Everyone's Waiting

I've watched plenty of show finales in my lifetime. Many had great endings and some had decent ones. I recently finished watching every episode of all 5 seasons of this amazing show while deployed in Iraq. From start to finish, I was completely captivated by the characters as they went about their every day lives. After the credits commenced to roll in Season 5's Series Finale "Everyone's Waiting". I just sat there in my chair completely flabbergasted at "Alan Ball's" incredible and yet honest ending. Of course, that is after I wiped the tears from my eyes and took an enormously deep and saddened "SIGH". I replayed that ending over five other times and still felt the same chills as though it was the first time. The Series finale has inspired me to regain my artistic composure, which I had temporarily lost for the last year and a half. It motivated me to call my wife and kids every day to tell them I missed and loved them so much. It very well has changed the way I look at life itself. I know it sounds kinda weird but it did. "Everyone's waiting" is the best ending I've ever seen in any medium of entertainment.

I'm awestruck. Breathless. Unbelieveing. The conclusion of the whole nine yards of this masterpiece of a series just leaves you sitting there, looking around you, having absolutely no clue what to do, how to go on with your life. You want to grab hold of one of your loved ones, squeeze them hard against you, never wanting to let go. Or you just walk around aimlessly in your garden, trying to get order among the maelstrom of thoughts swirling around in your head. Or you just sit in silence, having the feeling that your guts are trying to digest something as indigestible as an obsidian stone. And then, when you think that it's over, you just realize that it stays with you, for days and days, the movie having created a new and permanent pocket of emotions in your brain, hitting you again and again at the least expected moments.

It kicks you in your stomach like Muhammed Ali would have done. It's like an orgasm you're never going to have again in your whole life. It's serene, beautiful, astonishing, morbid and ironic, and last but not least, utterly true.

The whole series is organic. It grows with you or you grow with it. It seems - even during its seldom seen weaker moments - that it is written and planned to become one monstre psychedelic trip of life, one huge lesson. It's not a series which is meant to go on and on without an end, like you see a lot nowadays. It has a beginning, there is an evolution, and you also get a soul tearing conclusion you will never forget.

Watch all episodes. Slowly, in a dark room, when you are calm, paying attention to all the minuscule details. Join the Fishers, let them be your foster family for a time. You are never going to regret it.

After almost 15 years it's still the best finale ever. Even thinking about last 10 minutes of finale makes me cry.

I watched the final episode when it came out back in 2005 and the last 15 minutes took my breathe away. I never realized how attached I became to those fictional characters. This episode still haunts me. In 2008, I am currently station in Afghanistan and again re-watched the entire series again on DVD. Even though I knew how the series would end, the final episode still had the same impact on me as the first time I saw it. I can not believe how it still haunts my memories. This has to be the best ending to a TV series ever. We do get total closure on all of the characters in the series. This will sound "corny" but this episode has changed the way I looked at life and it made me appreciate the people in my life more.

It has to be the best TV show finale of all time, and I have seen many, many, many TV shows including the very best, i.e: Sopranos, Wire, etc.