7 Sitcom Endings That Are Genuine Masterpieces

Published Sep 12, 2026, 1:19 PM EDT

Jennie Richardson is a TV Features and Lists Writer for Collider, and a graduate student pursuing an MFA in Fiction Writing. In other words, she really loves stories. 

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Spoiler Alert: This list contains spoilers for multiple TV shows.Ending a beloved TV show is a difficult task. When a show has a number of excellent seasons under its belt and characters that fans are very attached to, it is important to conclude the series in a way that honors everything that has come before it. Where TV shows tend to go wrong with their series finales, is when they take massive swings that feel unearned, leaving fans confused by sudden character deaths and strange plot twists.

Even when shows play it safe with their series finales, these endings can still feel underwhelming. A truly phenomenal series finale is the culmination of everything that came before it. It gives the characters endings that make sense for them and have been built up to from the beginning of the show, even if these endings are not entirely happy. It ends the show in a way that matches the tone of the series, while also allowing for the emotional aspect of the goodbye. For sitcoms, the best series finales give fans a happy ending for the characters, even if there are bittersweet components to it as well. These are sitcom endings that are genuine masterpieces.

'Schitt's Creek' (2015–2020)

Image via CBC Television

Together, the final few episodes of Schitt's Creek make up one of the best sitcom endings of all time. After six seasons living in a town they initially wanted nothing to do with, the Roses finally get the opportunity to leave. Johnny (Eugene Levy) and Moira (Catherine O'Hara) get ready to go back to LA together, while Alexis (Annie Murphy) prepares to move to New York City on her own. David (Dan Levy), meanwhile, chooses to stay in Schitt's Creek with Patrick (Noah Reid) ahead of starting life as a married couple.

The series finale is framed around the long-anticipated wedding of David and Patrick. The episode is absolutely hilarious, giving the two of them — mainly David — a series of unforeseen obstacles to work through in the lead up to their wedding. The wedding itself is full of classic sitcom antics, like Alexis showing up in a wedding dress, but it's ultimately truly beautiful and touching. Then, the episode concludes with David and Alexis seeing their parents off. Schitt's Creek's ending is truly perfect, showing the growth of all the main characters while also still staying true to their main traits and goals for their lives.

'The Office' (2005–2013)

Image via NBC

The Office's ending cleverly makes use of the series' mockumentary format, as the final episodes wrap up the series through the conclusion of the in-universe documentary about the Dunder Mifflin employees. In an emotional and meta storyline, the documentary is released, leaving the characters to watch and react to it. One year later, the camera crew returns to film bonus footage as everyone prepares to attend Dwight (Rainn Wilson) and Angela's (Angela Kinsey) upcoming wedding.

At the same time, in the perfect send-off for The Office, the Dunder Mifflin employees attend a Q&A panel to answer questions about the documentary. In true The Office fashion, the panel is both funny and emotional, paving the way for the next chapter of these characters' lives. Erin's (Ellie Kemper) birth parents finally her, and Pam (Jenna Fischer) and Jim (John Krasinski) decide to leave Dunder Mifflin and Scranton. The Office's ending is so perfect because it is as funny as the rest of the show, but it is also pretty much impossible to watch all the way through without tearing up.

'New Girl' (2011–2018)

Image via FOX

New Girl's ending starts off with a classic sitcom finale trope: after all these years, the friends are forced to say goodbye to something that's been fundamental to this last chapter of their lives. In this case, Nick (Jake Johnson) and Jess (Zooey Deschanel) invite everyone over to the loft after finding out that the entire building is being evicted. Jess pushes everyone to say a proper goodbye to the place, and they all reflect on their time there while trying to savor the time they have left.

New Girl's finale also sees the group play True American once again, but in the perfect scene, it transitions to a flash-forward of all of them playing the game with their kids years in the future. Back in the present day, Nick and Jess move out of the loft, and then the episode ends with a brilliant twist. As it turns out, Winston (Lamorne Morris) has finally earned his self-proclaimed title of Prank Sinatra. In an elaborate and deeply disproportionate prank, Winston faked an eviction for the whole building to mess with Nick and Jess. It's an absolutely hilarious and fitting ending for the series, giving the characters the chance to say goodbye to the loft while still remaining a major part of each other's lives.

Image via Yahoo! Screen

Community's series finale starts off with the Save Greendale Committee realizing that they have done everything for the school that they set out to do. As the school year ends, Elroy (Keith David), Abed (Danny Pudi), and Annie (Alison Brie) reveal that they'll all be taking off right away for new job opportunities, and none of them know if they will be coming back. These changes hit Jeff (Joel McHale) very hard, leaving him terrified of being left behind at Greendale while everyone else moves on.

In true Community fashion, the show's ending is very meta. For a significant part of the episode, everyone sits around musing over what potential "Season 7s" would look like for them, and those scenarios play out on-screen. Some of them are absolutely hilarious and over-the-top, and others are more emotional. Ultimately, Jeff has no choice but to let go and be grateful for this journey, while embracing his place as a professor at Greendale. Community's ending is a truly beautiful one that honors not just the show, but the concept of television itself.

Collider Exclusive · TV Medicine Quiz Which Fictional Hospital Would You Work Best In? The Pitt · ER · Grey's Anatomy · House · Scrubs

Five hospitals. Five completely different ways medicine goes sideways on television — brutal, chaotic, romantic, brilliant, and ridiculous. Only one of them is the ward your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out exactly where you belong.

🚨The Pitt

🏥ER

💉Grey's

🔬House

🩺Scrubs

FIND YOUR HOSPITAL →

01

A critical patient comes through the door. What's your first instinct? Medicine under pressure reveals who you actually are.

AStay completely present — block everything else out and work through it step by step, right now. BTriage fast and delegate — get the right people on the right problems immediately. CTrust my gut and move — I work best when I stop overthinking and just act. DAsk the question everyone else is ignoring — what's the thing that doesn't fit? ETake a breath, make a joke to cut the tension, and then get to work — panic helps no one.

NEXT QUESTION →

02

Why did you go into medicine in the first place? The honest answer says more about you than the one you'd give in an interview.

ABecause I wanted to be where it matters most — right at the edge, when someone's life is actually on the line. BBecause I wanted to help people — genuinely, one patient at a time, in a system that makes it hard. CBecause I was drawn to the intensity of it — the stakes, the drama, the feeling of being fully alive. DBecause medicine is the most interesting puzzle there is — and I needed a problem worth solving. EBecause I wanted to make a difference — and also, honestly, I didn't know what else to do with my life.

NEXT QUESTION →

03

What do you actually want from the people you work with? Who you want beside you under pressure is who you are.

ACompetence and calm — I need people who don't fall apart when things get bad. BTrust and reliability — I want to know that when I pass something off, it's handled. CConnection — I want colleagues who become family, even if that gets complicated. DIntelligence and the willingness to be challenged — I have no interest in people who just agree with me. EFriendship — people I actually like spending twelve hours a day with, because those hours are going to happen either way.

NEXT QUESTION →

04

You lose a patient you fought hard to save. How do you carry it? Every doctor who's worked a long shift has had to answer this question.

AI carry it. All of it. I don't look for ways to put it down — that weight is part of doing this work honestly. BI process it and move — you have to, or the next patient suffers for the one you just lost. CI feel it deeply and lean on the people around me — I don't think you're supposed to handle that alone. DI go back over every decision — not to punish myself, but because I need to understand what I missed. EI grieve it genuinely, find some way to laugh about something unrelated, and try to be kind to myself — imperfectly.

NEXT QUESTION →

05

How would your colleagues describe the way you work? Your reputation on the floor is usually more accurate than your self-image.

AIntense and completely present — no small talk during a shift, but exactly who you want there. BSteady and dependable — not the flashiest in the room but never the one who drops something. CPassionate and occasionally chaotic — brilliant on the hard cases, prone to drama everywhere else. DBrilliant and difficult — right more often than anyone else, and everyone knows it, including me. EWarm and self-deprecating — not the most intimidating presence, but genuinely good at this and easy to like.

NEXT QUESTION →

06

How do you feel about hospital protocol and procedure? Every institution has rules. What you do with them is a choice.

AProtocol is the floor, not the ceiling — I follow it until the patient needs something it can't provide. BI respect it — the system is broken in places, but the structure is there for a reason and I work within it. CI follow it until my instincts tell me not to — and my instincts are usually right, even when they cause problems. DRules are for people who haven't thought hard enough about when to break them. EI try to follow it and mostly do — with a few memorable exceptions that still come up in meetings.

NEXT QUESTION →

07

What does this job cost you personally? Nobody works in medicine without paying a price. What's yours?

AEverything outside these walls — I've given this job my full attention and the rest of my life has gone around it. BMy idealism, mostly — I came in believing the system could be fixed and I've made a complicated peace with that. CStability — my personal life has been as chaotic as the OR, and that's not entirely a coincidence. DMy relationships — I am not easy to know, and the people who've tried to would probably agree. EMy sense of gravity — I use humour as a coping mechanism, which not everyone appreciates in a hospital.

NEXT QUESTION →

08

At the end of a long shift, what keeps you coming back? The answer to this question is the most honest thing about you.

AThe fact that it's real — that nothing else I could be doing would matter this much, right now, today. BThe patients — individual human beings who needed something and got it because I was there. CThe people I work with — I have walked through impossible things with these people and I'd do it again. DThe next unsolved case — there's always another puzzle, and I'm not done yet. EBecause despite everything — the exhaustion, the loss, the absurdity — I actually love this job.

REVEAL MY HOSPITAL →

Your Assignment Has Been Made You Belong In…

Your answers have pointed to one fictional hospital above all others. This is the ward your instincts, your temperament, and your particular brand of dysfunction were built for.

The Pitt

You are built for the most unsparing version of emergency medicine television has ever shown — one that puts you inside a single fifteen-hour shift and doesn't let you look away.

• You need your work to be real, not romanticised — meaning over drama, honesty over aesthetics.
• You find purpose inside the work itself, not in the chaos surrounding it.
• You've made peace with the fact that this job takes from you constantly, and gives back in ways that are harder to name.
• Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center demands exactly that kind of person — and you would not want to be anywhere else.

ER

You are the person who keeps the whole floor running — not the most brilliant in the room, but possibly the most essential.

• You show up, do the work, absorb the losses, and come back the next day without needing the job to be anything other than what it is.
• You care about patients as individual human beings, not as cases to solve or dramas to live through.
• You believe in the system even when it fails you — and you understand that emergency medicine is about holding the line just long enough.
• ER is television about endurance. You have it.

Grey's Anatomy

You came to medicine with your whole self — your ambition, your emotions, your relationships, your history — and you have never quite managed to leave any of it at the door.

• You feel things fully and form deep attachments to the people you work with.
• Your personal and professional lives are permanently, chaotically entangled — and that entanglement drives both your greatest disasters and your most remarkable saves.
• You understand that extraordinary medicine often happens at the intersection of clinical skill and profound human connection.
• It's messy at Grey Sloan. You would not have it any other way.

House

You are drawn to the problem above everything else — the symptom that doesn't fit, the diagnosis hiding underneath the obvious one.

• You're not primarily motivated by the patient as a person — though you are capable of caring, even if you'd deny it.
• You work best when the stakes are highest and the standard answer is wrong.
• Princeton-Plainsboro exists to house one extraordinary, impossible mind — and everyone around that mind is there because they're smart enough to keep up.
• The only way forward here is to think harder than everyone else in the room. That is exactly what you do.

Scrubs

You understand that medicine is tragic and absurd in almost equal measure — and that the only sane response is to hold both of those things at the same time.

• You are warm, self-aware, and funnier than most people in your field.
• You use humour to get through terrible moments — and at Sacred Heart, that's not a flaw, it's a survival strategy.
• You lean on the people around you and let them lean back. The laughter and the grief are genuinely inseparable here.
• Scrubs is a show about learning to become someone worthy of the job. You are still very much in the middle of that process — which is exactly right.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

'M*A*S*H' (1972–1983)

Image via CBS

The supersized series finale of M*A*S*H, "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen," is widely considered to be one of the very best endings to any series — and for good reason. M*A*S*H is a wildly funny sitcom throughout, so much so that it can be easy to separate the hilarious episodic scenarios from the much heavier stakes that linger over the entire show. "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" forces these stakes to the front of viewers' minds, as Hawkeye (Alan Alda) gets treated for his PTSD during the final days of the Korean War.

The ending to M*A*S*H is deeply emotional and gut-wrenching, most notably for the tragic scene where Hawkeye is pushed to recover a horrifying memory that he had suppressed. It is also beautiful and cathartic, wrapping up each character's arc in a way that feels satisfying as they all say their goodbyes and prepare to return home. M*A*S*H's ending works so well because it is both heartbreaking and hopeful, and every emotional beat feels very earned.

'BoJack Horseman' (2014–2020)

Image via Netflix

Shows about antiheroes tend to end one of two ways: either the main character dies, or they go to jail. In the penultimate episode of BoJack Horseman, BoJack (Will Arnett) nearly dies, forcing him to reconcile with his possible death after being exposed for all the harmful things he did in life. Then, BoJack wakes up and goes to prison, thus facing the consequences of his actions. The series finale picks up one year later, as BoJack is nearing the end of his sentence. He's out on temporary leave for Princess Carolyn's (Amy Sedaris) wedding, which allows him the opportunity to catch up with the most important people from his past.

In a brilliant move, each scene of the episode gives BoJack one-on-one time with one of the other main characters. First, Mr. Peanutbutter (Paul F. Tompkins) picks him up from jail, and the two share some lighthearted time together. Next, BoJack runs into Todd (Aaron Paul) at the wedding, and Todd suggests they get some air on the beach. The two catch up and have a lovely conversation, but it's also clear that things are still different between them, and always will be. Then, BoJack gets to dance with the bride. Princess Carolyn is happy to see him, but she also sets a subtle boundary, letting him know that she won't represent him again if he returns to acting. Finally, BoJack shares his last scene with Diane (Alison Brie). This is the most painful of them all, as Diane tells BoJack how much he hurt her and ends their friendship for good, but they still sit and appreciate each other's company until the episode ends.

'The Good Place' (2016–2020)

There is no sitcom ending that is quite the masterpiece that The Good Place's ending is. The entire series builds up to the humans finally finding a way to get to the Good Place, but once they get there, they realize it isn't anything like they pictured. Thus, the entirety of Team Cockroach has to work together to fix the place. Once they do, they have the perfect afterlife with a clever twist: there's a door there that will end a person's existence for good, and if anyone so chooses, they can walk through whenever they want to. That said, they can also just stay in the Good Place forever without walking through the door.

In a bold and perfect move, the series finale sees everyone choosing to move on from the Good Place after the passing of many Bearimys. Each of the four humans acts in contrast to their core flaw, showing how far they all have come. Tahani (Jameela Jamil) takes up the unglamorous work of becoming an afterlife architect. Chidi (William Jackson Harper) decisively realizes that he's ready to walk through the door, and Eleanor (Kristen Bell) lets him go before she's ready. Jason (Manny Jacinto) walks through the door as well, but not before spending a long time alone in the Good Place woods accidentally meditating. Finally, Janet (D'Arcy Carden) stays in the Good Place, and Michael (Ted Danson) gets to become human.

The Good Place

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  Eleanor Shellstrop

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  Michael