 * Chronicles of Inotia Children of Carnia has one too.
 * Bastion has one of these during its ending credits sequence, featuring each of the major characters
 * The closing credits for Super Mario Galaxy 2 shows Mario and Yoshi showing Peach some of the planets they both visited on the way back to the Mushroom Planet,  before the heroes (and Lubba) are finally shown back in the Mushroom Kingdom standing in front of the cake mentioned in the prologue. And you can actually die in the credits!
 * Here's a fan ending for Mass Effect 3 that may provide some closure for those who were dissatisfied with the canon choices...
 * Pretty much all Nippon Ichi games have an epilogue in the best ending shown using either the in-game sprites or hand-drawn stills. For example...(open spoilers ahoy!)
 * Phantom Brave: Marona's finally won the acceptance of everyone, and the world picks up the pieces.
 * Disgaea Hour of Darkness: Celestia and the Netherworld work out its differences.
 * Disgaea 2 Cursed Memories: Veldime slowly recovers from the curse.
 * Disgaea 3 Absence of Justice: Mao has himself a new guinea pig.
 * Disgaea 4 a Promise Unforgotten has a slightly different final epilogue depending on what Relationship Values you've built up.
 * Disgaea 4 a Promise Unforgotten has a slightly different final epilogue depending on what Relationship Values you've built up.

Visual Novels

 * Maji De Watashi Ni Koi Shinasai has this for the six main endings, though the contents don't really vary from one to another.

Web Comics

 * The epilogue of Adventurers tells how every single character ended up.
 * Eternion is still dead.
 * The last strip of Narbonic has a series of images showing us the characters' future, one a Shout-Out to Animal House.
 * Inverloch showed the fates of the  major characters.
 * Bob and George had one of these.
 * Get Medieval (though a few named characters got left out, most notably Oneder, Iroth's bodyguard. Worse, gets a )
 * MS Paint Adventures features this as well in Problem Sleuth.
 * Material Girl (as pictured) has photo-like epilogues leaving a rather open ending.
 * Book five of Fans has Shanna writing a book of her experience during the God Machine incident as a framing narrative, closing with Shanna recounting the current activities of her old friends, T. Campbell had planned on this being the final chapter, but a couple of years later he brought the comic back, set shortly after Shanna's book was published.
 * Eight Bit Theater finally ends on one of these. To note,.
 * A Magical Roommate ended with twenty of these. There were still an number of characters whose ultimate fate wasn't mentioned, however.

Web Original
" Uatu married Death. They had the ugliest kid ever."
 * actionFigures Final Video, parody of Marvel Comics characters with, duh, action figures, ended with normal credits, that were interrupted by Deadpool, who asked for chainging it for that ending.

""Eric married that lifeguard. Brian never came back from Vietnam. And Gorlac enslaved us all."'"
 * Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series does this with stills and captions at the end of one of the movies.
 * One of the alternate endings to Red vs. Blue: Season 5 includes a sideshow of what happened to the characters after the end.
 * Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Special Edition ends with the epilogue footage from Animal House, just with all the text rewritten to be Sonic-relevant and nonsensical. Knuckles becomes a professional beekeeper, Sonic and Tails marry and have five daughters, Amy invents the world's first solar-powered buffalo, and so on.
 * Parodied by Homestar Runner in the 'Montage' email. Among other things, it shows you the fate of the red wagon full of pancakes.
 * It also foretold the retirement of The Paper in SB Email #173.
 * 5 Second Films parodies the slow-motion voiceover epilogue in "Coming of Age":

""Things went back to normal in Hyrule, apart from Zelda wanting a spotty fur coat. Mario and Luigi ate Spagehetti [sic] and magically flew home. The Traitor got off with a pardon, for now. On returning to their Universe, the Dalmatians went back to normal and forgot about the whole affair. Squadala became President of the United States of America. Cruella didn't take Mario's warning and died of Lung Cancer. Horace and Jasper got jobs as the Live-Action Mario Brothers. No one seemed to care about Link's death.""
 * Parodied by Collegehumor in "Every Teen Movie Ending".
 * An example from the Youtube Poop "101 Poopmatians":


 * Sleuth Noir, the online detective game, has an example of this trope in Heimlich VonVictor's The Executor's End At the conclusion of the mystery, we find out in great detail what happened to every member of the ensemble cast of the mystery.
 * When The Nostalgia Critic reviewed Mister Nanny, he used a caption over the last shot (Sean Armstrong flying through the air because the kids tethered his motorcycle) to explain what happened as a result.

Western Animation
"Kent Brockman: The midgets who played the Munchkins from The Wizard of Oz... where are they now?
 * Daria had this on its Grand Finale. Instead of the usual "characters in funny costumes" Creative Closing Credits, we got glimpses into the future for just about every character who had any screen time. Some were obvious, but most were ironic twists i.e. Stacy from the Fashion Club becoming a NASCAR driver.
 * Though in an amusing twist, that one is used more often in fanfics than probably any other. Word of God says that none necessarily have to be considered canon, though.
 * The Futurama parody of Animal House, where Fry successfully dropped out of college, Gunther the monkey becomes the FOX network's latest executive, Leela dates the Dean (who doesn't call her or see her after that), Fatbot (the nerdy robot with the beanie) gets a virus in Tijuana, and Bender robs Robot House blind.
 * The Simpsons had one of these in the episode where Santa's Little Helper went to obedience school. ("Bit Bart. Homer didn't mind.")
 * And it was also used on a later episode where Marge tells Simpsons-style spins on historical events (one of which included Homer going to work in a toga after watching the movie Animal House).
 * In one of the earlier episodes, Kent Brockman was about to lead in on a special of the actors that portrayed the Munchkins from The Wizard of Oz with the following:

(News then cuts to a still image of thousands upon thousands of gravestones)"


 * In a variant, the last few minutes of the X-Men: Evolution finale had Professor X announcing that he'd had a vision of the future, including various guest characters joining the team, Magneto leading the New Mutants, the Dark Phoenix Saga and the Brotherhood becoming Freedom Force.
 * Wakkos Wish, the Grand Finale of Animaniacs, has one where all characters get a happy ending. Except the Mime.
 * The Looney Tunes movie Daffy Duck's Quackbusters has one of these, where we see short clips (with accompanying text) of what happened to the main characters after Daffy's ghost-hunting agency went bankrupt.
 * Parodied by Clerks the Animated Series, on what was the second produced episode.
 * Robot Chicken explains what happened after a Sci-Fi Convention War