Serialized television needs to have a good ending that sticks the landing, as otherwise all people are going to talk about is how the ending was a bunch of stupid bullshit. No one’s going to talk about Dexter without bringing up him becoming a lumberjack; same thing with the strained and overt Christ metaphor at the end of Sons of Anarchy. Although I was fine with both of those (heretic!), I prefer pitch perfect, fitting conclusions, like The Shield and Breaking Bad. I’m hoping Justified follows those series in crafting a satisfying finale that is true to the characters. I figure I’d do my part by providing examples of what not to do when ending a show. I have experience, being the EP on the last season of Becker.

1. Everything was Boyd’s hallucination after being shot at the end of the pilot.
2. The series was false memories given to Raylan Givens because he’s a Hitman.
3. The $10 million was made of graham crackers the whole time.
4. Avery Markham goes back in time to narrate and interact with Jeff Bridges.
5. The Ninja Turtles ransack the Pizza Portal, under the assumption that it was a front for the Shredder.
6. Art is actually a sentient mass of honeybees.
7. Art is a literal mole.
8. Raylan collaborated with Ava on the theft, as shown by a series of animated flashbacks featuring none of the original actors.
9. Everything goes well for Boyd; he gets the money and Ava and Raylan is left out in the cold because he’s an asshole who has the temerity to do his job when all Boyd wants to do is kill a few folks and steal some money. Boyd’s Walter White and Raylan is totally Skylar.
10. Baby Willa contracts the technorganic virus so Raylan and Winona have to send her into the future, not knowing that Apocalypse rules that time period.
11. Sam Elliott is absent the entire episode because he had to leave and film Ghost Rider 3: Skeletons In Time.
12. The cliffhanger where Raylan is arrested isn’t reversed. He spends a few years in prison and afterwards has to pick up his life, reestablish ties to his wife and child.
13. Ted Danson shows up as Grady Hale, intent on avenging his wife. He was actually in witness protection in response to a bunch of threats he received for Becker.
14. Deputy Nelson Dunlop saves the day and as a reward is able to hold Willa.
15. Boon shoots Raylan with a bullet that sends him through time… Look, I’ve done drugs before, but I haven’t done enough for Final Crisis to make sense.
16. Ava spends the money on a gerbil farm.
17. Zachariah turns out to be a Highlander and kills Boyd.
18. Raylan is a robot. “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive” is accurate because he wasn’t alive in the first place.
19. That does mean Arlo is the most realistic version of Geppetto yet.
20. Constable Bob derails the show so he can tweet out a defense of a comedian making bad jokes that Salon.com believes are evidence of unsuitability to host World’s Funniest Fails.
21. Like Christ, Dewey Crowe rises from the grave and teaches us a lesson about premature gravedigging.
22. Art retires so he can direct a movie about an abortion doctor who proves we should totally curtail abortion rights in this country. I mean, he thought scraping a bunch of babies into a dumpster was justified.
23. Ava dies and haunts a child through videotapes.
24. Tim finally loses it and snipes every major character. Then he opens a Tiki bar in Mexico. Newspaper reviewers know what happens if they give it a thrashing…
25. Boyd poisons Ava and some kid, after which he blows his brains out when the cops come a knocking.
26. The episode is actually just an extended trailer for Joe Dirt 2.
27. Zachariah’s blue eyes are hypnotic so everyone who’s looked into them have been carrying out his agenda the whole time.
28. Raylan drives into Michael Chiklis’ truck. Michael Chiklis feels a level of shame not since No Ordinary Family.
29. Boyd dies of AIDS.
30. Raylan becomes White Noise and Winona and the baby are able to hear him make excuses for not seeing them through the radio.
31. Jameis Winston is drafted #1 and everyone’s pissed off.
32. Boyd frames Raylan for all of his crimes and who cares if it makes any sense BRYAN FULLER is a genius.
33. Wallace Shawn totally bangs Winona.
34. Rachel is actually a Blacula. When was the last time you remember her out in sunlight?
35. Nick Fury shows up at the end to recruit Raylan. The height of film nowadays is being part of a cinematic universe that offers delayed gratification to creeps of all white demographic stripes. Do you think Raylan will ever meet Daredevil?!
36. The episode is actually split into two parts; the second part will air early next year.
37. Winona dies which is awesome because she’s a fucking BITCH who is all “Raylan, I don’t think you should live as a vagabond piece of shit, it’s unfair to me and our child” when she should just be a doormat that lets her man do whatever he wants.
38. Whatever reddit wants to happen. Reddit wants it to happen, it’s the wrong choice, no matter what.
39. Raylan’s a Divergent and that’s why he’s so successful as a US Marshal. He pledged Dauntless in college, explaining all those classic Justified scenes where he zip lined and jumped from trains.
40. Raylan and Boyd were the same guy the entire time. Those coal digging flashbacks are just like the ones in Fight Club.
41. Wynn Duffy’s Wynnebago is a Transformer and this whole series was a prelude to Michael Bay’s Transformers 5: Fart Explosion Bitch.
42. Everyone died a long time ago blah blah blah whatever it’s a Lost joke.
43. Loretta escapes death and becomes a cocaine trafficker, like her dad.
44. 67 minutes of Shailene Woodley gyrating… Oh, sorry, that should be on my list of 100 Happy Endings Justified Should Have…
45. “Digging coal” was a sexual euphemism the whole time.
46. Boyd walks because Raylan fucks up a search warrant on account of his illiteracy.
47. The finale is actually just a sneak peek for Kurt Sutter’s new show.
48. Raylan and Winona have to turn Willa into a Soviet sleeper agent. So far she’s just a SLEEPY agent!
49. Ava is bit by a radioactive spider and becomes Spider-Ava. Frank Cho sketches her in a sexualized pose and the Internet loses it.
50. Tim becomes a cicada-human hybrid.
51. Wynn Duffy uses the money to fulfill his lifelong dream: making a Season 2 of John From Cincinnati.
52. Raylan is arrested for kidnapping that Mexican federale. He is sentenced to death.
53. Daniel Fienberg appears as himself, lays into Raylan for the shittiness of Season 5. Raylan shoots him. No one misses Daniel Fienberg.
54. Boon’s mustache is a sentient being with machinations to take over the whole planet. Raylan should know stupid shit like that; he was in Dreamcatcher.
55. Everyone ends up in the Black Lodge and they don’t care for it now that David Lynch isn’t directing Twin Peaks.
56. Wynn Duffy wins the lottery, but it turns out he was writing fanfic of himself in an attempt to get over Mikey’s death.
57. Harlan County is actually Dark City, and Art is a Stranger. All balds are.
58. Markham kills Boon and administers a mustache transplant. He later dies from a botched mustache transplant.
59. Wynn Duffy leaves Harlan and decides to cook meth in his motor home. “If it works for Tim Whatley, it’ll work for me!”
60. Raylan has to prevent Ashley Judd’s assassination. He defeats Mitch McConnell by turning off his light well before it’d be time to turn on the red light.
61. Art quits the Marshals and becomes the En Esch of a KMFDM tribute act. (Possible name: Ultra Heavy Beating Off.)
62. Solar flare. Why the fuck not?
63. Raylan has to deal with a bunch of Crazies. (I saw that movie on my birthday. It sucked, but it sucked in a watchable way. I own it on Blu-Ray and consider it part of the Justified canon.)
64. Autistic snowglobe. A snowglobe owned by an autistic, not a snowglobe that is autistic.
65. Boyd dies, thereby ensuring he never attending We Hate Movies’ Chicago show about Vice Versa.
66. Tim retires based on his Eurotrip royalty checks.
67. The final shootout uses paintball, because noted vodka soaked fat piece of shit Dan Harmon is a visionary. I’m allowed to say that because the description fits me too.
68. To save Boyd Crowder’s life, Raylan must shrink and enter Boyd’s body. No, it’s not Fantastic Voyage, it’s Osmosis Jones. Obviously.
69. Boyd tricks Raylan into eating Art. “Goddamn you, Boyd. He was delicious.”
70. The movie Ace in the Hole, but with a guy in a cowboy hat who murders people and cracks jokes.
71. Apparently the entire show was a prequel to the pilot’s opening scene. Who cares if it made sense?!
72. The money dissipates, so the only way Raylan and Boyd can raise money is through a lingerie calendar.
73. A character played by Kenny Johnson burns the money.
74. The $10 million? That’s Numberwang!
75. Aliens abduct Raylan and Boyd for their zoo; those two are not happy about sharing an exhibit or being compelled to breed.
76. Art spends the entire episode playing the claw machine.
77. Rachel kills everyone, stating “I had an offer to appear on Empire and had to fucking turn it down”.
78. The St. Louis Rams organization moves to Harlan, literally papering over their civilization.
79. Arlo comes back to life and he and Raylan live in a sitcom based on either Sh&t My Dad Says or Dads. Raymond J. Barry has it in him to be ribald.
80. Raylan kills Boyd by pouring beer on him, just like how my mom killed snails and slugs.
81. The Marshals sentence Boyd to a fate worse than death: he has to appear in a Cameron Crowe movie.
82. Left Behind happens and it affects the main characters not one iota.
83. Turns out Zachariah ate all the money.
84. Vazquez only got Raylan taken into custody because he wanted an explanation for A Perfect Getaway.
85. Grubes wasn’t Ken Watanabe, he was actually Liam Neeson! He was testing Ava.
86. Everything works out for everyone and no one dies.
87. Boon and Loretta get married.
88. Boyd is visited by three Bennett ghosts and vows to reform, especially when he finds from small children that it’s always Christmas Day, sir.
89. Earl kills Boyd for killing his brother. Actually, that’s something I would like to see happen…
90. Earl and Boon are exposed to mutagen and become Bebop and Rocksteady.
91. Ava makes poisonous fried chicken for the entire cast.
92. Winona has baby Willa wear the Stetson and it’s fucking adorable.
93. It was a dream. All of it.
94. [Insert Raylan/Boyd slash fiction reference here – don’t worry, champ, you’ll certainly come up with a great joke to write over this placeholder]

95. Raylan gets his own ice cream flavor: Bluegrass Bunny.
96. Wynn Duffy’s flavor? Tangerine Dream.
97. Okay, fine. Boyd Crowder’s is Fire in the Hazelnut. I spent too much fucking time researching this joke which isn’t even that good. That’s the story of my life.
98. Raylan is bit by a spider monkey.
99. Raylan Givens’ entire arc was some vague bullshit about the media and dumb people misinterpreting Natural Born Killers.
100. Ryan Murphy guest directs the episode. I don’t even need to elaborate on the joke.