End of Evangelion is the end/retcon/kinda sorta explanation of the final two episodes. It's filled with absolute spite from the creator and it's fascinating for it, whether or not you actually find it satisfying as a narrative conclusion.
With all the old theories about what happened with the last two episodes, I love the actual events that led to them:
- Gainax was in crunch mode and hand-delivered episode 24 to the network twenty minutes before airtime (this is why there was a whole minute of one frame of animation)
- The network put the tape right in the deck and aired it nationally sight-unseen
- The network said "What the fuck did we just watch?" (a teenage boy getting decapitated), and called Gainax in the next day to show them a work-in-progress rough cut/animatic of the next episode
- The episode was essentially the first half of EoE, complete with
that Asuka battle, and the network said "Absolutely fucking not."
- Ganiax had six days to put a new ending together from scratch, using clips from the cutting room floor to augment whatever they could animate in time
The recent Netflix re-release of the TV series contains the original next episode preview from episode 24, which was previously omitted from home video, and as a rough animatic beat-for-beat resembling the first half of EoE it pretty much confirms this story.