Some TV stations and programs (particularly those catering to children) will not hint at the finale of a series on the network at all. In some cases, they air the finale without referring to it as such. Other times, the last episode of a show will end with something like, "See you next time!" despite the end of the show having been established in other media, such as newspapers.
This usually happens with TV shows that will be regularly rerun by the channels that first aired them, and the most common offenders are children's networks. The line of thinking, as explained by network executives, boils down to the idea that young audiences might be turned off by the idea of their favourite getting a definitive ending: either being confused that the show is continuing to rerun despite being over or more importantly, if that show was the only reason they watched the channel, stop watching under the assumption that it would no longer be rerun. Hence the solution to this perceived dilemma being to obfuscate the fact that no more episodes are being made.
Alternatively, a show that's been Screwed by the Network may not have been planned to have been cancelled, giving no time to plan a proper finale.
This was standard operating practice in the early years of television across all programming, when the concept of the Grand Finale hadn't yet been developed.
Compare Series Fauxnale, an installment of a work which is produced as a finale in anticipation of a series coming to an end, but turns out not to be after the release of further installments.
Most shows that get Quietly Cancelled go through this trope.
The trope name is a pun on The Revolution Will Not Be Televised by Gil Scott-Heron.
Examples:
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PBS Kids
Being a network that produces shows for young children, PBS Kids tends to overuse this trope. The only exceptions being Arthur due to it's iconic status and FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman which ended its series on a high note.
- The final episode of Angelina Ballerina (not counting the three special episodes), "Show And Tell", plays out like a normal episode. The same goes for the finale of the sequel series Angelina Ballerina: The Next Steps, "Angelina and the Dragon Dance / Angelina's Opera", which also plays out like an ordinary episode.
- Not counting Season 14, which recycled older episodes, Barney & Friends ended with "Home Sweet Earth: The Rainforest", an episode about Earth Day that played out like an ordinary episode.
- The last episode of Between the Lions, "Red Parka Mary; Not Afraid of Dogs", does not have any End-of-Series Awareness at all.
- The Big Comfy Couch ended with "Just Purrfect", which plays out like an ordinary episode and has a plot about Loonette and friends pretending they're cats.
- The "Classic" era of Bob the Builder concluded with the episode "Bob's Big Bounce", an episode where Bob and his crew builds a trampoline for a playground. It plays out like an ordinary episode.
- The last episode of Caillou plays out like an ordinary episode.
- The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! ended with "The Hard Weigh / The Song Flower Solution", which played out like an ordinary episode.
- Clifford the Big Red Dog ended with an episode about how Clifford met T-Bone called "Getting To Know You". Although it can be disputed that Clifford's Really Big Movie was the actual Grand Finale.
- Aside from the Title Drop to the show's name at the end and in spite of what the episode is called, Dragon Tales' "A Storybook Ending" plays out exactly like any other episode in the series.
- It's a Big Big World's final episode, "Big Book of Babies; Club Craze", played out like any other episode.
- The series finale of Let's Go Luna! (aired first in Canada in March 2022), "Love and Harmony", plays out like an ordinary episode. Luna even says "there's always tomorrow" at the end like she always does, even though there won't be anymore "tomorrows".
- Even though the last episode of Lomax, the Hound of Music, "Long Legged Sailor", played out like any other episode did, the ending did imply that more was to come. Though sadly, the show was Cut Short after that and it had left one to wonder what the creators were planning to do next.
- Apart from An Aesop on teamwork, The Magic School Bus "Takes a Dive" plays out like any other episode of the series, with the only clue being Miss Frizzle deciding it was time to retire at the episode's conclusion. This example graduates to being a subversion upon the sequel series The Magic School Bus Rides Again, where it's acknowledged that Miss Frizzle did indeed retire from teaching primary school, with her sister now teaching her old class.
- The final episode of Martha Speaks, "Martha's Holiday Surprise/"We're Powerless!" is about Martha and Skits rescuing kittens from a blizzard and the second segment is a Power Outage Plot where Helen and her friends pretending to be characters from their favorite video game when a blackout hits Wagstaff City. It plays out like an ordinary episode.
- Maya & Miguel ended with "I Love Maya", in which the titular character participates in a school play.
- Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, although in this case, homage is paid internally. The last episode features portraits of characters from both The Land of Make-Believe and the titular neighborhood itself. Also, Mr. Rogers and Mr. McFeely shake hands, something which actor David Newell saw as an opportunity to thank Rogers for having been a great colleague and friend throughout the show's run.
- The last new episode of Nature Cat, "King of the Backyard Bouncy Castles", plays out like an ordinary episode. Although the movie that came after it, "Nature Cat's Nature Movie Special Extraordinaire", can be considered the finale.
- The final episode of The Noddy Shop, "Closing Up Shop" zig-zags this. While it is about the shop closing until Noah realizes his mistake, it ends with a Sequel Hook with Truman switching the "closed" sign to open and winking at the viewer, but no further episodes were made.
- Peg + Cat ended with "The Compost Problem / Raiders of the Lost Arch", which has no End-of-Series Awareness whatsoever.
- Notably, the last episode in production order was "The Big Dig Problem / The Crayon Problem", the latter of which featured Peg and Cat having a Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure and walking through all the places they'd been before. Whether this was meant to be the Grand Finale (meaning this episode aired out of order) or not is unknown.
- The final episode of Redwall, "Rose of Noonvale", plays out like a regular season finale for the show (as with the season finales for Season 1 and 2) as opposed to a series finale. The odd thing is that instead of ending with tapestry shots as usual, Tim Churchmouse instead asks the viewer to come back soon, which implies that more was to come, but the show was cancelled afterwards.
- Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat's Grand Finale "Mutt That Would Be King" plays out like any other episode does, though the ending implies that more was to come.
- Shining Time Station has "How The Station Got Its Name". Aside from being about time travel, it seems to play out like a normal episode.
- Splash and Bubbles ended with the special Pole to Pole. John Tartaglia, the creator of the series, once stated that there would be a season 2, but in 2019, revealed that the show was canned after its first and only season.
- Timothy Goes to School's last episode introduces Mexican student Juanita like a regular episode and hints that more is to come.
- The final episode of WordGirl, "Rhyme and Reason Parts 1 and 2", both played out like a regular episode, aside from having her friend Violet finally discovering that Becky Botsford is secretly WordGirl the whole time.
- Zoboomafoo's final episode, "Brain Power", played out like a normal episode of the show.
- The final episode of ZOOM played out like any other episode, though a clip from the 70s show was seen after the credits.
Comic Books
- Since 2015, Marvel Comics ends its series one way or another (some even with End-of-Series Awareness), but the company will not admit it at all (up to still having titles marked ongoing on their website that didn't survive Secret Wars (2015)). So the readers' only way to foresee cancellations is advanced divination from solicit (if it's missing for one month, it might be just delayed. Missing for two? Welp, that comic is probably over). This is exactly as annoying as it sounds. To name an example, the fact that The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl was ending at issue #50 in November 2019 was publicized
, and the four-issue finale arc it is a part of is suitably appropriate. Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, meanwhile, almost — but didn't — make it that far, ending quietly at #47 in September 2019.
- Aggretsuko (Oni): While the fourth issue of Aggretsuko: Out to Office does resolve the miniseries, it does not acknowledge that it's the final issue of the entire comic. This was because Oni Press opted not to renew their license with Sanrio midway through development, canceling all future plans for the series.note
Live-Action TV
- The final episode of The Fresh Beat Band, "Snow Day", plays out like an ordinary episode.
- It is unknown what the final episode of The Good Night Show was. It most likely played out like any other episode.
- The final episode of Hogan's Heroes features Hogan sneaking out of camp, sabotaging a Nazi wunderwaffen and romancing the gorgeous woman who was that week's contact from La Résistance, all of which were routine for the show. The studio was planning to have the show go on for one more season which would end with the front lines reaching Stalag 13 and the camp being liberated, but CBS pulled the plug on the show before it could be finished.
- Kolchak: The Night Stalker: The last episode of the first (and only) season was "The Sentry", which played out like a typical Kolchak episode with its Monster of the Week plotline of a reptilian monster killing the workers of a mining complex.
- The final episode of Llan-ar-goll-en, "Y Bowlen Grisial" plays out like an average episode of the show. It revolves around Madam Mayor unveiling a very special crystal bowl in the Village Hall when she notices it has disappeared, and Prys and Ceri are on the case. It only features a few characters as wellnote , and didn't feel like a conclusion to the 51-episode show at all, evidenced by how it was not advertised as a series finale. The show would end this way with two seasons in just two years, and it lives on in reruns.
- Side Hustle's second season aired Out of Order, its final episode produced was the When Worlds Collide crossover and the last to air was "Yesley Day". They both play out like normal episodes, despite the former being an extra 10 minutes longer than normal. It would be quietly cancelled a few weeks after the latter airing, leaving the overarching plot unresolved.
- The last episode of That's So Raven, despite being a Very Special Episode that discusses smoking, plays out like a fairly normal episode.
- The final episode of Victorious, "Victori-Yes", was not advertised as the finale and plays out like an ordinary episode; this is in stark contrast to its sister show, iCarly, which had a proper finale ("iGoodbye") that sent off the characters and meticulously set up two planned spin-offs. The news that the series was canceled was unceremoniously broken during the Kids' Choice Awards in 2013, and the ultimately realized spin-off Sam & Cat dedicates its second episode to the characters learning that their favorite show was canceled without a finale.
- Until the early 1980s, game shows in First-Run Syndication were aired in a way that did not guarantee continuity. The tapes were sent from station to station using a predetermined list by the syndicator, which meant different episodes aired in different cities, often Out of Order. At a time when game shows on the networks acknowledged their finales, it was impossible to create Grand Finales for syndicated shows no matter how long-running or successful they were. One example is the final episode of the 1973-82 version of Match Game, which finished its run in syndication; despite being on the air for nine years, no mention was made of the show coming to an end.
Puppet Shows
- When Bear in the Big Blue House ended, Bear and Luna still sang that the moon, the Bear and the Big Blue House would be waiting for you to come and play, and Bear still invited viewers to come back. Though there was Internal Homage on this one, with the episode being titled "This Is Your Life, Bear" and featuring Bear winning a special vacation.
- Blue's Room: The last episode "Music Stars" is about Boogie Woogie helping Blue and Sprinkles put on a music show. It, of course, plays out like the other episodes did.
- LazyTown ended with "Mystery of the Pyramid", wherein Stephanie and the kids explore a pyramid that appears in LazyTown. It had no indication of it being the series finale, and also ended with Stephanie singing "Bing Bang" and a post-"Bing Bang" skit with Robbie Rotten as usual.
- The final episode of The Muppet Show, with Gene Kelly as guest star, had no indication of it being the last episode except for a Running Gag where characters mentioned the end of the world. It also ended with Kermit saying "We'll see you next time on The Muppet Show!" as usual. More frustratingly, this episode is often classified as the first of the season in production order, with the Roger Moore episode being last. That episode also plays out like a typical episode.
- Tweenies concluded with "What Makes Summer?", wherein Max and the Tweenies make a summer collage. It plays out like an ordinary episode.
- The final episode of The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss, "Cat's Play", ended with the Cat in the Hat singing "Just Shout Hooray" as usual for the season 2 episodes. The song includes the Cat telling the viewers that he'll "have some new surprises in my hat for you", implying this time that more was to come, but the show was cancelled soon afterwards.
Western Animation
- This was formerly company policy of Nickelodeon. Finales were proposed before, the most infamous being the never-completed finale of The Angry Beavers, but they were shot down. This was officially lifted in 2007, with the Finale Movie of Danny Phantom, Phantom Planet.
- 3-2-1 Penguins! ended with "In The Big House", which is about Cavitus stealing the cow captain's cookies. It ends as usual with Jason and Michelle saying their prayers, and a line from Grandmum hints that there would be more episodes to come.
- The final episode of Alice's Wonderland Bakery, "Clever Clover/Alice Comes To Her Senses" has no End-of-Series Awareness whatsoever.
- Invoked by [adult swim] in Aqua Teen Hunger Force's last season, combining this trope with Conclusion in Another Medium: The Last One Forever and Ever (For Real This Time) (We Fucking Mean It) was the normally-advertised Grand Finale and aired on August 23rd. Then, [adult swim] discreetly released the true final episode, The Greatest Story Ever Told, online just three days later, retroactively turning the other one into a Series Fauxnale. Then, they aired The Greatest Story on television in the show's normal timeslot a few days later, hiding it by identifying it in TV listings as a rerun of Mouth Quest, the first episode of the season.
- Aside from the fourth-wall breaking song "We'll Always Be Your Fishies" and various flashbacks to previous episodes, the final episode of Baby Shark's Big Show!, "The Nautical Night Fair" plays out like a fairly regular episode.
- The final episode of Beetlejuice (1989), "Not So Peaceful Pines" revolves around BJ and Lydia trying to put a stop to Lydia's noisy neighbors, and BJ being split into good and bad sides of him. It plays out like any other episode.
- The final episode of Blazing Dragons, "Quest to Success / Slay the Dragon", plays out like an ordinary episode.
- The "Goodbye Song" that ended each episode of season 6 of Blue's Clues has Joe telling the viewers to join him and Blue again soon, with lyrics such as "See you later!" and "I'll see you real soon". It was even sung in "Bluestock", the show's very last episodenote , even though the show wrapped up for good afterwards.
- The last episode of Bossy Bear called "Deer Pressure" played out like an ordinary episode.
- The final episode of Bubble Guppies was "See You Later Alligator!". Despite the title, it plays out like an ordinary episode.
- Apart from the ending having the titular character wave goodbye to the audience, the final episode of The Buzz on Maggie played out like an ordinary episode.
- Care Bears (1980s): Both the DiC Entertainment run and the Nelvana run had no indication of their final episodes being such. DiC ended their run with a rather normal helping kids episode. Nelvana on the other hand had their run finish with a Bizarro Episode which ends with the Character of the Day (a singing minstrel) fading into thin air at the end of his concert, with no focus on the Care Bears themselves (or even the pair of recurring villains who are suddenly Friendly Enemies for this one episode).
- Close Enough: The last produced episode of the series titled, "Match Made in Valhalla" involves Bridgette finding a perfect second match for Alex. Her name is Hannah. When Bridgette realize she still has feelings for him, Alex’s new match reveals herself as Hnoss and wanted to take him up to Valhalla. Despite the two friends being back together at the end, it plays out like an ordinary episode. The series ended up being cancelled by HBO Max afterwards, later being removed as a result of the WB Discovery merger not helping matters.
- As pointed out by Platypus Comix, the final episode of Club Mario ended like this, with Tommy Treehugger saying "We'll see you next Monday on Club Mario!", even during the final broadcast of the show, when most networks that aired the show dropped it.
- The final episode of Dan Vs. "Dan Vs. Summer Camp" is a Whole Episode Flashback about how Dan and Chris met as kids at summer camp. It plays out like an ordinary episode. It should be noted that the show was going to get another season, but it ended up canceled for reasons unknown.
- While the original DC Super Hero Girls did end its series with a multi-parter, it just had Darkseid escaping and the main characters declaring that they'd be ready to fight him again when he comes back. The final comic spinoff didn't have anything to do with this storyline, and the only indication that that was the end of the series was a chapter with the gang reacting to a vision of their counterparts in the DC Super Hero Girls (2019) universe.
- The final episode of Detention, "Rule the School", is about Gug being promoted to hall monitor by Kisskillya and enforcing the rules at Benedict Arnold, while Shareena is attempting to secretly plan a party at her house. Aside from the promotion, the party subplot, and the lack of detentions, it plays out like a regular episode.
- The Fairly OddParents!' final season was aired wildly Out of Order, but its final episode in production order was "Fancy Schmancy" and its final episode to air was "The Kale Patch Caper". Both of them play out like regular episodes.
- "Seeing Double", the last episode of Flying Rhino Junior High (in which the main characters are transported into a Mirror Universe), plays no differently than every episode before it. That being said, resident Child Prodigy Marcus Snarkus needing to own up for accidentally breaking a bathroom sink as well as Big Bad Earl P. Sidebottom and his minion Raticus celebrating an anniversary could be taken as hints of a finale, if unintentionally so.
- The Get Along Gang ended with "That's the Way the Cookie Crumbles / Snowbound Showdown", the first short involves the Gang trying to sell cookies and the second short involves the Gang partaking in the winter fun in Green Meadow's park. It plays out like an ordinary episode.
- The final episode of Growing Up Creepie, "Wanna Bee / The Haunting of Tiki Lagoon", played out like an ordinary episode.
- At the end of every episode of Guess with Jess, Jess tells the viewers to help him answer another question soon. This was even said in the final episode, even though the show was cancelled afterwards.
- Not counting the 1992 Christmas special Inspector Gadget Saves Christmas, Inspector Gadget concluded with a three parter where Gadget's accomplishments are celebrated by the city. After thwarting M.A.D's anniversary capers, Doctor Claw decides to recruit former master criminals from a retirement home to take out Gadget. Two of those agents are elderly ladies who lure Gadget into a trap pretending to be his fan club, and even after they're arrested Gadget still believes they're his biggest fans. The episode ends with Gadget proudly saying he owes everything to his fans, and holding an autographed picture up to the viewer, which winks. The series then concludes with "Gadget and the Red Rose", which involves one of the first criminals Gadget ever thwarted (as an infant no less), who tries to locate and utilise an old weapon against him. It plays out like an ordinary episode, and even though the retirement home for the criminals is raided by police at the end of the story arc, Doctor Claw escapes to fight another day. The Inspector Gadget franchise would go on to have several sequel series over several decades depicting the next stages in Gadget's fight against Claw.
- The 2015 reboot ends with a standard Amnesia Episode with nothing of note about it other than being a Villain Team-Up between Talon and the Cuckoo Clockmaker.
- The final episode of Jessica's Big Little World ever produced has Jessica having to stay in bed because she’s sick and cannot go to Felix’s party. Her stuffed toy/imaginary friend Small Uncle tries to cheer her up by letting her throw a birthday party just for him, but doing it so causes her to become much weaker and she really needs to rest so she could feel better the next day. Unlike its “brother” show Craig of the Creek which managed to have a proper finale, this one plays out like a normal episode, considering that the series got Cut Short after only 20 episodes.
- The final episode of Kamp Koral featured SpongeBob and Patrick playing out "Home Alone" Antics as everyone goes home from summer. The episode wasn't advertised as a finale, but the show was confirmed to be ending after its second season; which was significantly shorter than the first.
- Laff-A-Lympics downplays this, as while the final episode very much has the makings of one, with the final events taking place on the Moon, and the result being a three-way tie between all the teams, it still ends with the announcer declaring "See you next week", as if the series would continue.
- "Nedley's Glasses", the Grand Finale of Maggie and the Ferocious Beast, played out like all the other 116 segments do.
- Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart ended with the episode "Strange Bedfellows" where Mao Mao and Orangasnake getting severely injured and ending up together in the same hospital room as two keeping fighting and arguing with full body casts on. When the two ended up falling in a pothole that’s about to be filled with cement, Mao Mao proceeds to save him and Orangasnake by breaking all his bones, escaping his body cast and pressing the button to turn off the machine. Once Badgerclops and Adorabat picks him up, the episode ended with Badgerclops creating a new cast for Mao Mao using duct tape, since he cannot go back to the hospital, only for the already pain-ridden Mao Mao to yell at him that he’s going to be healed all wrong as the camera pans up to the blue skies. To add salt to the wound, a second season was initially planned but ended up getting scrapped due to management shifts happening at WarnerMedia between 2020-2022. Since no new episodes are being made after this, said episode played out like any other episode of the series.
- When The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack was suddenly cancelled, a Grand Finale was hastily written, featuring a live-action segment with creator Thurop Van Orman (as K'nuckles) and his son (as Flapjack) riding on Bubbie, with the trio leaving the show's setting of Stormalong Harbor for good to find a new place to live. This final episode would end up airing completely unadvertised, with the only people who were even aware that a new episode would be airing that night (much less the final one) being those who were subscribed to Van Orman's DeviantArt page and saw a post about it earlier that day.
- Despite Mickey Mouse Clubhouse originally ceasing production after Season 4 before rebooting in 2025, the Grand Finale "A Goofy Fairy Tale" plays out like all the other episodes.
- The final episode of Middlemost Post, a Halloween Episode known as "More Scary Stories to Tell Your Cloud", played out like an ordinary episode.
- Mighty Max: When told that they could not make a real resolution for the purposes of reruns, the writers got around this through loophole abuse. They wrote a Grand Finale, but to comply with this executive mandate, this final showdown against the Big Bad ends with Max getting sent back in time to relive the series over again, albeit now with the knowledge needed to successfully defeat the villain.
- The French-German cartoon Mummy Nanny ends with a "Freaky Friday" Flip episode, with all of the series' still hanging plot threads left unresolved.
- The final episode of My Goldfish Is Evil!, "Jetstream Adventures" is about Beanie having a dream about himself as the hero of his favorite movie series while falling asleep watching a marathon of it during a sleepover with Elwood. No implication was made it would be the last episode and the series never ended with Beanie stopping Bubbles once and for all and exposing the fact that he is an evil genius to the town.
- The final episodes of OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes, written as a series finale, were simply advertised as a multi-part special by Cartoon Network. Series creator Ian Jones-Quartey, as well as others working on the show, had already revealed to fans that the series was ending months prior.
- In Pikwik Pack, the final episode aired was "Snow Day", while the final episode produced was "Above & Beyond". Both of them play out like ordinary episodes.
- Rainbow Brite concluded with "The Queen of the Sprites", an episode where the Dark Princess from the Star Stealer film returns for another showdown with Rainbow Brite in a bid to become Queen of the Sprites and take over Rainbow Land. Despite how the plot sounds, it plays out like an ordinary episode.
- Zigzagged by Rocko's Modern Life. While the final segment produced was "Future Schlock" (which the special Static Cling, which wasn't made until 20 years after the show ended, picked up from), the last one to air was "Floundering Fathers", which played out like a regular episode. That episode aired last because it was paired with a Thanksgiving episode that Nickelodeon wanted to delay until the actual holiday.
- The Grand Finale of the Super Mario Bros. (DiC) cartoon trilogy, "Mama Luigi", is about Luigi telling Yoshi a bedtime story about how he and Yoshi first met, with little-to-no implications that the show is ending right then and there. The previous episode, "A Little Learning", ends with King Koopa being trapped in his castle as it floods in lava. This also happened to be his last appearance as a whole, chronologically (while he appears in "Mama Luigi", that is, as stated, a Whole Episode Flashback).
- StuGo: The final episode of the season ("S.T.U.G.O") had the kids deciding to join Dr. Rostrum after being fed up with Lullah’s bossy and egocentric altitude, with only six weeks of summer left for them to spend here. He’s at first giving them the privilege of spending a whole summer full of lab experiments, until it becomes clear that he is using them as an advantage to create a much bigger invention with the purpose of destroying the world, all by creating one whirlpool portal. When they finally realized what they are really doing for him, Pliny and the rest of the StuGo must team up with Dr. Lullah to defeat her rival and saving the island from being abducted. Despite everything being resolved at the end, along with Lullah at least taking some responsibility to the kids for the rest of the summer, it plays out like a normal episode of the show; as if they left it open-ended for more adventures. The series got cancelled afterwards due to it’s struggling streaming performance on Disney+.
- The final episode of Little Einsteins, "Little Elephant's Big Parade", plays out like a normal episode. Leo even ends the episode with his Signing-Off Catchphrase "See You On The Next Mission!", even though the series wrapped up for good afterwards.
- The final episode of Team Umizoomi was "Umi Rescue Copter", which plays out like an ordinary episode.
- The final episode of T.O.T.S. plays out like a normal episode, with the final segment focusing on one of Mr. Woodbird's inventions making almost all of the staff of the titular organization break out in song.
- VeggieTales:
- The last episode of the original Direct-to-Video series was "Noah's Ark", which plays out like an ordinary episode. The beginning even hints that there would have been more episodes done in the style of the Netflix show in the future, but for reasons unknown, this was the only episode to use it.
- The last episode of The VeggieTales Show was "The Grumble Cure", which retold the story of Moses. The ending hints that there was more to come. Unfortunately, shortly after that episode was released, the original creators were fired from Big Idea.
- We Bare Bears: There was no indication given that the fourth season of the show would be its last, with We Bare Bears: The Movie serving as the show's Grand Finale. Oddly enough, despite getting a proper finale, fans were still Left Hanging in regards to the "Icy Nights" storyline and how the supposedly dead daughter of Ice Bear's Parental Substitute turned out to be alive.
