What made this twist so gut-wrenching was how it completely upended the classic hero’s journey. Robb had all the makings of a protagonist on a mission to avenge his father, only to be stabbed in the heart before he could even come close. In one of TV’s most heartbreaking gut-punches, Scrubs revealed in the episode “My Screw Up” that Dr. Cox’s friend Ben, who’d been present throughout the episode, was actually dead. ” at what seemed like just a casual gathering, the camera pulls back to show they’re actually at Ben’s funeral. This revelation forces you to mentally replay every scene Ben appeared in during the episode, realizing that Dr. Cox had been unable to accept his friend’s death.
Having survived the contest, Gi-hun receives a mysterious card a year later and follows the instructions to a lavish building. Inside, he finds Il-nam, who he had seemingly sent to his death during the competition. The elderly man explains, in a cruel twist, that he is the mastermind behind the Squid Game and took part only as a last-minute attempt to feel something — to have some fun — before dying from a brain tumor.
River Song Is Amy & Rory’s Daughter
The twist was kept top secret even within the crew, with only a select few – including Steven Moffat and actress Alex Kingston – knowing the truth. Of course, the Red Wedding didn’t come as a surprise if you had read George R.R. Martin’s A Storm of Swords. Introduced back anime quiz in the fourth series, River Song was a mysterious woman who could seemingly travel through time with the Doctor.
Film, TV & Theatre
Paul Anderson gives one of Peaky Blinders’ best performances as the tragically wayward eldest Shelby brother, Arthur, which convinces us throughout much of the series that the character is in for a sticky end. It’s no surprise, then, when one of Luca Changretta’s men appears to kill Arthur in the season 4 finale. From The Good Place’s first episode, the show’s initial setting did feel garishly repugnant on some level, yet its characteristics seemed to be more a satirical sendup of how we imagine heaven than anything else.
While the twist in 2004’s Saw is probably the more famous twist from director James Wan, Malignant arguably packs a bigger punch. The film follows a woman, Madison, who starts to have visions of people being murdered, only to realize that the murders are taking place in real life. Directed by Steven Soderbergh, Side Effects is an underrated gem when it comes to movies with great plot twists.
Problems soon arise in the first season as some hosts start to gain sentience and begin to remember all the events that they have experienced. One of the principal characters of the show is Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright), a programmer who works at Westworld and is a close friend of park director Dr. Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins). In Season 1, Episode 7, “Trompe L’Oeil,” Bernard leads Theresa Cullen (Sidse Babett Knudsen) to a secret underground lab. While there, Dr. Ford emerges and reveals that Bernard is a host himself, based on Dr. Ford’s former partner. Dr. Ford then orders Bernard to kill Theresa, shockingly marking the first time that a host kills a human.
While we were still reeling from this bombshell, his boss forces him to eliminate his love interest Theresa. Although some fans suspected Bernard was a host, none of them could’ve anticipated this one-two punch. It was a story development that made us question the nature of our reality.
That’s a red herring for the real twist, though—as the train rolls away, Elizabeth sees that Paige has stepped out and is standing on the platform, rejecting the life her parents have laid out for her and choosing to stay. It doesn’t take long for one of the agency’s resident slime balls, Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser), to seduce Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) after she starts working as a secretary at Sterling Cooper. It also doesn’t take long for Peggy to show an aptitude for copywriting, which opens doors for her that previously hadn’t been accessible to female employees. Her professional rise is threatened, however, when she learns that there’s a reason beyond stress that she’s been putting on weight and feeling ill. She has it in almost complete secret, only telling her mentor Don (Jon Hamm), who has his own skeletons, and puts the child up for adoption. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) and Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey)—or MerDer, if you prefer—are established early on as Grey’s Anatomy‘s central power couple.
Directed by Christopher Nolan, The Prestige is based on the Christopher Priest novel of the same name. The film follows two magicians, Angier and Borden, who constantly try to outdo and screw over each other after Borden accidentally kills Angier’s wife in a trick gone bad. Borden becomes famous for a trick called “The Transported Man,” and Angier debuts “The Real Transported Man,” leading Borden to investigate how Angier did it.
This reveal was crucial to the show’s second season, but back when fans first found out about one of their favorite characters’ true identity, it was a real shocker. The Red Wedding on Game of Thrones served many purposes in the show, and it’s remained one of the most iconic, albeit violent and graphic, scenes in the series’ history. It was also a major plot twist because of the deaths of Robb, Talisa, Catelyn, and more. Part of what makes the Scrubs plot twist so memorable is that comedies don’t typically surprise fans so intensely. But in one episode of the series, audiences learn that a patient that J.D. Midway through the first season of The Good Place, audiences learned that Eleanor, Chidi, and the rest weren’t actually in The Good Place.
The ending to medical drama St. Elsewhere isn’t just unexpected — it’s a finale that effectively betrayed viewers of the show who’d invested in its characters for six seasons. No one could possibly have seen it coming that the entire titular hospital is the figment of one boy’s imagination, because it’s so utterly outlandish. However, at their worst, ill-conceived plot twists can ruin a TV show completely.
While it may have upset some fans, it certainly didn’t disappoint in terms of the show’s definitive plot twist. Veronica Mars builds its first season around solving Lilly Kane’s murder—and the reveal that her father’s best friend, Aaron Echolls, did it is both shocking and layered. The twist elevated the show beyond high school noir into true crime drama territory. After Michael’s heartbreaking death in Jane the Virgin, fans mourned and moved on—until the final seconds of Season 4, when he appeared very much alive.
Created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss
The reveal that she murdered Delilah and Candace flips the narrative and shows Joe isn’t the only monster with a romantic streak. Bates Motel slowly leads us into familiar Psycho territory, but the twist fully hits when Norman murders his mother and begins impersonating her. The chilling reveal shows Norman’s descent into madness with a disturbing sense of inevitability—yet still delivers emotional complexity. In Season 4 of Stranger Things, the villain Vecna is revealed to be Henry Creel / One, the very first test subject. Not only did he originate the Upside Down’s power, but he had been lurking in plain sight.