This article contains spoilers for Sugar.
When watching Apple TV+’s, Sugar, audiences may find themselves with their jaws dropped, as a huge plot twist changes the entire course of the story, putting itself in line with some of the greatest plot twists in recent TV history. In the past few decades, television has reached many new heights, and along with changes in quality, length, and content, television has also been able to pull some of the biggest and craziest plot twists to ever grace the big screen. These are twists that will hopefully never be spoiled for newcomers, and will be remembered by viewers forever.
Sugar is a 2024 mystery series starring Colin Farrell as John Sugar, a private detective who begins investigating the disappearance of a Hollywood producer’s granddaughter. Although this premise may seem straightforward, Sugar is not as blatant as it seems. It is a genre-bending series, and throughout the show, there are hints that something strange may be going on, perhaps even several strange things, but it isn’t until the Sugar episode 6 twist is revealed, that John Sugar and others are actually aliens, that things both make more sense and become much more complicated. Overall, the story is better for it.
Like Sugar, Wandavision is a more recent television series that shocked audiences with its final revelation. Although Kathryn Hahn’s character Agnes seemed to be nothing more than a funny girl-next-door character, adding comedy and fun to the darker parts of the series, she turned out to play a much bigger role: Agatha Harkness, evil witch and supervillain. While Wandavision held many different twists and turns, this one was likely the craziest. It proved that the roles really had been reversed in the series and that no one could be trusted. Though Wanda was the biggest villain, Agatha was close behind her. Plus, the Agatha reveal did a great deal for the MCU as a whole. The reveal that Agnes was Agatha has now led to Agatha All Along, a miniseries following Agatha as she breaks out of prison. Overall, this twist remains a pillar of Marvel’s television pursuits.
A little further back in television history, in 2001, 24 was a crime drama starring Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer, a counterterrorism agent who fights crime every day of his life, and as the title suggests, audiences got to sit in on a full 24-hour period of his life every week. However, while 24 presented a new crime or bad guy each week, the real surprise came at the end of season 1, when it was revealed who the CTU mole was all along. Nina Myers’, Jack’s former lover, betrayed Jack at the end of 24 season 1, and shockingly, shot and killed his defenseless wife, Teri Bauer. Although 24 went on to include countless twists and turns, this was definitely the most prominent of them all. It brought season 1 to a particularly chilling close.
In 2018, Netflix released The Haunting of Hill House, and although it is based on the novel of the same name by Shirley Jackson, audiences continued to be awed by the various plot twists apparent in the show. What is likely the most shocking revelation of all though is the identity of the Bent-Neck Lady. The series catapults between the present day, where a family of grown-up siblings handles the disappearance of their youngest sister, Nell, and the past, wherein audiences see the family growing up in their spooky mansion home, Hill House. Among the specters found by the children is the Bent-Neck Lady, who is later revealed to be Nell herself, who took her own life in the future, but appeared as a ghost in the past. This creepy reveal is heartbreaking and definitely left many viewers gasping.
Over the course of its four seasons, Mr. Robot provided audiences with countless twists and turns, and as a sort of crime thriller, this is not surprising. However, Mr. Robot’s greatest twist had nothing to do with Elliot’s computer abilities or the hacking agency he works for. In fact, it all had to do with Elliot himself. It is revealed that Elliot suffers from dissociative identity disorder, and furthermore, that the Elliot we know is just one of his personalities. This reveal becomes even intense when it is explained that Mr. Robot is another of Elliot’s personalities, not a real person, and in fact, Elliot and Mr. Robot have been protecting a third personality all along, the real Elliot.
On its own, Westworld is the type of show to invite questions and theories. Based on the 1973 film of the same name, the television series takes place in a Western-style amusement park inhabited by tourists and robots called hosts. However, as is expected by a sci-fi series of this caliber, everything is not as it seems, especially when it comes to the hosts, and this becomes abundantly clear during Westworld’s major plot twist, when it is revealed that one of the main characters, Bernard, is a host. Not only that, but he was modeled after Ford’s partner, Arnold. What made this twist truly great was that the characters in the show were just as shocked as the audiences, leaving a sense of betrayal that could not be remade by any other twist in the series.
Although Twin Peaks first premiered in 1990, there are still plenty of people who don’t know the answer to the show’s central question: who killed Laura Palmer?Twin Peaks begins with the discovery of Laura’s body and the arrival of Agent Dale Cooper, who investigates her murder. As Cooper comes closer to solving the mystery throughout the seasons, it becomes clear that something supernatural is lingering behind Laura’s death, and eventually he finds out what. It is revealed that Laura was killed by a spirit named “Bob,” which possessed Laura’s father and used him to abuse and kill Laura. This reveal is huge because it answers the show’s biggest question, but it also leads to the final climax of the series involving Cooper and Bob. Ultimately, this twist sheds light on just about everything in Twin Peaks.
Nowadays, Breaking Bad is considered one of the best television series of all time, and therefore, it’s no surprise that this series has one of the best plot twists in TV history. Over the course of Breaking Bad’s five seasons, audiences watch as Walter White goes from regular high school chemistry teacher to a drug kingpin. But worse than just a change in his job description, Walt’s personality changes too. He becomes bad in a way that viewers may not have thought possible, and this is proven by Breaking Bad’s best plot twist: when Walt poisons Brock. It’s bad enough that Walt chooses to poison a child, risking killing him, but his motive being to manipulate Jesse makes it even worse. This was most definitely a turning point for Walt in Breaking Bad, and that’s why it’s such a good twist.
One of the most jaw-dropping twists to come out of television in the late 2010s comes from the sitcom The Good Place. The series follows Kristen Bell as Eleanor Shellstrop, a woman who dies and finds herself in heaven. While there, she befriends other unique people, and together they discuss and debate ideas of morality and right and wrong. But everything changes at the end of The Good Place season 1 when Eleanor finally realizes that they aren’t actually in the Good Place, but the Bad Place. She puts together that they are actually part of an experiment devised by Michael, who is actually a demon meant to torture them for eternity.
A television plot twist that won’t fade from audiences’ memories for years to come is Game of Thrones’ Red Wedding. During season 3, episode 9, entitled “The Rains of Castamere,” the Stark family enter an agreement with Lord Walder Frey. If Frey backs up the Starks in their fight against the Lannisters, then a ceremonial marriage will cement the two families. However, after the wedding between Catelyn Stark’s brother and Frey’s daughter, a massacre breaks out. The Red Wedding was shocking, not only because of the many deaths that occurred at the Red Wedding, but because of the build-up, the song playing in the background, and the genuine surprise of it all. As the doors to the chamber close and Catelyn begins to worry, audiences feel the tension too. By that point, there is no turning back, and for the next several minutes, the Red Wedding shocks and scares viewers. To this day, it is one of the most iconic episodes of television ever released.
Finally, one of the craziest and most controversial twists to rival that of Apple TV+’s Sugar is the ending of Lost. For six seasons, audiences watched as the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815’s crash tried to stay alive on a deserted island. Many characters died and strange occurrences came at every turn, raising the stakes with each season. Therefore, it makes sense that audiences were disappointed when the show’s final twist was that the cast of Lost were all already dead. None of them had actually survived, and in fact, the plot of Lost took place in a netherworld where the survivors had gathered before moving on past their deaths. To many, this twist felt like a cop out or just a general disappointment considering what had been previously built. However, this twist is still one of the biggest and most surprising in TV history, and therefore, it is one of the best.