Finding success with an original TV show is never easy, which means writers and creators are usually more concerned with earning another season than planning years in advance. But sometimes, the minds behind our favourite TV shows have a grand plan in mind – and drop plenty of clues to help viewers connect the dots to see what’s coming. Whether it’s a punchline that takes years to arrive, or a clue to solve the mystery, the following video contains plenty of spoilers – you have been warned.

Here is our list of Brilliant Clues Hidden in the Background of TV Shows.

True Detective

TV Show Clues Hints True Detective

As the name implies, the first season of HBO’s True Detective left tons of clues for the audience, and the characters to follow. In the police search for the mysterious “Yellow King” responsible for years of violence, the colour yellow is used when the lead detectives finally start following the right path. But in the season’s biggest twist, the stars discover that they had already found their man in an earlier episode, mowing the grass outside a closed school. Eagle- eyed viewers could have followed more than their gut, too – an obstructed sign flat out confirms that the detectives should have taken notice.

Arrested Development

TV Show Clues Arrested Development

Arrested Development may have been cancelled after 3 seasons, but most critics and writers agreed it was ahead of its time - jam-packed with too many punchlines and running gags to catch the first time around. When the Bluths' stunted sibling Buster lost a limb to a loose seal, the door was opened to a world of hook and hand-based humor. But fans may not have noticed just how far ahead of time the writers planned the move, planting gags long before the event ever took place. The jokes only land on repeat viewings, showing just how much the writers relied on fans re-watching the series to catch every detail.

Futurama

TV Show Clues Futurama

Every sci-fi fan knows that changing the past can be just as much fun as exploring the future, and showing the audience they've been fooled all along is a clever tool for any writer. With Futurama, that meant revealing that the show's hero being frozen for 1,000 years was no accident, but a plot carried out by the team's super-intelligent alien pet, Nibbler. Making Fry the universe's last hope was taken as a clever rewrite - but the pilot episode really DID show Nibbler's shadow beneath Fry's chair. The fans didn't spot it, and the writers waited four full seasons to reveal the true story behind the entire show.

Firefly

TV Show Clues Hints Firefly

Joss Whedon has a reputation for planning his stories out years in advance, and the short-lived Firefly is no exception. The hordes of crazed space pirates known as Reavers weren’t explained until the feature film, Serenity, but the show’s pilot episode contained another major clue of a story fans would have seen play out. When the ship’s crew crosses paths with a Reaver ship, each character prepares for the event differently. Some turn to weapons, while Inara – the ship’s companion – turns instead to a needle and vial of an unknown liquid. Most assumed it was an injection to kill herself before the Reavers could, but it was actually medicine for the character’s terminal illness. Whedon claimed the alternate reading worked for the scene, and since the show didn’t survive long enough to explore that subplot, that’s where the story ended.

Breaking Bad

TV Show Clues Hints Breaking Bad WYRUP

Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan turned the story of a chemistry teacher turned Crystal Meth kingpin into one of TV’s greatest shows ever – with visual bookends, repeated imagery, and yes, clues early on to just how far Walter White would go into the world of Crystal Meth. The clues can be small, like when Walter urges his partner Jesse to disappear, obscuring a license plate to read “WYR UP” - wire up - one episode before Jesse does just that to help bring his friend down.

Or they can be far grander. When select episodes in Season 2 opened with black-and-white glimpses of the future, fans took it as a sign that Walter’s drug op would be discovered by the season’s end. But the titles of those same episodes promised a very different finale: “Seven Thirty-Seven”, “Down”, “Over”, “ABQ" or Albuquerque, Walt’s hometown.

Game of Thrones

TV Show Clues Hints Game of Thrones Wedding

The Red Wedding of author George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones series may get most of the headlines, but King Joffrey's death at Season 4’s Purple Wedding is just as important. It's the king's uncle and the innocent Sansa Stark who end up blamed for the king's poisoning, but the fans are never told explicitly how the plan was carried out - or were they? It turns out Sansa played a role in the plot, whether she, or the audience, knew it. In the episode before the Purple Wedding, a court jester who Sansa had rescued from Joffrey gives her his mother's necklace as a thank- you.

She wears the necklace to King Joffrey's wedding, and the ladies of House Tyrell put their plan into action: Olenna distracts Sansa long enough to pluck one of the poison jewels free, meaning Margaery only has to take Joffrey's cup moments later so the poison can be planted. After that, the rest took care of itself.

American Horror Story: Coven

TV Show Clues American Horror Story Coven

In the third season of the anthology series American Horror Story, it’s a coven of Salem witches who take the spotlight. But when the coven’s leader Fiona is stricken with cancer, she claims it’s a sign that a new Supreme – a single witch able to wield the Seven Powers – is rising to power. She begins to pick off her witches one by one, hoping to kill the new Supreme before being replaced. In the show’s opening credits, it’s actress Sarah Paulson whose name is placed is first shown next to a skeletal saint, known to those in Mexico as Santa Muerte, also known as the Lady of the Seven Wonders. If only Fiona had noticed, she would’ve known it was Paulson’s character, Cordelia who would lead the coven, a secret spoiled in the first episode for those paying attention.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

TV Show Clues Hints Buffy Faith

Joss Whedon’s love of foreshadowing got to be put to full use with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, planting seeds for future twists both big and small. Season 4 of the series earned praise for having Willow come out, and enter into a relationship with her girlfriend Tara. But an entire season before, the twist was predicted when a vampire version of Willow from an alternate universe made a pass at her. But some clues were far more serious.

In the Season 3 finale, Buffy’s dream sequence included some cryptic references, courtesy of her ally-turned-enemy Faith. A nursery rhyme reference teased the arrival of Buffy’s sister in the next season. 7-3-0, on the other hand, means 730 days, or exactly two years - the time that would pass between that episode and the Season 5 finale, in which Buffy would sacrifice herself for Dawn. Even if fans had deciphered the message, two years wouldn’t have been enough time to prepare themselves.

Conclusion

TV Show Clues Hints Secrets List

So what do you think of our list? Did we miss any of your favorite hints or foreshadowing in TV shows? Let us know in our comment section and don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more videos like this one.