14 TV Cliffhangers and How They Were Resolved

Fans mourned the loss of Jon Snow (Kit Harington) at the end of season 5, when he was stabbed repeatedly and left to die. While he did, in fact, die because of those injuries, the Lord Commander returned to life in the season 6 episode "Home," resurrected by sorceress Melisandre (Carice van Houten).

Dallas played host to one of the most famous TV cliffhangers at the end of the show's third season in 1980. In a moment known by the phrase "Who shot J.R.?," J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman) is shot by someone off-camera. While viewers spent months debating both who pulled the trigger and whether J.R. lived through the shooting, it was finally revealed that he did live, and the shooter in question was Kristin Shepard (Mary Crosby).

During season 6 of The Walking Dead, the fate of Glenn Rhee (Steven Yeun) was left in limbo, after he found himself in the midst of gut-hungry walkers. The cliffhanger lasted for multiple episodes, ending with the revelation that Glenn was alive. That wasn't the only twist during the latest season of The Walking Dead, of course: season 6 ended on another cliffhanger, with Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) brutally beating one of the show's key cast members to death while the other characters watched in horror. Who met that grisly end will be revealed next season.

Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) got in deep during the fourth season of Scandal. After seeing more than her fair share of drama and turmoil as is, the Washington, D.C. fixer was kidnapped from her apartment by men in masks. Over the course of a few haunting episodes, viewers first get the impression that Olivia is being held in a cell somewhere abroad, but soon learn she is actually in a warehouse, which has tricks to appear as though it's a foreign country. While her freedom seems impossible, the cliffhanger is finally resolved thanks to Fitz's (Tony Goldwyn) questionable decision to enter into a war, an auction for Olivia, and the reappearance of one of the gladiator's old friends, Stephen Finch (Henry Ian Cusick), who drops in to rescue Olivia and keep her from winding up with the competing terror groups vying for her head.

In another mystery shooting, Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) is targeted at the end of Twin Peaks' first season. Cooper is gunned down by a person in a mask while on assignment, opening the door of his hotel room to find an attacker. The season ended with the agent's fate unknown. He wakes back up in the second season premiere, now determined to figure out who shot him. After many twists and turns, viewers eventually learn that the shooter in question was none other than Josie Packard (Joan Chen).

Long before Game of Thrones' "Red Wedding," there was Dynasty's "Royal Wedding." The happy occasion of Amanda Bedford (Catherine Oxenberg) and Prince Michael of Moldavia (Michael Praed)'s wedding turns bloody at the end of the fifth season. Surrounded by their friends and family members, the two are ready to tie the knot when the church is taken over by terrorists. Viewers waited months for the resolution of the cliffhanger attack, which left dozens of characters injured and resulted in the death of Luke Fuller (Billy Campbell) and Lady Ashley (Ali MacGraw).

Lost saw one of its biggest cliffhangers at the end of the show's third season. The crash survivors found themselves in conflict with the Others, finally battling it out at camp. Amid mass confusion, deaths, and horrifying combat scenes, the fight is interspersed with a series of time-flashes — including the twist that the events in question happened after a group of Oceanic 815 passengers had gotten off the island.

Friends played host to a less violent, but still dramatic cliffhanger in the comedy's fourth season. After his relationship with Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) ends thanks to one questionable "break," Ross (David Schwimmer) has a whirlwind romance with Emily (Helen Baxendale) and flies to England to marry the Brit. While Rachel originally planned to skip the wedding, she makes a last-minute decision to fly to London with the intention of telling Ross she loves him. When he sees Rachel, Ross says her name instead of Emily's at the altar, leaving fans in limbo for months as to whether the wedding continues. When Friends returned for its fourth season, the wedding does, in fact, continue, albeit with a very angry bride.

Facing some fatal competition in the business, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) and Walter White (Bryan Cranston) are forced to regroup. Much to his own inner turmoil, Jesse is forced to shoot Gale (David Costabile) once Walt's situation with Gus and Mike turns deadly. The third season ends with Jesse finally shooting Gale. After months in suspense, the fourth season returns with flashbacks of Gale's happier days, and the confirmation that he has died.

A show famous for its cliffhangers, Dallas earns another entry thanks to the finale of the show's ninth season. Originally believed to be dead, Bobby Ewing (Patrick Duffy) popped back up in 1986's "Blast From the Past." He is shown in Pam Ewing's (Victoria Principal) shower, leaving fans months to wonder about his return. The 10th season opened with the reveal that Bobby was still alive, and the past season had been a bad dream of Pam's.

Star Trek: The Next Generation took a dramatic turn in the sci-fi's third season. Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) finds himself facing the Borg and is soon transformed into Locutus of Borg. The second part of the season finale sees Picard-turned-Locutus kidnapped by Data (Brent Spiner) and Worf (Michael Dorn) and slowly reverted to his previous state.

The West Wing's first season came to a close in 2000 with an assassination attempt. While it is later revealed that Charlie Young (Dulé Hill) was the target of the shooting because of his relationship with Zoey Bartlet (Elisabeth Moss), the bullets hit many of those around him. Fans were left to mull over who had been shot for months, finally learning in the season 2 premiere that Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) and President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) were both hit, but not killed.

In the aptly titled finale "The Reichenbach Fall," Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) seems to fall to his death after jumping off of the roof of St Bartholomew's Hospital. In one of the final moments, fans get a glimpse of Sherlock, nodding to the fact that he may not have died in the leap. The third series returns with the confirmation that he lives, having faked his own death.

Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) seems to meet her end in the fifth season finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She chooses to sacrifice herself and save Dawn Summers (Michelle Trachtenberg) by getting into the portal, leading to her death and her subsequent headstone, which read, "She saved the world. A lot." While this seemed like the last of Buffy for months, she returns in the sixth season premiere, thanks to some resurrection magic that she's not sure she wanted.