Pop Vultures

Sometimes, there is a fine line between surprising the audience with a completely unexpected plot development and jumping the shark, but when a show does it right, the viewers will be discussing it for weeks, and sometimes years, after the fact. I’m not talking about some “Bobby in the shower” kind of plot twist, either. The best twists manage to utterly surprise the audience while still being necessary to the plot. Often, looking back, it’s clear the writers have been preparing us for multiple episodes — even seasons — and we just never knew which clues to look for. Here, then, are 5 great plot twists that spring to mind.

Warning: Spoilers ahoy. Read at your own peril and use the scroll bar liberally if necessary.

5. Lost, Season 3 Finale
Why the twist was great: The show was treading water, returning to flashbacks we’d seen before and revealing precious little new information — and the viewing figures reflected this. Then, Crazy Drunken Beardo Jack yelled that they had to go back to the island, and everything changed. Since most people thought the show’s focus was simply on whether or not they ever got off the island, no one really thought to ask what happened afterwards. It opened up a whole new element of the story, expanding the show’s possibilities and suggesting a very different endgame than the first three seasons had. Plus, it meant we never had to suffer through another “Kate-on-the-run” flashback again.

4. Dexter, Season 1
Why the twist was great: After Dexter spent a large part of the first season complaining that no one could ever really understand him, we should have seen this coming: Dexter has a brother, and his brother has the same questionable hobby of hacking people up into little pieces. This is a perfect example of a twist that made absolute sense and only furthered the plots and themes the show had been developing. When Dexter was forced to choose between the brother that wanted him to remain a cold-blooded killer and the sister of whom he was rather “fond,” his choice gave us hope that, perhaps, Dexter was a much nicer serial killer than we’d originally thought.

3. Melrose Place, Season 2
Why the twist was great: You can find out how old someone is by asking if they remember Kimberly ripping off her wig, because that scene was one of the defining moments of early 90s TV and is permanently ingrained in the minds of everyone who watched. Looking back, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly why. The scene relied on the cheesy synthesized tunes of which the show was so fond, which really should have taken us entirely out of the moment. However, up till this point the show had been an over-the-top relationship drama, more about swapping partners than rediscovering that the girlfriend with whom you’d cheated on your wife had returned from the dead with a horrible scalp scar from brain surgery. When that wig got ripped off, we knew the show was about to rewrite all its own rules, and that was fabulous.

2. 24, Season 1
Why it was great: Once, many years ago, 24 was a really good series. Now, it’s become something of a parody of itself, with a new! shocking! plot twist thrown into every episode, usually leading to some sort of gaping plot hole through which you could fly a DC-10. There was a time, however, when it seemed like the writers actually planned the season arc in advance and there wasn’t yet an entry in the 24 drinking game for “a mole is found at CTU.” When Nina, Jack Bauer’s co-worker and close friend, was revealed as the mole before shooting Bauer’s wife, the audience was stunned. It was the first betrayal, and the first death of a major character. These days, you may get that every other episode, but there’s no time like the first time.

1. Battlestar Galactica, Season 3
Why it was great: You knew this would be here, didn’t you? Of course it would be. Although I toyed with the ending of the pilot episode, when cloned Boomer suddenly appeared out of nowhere, it just didn’t have the same emotional impact as the end of the third season. We all knew, or at least suspected, that the remaining Cylons were aboard the Galactica, but perhaps we were hoping that it wouldn’t be characters we actually liked. Also, the viewers expected one, or maybe two Cylons to be revealed at a time, and the show went and dropped four of them on us, all of them with some connection to the remainder of the cast. If that’s not enough, we also have to question the significance of the very Earthly Jimi Hendrix tune. They didn’t actually rewrite the rules mid-show, but it sure felt like they were playing a whole new game.

Embedding is disabled on the YouTube clip, but you can watch it here.

What about you? What plot twists do you remember? And let’s try to keep the comments somewhat spoiler-safe by putting any show titles in bold for skimming ease. Thanks!