Recently, I asked the BuzzFeed Community which women from TV shows deserved a WAY better ending to their stories.
Here are 19 of their top answers:
Warning: Spoilers ahead!
1. Haley Dunphy from Modern Family.
"If she had stayed with Andy and they'd had kids, that would have been a nice, full circle moment. However, the main problem with her ending up with Dylan was that he brought out her worst qualities and set her back 10 years.
All of her character development went out the window. I think they wanted her to have that ending with Andy, then when Adam DeVine left, they just subbed in Dylan, which didn't work the same way."
"Haley had so much potential to launch her career in fashion and social media, and they ruined her ending by having her get pregnant. And with Dylan, who was by far her worst boyfriend!
Andy was a much better match for her."
2. Serena van der Woodsen from Gossip Girl.
"She spent six seasons wanting to move on, mostly because she was being stalked and harassed by Gossip Girl...Only to have her marry her high school boyfriend, who was the man running Gossip Girl, in the series finale.
She should have moved away from the Upper East Side."
3. Mindy Lahiri from The Mindy Project.
"Her arc with Danny was positively baffling. It's the reason I can't ever rewatch that series."
4. Pam Beesley from The Office.
"They made all these plans for her to be an art student and follow her dreams and then squashed all of that all for a love story and so Jim could ultimately be the one to follow his dreams."
5. Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones.
"You're telling me that the entire series — where she was a complete baddie and was the breaker of chains — led up to her doing something completely out of character and mortifying? Then, after everything she overcame, and the hope it brought with her, she was killed. What a waste and a disservice to her character.
I still boil with anger over it years later."
"They built her up to be a hero, a breaker of chains, and a woman who can overpower men. Then, in the last few episodes, she snapped and killed innocent civilians!
And instead of her lover being like, 'No, let's talk about this,' he stabbed her! The GoT writers did her so dirty. If I could watch any finale episode get a rewrite, it would be that one."
6. Jackie Burkhart from That '70s Show.
"They just had her jump from one friend to another, and somehow, she ended up with Fez. She should have been with Hyde or nobody."
"She was just starting to gain her independence and do her own thing, and then boom! She had a final fling with Michael and then went after Fez of all people, despite seven seasons of explaining why she would never do just that."
7. Spencer Hastings from Pretty Little Liars.
"She and Toby broke up. He got engaged and went all The Notebook on this new girl. Spencer dated and actually kinda fell for Caleb. Meanwhile, she was just his rebound from Hanna, whom he eventually got back together with.
Then, Toby's fiancée died, so he anticlimactically went back to Spencer. She didn't even get a wedding, while all the other Liars did.
Oh, and she found out she has an evil twin, and she was adopted or something. WTF?
This is how they treated the character who pretty much held everything together for everyone else during the entire show? Outrageous."
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8. Rachel Green from Friends.
"10 seasons of growth for her to get off the plane and settle for Ross.
I've never been more upset with a main character's ending. At the very least, he should've followed her to Paris."
"I remember thinking at the time that they could have done a spin-off show called Rachel in Paris, but no, they had her get off the plane."
"She came so far. She became a strong and — most importantly — independent woman. She was SO much different than the girl she was when she walked into Central Perk on Episode 1.
Rachel even landed her dream job in PARIS just to give it all up for Ross and a toxic on-again/off-again relationship? She should've gotten on that plane."
9. Hayley Marshall from The Originals.
"She was one of the most badass characters on the show, and they killed her off in the final season just so Elijah could go through some stuff."
10. Cordelia Chase from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.
"She had amazing character growth from Buffy to Angel. She was made a higher being at the end of Season 3, then they brought her back in Season 4 as secretly-evil Cordelia. She then slept with Angel's son, Conner, which was a huge ick factor, and they became the "parents" of Jasmine, the being that was possessing Cordelia.
Then, the writers put Cordelia in a coma for basically the rest of the show. Charisma Carpenter had gotten pregnant in real life, and series creator Joss Whedon basically wrote her off because he 'couldn’t think of anything more for her to do.' She deserved SO much better."
"She's going to have to go down as the textbook example. After Cordelia was built up as an amazing, resilient character over the first three seasons, Charisma Carpenter got pregnant. Joss Whedon's resentment over having to work it into the show gave us not only the most convoluted plotline in the whole franchise (which is saying something), but it also ended on an excuse to sideline and write her off for almost all of the final season.
It was an incredibly petty exercise in the misogynistic, controlling drama being called out in recent years, particularly by Charisma herself...and then he brought her back to be killed off as a token afterthought. Such a shame."
11. Lane Kim from Gilmore Girls.
"She had me wanting to rip my hair out. She had such a great character arc about standing up for herself and starting this journey with her band, only to end up in with the worst story ending. It's like they just forgot about her halfway through Season 6 and then remembered she was there and gave her a shit ending to 'satisfy' the fans.
She had such a great relationship with Dave, and, honestly, it still makes me angry that she and Henry never got a real chance. But for her to end up with ZACH — FUCKING ZACH — made me so angry. She never got out of Stars Hollow, her band never went anywhere, and she was using her drums as a drying rack for the laundry. NOT FAIR!"
12. Sarah Walker from Chuck.
"All of her character development, including her acceptance of being loved and committed to someone, went out the window when they erased her memories.
I like to think she got them back, but it would have been so much better if they showed that happening. I want a Chuck movie."
"She grew so much over the years and became much more than a one-dimensional person. She opened up, allowed herself to love and to be vulnerable.
Then, she lost her memories and reverted to her former self. The ending hinted she was starting the growth process again, but why wipe out everything she'd gone through?"
13. Seven of Nine from Star Trek: Voyager.
"Her entire arc was about relearning what it means to be a human and an individual after being separated from the Borg, but in the final season, her relationship with Chakotay just sort of happened.
All of the episodes that focused on that relationship were confusing. The picnic they had in the cargo bay in the first part of the finale was unwatchable because of how little chemistry was established."
14. Regina Mills from Once Upon a Time.
"She deserved a happy ending. She spent the whole series trying to find it but never did. After her tremendous character arc, she deserved better."
15. Robin Scherbatsky from How I Met Your Mother.
"I liked Robin and Barney together, but I totally believed they might have broken up eventually and remained great friends. I loved how Robin travelled the world to do what she loved, but seeing that blue french horn made me think, 'Oh no, here we go again.'
I want to believe that Robin and Ted could work things out, but...what if there's another great opportunity for her somewhere else? Ted wanted the 'coffee commercials' life, and Robin does not strike me as that person. And telling all of that to your kids to justify dating their aunt? Plus, their mom dying?"
16. Tracy McConnell (the mother) from How I Met Your Mother.
"We fell in love with her in two episodes and believed that Ted would have his happily ever after just to watch her die. I was furious."
17. Penny Hofstadter from The Big Bang Theory.
"Penny realizing she didn't want kids was so important to me because I'm a woman who doesn't want kids. I feel like it's important to show everyone that's okay, and it's perfectly normal. So, I was really disappointed in the ending when they made her get pregnant.
But also…the show did the exact same thing with Bernadette."
"The show did Penny dirty. She began this amazing arc of personal development in her friendship with Sheldon, but the writers kept her kind of shallow and mean with Leonard. Then, they did her a HUGE disservice by making her pregnant. It would have been so lovely to see her end the series by pursuing her professional goals and generally showing the world that, yes, women CAN be happy and fulfilled without being mothers!
It’s not to say they couldn’t have left the door open to the possibility of parenthood (Leonard obviously wanted it, so the discussions would have continued), but it felt lazy to disregard all the character development she'd had in later seasons and just have her get pregnant unexpectedly."
18. Sabrina Spellman in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.
"She was about to live her best life as 'cheerleader by day, queen of hell by night,' and they totally blew off her storyline by killing her!
I get that they cancelled the show (and I'm holding out for another streaming service to save it), but they could've given her the happy ending she definitely deserved!"
19. And finally: Dr. Helen Sharpe from New Amsterdam.
"For the first four seasons, she wanted a family and children, saved her boss's life, called out racial bias in a medical trial, made an unethical doctor resign, and reported a fellow doctor (and friend) who was abusing substances while treating patients.
However, in the finale season, she abandoned her fiancé and daughter. Then she was called unethical and racist, and the friend whose life she saved basically said she was no better than an addiction. The writers retconned everything they'd ever written about the character."
"Freema Agyeman left before the final season (Season 5), giving ample notice since Season 3. Helen was written as a good, level-headed, ethical doctor, but since Freema left, her character was described as the complete opposite as the beloved doctor viewers came to know.
It just doesn't make any sense, since it had zero effect on the storyline, and the actor wasn't even in the final season. The showrunners made the last season so unpleasant to watch that they lost about a million viewers."
"I've never seen writers be so determined to character assassinate their leading lady after she was no longer on the show. They dedicated Season 5 to erasing and vilifying Helen after they'd already given the most disrespectful send-off to Freema Agyeman at the end of Season 4. I've never seen a lead be given 55 seconds of screen time for their final episode.
Then, they then made her out to be an unethical doctor who would have run a biased, racist trial, even though, again, Helen was no longer part of the show. This storyline was totally unnecessary and offensive for a woman of color who had always advocated for diversity and defended marginalized communities."
"Instead of honoring the character when Freema left before the final season, the show runners vilified and destroyed her character. Helen was a brilliant, compassionate, selfless, feisty badass who was loved by fans.
They turned her into someone completely unrecognizable from the woman she was and continued to trash her character all season, despite her not being on the show. It finally ended with her being accused of racism and vilified even more in order to prop up white characters. Shameful."
Some responses have been edited for length/clarity.