The Burning Boat Festival was completely forgotten by One Tree Hill before the show attempted to bring it back in Season 9, as if it had always been there.
Source: ABC
Some television shows last for several seasons, and it’s reasonable that once-important plotlines or characters fade away. Even so, it can be extremely irritating to the spectator.
But every now and again, an old plotline will be brought up and we will be offered a hint or closure related to it. Even though it’s very evident they forgot about that narrative for entire seasons, people would love it when shows do that.
Here are 16 people and storylines that were plainly forgotten and then reappeared after a long time.
1. First, do you recall Gendry’s departure from Game of Thrones in the Season 3 finale?
Source: HBO
Gendry appeared to have vanished from the face of the earth (along with the notion that he was a Baratheon), but he reappeared in Season 7 — and the show even made a joke about viewers who thought he was in the boat the whole time!
Source: HBO
Gendry works with the characters and lasts until the end, even being acknowledged as Head of House Baratheon. He even attends Bran’s coronation. He also has a brief relationship with Arya, though she declines his marriage proposal. We ultimately got some closure after years of being forgotten.
Source: HBO
2. Minkus from Boy Meets World was another who was overlooked. He was a major character in Season 1, but by the time Season 2 began, he had vanished from the program.
Source: ABC / Courtesy Everett Collection
Minkus reappeared in the Season 5 finale, while our major characters were graduating, and he ran into Shawn and Corey, who were discussing how this is an opportunity to bid farewell to those they’d lost contact with.
Source: ABC
Minkus jokes that they haven’t been in the same school in four years, which is a fun inside joke for anyone who has noticed his glaring absence from the program.
Source: ABC
3. Mr. Turner, Corey and Shawn’s teacher, who somehow vanished, was also mentioned in this scene…
Source: Craig Sjodin / TV Guide / ABC / Courtesy Everett Collection
…by being called out by Minkus offscreen before Minkus ran off to speak with him.
Source: ABC
4. There are a lot of these in One Tree Hill, which makes sense for a nine-season show. The Burning Boat Festival, for example, was established as a yearly event that would almost certainly appear every season…then promptly forgotten about until eight seasons later, when it was brought up as if it had been happening all along and our characters had been going every year.
Source: The WB / The CW
Haley also remembers a scenario from Season 1 in which she told Lucas she was instructing Nathan while at the Burning Boat Festival.
Source: The CW
It’s a sweet callback to one of the show’s initial episodes (during one of the show’s final episodes), but it is still interesting considering that it went unmentioned for eight seasons.
Source: The WB
5. Jimmy Edwards, a character from One Tree Hill, has gone missing. Edwards had been in the show’s premiere as one of the river court guys and Mouth’s best friend, but he vanished after a few episodes…
Source: The WB
…until everyone got their time capsules in Season 3, and Jimmy’s was simply a diatribe against the entire school.
Source: The WB
The disappearance of this character was handled and turned into a plot point in the school shooting tale. It turns out that Lucas and Mouth had also forgotten about him (albeit, as Mouth later claims, it was Jimmy who refused to hang together).
Source: The WB
6. Moving on to a more upbeat One Tree Hill — Tim left after Season 3 and Bevin left after Season 4. Their existence appeared to be completely forgotten…until they both emerged briefly and separately in Season 5, and we learned they were married and had a son.
Source: The CW
Bevin then reappeared in Season 9, even appearing in the time leap scenario at Jamie’s game at the finale!
Source: The CW
Tim, on the other hand, was utterly forgotten.
7. Likewise, despite being a major character in the first season of 90210 and the father of Adrianna’s child, Ty Collins vanished after the first season.
Source: The CW
When Ade was seeking to get custody of their child, he didn’t even appear. However, the show only remembered him for a dream episode in which Annie imagined a life in which she had remained in Kansas and Ty still appeared in everyone’s lives.
Source: The CW
The reason to bring back Ty, of all people, seems strange to me. The writers had evidently forgotten about him until one day they suddenly remembered him, so he was just thrown in for fun.
8. Buffy the Vampire Slayer provides the most fulfilling example of this topic. Buffy had to kill her boyfriend Angel after he spent half a season as his demonic, soulless alter ego, Angelus, back in Season 2. His soul was restored moments before she killed him, but it was too late, and Buffy had no choice but to kill him.
Source: The WB
Willow, a budding witch, restored Angel’s soul, and urged Xander to go inform Buffy that she was going to execute a ritual to restore his soul so that Buffy could stall and not kill Angelus until the spell worked. Except Xander, who despised Angel, opted not to inform Buffy.
Source: The WB
Considering Willow’s spell succeeds and Buffy never gets the message, it was a significant blunder on Xander’s behalf. Despite this, no one ever discovers his deception! It appears that the show had overlooked it. UNTIL it returns in a fight in the final season (five seasons later), and Buffy makes Xander recall what he said. It’s hard to tell, but it appears Buffy has realized Xander has withheld it from her — though Willow hasn’t.
Source: The WB
I still believe Xander should have received greater punishment for his actions. They move on quite quickly.
9. Amy, another Buffy character. In Season 3, Episode 11, she transforms into a rat. At the end of the episode, Buffy and Willow are unable to turn her back, and that is the last we see/hear of her for a long time.
Source: The WB
Aside from a few scenes where Willow has a pet rat, it appears like the show has forgotten about her. However, in Season 4, Willow accidently transforms Amy human again for a brief moment before turning away.
Source: The WB
Then she’s mostly forgotten about until Season 6, when Willow chooses to try turning back into a human. But she’s been a powerful witch for a long time at this point. And she just came up with the idea? It feels like it should have happened sooner.
Source: The WB
10. In the opening episode of Madam Secretary, Marno portrayed Roxanne Majidi, Elizabeth’s stylist and image consultant. Though she has an office in the state department, she vanished for five seasons.
Source: CBS
Then she reappears in Season 6 as if she’d always been there, despite Elizabeth’s admission that Ali typically assists her in getting dressed.
Source: CBS
11. Raisa from Arrow was another character who appeared in the pilot and then vanished. She was the queen’s housekeeper, and when Oliver returned home, she seemed to be close to him, but she was gone by the next episode.
Source: The CW
She returned five seasons later, in the Season 6 premiere, to look after Oliver’s kid, William. But then she vanished for another seventeen episodes, despite the fact that she was undoubtedly William’s primary caregiver aside from Oliver.
Source: The CW
Oliver thanks her for coming on short notice when she returns, and she replies she’s used to it…but why wasn’t she there for the rest of the episodes? The show would occasionally recall her and then forget about her.
12. Josh Wilson on Weeds was another character that appeared in the pilot but then vanished. He had an entire backstory about supplying pot to kids and having an affair with an older man, but he suddenly vanishes. Despite the fact that he’s Doug’s son!!!
Source: SHOWTIME
In Season 4, Doug seems to remember him and mentions him a couple times. He’s also mentioned briefly in Season 6 when it’s revealed that he relocated to Chicago…five seasons after he first vanished.
Source: SHOWTIME
He reappears in the series finale, even appearing in the final scene. Still, that doesn’t excuse his absence entirely.
Source: Michael Desmond / Showtime / Courtesy Everett Collection
13. The Miss Mystic Falls pageant, which is established as an annual event, is featured in one episode of The Vampire Diaries Season 1.
Source: The CW
It occurs once more the following year, with Caroline, as Miss Mystic Falls, coming to assist, but it’s forgotten about for the rest of the show, despite the passage of several years. Caroline does not seem to characterize Miss Mystic Falls as an annual task that she assists with until the final season, Season 8.
Source: The CW
The episode also revisits Damon and Elena’s Season 1 dance, which has only been addressed once since. In Season 8, the writers began to wax sentimental.
Source: The CW
14. Coach was presented as a main character and roommate in the first episodes of New Girl, but he was gone the next episode with minimal explanation.
Source: Fox
Winston took his position, and while it was established that Winston and Coach knew each other (and the show clarified the reason Winston was returning), Coach’s departure was never explained.
He goes unmentioned for several seasons, then reappears in Season 3 when the characters refer to him as if he’s been their friend the entire time. Winston provides a feeble justification for his season-long absence, but it’s still shocking. “Coach, our old roommate?” felt like a ploy to get viewers to say, “Oh, yeah, I remember him.”
Source: Fox
15. In Season 2 of New Girl, when Russel sees Nick and Jess on their first date, he invites them both to write down their impressions of their situation-ship on the backs of valet cards. He then refuses to display them, takes them, and leaves without telling us what they say.
Source: Fox
Until the show’s final season, when it suddenly remembered what had happened (five seasons later): On the day of Jess and Nick’s wedding, Russel shows up with the valet cards still in his pocket. We finally got to see what they had to say (though it was a bit disappointing).
Source: Fox
16. Tony and Effy’s relationship was a big aspect of the first two seasons of Skins. Tony was almost forgotten when Effy became a key character in Series 3 and 4.
Source: E4
The fact that he’d been hit by a bus and suffered brain damage in Season 1 — which Effie had observed — was also a factor.
Source: E4
Until Series 4, when Effy walks by the spot where Tony was hit, contributing to her breakdown — and serving as Gen 2’s first and only mention of Tony, Effy having a sibling, or Tony’s injury, to my knowledge. It was almost as though the show only remembered it because of that one episode.
Source: E4
Tony should’ve returned during Effy’s meltdown, in my opinion. I know Tony would’ve done it 100 percent.
