Grand Finale: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''[[Waxing Lyrical|Well, this is the end, beautiful friends.]] After more than 11 years, this is Toonami's final broadcast. It's been a lot of fun, and we'd like to thank each and every one of you who made this journey with us. Toonami wouldn't have been anything without you. Hopefully we've left you with some good memories. So, until we meet again, [[The Outsiders|stay gold]]. [[Cowboy Bebop|Bang]].''
|'''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v{{=}}gCAX4cgszCU The closing bumper] [[Tear Jerker|of]] [[Toonami]]'''}}
When a show (usually of the [[Failure Is the Only Option]] or [[Stern Chase]] variety) comes to an end with sufficient lead time, the production team may decide to go out with a bang by ending the endless chase, destroying the undestroyable foe, or in some other way definitively and permanently changing the core axioms on which the show depends. It usually resolves all the conflicts that have driven the series over its entire run, and offers some kind of resolution to the dramatic tension that they have powered.
This is the '''Grand Finale''' — a way of very clearly saying to the audience "Okay, the show is really over. There's no more. Go watch something else." (That this [[Uncanceled|doesn't always get through to viewers]] can be a problem in and of itself...)
In contrast to American television series, anime series tend to be single, continuous season-long stories that build, like an episodic novel, to a climax in the final episode. In these cases, a Grand Finale is the only fair (and the usual) way to end the show. Of course, since most anime is based on manga, occasionally the anime [[Overtook the Manga|gets ahead]] of the manga (or gets canceled before the manga ends) and the anime writers have to [[Gecko Ending|make up their own ending]], which is usually not as good as the eventual ending of the manga. Alternatively, a la ''[[Bastard!!]]!'', ''[[Angel Sanctuary]]'', and ''[[Ichigo 100%]]'', the writers can just leave it hanging.
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* ''The Return Of The King'' is the Grand Finale of the ''[[The Lord of the Rings (film)|The Lord of the Rings]]''
* ''[[The Good, the Bad and the Ugly]]'' can be seen either as the end of the "[[Dollars Trilogy]]" from [[Sergio Leone]], or simply as a completely independent movie.
* ''[[Harry Potter
* ''[[Transformers Film Series|Transformers Dark of the Moon]]''
== Literature ==
* ''[[
** Prior to the publication of the last book, there was much speculation as to how Rowling, on a purely practical level, would choose to end something so popular and profitable (although the ending had been planned from the humble beginnings over ten years before). Many said that, whatever she'd been planning before the title character would have to die, for example, so that the author wouldn't be hounded for the rest of her life (or that she'd better ''not'' kill him off, so that she wouldn't be hounded for the rest of her life). Another "story-ending" possibility raised by some was for him to lose his [[Magic]]. She seemed to solve the issue by implying that Harry had lived a quiet, peaceful life for at least 19 years following the defeat of Voldemort.
* [[Alan Dean Foster]]'s ''Flinx Transcendent'' is the grand finale of thirty five years worth of novels set in the [[Humanx Commonwealth]] universe. Sure enough, each and every dangling plot element is resolved, one by one, like a checklist.
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** {{spoiler|Worse, we, the readers, will never learn exactly what the heck "getting it right" will mean, because Stephen King wrote himself into a corner after creating such a divine mystery as to whatever is at the top of the Dark Tower. IF you ever want to see what's up there, forget it.}}
* [[Arthur Conan Doyle]] tried to give [[Sherlock Holmes]] a Grand Finale three times without success. The first time, Holmes dies. The second time (after Holmes turns out to be [[Not Quite Dead]]), Holmes achieves what he considers to be the pinnacle of his career when he stops a [[Worldwar]] from happening (decades before World War I), in a story that was first mentioned as a [[Noodle Incident]] eleven years prior. The last was set years after Holmes' retirement during [[World War I]], where Holmes and Watson pull a Xanatos Gambit that gave the Germans so much false information that effectively turned them into sitting ducks against the British forces; the story also gave Holmes an age for the first time in the series. But the combo of Public Demand and [[Executive Meddling]] made him continue each time. But when the real last story came, Conan Doyle said, "screw it" and completely averts this by giving us a standard-issue mystery as the last Sherlock Holmes story.
* ''[[
* ''The Last Hope'' serves as the grand finale of ''[[Warrior Cats]]'', wrapping up all the plot hooks and giving all the characters one last time in the glory.
== Live-Action TV ==
*
** This was almost unheard of for a show in the 1960s, and it only came about because David Janssen wanted to quit.
*
*
* While ''[[Doctor Who]]'' hasn't ended, the end of the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and Tenth Doctors' tenures got a big finish, ending with their [[The Nth Doctor|regeneration]] and (apart from Troughton) the reveal of the next Doctor.
** ''The End of Time'' was a send-off for both the Tenth Doctor and showrunner [[Russell T. Davies]].
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* ''[[Recess]]: Taking the Fifth Grade''. Also a [[Book Ends]] ending.
* [[No Export for You|Outside Japan]], "The Rebirth" was the grand finale for ''[[Transformers Generation 1]]''.
* ''[[Batman: The Brave And The Bold]]''{{'}}s last episode basically said "if we're going down, [[No Fourth Wall|we're taking the fourth wall with us]]". The plot was actually driven by the fact that it was the last episode.
* ''[[Timon and Pumbaa]]'' had a series finale called "Cliphangers" consisting of Timon and Pumbaa trying to catch a bug off a cliff, but then they fall, nearly facing their deaths, while [[Clip Show|clips play of the series' previous episodes]]. {{spoiler|Luckily, Pumbaa pulls out an umbrella and the two land safely.}}
** This troper thinks at one point "Amazon Quiver" may have been intended to be the finale for the show. The reason? The whole episode is about Timon and Pumbaa trying to avoid a panther who wants to eat them and end up getting stuck in a tree they crashed into, and in the end {{spoiler|They wait until 95 years (until 2090) to get out of that tree. At this point, they turn into elders and hallucinate about eating each other, but they don't eat each other. The panther also turned into an elder, too, but although he can only drink prune juice due to the doctor's orders, he can still chase Timon and Pumbaa.}} Due to the fact that this might have been a horrible ending (possibly due to how sorry the viewer might feel for {{spoiler|Timon and Pumbaa because they were stuck in a tree for 95 years}}), Disney may have decided to make this a normal episode. Due to this choice, this troper assumes this whole episode was [[All Just
* ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]'' "rock opera" episode ''See Me, Feel Me, Gnomey'' has been widely thought to be the series' grand finale, even though it was a season five episode (and has never been screened in the U.S.--Cartoon Network's sister channel Boomerang has just finished airing season 5 and 6 shows and passed right over the episode). The last original first-run episode screened was "What's The Big Idea?".
* The final episode of ''[[Danger Mouse]]'', "The Intergalactic 147" ends like a grand finale. The plot had aliens engaged in a space-wide snooker game and to win they had to pocket earth into the black hole Alpha Omega. DM wastes no time in getting the whole world to take a giant leap to the right and tilt Earth long enough for the aliens' cueball to miss. It ends with a wide shot of London having been cleaned off by the aliens (for the cueball to hit), the narrator's tangent fading off, majestic music and a slow fade out.
* The last episode of ''[[Popples]]'' was about them going to the zoo.
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