10 TV Characters Who Only Appear In The First And Last Episode
Talk about bookending a story.
Transcript
00:00 The long-running nature of some TV shows means that earlier and latter seasons become completely
00:05 different beasts.
00:06 Some characters are elevated from recurring status to being essentially co-leads, whereas
00:11 original leads become bit players or leave the show altogether.
00:14 That said, what about characters who leave the show after the pilot has aired and return
00:18 for the series finale?
00:20 I'm Sy, this is WhatCulture.com and these are 10 TV characters who only appear in the
00:24 first and last episode.
00:27 10. John - Parks and Recreation
00:31 The early 21st century saw the rise of documentary-style comedies with tongue-in-cheek tones, and while
00:36 some achieved relative success, almost none, aside from The Office, achieved the notoriety
00:42 that Parks and Recreation did across its seven-season run.
00:45 Its main casts were definitely the big draw, but its cameos had their own appeal as well,
00:50 ranging from Joe Biden to John Cena and even Genuine.
00:54 One cameo, however, served a unique narrative purpose, despite not being as prominent as
00:59 the aforementioned.
01:01 During the core cast's farewell in the finale, a man walks into the park's department office
01:05 and asks if a broken swing in the park would be fixed.
01:08 In addition to giving Leslie one last act as deputy director, the man, played by John
01:13 Daly, was featured in the pilot as an inebriated drunk who Leslie tried to get out of the park's
01:18 slide.
01:19 Daly's character evolution from a humorous slob to a concerned citizen was a heartwarming
01:23 display of how much Pawnee and its people had grown since the show's beginning.
01:28 9.
01:29 Delivery Man - Fraser
01:31 The Cheers spin-off enjoyed as much praise and notoriety as its predecessor, and gave
01:36 Kelsey Grammer's Fraser Crane a chance to start over in his hometown of Seattle as a
01:41 radio show host, alongside being caretaker to his father after he left Boston following
01:46 the end of his marriage to Lilith.
01:48 His eponymous radio show served as an interesting narrative device that helped differentiate
01:52 the show from Cheers and gave it a different style of comedy due to Crane's high society
01:57 minded, also known as 'stuffy' sensibilities having more time to shine.
02:02 This mindset often clashed with his father Martin's working class sensibilities in multiple
02:08 episodes and one could argue that their initial misunderstandings were embodied by Martin's
02:13 rather off-putting Eames chair, a source of comedic jabs throughout the show's run.
02:18 That said, the chair is tied to a minor role most fans missed until years after Fraser
02:23 ran its course.
02:24 The delivery man who brought the chair in is the same person who picks up the chair
02:28 in the finale.
02:30 Played by the late Cleo Augusto, his appearances demonstrate how much Martin and Fraser's
02:34 relationship has changed over the years for the better.
02:38 8.
02:39 Josh Wilson - Weeds
02:42 The mid-2000s Showtime dramedy may have gone out with a whimper, but for a time in its
02:46 first few seasons, Weeds was a compelling, sometimes uneven and darkly humorous exploration
02:52 of Nazi Botwin's venture into selling marijuana to support her family after her husband's
02:57 untimely demise.
02:59 A large number of characters came and went across its run and while some characters had
03:03 completed arcs by the time they left the show, others were not afforded this luxury.
03:08 This is the case with Justin Chatwin's Josh Wilson, son of Nealon's dimwitted Doug Wilson.
03:13 The eldest Wilson child was introduced in the pilot as a pot dealer and once Nancy discovered
03:18 that he sold the drug to children, she threatened to out his sexuality to his father.
03:22 After the pilot, the character was not seen to the series finale where it was revealed
03:26 that he eventually became a lawyer and married a painter named Alan.
03:30 Once Weeds was picked up for a full season, it was revealed that some contracts were not
03:34 renewed and this included Chatwin's explaining his disappearance from the rest of the show.
03:39 7.
03:40 Sam's new addition, Yuri Nakajima, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
03:44 The Falcon and the Winter Soldier didn't quite live up to its lofty expectations but
03:48 still delivered a mostly interesting exploration of America's deeply flawed socio-political
03:53 structure and the dynamic between the titular duo is both fun to watch and emotionally satisfying.
03:59 Sam and Bucky each got detailed arcs throughout the six episode run and as much as Sam's
04:04 had more focus, Bucky's was impactful in a more personal fashion.
04:08 The former Hydra assassin had intentions to make amends for his past crimes throughout
04:12 the season and although his approach lacked grace in most of his interactions, his friendship
04:17 with Yuri Nakajima was a nice bit of humanising for the super soldier.
04:21 Unfortunately, it's revealed that the friendship was born out of Bucky's desire to atone
04:25 for his role in killing Yuri's son RJ.
04:28 As seen in the pilot, this loss hardened Yuri and his friendship with Bucky was one of the
04:32 few things the elder held in any regard.
04:35 In the show's final episode, Bucky came clean to Yuri and whilst this meant that Bucky
04:39 had completed this part of his atonement journey, the revelation visibly hurt Yuri.
04:44 His role in the show may have been minor, but it showed Bucky and the audience the fallout
04:48 of his past actions, as involuntary as they may have been.
04:53 6.
04:54 Tom Hanks... sort of.
04:56 Veep
04:57 HBO's satirical comedy was a roaring success and helped solidify Julia Louis-Dreyfus as
05:02 a comedic icon for those who may not have experienced or grown up with Seinfeld during
05:07 its run.
05:08 Her role as Vice President Selina Meyer saw the VP being pitted against the off-screen
05:12 President Hughes as her attempts to gain political influence, and the hurdles facing this, became
05:17 more and more amusing.
05:19 The show itself was hilarious and incisive with its political commentary and managed
05:23 to keep its high quality throughout its run with intriguing storylines, great character
05:27 work and guest appearances.
05:29 One such appearance, in a figurative sense of the word, was beloved actor Tom Hanks,
05:34 whose potential death was discussed in the pilot as an event that would detract from
05:38 VP Meyer's very public use of an offensive word.
05:41 It seemed like a throwaway joke, but actually pays off in the series finale.
05:46 Here in a 24 year flash forward, Hanks is revealed to have died and his passing overshadows
05:51 Selina's own.
05:53 It served as a perfectly hilarious summary of Selina's character, a person whose wins
05:57 were often short-lived or overshadowed by other notable events.
06:02 5.
06:03 The Cloud Nine Baby - Superstore
06:05 NBC's recently concluded sitcom experienced some growing pains early in its run, but was
06:11 able to eventually fine-tune its storyline and ensemble to deliver a wholesome and heartwarming
06:16 peek into the lives of the Cloud Nine employees and their lives outside of the chain store.
06:21 Some may have balked at its "your workmates are your family members" approach in several
06:25 instances, but the show was savvy enough to have a lot more on its mind rather than banal
06:29 HR proclamations.
06:31 It was able to be critical of the challenges and inequities in the workplace and still
06:35 foster genuine relationships between its characters.
06:39 Its series finale luckily stuck the landing by adhering to what was so endearing in the
06:43 first place, while being topical at the same time.
06:46 In addition to this, its callbacks to earlier seasons and episodes were pleasant in their
06:50 retrospective approach.
06:51 One such callback is Amy's encounter of an unsupervised child sitting on a potty in
06:56 one of the store's aisles.
06:57 It turns out that this is the same child, and in a similar outfit from the pilot, only
07:01 much older.
07:02 It's an amusing moment that serves as a nostalgic source of comfort or nightmare fuel
07:07 for actual retail workers before the cast eventually move on to other phases in their
07:12 lives.
07:13 4.
07:15 Anatoly Sitnikov - Chernobyl
07:17 Although a good number of artistic licences were taken in the Chernobyl miniseries, its
07:21 depiction of the horror and desperation following the worst nuclear disaster in history made
07:25 for both compelling and harrowing viewing upon its release in 2019.
07:30 It wisely took a restrained approach to said depiction in a way that didn't paint caricatures
07:34 of the people involved, but also ensured that the terrifying scale of the disaster was understood
07:39 by viewers who may have only had a cursory understanding of what happened in 1986.
07:44 This was seen in the treatment of main characters such as, and I'm going to butcher these,
07:48 Valery Legasov and Vasily Ignatenko, as well as minor ones.
07:53 One such individual was Anatoly Sitnikov, the power plant's deputy chief operational
07:57 engineer who took note of the immediate scale of the devastation following the plant's
08:02 meltdown.
08:03 Unfortunately, he was ignored by his superiors at first, until it became clear that Anatoly
08:07 Dyatlov, the station's chief engineer, was ill following extensive radiation exposure.
08:13 Against his will, Sitnikov inspected the fallout of the exploded reactor and was bombarded
08:17 by a lethal dose of radiation.
08:19 He was later seen in a flashback in the last episode that detailed everyday life in Pripyat
08:24 before the accident that would change his life, alongside many others for the worse.
08:29 3.
08:30 Nancy Ryan - When They See Us
08:32 Released in 2019, When They See Us received near unanimous praise from viewers and critics
08:37 alike for its uncompromising depiction of the injustices the Central Park Five endured
08:43 after being falsely prosecuted and imprisoned for the 1989 assault of jogger Trisha Melly.
08:48 The case, and consequently the show, is a seminal example of the devastating impact
08:53 racial and class criminal profiling has on people of colour and/or working class individuals.
08:59 One character that both bookended the crime drama and signalled the shift towards achieving
09:03 the Five's freedom was the assistant district attorney Nancy Ryan.
09:08 Played by Famke Janssen, the assistant DA was initially assigned to the case when it
09:12 was believed that Melly would die from her injuries.
09:14 Once this was determined to not be so, the case was assigned to now controversial prosecutor
09:18 Linda Fairstein.
09:20 Years later, in 2002, Ryan and New York DA Robert Morgenthau began the process that would
09:26 see the Five exonerated after sufficient evidence was provided to prove their innocence.
09:30 Ryan's part in the miniseries is understandably not its focal point, but Janssen acquitted
09:34 herself well as one of the driving forces that gave the Five their freedom back.
09:39 2.
09:41 Freddy Hamid - The Night Manager
09:43 The 2016 adaptation of John Le Carr's first post-Cold War novel honoured the source material
09:48 by respecting its espionage roots while adding its own spin on the narrative.
09:52 This led to a well-told six-episode saga and one of the best adaptations of Le Carr's
09:57 work in any medium.
09:59 Tom Hiddleston's Jonathan Pine may be the series lead, but he wasn't forced to carry
10:03 the show as he was more than capably aided by the likes of David Harewood and a rarely
10:07 better Hugh Laurie as series antagonist Richard Roper.
10:11 The simmering conflict between Pine and Roper is driven by the involvement of the volatile
10:16 hotel owner Freddy Hamid and his partner Sophie Allican.
10:20 Sophie immediately sees Jonathan as an ally in her mission to bring down Hamid by exposing
10:24 his dealings with criminals such as Roper.
10:27 Unfortunately this was her undoing as Hamid found out about their budding relationship
10:31 and assaulted Sophie before having her killed.
10:34 Her death sees Pine's further involvement with bringing down Roper and in the final
10:38 episode the hotelier/former spy enacts his vengeance by killing Hamid once he learns
10:44 the reason behind Sophie's death.
10:47 At number 1, Vera Keller - The Pacific
10:50 Although not quite as gripping as Band of Brothers and admittedly that's a high bar
10:55 to clear, The Pacific still delivered the requisite heart, wartime thrills and introspective
11:00 storytelling one would expect in an HBO prestige drama backed by the likes of Steven Spielberg
11:05 and Tom Hanks.
11:07 As its title suggests, the miniseries focused on the United States Marine Corps' actions
11:11 in the Pacific War, i.e. the section of World War II that was largely fought on territories
11:16 surrounding the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean to a limited degree.
11:20 Despite this wide narrative scope, the show was still able to focus on a core cast of
11:25 characters, one of them being Private Robert Leckie as played by James Badge Dale.
11:30 One of his most defining traits was his relationship with his childhood friend/first love Vera
11:34 Keller.
11:35 Despite her mother's warnings, Vera grew closer to the rebellious Leckie until his
11:39 eventual draft into the war following the Pearl Harbor tragedy.
11:43 Despite her limited appearances, Vera's romance with Robert was one of the series'
11:46 stronger emotional components and symbolised what every soldier had gone overseas to protect.
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