Denouement

The denouement is the moment when all of the knots of a story are untied, […] But the denouement should not be confused with the end of a story.

Even without hovering drones, a lurking assassin, a thumping score and a denouement, the real-life story of Edward Snowden, a rogue spy on the run, could be straight out of the cinema. But, as with Hollywood, the subplots and exotic locations may distract from the real message: America’s discomfort and its foes’ glee.

In the sizzling two-hour denouement, for example, the music titan Lucious Lyon (Terrence Howard) discovered that he didn’t have a terminal illness after all (Dun-dun-DUN).

Some commentators have said one of the more recent fall-outs – over noise reduction specifications campaigned for by local residents – is a fitting denouement to what has been a humiliating drama.

Boris Johnson’s time as prime minister has at last reached its denouement.

And then, when all that is done, it somehow needs to find believable and distinct emotional denouements for (if I’ve counted correctly) 17 characters.