Distant Finale: Difference between revisions

A series finale or epilogue where we're shown what happens to the characters, places and/or the setting. Usually takes place many years after the proper ending of the plot. Intervening events may be depicted via [[Flash Back]].

 

 

Differs from [[Where Are They Now? Epilogue]] in that it's a full scene that shows interaction between characters and most likely dialogue. If the Distant Finale shows how the entire cast dies, it's a [[Deadly Distant Finale]]. Might suffer from [[Modern Stasis]].

* The final issue of ''[[Y the Last Man]]'' gives us a view of what Earth has become 60 years after the series' climax, with flashbacks to update us on how the surviving characters spent the intervening time. Somehow, the issue maintains the same dramatic tension and plot twist quantity as all the others in spite of this device.

* [[Peter David]] set the final issue of his 12-year-run of ''[[Incredible Hulk (Comic Book)|Incredible Hulk]]'' 10 years after the previous issue. A Daily Bugle [[Flash Back|interview]] with [[Unreliable Narrator|Rick Jones]] serves as a fitting end to both David's tenure on the title as well as the Hulk mythos in general.

* There was foreshadowing that this device would be used in ''[[The Ballad of Halo Jones]]'', with a scene set in a university history lecture several thousand years after the events of the main story discussing Halo's significance as a historical character/folk hero. However, the comic was, unfortunately, never finished.

* Most of the last volume of ''[[The Sandman]]'' is this. Interestingly, it plays with the timeline by skipping back to Shakespeare at the end.

* ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'' reverses this - the premise is that 20 or so years after the main character has met, married and had kids with the girl of his dreams, said kids ask their father to retell the story of how the two of them met - and the entire series becomes a giant flashback to relate this story, going on for half a dozen seasons with only occasional <s>remarks from</s> [[Stock Footage]] of the kids to keep the frame story intact.

** They didn't ask. "Are we being punished for something?"

* Inverted on ''[[Newhart]]'': In the final scene of the last episode, Dick Loudon wakes up to discover that {{spoiler|his entire life from 1982 to 1990 as depicted in ''Newhart'' was actually a dream of Bob Hartley, the protagonist of ''The Bob Newhart Show'', which had last aired in 1978}}. That comes after a false [[Where Are They Now? Epilogue]] in the same episode.

* ''[[Dollhouse]]: Epitaph One'', included with the first season DVDs, is set 10 years in the future, {{spoiler|showing what the consequences of the Dollhouse's technology will be on civilization.}} It's not pretty. Nor entirely accurate, since it ended up getting renewed.

[[Category:Time Tropes]]

[[Category:Distant Finale]]