The original post: /r/television by /u/Jirachibi1000 on 2026-04-14 00:59:50+00:00.
So when Sherlock ended, a lot of fans speculated that there was a secret fourth episode the BBC was hiding, and that it was a bad finale on purpose with the TRUE secret finale fixing all the issues and ending on a high note. That didn’t happen.
Last year, Stranger Things ended, and a lot of fans speculated there was a secret ninth episode that Netflix was hiding, and that it was a bad finale on purpose with the TRUE secret finale fixing all of its issues. That didn’t happen.
My question is has this ever actually happened? They market an episode as the big series finale and its bad or underwhelming on purpose because, secretly, an actual finale was going to air/be released the next week that would fix everything and be a big surprise finale?
To clarify, I do not mean something like a show getting a follow up or epilogue episode years later, I mean that a finale was made at the same time as the final season, and they lied about it, secretly releasing a TRUE final episode at the same time/a little bit later. Like a situation where Stranger Things had its mixed finale, and then Netflix DID “Hey, Secret episode dropping now, we lied about that being the finale to trick you!”