[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for The Girlfriend Season 1 finale.]
The truth came out in the final moments of The Girlfriend. The psychological thriller stars Robin Wright and Olivia Cooke as Laura and Cherry, an overprotective mother and a youthful social climber who vow to take each other down after Cherry’s relationship with Laura’s son, Daniel (Laurie Davidson), produces a dangerous rivalry. The series debuted all six episodes on Wednesday, September 10, on Prime Video. In the video interview above, the stars break down the deadly finale, sharing their thoughts on the show’s fraught relationships and the chances of The Girlfriend Season 2 (as of the time of publication, the series has not been renewed).
Laura didn’t trust Cherry after she caught her in needless white lies during their first encounter. The ensuing rejection instilled a bitter grudge in Cherry, whose dark past was slowly revealed across the six episodes. Laura and Cherry’s versions of their increasingly awful interactions were told through dual perspectives in each episode. These competing POVs showed how the women felt about their encounters rather than the objective truth. As their biases for the other grew, their interpretations of each other’s actions got harsher. Laura sensed something dark within Cherry, and she was right to. The femme fatale had a history of violence against those who wronged her, and Laura got added to her hit list.
“Cherry is a really good liar,” Cooke tells TV Insider in the finale video interview above. She was able to get away with so much in the past because of this, but Laura proved to be a difficult opponent. Still, Cherry found a way to best her. She used Laura’s age and grief over her late daughter, Rose, who died young before Daniel was born, to make Laura look like a woman obsessed. “It’s really hard to side with the overbearing mother, unfortunately,” the House of the Dragon star adds.
For a time, Laura appeared to be just as dangerous as Cherry, if not more. Her husband, Howard (Waleed Zuaiter), and son viewed Laura as increasingly neurotic and fearful of being replaced by his son’s would-be wife. This only made Laura feel more intensely that she had to prove there was something up with Cherry. When Laura crossed a line and faked Daniel’s death after a rock-climbing accident, her family turned on her. Cherry used this betrayal to her advantage to make the men think Laura had an emotionally incestuous relationship with her son and distance had to be made. Laura’s life continued to unravel as Cherry’s influence grew.
Laura’s last-ditch effort to find proof of her suspicions was to confront Cherry’s own mother, who proved to Laura that Cherry was the reason her father was incapacitated in a nursing home for years. This explained why he was fuming when Cherry came to visit him in an earlier episode. Laura had lost her mind a bit by the end from the whirlwind that was doing battle with Cherry Laine. The series’ climatic moment came when Cherry and Laura faced off in the basement pool of Laura and Howard’s London home. Daniel intervened to try and stop the fighting. When he believed Laura was trying to kill Cherry, he fought back against his mother until he accidentally killed her himself.
Laura was right all along. Wright says that scene with Cherry’s mother made sense because even though Cherry had done so much harm to those around her, her mother would still be naturally inclined to shield her child.
“It’s very authentic as a parent to protect. I’m protecting my cub, and she’s protecting her cub. And you don’t get to see what happened in the past,” Wright explains above. “You don’t get to see the grief and the separation of Laura and Howard because of the grief and the loss. You don’t get to see it, it’s talked about. And when all of that comes to be revealed [about Cherry, Laura feels like], ‘I knew I had that suspicion in the right department.’ You hear from her mother, ‘This is what she did, and she’s gonna do it again.’ So it’s a valid place for both of these women to be in. It’s valid and understandable that this mother would be overly protective of losing her baby, her cherished one to someone that potentially is lying about her life.”
The Girlfriend ended with a pregnant Cherry and grandpa-to-be Howard relaxing in the backyard of the family’s home months after Laura’s death. Daniel found Laura’s phone underneath a piece of furniture and discovered recorded evidence of Cherry attacking her father dictated by her own mother to Laura on the day she was killed. The show’s final seconds showed Daniel letting that haunting message sink in while staring at his pregnant fiancée, horror-struck by the wrong he committed in the name of love.
What did those final looks between Cherry and Daniel mean? How could Howard and Daniel be so blind to the truth and side with Cherry over Laura? Will there be a Season 2? All of those questions are answered by Wright, Cooke, Davidson, and Zuaiter in the video interview above.
The Girlfriend, Season 1 Available Now, Prime Video