Did Don Draper really buy the world of Coke?

Did Tony Soprano really die, or just order more onion rings?

The finales of our favorite shows can make us argue, make us cry, and make us crazy.

From Spotify and the Ringer, I'm Andy Greenwald, and this is Stick the Landing, a new podcast where we'll be telling the story of modern TV backwards, one fade out at a time.

Find Stick the Landing on Wednesdays on the prestige TV feed, on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

It is Wednesday, April 10th. One of the buzzwords you hear a lot in Hollywood is consolidation.

Bob Eiger,

the Disney CEO, was just on CNBC last week talking about how important consolidation is in the streaming industry. Basically saying there are too many streaming services, which makes it too

tough to grow subscribers and boost growth to improve profitability. You hear that a lot.

That word also is in the news because we are now in April 24,

and that's when Warner Brothers Discovery,

the home of HBO and CNN in the Warner Studio,

they are freed from the rules of the reverse Morris Trust,

which prevents companies from merging without incurring huge tax penalties.

Now, they can go after deals, and the speculation is that Warner Discovery and its CEO

David Zasloff are on the hunt to either buy or most likely merge with another company,

probably a media company. Consolidation.

We've all followed the saga as well of Paramount Global,

the home of CBS, Paramount MTV. They are in exclusive negotiations at this point to sell a

controlling stake to David Ellison and his Skydance media, along with some private equity backers.

Not consolidation per se, but some of the paramount assets could be sold to competitors.

What all these situations have in common is regulatory review, the government analyzing a bunch of

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