Who Owns an Ending?

When the final episode of the show was broadcast, Rosa had been writing about it for nine years: a review of every season, an essay on its surprising popularity, a long and slightly embarrassing piece about why a minor character’s death had affected her more than she cared to admit. So when the ending arrived and a significant part of the audience answered it with open indignation, her editor, of course, asked her to explain what had gone wrong.

The difficulty was that Rosa was not convinced anything had. The ending was, it is true, very sudden. Several questions the show had raised in its early years were left unanswered, and the central couple, whose reunion the audience had been waiting for since the first season, did not end up together. Arguably, it took more nerve than the ending people wanted. It was without doubt a less comfortable one.

What interested her more than the ending itself was the tone of the reaction. A great many of the complaints were phrased not as criticism but as grievance, as if the people who made the show had broken a contract. People wrote that they had “invested” years, that they were “owed” a resolution, that the story had been “taken away” from them. The language was the language of ownership, and it was, she thought, not entirely without reason. A long-running series becomes part of the rhythm of people’s lives in a way that a novel or a film rarely does.

Yet the conclusion many drew from this seemed to her mistaken. To say that a story matters to us is not the same as saying that it should do what we want. If anything, the stories that stay with us are often the ones that refused. She thought of the novels she had been angry with at twenty and read again with gratitude at forty, and of how rarely satisfaction and importance go together.

In the end she wrote a piece that pleased almost nobody. It did not defend the ending as perfect, because it was not; the final half hour was visibly hurried. Nor did it join the chorus demanding a different one. It argued instead that the audience’s indignation was the clearest possible evidence of the show’s success, and that a story able to produce such a sense of loss had, in the only way that counts in the end, done its job. The letters she received were, on the whole, furious. One of them, however, simply said: “I hated the ending. I have not stopped thinking about it. Perhaps that is your point.” Rosa pinned it above her desk.

When the last episode of the show was on television, Rosa had written about it for nine years: a review of every season, an essay about its surprising popularity, and a long piece about why the death of a small character had affected her so much. So when many people answered the ending with indignation, her editor asked her to explain what had gone wrong.

The problem was that Rosa did not think that anything had gone wrong. The ending was sudden, it is true. Some questions from the early years were never answered, and the main couple did not end up together, although many people had waited for them to come back together for almost ten years. Maybe it took more nerve than the ending people wanted. It was without doubt less comfortable.

Rosa was more interested in the tone of the reaction. Many complaints did not sound like criticism but like a grievance, as if the people who made the show had broken a contract. People wrote that they had “invested” years, that they were “owed” an answer. It was the language of ownership, and Rosa understood it in part. A long series becomes part of people’s lives in a way that a novel or a film rarely does.

But she thought that many people drew the wrong conclusion. A story can be important to us without doing what we want. Often the stories that stay with us are the ones that refused. She thought of novels that had annoyed her at twenty and that she read again with thanks at forty.

In the end she wrote a piece that almost nobody liked. It did not say that the ending was perfect, because the last half hour was obviously hurried. But it did not ask for a different ending either. It said that the indignation of the audience was the clearest evidence of the show’s success. A story that can produce such a feeling of loss has done its job. Most letters she received were very angry. But one said: “I hated the ending. I have not stopped thinking about it. Maybe that is your point.” Rosa put it on the wall above her desk.