Genndy Tartakovsky spoke to The Verge about handling the first ending of Samurai Jack back in 2004, where both he and the studio had an unspoken understanding about being done with the series for the time being. Tartakovsky also acknowledged the dark undertones of the story and the implications of not having a conclusion:

“Yeah, even initially, because we made such a big deal about Jack’s origin, and all these people in his life that were left to suffer and die, basically. He had to come back at some point if he had a hope of finishing his quest, and I always wanted to finish it. But at the end of the fourth season, we were all burnt out. The network didn’t know what they wanted to do, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And then we were getting ‘Star Wars’ handed to us. I realized, ‘I don’t want to rush out an ending.’ I didn’t even know what the ending was back then. So we decided just quietly to finish the fourth season.”

Tartakovsky’s patience with his story saved “Samurai Jack” from a forced ending in its initial run. Not having an end in mind is understandable given the network constraints the team behind the show had to deal with. Moreover, the patience paid off when it came time to tell the suitable conclusion Tartakovsky wanted for the character since he first conceived the concept in the early 2000s.