grand finale

plural grand finales

1. set phraseThe concluding event or development in a process, performance, or other series of events, made with a special flourish and often in a remarkable or spectacular manner.

   I send the grand finale, and so exit the Lady of the Lake from the head she has tormented for six months.

   1810, Sir Walter Scott, Letter to the printer of the first edition of Lady of the Lake (from 1883 edition, edited by William J. Rolfe, Canto 6, line 605n)

   4 more examples

   [H]e felt more and more eager for the grand finale of this exciting chase after the mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel.

   1905, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, chapter 27, in The Scarlet Pimpernel

   Beauty pageants are supposed to be Cinderella tales, where at the grand finale the queen sobs tears of joy while the losers hug her valiantly.

   1986 October 6, “Thailand: Uneasy Lies the Head”, in Time, retrieved 29 Jul 2015

   In keeping with the grand tradition of the Ringling Brothers Circus, this edition offers a cavalcade of elephants, glimpses of goats, leggy dancers, fireworks, acrobats and not one but two people, the husband-and-wife team Tina and Brian Miser, blasted out of a cannon in the grand finale.

   2007 April 4, Lawrence Van Gelder, “Circus Review: Clowns, Daredevils and Plenty of Volume”, in New York Times, retrieved 29 Jul 2015

   From a cat-and-mouse sequence at a busy airport to a long car chase through Rome to a grand finale aboard a runaway train, each action scene tops the one before it.

   2023 July 5, Murtada Elfadl, “Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One review: Tom Cruise runs, jumps, and delivers again”, in AV Club