8 Enormous TV Reveals

My Best of the Best of Stunning TV Reveals

Plot reveals are some of the biggest weapons in a TV show's armoury. Taking something the audience knows and pulling the rug out from underneath them is probably quite good fun for the writing department. There'll be a reveal of some kind in every show; cop procedurals are a good example of a basic reveal, where at the end the killer is exposed and captured. But there are some moments that go beyond unmasking a villain, and blow our minds to pieces. I've gathered 8 such examples (mostly from TV I've seen, so don't hold that against me), so let's just jump straight in.

The season 6 cliffhanger - The Walking Dead

OK, I'm starting off with a bit of a cheat since this reveal hasn't yet been aired, but there's no doubt that when it does there will be an Internet blackout and a couple decades spent evaluating the different methods of enacting revenge upon the show's crew. There's practically been that already.

   At the end of season 6, the new villain Negan gathers together the eleven-strong motley crew of zombie apocalypse survivors led by Rick Grimes, lines them up on their knees before him and promises that one of them will be beaten to death with a barbed wire cudgel he names Lucille. (I'm right there in solidarity with those Leverage fans who know Lucille as a surveillance van. Not cool Negan. Not cool. You have no idea how not cool that shit is.) But instead of the writers ending the season with a shocking murder, they end it with a shocking murder that no one gets to see - instead, a point of view shot from Negan's victim closes out the season. So who does Negan kill? No one knows.

   That hasn't stopped some fairly logical fan theories from appearing, and given the tenacity of the Internet age I'd be surprised if the victim's identity didn't leak before season 7 aired, but for the sheer impact this cliffhanger had on fans (and even neutrals like me, who actually found it to be a terrifically clever cliffhanger), it deserves a spot here on this list.

   (Also, since because I don't watch The Walking Dead I won't have many other opportunities to say it, props to Jeffrey Dean Morgan who played Negan. He had an unprecedented 12 minutes of dialogue to memorise for a single scene in which no one but him speaks a longer sentence than two words. That's hugely impressive.)

The skeleton - Death in Paradise

Death in Paradise is a complex British crime drama centred on the small fictional Caribbean island of Saint-Marie. In season one's third episode, Detective Inspector Richard Poole and the Saint-Marie team are drawn into the case of a woman who seemingly predicted her own murder.

   The investigation leads them to the school at which the victim, Angelique, worked, where they find two glasses of rum, one laced with cyanide - the fatal drink. The long-running theory is that the killer was Angelique's drinking partner, but only until Poole concludes that Angelique in fact laced her own rum with cyanide. Nobody murdered her, but despite failing health Poole questioned what would drive Angelique to such extreme measures? The answer: to force Saint-Marie police into investigating her daughter's murder case, which had lain dormant for years.

   While Poole clears everybody of murder, he arrests Nicholas, the science teacher/headmaster, for the murder of Angelique's daughter, Delilah. Angelique had been suspicious of Nicholas, but could never prove it. When Poole realised the quantity of lime Nicholas bought compared to the quantities of sand and cement (in order to build a new patio shortly after Delilah's death) was rather disproportionate, he knew how Nicholas disposed of Delilah.

   But did he even dispose of her? Or, as Poole reveals, was that skeleton in Nicholas's classroom - the one you typically see in all science classrooms on TV - actually Delilah?

   That moment when Poole steps forward and the skeleton comes into view lingers in my memory as one of the most unexpected reveals I've seen, and easily ranks here as one of the most shocking.

The poisoned soup - New Tricks

This one probably doesn't resonate with most people as it did me, but the revealing of the killer in season 3 episode 3 has lived with me to this day - mainly because I was much younger when I first saw it and it scared me.

   In 3x03, the Unsolved Crimes and Open Case Squad (UCOS) investigate a 30-year-old animal cruelty case when a similar case occurs in the present day. Their leads include members of long-defunct human and animal rights groups, but eventually UCOS determines the killer 30 years ago had been after the dog's vital organs. The plot thickens when UCOS Detective Inspector Brian Lane's dog dies, and Detective Inspector Jack Halford is hospitalised. But no worries - his new friend and the man who they spoke to for advice in the case, James Farlow, the animal control officer thirty years ago, has given Jack a pot of soup to help make him better, which he has obliviously enjoyed.

   UCOS work out Farlow is the culprit, but they don't know how he administered the poison. Just that moment when the UCOS team are around Jack in the hospital and their eyes settle on that pot of soup and Sandra panics (see image), has stuck with me since the episode aired nearly 11 years ago.

   Farlow was killing the dogs to harvest their livers which, in the world of New Tricks, is deadly to humans. He used it to kill his first wife, used it to kill Brian's dog, used it to hospitalise Jack and was currently using it on his second wife.

   Maniac.

   I'm a sucker for moments like this in TV, and for a standalone reveal that had no long-term bearing on the show, this one will stick with me forever.

Castle learns Beckett lied - Castle

Andrew Marlowe, creator of ABC's Castle, enjoyed playing with the will-they-won't-they aspect of lead characters Richard Castle and Detective Kate Beckett's relationship for nearly three years. When Beckett was shot in the third season finale, fearing she would die Castle announced his love for her. In the fourth season premiere, Beckett told him that due to the amnesia caused by the trauma, she couldn't remember anything past the bullet hitting her. It was an upsetting moment for Castle and fans alike who had hoped Castle's declaration would finally kick off the relationship.

   Instead, Castle gave Beckett time to get over the trauma - and eventually they both settled back into their usual flirty, neither-one-willing-to-make-the-first-move relationship. Until, that is, episode 4x19.

   While interviewing a potential bomber who claims to have amnesia and not remember what happened, Beckett screams at him that he is lying because she, who has also been through a trauma, remembers "every second of it", unaware Castle is watching from the observation deck.

   Once he realises Beckett lied, the show is changed forever. Marlowe takes us on a four-episode whirlwind of emotions as Castle, heartbroken and presuming Beckett's lie indicates she doesn't reciprocate his love, pulls away from her and declares he can work alongside her without feeling anything. But it was never going to last - their relationship was so damaged by the revelation that season 4 was either going to end with the show's cancellation and a parting of the ways, or they would get together.

   Naturally, the latter occurred.

   Most shows don't make it easy to pinpoint an exact moment that completely altered the course of their main will-they-won't-they relationship, but Castle did with one of the most resounding and memorable moments of the entire series.

Samaritan - Person of Interest

Person of Interest was a critically acclaimed CBS show that ran for five seasons from 2011-2016, and anyone who knows me or has followed these roundups knows it's my favourite TV show. It started off fairly plainly: each week the Machine would give the Social Security Number of someone who was going to be involved with a crime that our main characters would have to prevent. The first two seasons generally stuck to the tried-and-tested procedural format favoured by CBS. But everything had been building to the show-shattering revelation in 3x11 that Finch's worldwide surveillance system, The Machine, was not the only one in existence. A second Machine, Arthur Claypool's Samaritan, had lain dormant for decades.

   Suddenly the Chinese company Decima Technologies' nefarious plan became clear, with this one moment explaining why the mysterious Greer was so hellbent on locating Finch and infecting Finch's Machine with a deadly computer virus. He was going to bring online an artificial superintelligence of his own.

   Person of Interest hadn't been slumbering through the first two and a half seasons, but the awakening of Samaritan turned the entire show on its head: instead of being a slow, number-of-the-week procedural, it was now a fast-paced serial that dealt with the dangers and morality surrounding unchecked ASIs. A heavy percentage of the numbers in the fourth and fifth seasons were Samaritan-related, and our main characters were forced into hiding and cover identities.

   A rather average two-parter in the middle of season 3 jumpstarted the creators' endgame - everything after was a whirlwind of danger as Samaritan began to extend its control over the entire human race.

   Mind-blowing.

The founder of Rossum Corporation - Dollhouse

Dollhouse survived the chop after its first season by the skin of its teeth, so in the second season Joss Whedon decided to go down some of the avenues he had originally planned for later on in his original seven-season plan. That meant bringing the Rossum Corporation, the world's biggest pharmaceutical company and financiers of the Dollhouses, to the forefront in a dynamic storyline that would lead to the apocalypse.

   Our main character, Echo, was special from the very first episode, but in season two Whedon played more on the why rather than the what. It became clear that Rossum had nefarious plans for Echo, and the fate of the world was basically in her hands. If Echo and everyone in the LA Dollhouse (her Handler Boyd Langton, Sierra, Victor, boss Adelle DeWitt, technician Topher and ex-FBI-Agent-turned-Handler Paul Ballard) couldn't stop Rossum, then their eventual plans for world domination would lead to the apocalypse we saw in the season one and two finales. If they stopped Rossum - well, then everything would be fine. Echo was the key to stopping Rossum. But why?

   Because Echo's original personality, Caroline Farrell, was the only person who could identify the founder of the Rossum Corporation in time to stop him.

   When Caroline's personality is imprinted back into Echo, she revisits the time she first met the founder. Caroline had been an activist chasing Rossum for a long time, and was eventually caught sabotaging the DC Dollhouse. When brought back to LA, Caroline was sent to meet the founder - none other than Echo's handler: Boyd Langton.

Echo meets Boyd Langton, the Rossum founder

   When Boyd steps out of the shadows, we as the audience realise he has not actually been fighting Rossum from inside the LA Dollhouse as we were led to believe - he has been guiding them all towards his endgame, which is to use Echo's unique resistance to imprints to create a vaccine that will protect him and his cohorts from having their personalities remotely wiped. The other main characters will all be killed and the world basically enslaved.

   But of course, as Boyd says, he cannot be stopped since the body he inhabits - the one we've known Boyd to be - isn't even his original body. His personality is in many other bodies around the world.

   We audience knew Harry Lennix to be the character of Boyd Langton for two seasons of TV, but not only did he turn out to be the biggest, baddest villain of them all - he wasn't even real ...

Deb learns about Dexter - Dexter

For anyone who hasn't seen or heard of Dexter, it's a show about a serial killer who works for Miami Metro Homicide as a blood spatter analyst. Ohhhhhhh the irony. The only human connection Dexter has left by season six's end is his half-sister Debra, who has no idea about his true identity. But the season six finale flips that on its head.

   When Dexter kills the main villain of the season in the church where he based his operations, he has no idea that his sister Deb is coming back to check up on some lingering evidence. As he strikes the fatal blow, Deb walks into the church to see him in full serial killer mode - the villain cling-filmed to the altar, plastic sheeting all around, Dexter in his apron and gloves...

   The horror on both of their faces is unforgettable. Dexter faces exposure and Deb faces the reality of her half-brother's true identity - and it changes the course of the show forever, having opened avenues it couldn't have without this moment.

   And for that, it's deservedly here among some of these other hugely impactful TV reveals.

The death of Dr. Gant - ER

I haven't written this list in a particular order, but I saved (in my opinion) the best until last. Topping this heart-stopping moment, in my eyes, will be virtually impossible.

   In ER's third season (all the way back in 1997), Dr. John Carter successfully enters a Surgical internship, and over the course of the year he meets and works with a number of other Surgical interns, including Dr. Edson and Dr. Gant. It's the latter to whom he becomes close, their friendship growing in the early stages of the season as they work together to get through their intern year.

   However, things soon start to go wrong. The incredibly long working hours, sleep deprivation and the ill temperament of their supervisor, Dr. Benton, began to weigh on Carter and Gant. We always knew Carter would get through it, but Gant clearly struggles. Dr. Benton, from experience, believed that black doctors had to prove themselves worthy, more so than white doctors, and was therefore harder on Gant than the other interns. The draining responsibilities of being a Surgical intern, a failed relationship and the extra pressure Dr. Benton put on him led Gant to a shocking decision.

Dennis Gant (left) and John Carter (right)

   Near the end of episode 11, the ER receives just another trauma patient - this one an unidentifiable man struck by the nearby El (subway) train. Carter, Benton and the ER staff know the man's chances of survival are slim, but all that means is it's a perfect training session for interns. Naturally, they page Gant. Except it's the patient who gets the page.

   There's a moment of almost silence as Benton, Carter and the nurses realise who is on the table in front of them, before the mayhem begins. And as soon as it starts the episode ends, leaving us on a cliffhanger as to whether Gant lived or died.

   Of course, it wouldn't make this list if he lived. The next episode kicks off some time after Gant's death, but it's that split second where the penny drops - and that swoosh of music that heralds the panic - that makes this the most memorable and profound reveal I've seen on TV.

Final thoughts

Having written this long list of enormously influential TV reveals, I look at them all now and just think "wow". It doesn't matter if its 2016 or back in 1997 (and there'll have been reveals worthy of making this list even before then), TV just manages to pull out some whoppers on its audience, whoever that audience is. For almost every show on this list I was in that audience, and whether you reading this now have seen the series' that I've mentioned or not, there's no doubting that each and every one of them was able to stun its fans with these insane reveals.

Thank you everyone for reading and I'll see you all next time!

Sam