Talk about bookending a story.
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00:00The long-running nature of some TV shows means that earlier and latter seasons become completely
00:05different beasts. Some characters are elevated from recurring status to being essentially co-leads,
00:10whereas original leads become bit players or leave the show altogether. That said,
00:15what about characters who leave the show after the pilot has aired and return for the series finale?
00:20I'm Sy, this is WhatCulture.com and these are 10 TV characters who only appear in the first
00:25and last episode. 10. John – Parks and Recreation
00:31The early 21st century saw the rise of documentary-style comedies with tongue-in-cheek
00:35tones, and while some achieved relative success, almost none, aside from The Office,
00:41achieved the notoriety that Parks and Recreation did across its seven-season run.
00:45Its main casts were definitely the big draw, but its cameos had their own appeal as well,
00:50ranging from Joe Biden to John Cena and even Genuine. One cameo, however,
00:56served a unique narrative purpose, despite not being as prominent as the aforementioned.
01:01During the core cast's farewell in the finale, a man walks into the park's department office
01:05and asks if a broken swing in the park would be fixed. In addition to giving Leslie one last act
01:10as deputy director, the man, played by John Daly, was featured in the pilot as an inebriated drunk
01:16who Leslie tried to get out of the park's slide. Daly's character evolution from a humorous slob
01:21to a concerned citizen was a heartwarming display of how much Pawnee and its people had grown
01:26since the show's beginning. 9. Delivery Man – Frasier
01:31The Cheers spin-off enjoyed as much praise and notoriety as its predecessor and gave Kelsey
01:37Grammer's Fraser Crane a chance to start over in his hometown of Seattle as a radio show host,
01:42alongside being caretaker to his father after he left Boston following the end of his marriage
01:47to Lilith. His eponymous radio show served as an interesting narrative device that helped
01:52differentiate the show from Cheers and gave it a different style of comedy due to Crane's high
01:57society minded, also known as stuffy sensibilities, having more time to shine. This mindset often
02:04clashed with his father Martin's working class sensibilities in multiple episodes and one could
02:09argue that their initial misunderstandings were embodied by Martin's rather off-putting Eames chair,
02:15a source of comedic jabs throughout the show's run. That said, the chair is tied to a minor
02:20role most fans missed until years after Frasier ran its course. The delivery man who brought the
02:26chair in is the same person who picks up the chair in the finale. Played by the late Cleo Augusto,
02:32his appearances demonstrate how much Martin and Frasier's relationship has changed over the years
02:37for the better.
02:42The mid-2000s Showtime dramedy may have gone out with a whimper, but for a time in its first few
02:47seasons, Weeds was a compelling, sometimes uneven and darkly humorous exploration of Nazi Botwin's
02:54venture into selling marijuana to support her family after her husband's untimely demise.
02:59A large number of characters came and went across its run and while some characters had completed
03:04arcs by the time they left the show, others were not afforded this luxury. This is the case with
03:09Justin Chatwin's Josh Wilson, son of Nealon's dimwitted Doug Wilson. The eldest Wilson child
03:14was introduced in the pilot as a pot dealer and once Nancy discovered that he sold the drug to
03:19children, she threatened to out his sexuality to his father. After the pilot, the character was not
03:24seen to the series finale where it was revealed that he eventually became a lawyer and married
03:28a painter named Alan. Once Weeds was picked up for a full season, it was revealed that some contracts
03:33were not renewed and this included Chatwin's explaining his disappearance from the rest of the
03:38show. Number 7, Yuri Nakajima, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
03:45didn't quite live up to its lofty expectations but still delivered a mostly interesting exploration
03:51of America's deeply flawed socio-political structure and the dynamic between the titular
03:56duo is both fun to watch and emotionally satisfying. Sam and Bucky each got detailed
04:01arcs throughout the six episode run and as much as Sam's had more focus, Bucky's was impactful in
04:06a more personal fashion. The former Hydra assassin had intentions to make amends for his past crimes
04:12throughout the season and although his approach lacked grace in most of his interactions, his
04:17friendship with Yuri Nakajima was a nice bit of humanising for the super soldier. Unfortunately,
04:22it's revealed that the friendship was born out of Bucky's desire to atone for his role in killing
04:27Yuri's son RJ. As seen in the pilot, this loss hardened Yuri and his friendship with Bucky was
04:32one of the few things the elder held in any regard. In the show's final episode, Bucky came clean to
04:38Yuri and whilst this meant that Bucky had completed this part of his atonement journey, the revelation
04:43visibly hurt Yuri. His role in the show may have been minor but it showed Bucky and the audience
04:48the fallout of his past actions, as involuntary as they may have been. Number 6, Tom Hanks, sort of,
04:56Veep. HBO's satirical comedy was a roaring success and helped solidify Julia Louis-Dreyfus
05:02as a comedic icon for those who may not have experienced or grown up with Seinfeld during
05:07its run. Her role as Vice President Selina Meyer saw the VP being pitted against the off-screen
05:12President Hughes as her attempts to gain political influence, and the hurdles facing this, became more
05:17and more amusing. The show itself was hilarious and incisive with its political commentary and
05:22managed to keep its high quality throughout its run, with intriguing storylines, great character
05:27work and guest appearances. One such appearance, in a figurative sense of the word, was beloved
05:33actor Tom Hanks, whose potential death was discussed in the pilot as an event that would
05:37detract from VP Meyer's very public use of an offensive word. It seemed like a throwaway joke,
05:43but actually pays off in the series finale. Here, in a 24-year flash forward, Hanks is revealed to
05:49have died and is passing overshadow Selina's own. It served as a perfectly hilarious summary
05:55of Selina's character, a person whose wins were often short-lived or overshadowed by other notable
06:01events. Number 5, The Cloud Nine Baby, Superstore. NBC's recently concluded sitcom experienced some
06:09growing pains early in its run, but was able to eventually fine-tune its storyline and ensemble
06:14to deliver a wholesome and heartwarming peek into the lives of the Cloud Nine employees and their
06:19lives outside of the chain store. Some may have balked at its your workmates are your family
06:24members approach in several instances, but the show was savvy enough to have a lot more on its
06:28mind rather than banal HR proclamations. It was able to be critical of the challenges and
06:34inequities in the workplace and still foster genuine relationships between its characters.
06:39Its series finale luckily stuck the landing by adhering to what was so endearing in the first
06:43place while being topical at the same time. In addition to this, its callbacks to earlier
06:48seasons and episodes were pleasant in their retrospective approach. One such callback is
06:52Amy's encounter of an unsupervised child sitting on a potty in one of the store's aisles. It turns
06:58out that this is the same child and in a similar outfit from the pilot, only much older. It's an
07:03amusing moment that serves as a nostalgic source of comfort or nightmare fuel for actual retail
07:08workers before the cast eventually moved on to other phases in their lives.
07:144. ANATOLY SITNIKOV – CHERNOBYL Although a good number of artistic licenses were
07:20taken in the Chernobyl miniseries, its depiction of the horror and desperation following the worst
07:24nuclear disaster in history made for both compelling and harrowing viewing upon its
07:28release in 2019. It wisely took a restrained approach to said depiction in a way that didn't
07:34paint caricatures of the people involved, but also ensured that the terrifying scale of the
07:38disaster was understood by viewers who may have only had a cursory understanding of what happened
07:43in 1986. This was seen in the treatment of main characters such as, and I'm going to butcher
07:48these, Valery Legasov and Vasily Ignatenko, as well as minor ones. One such individual was Anatoly
07:55Sitnikov, the power plant's deputy chief operational engineer, who took note of the
07:59immediate scale of the devastation following the plant's meltdown. Unfortunately, he was ignored by
08:04his superiors at first, until it became clear that Anatoly Dyatlov, the station's chief engineer,
08:09was ill following extensive radiation exposure. Against his will, Sitnikov inspected the fallout
08:15of the exploded reactor and was bombarded by a lethal dose of radiation. He was later seen in
08:20a flashback in the last episode that detailed everyday life in Pripyat before the accident
08:25that would change his life alongside many others for the worse.
08:293. Nancy Ryan – When They See Us
08:32Released in 2019, When They See Us received near-unanimous praise from viewers and critics
08:38alike for its uncompromising depiction of the injustices the Central Park Five endured after
08:43being falsely prosecuted and imprisoned for the 1989 assault of jogger Trisha Melly. The case,
08:49and consequently the show, is a seminal example of the devastating impact racial and class
08:54criminal profiling has on people of colour and or working class individuals. One character that
09:00both bookended the crime drama and signalled the shift towards achieving the Five's freedom was
09:05the Assistant District Attorney Nancy Ryan. Played by Famke Janssen, the Assistant DA was
09:10initially assigned to the case when it was believed that Melly would die from her injuries.
09:14Once this was determined to not be so, the case was assigned to now-controversial prosecutor Linda
09:19Fairstein. Years later, in 2002, Ryan and New York DA Robert Morgenthau began the process that
09:26would see the Five exonerated after sufficient evidence was provided to prove their innocence.
09:30Ryan's part in the miniseries is understandably not its focal point, but Janssen acquitted herself
09:35well as one of the driving forces that gave the Five their freedom back.
09:402. Freddy Hamid – The Night Manager
09:43The 2016 adaptation of John Le Carr's first post-Cold War novel honoured the source material
09:48by respecting its espionage roots while adding its own spin on the narrative. This led to a
09:53well-told six-episode saga and one of the best adaptations of Le Carr's work in any medium.
09:59Tom Hiddleston's Jonathan Pine may be the series lead, but he wasn't forced to carry the show as he
10:04was more than capably aided by the likes of David Harewood and a rarely better Hugh Laurie as series
10:09antagonist Richard Roper. The simmering conflict between Pine and Roper is driven by the involvement
10:15of the volatile hotel owner Freddy Hamid and his partner Sophie Allican. Sophie immediately sees
10:21Jonathan as an ally in her mission to bring down Hamid by exposing his dealings with criminals
10:26such as Roper. Unfortunately, this was her undoing as Hamid found out about their budding relationship
10:31and assaulted Sophie before having her killed. Her death sees Pine's further involvement with
10:36bringing down Roper and in the final episode, the hotelier-slash-former-spy enacts his vengeance by
10:43killing Hamid once he learns the reason behind Sophie's death.
10:47At number one, Vera Keller, The Pacific. Although not quite as gripping as Band of Brothers and
10:53admittedly that's a high bar to clear, The Pacific still delivered the requisite heart, wartime thrills
10:59and introspective storytelling one would expect in an HBO prestige drama backed by the likes of
11:04Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. As its title suggests, the miniseries focused on the United
11:10States Marine Corps' actions in the Pacific War, i.e. the section of World War II that was largely
11:15fought on territories surrounding the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean to a limited degree.
11:20Despite this wide narrative scope, the show was still able to focus on a core cast of characters,
11:25one of them being Private Robert Leckie as played by James Badge Dale. One of his most
11:30defining traits was his relationship with his childhood friend-slash-first love Vera Keller.
11:35Despite her mother's warnings, Vera grew closer to the rebellious Leckie until his eventual draft
11:40into the war following the Pearl Harbour tragedy. Despite her limited appearances,
11:44Vera's romance with Robert was one of the series' stronger emotional components
11:48and symbolised what every soldier had gone overseas to protect.