In honor of Conan O’Brien’s last episode of Late Night, we’re going to look at some of our favorite final episodes. We have reason every to believe Conan’s last show will be just as good as some of these classics. And of course, Conan will be moving on to the Tonight Show, so this isn’t really good-bye. More of a “Hey, see you in June, buddy”.
As usual, there are some parameters. I’m only counting episodes that were written as a finale, instead of shows that got cancelled without warning. (Sorry, Deadwood.) And I’m judging solely on the quality of the final episodes. A great show that had a flat ending (Seinfeld), or collapsed under its own weight and limped across the finish line (The X-Files), or spent an entire episode getting all sentimental instead of telling a story about the characters we’d invested in (every sitcom from the 1980’s) won’t make the list.
