‘Walker,’ ‘The Resident’ & More Finale Cliffhangers That Will Have Us Talking All Summer
Another TV season is in the books, and finales wouldn’t be the same without at least a few that had us yelling at our screens when they were over. For some shows, it’s going to be a long wait until the fall (or midseason) to find out what happens next.
For example, several shows left main characters in life-threatening situations, whether it be a kidnapping (The Equalizer and Walker), bleeding out while others partied (The Good Doctor), or a fire (Chicago Med). Other series have us wondering what’s next for key relationships (such as on Grey’s Anatomy, New Amsterdam, and The Resident). And for a few characters, like on Chicago Fire and NCIS, they have no idea the danger they’re actually in. Then there’s The Flash, which has us wondering what’s going on with one of its main characters.
Scroll down to take a look at 10 shows with finale cliffhangers that will have us talking until next season.
A Million Little Things
Just as Gary (James Roday Rodriguez) and Maggie (Allison Miller) are finally not only making a relationship work but are also having a baby, tragedy struck — before we even realized it! The finale revealed that we didn’t see the entire conversation they had with his doctor, and he does have cancer (a mass was found in his lung when they were checking on a lump Maggie felt in his chest). Though he didn’t want to tell anyone, Rome (Romany Malco) and Regina (Christina Moses) found out by watching one of the videos Gary’s recording for the baby, which, executive producer DJ Nash said puts them in a position where they must decide how to approach this with their friend. Gary’s survived cancer already, but now we have to wait until the midseason to find out what’s next.
Chicago Fire
The good news: Kelly Severide (Taylor Kinney) and Stella Kidd (Miranda Rae Mayo) got married, even with a few hiccups along the way. The bad news: Someone — likely the guy whose drug operation Severide has interfered with — followed them to the cabin on their wedding night. Also bad news: It sounds like the end of Matt Casey (Jesse Spencer) and Sylvie Brett’s (Kara Killmer) relationship since the long distance is getting to be too much. We have to wait until the fall to find out just what’s in store for Stellaride and Brettsey.
Chicago Med
Dr. Dylan Scott (Guy Lockard) and Dr. Will Halstead (Nick Gehlfuss) ended Season 7 trapped in a fire, with a man the former doctor shot in self-defense, while undercover cop Jo (Riley Voelkel) was bleeding and supposedly on her way out of the building. (We wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t make it.) Will all three survive the Season 8 premiere?
The Equalizer
Where is Robyn McCall (Queen Latifah)?! The Season 2 finale ended with an SUV T-boning her car, and all her daughter Delilah (Laya DeLeon Hayes) and Vi (Lorraine Toussaint) could do was watch as Robyn was kidnapped. We think that Quinn (Chris Vance) was behind it, but you never know. Where will she be when we next see her? And what’s going to happen to her?
The Flash
What did Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) and Chillblaine (Jon Cor) just do in their attempt to bring back Frost?! Near the end of the Season 8 finale, he awoke to an alert that the chamber in which Caitlin was. When he opened it, he asked, “Frost, you OK? Frost? Who the hell are you?” Then we heard Panabaker’s voice (but didn’t see her): “A friend, I think.” So who is this? What we do know is that is not Frost; showrunner Eric Wallace ruled that out, confirming she is dead. As for what’s going on, “it’s something new,” he said. “And something that people are not expecting. I pitched my crazy idea about six or seven months ago to Danielle, who was like, ‘Ooh, I like that. We have not done that before!'” Furthermore, he teased, “it will become very clear, very quickly, what’s happening and why. And it has its roots in perhaps the past.”
The Good Doctor
While others were celebrating Dr. Shaun Murphy (Freddie Highmore) and Lea Dilallo’s wedding (Paige Spara), a couple floors below, Dr. Audrey Lim (Christina Chang) found Nurse Villanueva (Elfina Luk) bleeding in the staff lounge. She warned Audrey too late that the person responsible was still in the room — the nurse’s ex Owen (Terry Chen) — and he stabbed the doctor, too. How long will it take someone to find them? Will it be too late?
Grey's Anatomy
The Season 18 finale (and the show’s 400th episode) ended with quite a few people leaving the hospital. Dr. Owen Hunt (Kevin McKidd) and Dr. Teddy Altman (Kim Raver) resigned due to his actions with dying vets and were on a plane to … somewhere. Dr. Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr.) took a sabbatical. Dr. Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson) quit and left the keys to the chief’s office in Dr. Meredith Grey’s (Ellen Pompeo) hand … and Meredith had been the one planning to leave! And as Meredith sat in the chief’s chair, she told Dr. Nick Marsh (Scott Speedman) to go back to Minnesota after things went south with their patient. But, after he left, she ran into the hall to stop him. It didn’t look like she was in time to do so, but who knows? And who will be back in Season 19?
Law & Order: SVU
“Love” can be defined in so many ways, and we’re left wondering exactly which Rafael Barba (Raúl Esparza) meant when he told Captain Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) in the finale, “I do know what it means to love someone unconditionally, and when you’re ready to stop feeling betrayed by me, I’ll be here,” at the end of a tense exchange about her former partner, Detective Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni). “The thing we kept trying to wrestle with was how to convey a couple of meanings without hitting anything too hard because it is a fragile story between them and a moment of real tenderness, which exists often between them, but now coming out of a lot of heartache,” Esparza said. “All things are possible.” And we can’t even be sure when we’ll get that answer, given that could be left in the air until Esparza’s next guest spot or even beyond that.
NCIS
The team’s boss, Alden Parker (Gary Cole), is on the run after the new Big Bad, the Raven, framed him for murder, and his ex-wife, Vivian (Teri Polo), is somehow involved. With the FBI after their former agent, the NCIS team helped Parker escape, and Vivian joined him after ostensibly being kidnapped and getting away. But as they hit the road, she texted someone “It’s done. I have him.” Whether she’s the Raven or just helping the Big Bad is something we won’t know until the Season 20 premiere, but executive producer Steven D. Binder teased that this nemesis will “be surprising. I think she’s gonna really throw you for a loop when you find out what what’s going on with them.”
New Amsterdam
Why couldn’t Dr. Helen Sharpe (Freema Agyeman) attend her and Dr. Max Goodwin’s (Ryan Eggold) wedding? In the finale, after the crisis created by a hurricane was over, Max received a notification that Helen’s flight landed. “Today has been… I have no words. Will call you ASAP,” she texted him. And then as he stood in front of their friends, who had redecorated the roof for their wedding (“fitting because this place has always been magic for us,” he noted in a voicemail he left her), she called, crying, to tell him, “I can’t. I just can’t. I’m so sorry.” Is it just that she couldn’t get married then and something kept her in London, or is Sharpwin about to fall apart?
The Resident
The Season 5 finale brought back the late Nic Nevin (Emily VanCamp) in flashbacks as her husband, Dr. Conrad Hawkins (Matt Czuchry), pondered moving on. As she’d told him one night after a date, she wanted him to find happiness again if he ever lost her. And now, he’s set to do just that, but with Dr. Billie Sutton (Jessica Lucas) or Dr. Cade Sullivan (Kaley Ronayne)? He’s made his choice by the end of the finale, but we have to wait to find out who it is. “we really wanted to leave that decision to the start of Season 6, because we wanted this season to be about the closure that all of those flashbacks offered us,” executive producer Andrew Chapman said. “That decision will be surprising, and we have a really interesting way to unfold it and the story that follows.”
Walker
As the Season 2 finale came to an end, Cordell (Jared Padalecki) got a head start racing his brother Liam (Keegan Allen) and Trey (Jeff Pierre). The other men took off after him, lost him on the trail, then found Cordell’s daughter Stella (Violet Brinson) waiting at the finish line … and he was nowhere in sight. So where was Cordell? Tied up in the back of a van. What’s going to happen to him? Will anyone find him, or will he escape on his own?
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