{"id":45654,"date":"2024-02-09T19:00:56","date_gmt":"2024-02-09T18:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1989925"},"modified":"2024-02-09T20:09:38","modified_gmt":"2024-02-09T19:09:38","slug":"one-days-powerful-ending-shows-how-love-and-loss-can-co-exist","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/one-days-powerful-ending-shows-how-love-and-loss-can-co-exist\/","title":{"rendered":"One Day\u2019s powerful ending shows how love and loss can co-exist\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

The controversial ending of One Day is more romantic than you first think. <\/p>

By Jess Bacon\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Friday, 09 February 2024 at 18:00 PM<\/p>

\n\n

Warning: This article contains full ending spoilers for One Day, which is available to watch now on Netflix.<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you aren\u2019t familiar with David Nicholls\u2019s best-selling novel One Day<\/a>, then you probably weren\u2019t emotionally prepared for the tragic ending of the new Netflix<\/a> adaptation.<\/p>\n

Romance series typically end when the couple is at their peak point of infatuation with each other. Nuptials are read, babies are born, flats are bought, and then the credits roll. Love is the only end to contemplate. Happy endings are guaranteed. But not all of us are so lucky, are we?<\/p>\n

Some relationships break down, leaving heartbreak in their wake. Others are ripped apart by the death of a loved one, as we see in One Day.<\/p>\n

The hefty 14-part series follows two students, Emma (Ambika Mod) and Dexter (Leo Woodall), as they navigate their extraordinary, ordinary love story from friends to lovers. Yet, instead of a fleeting university romance, this series (and the book) spans two decades to explore the profound loss that\u2019s inextricably bound up with true love.<\/p>\n

\"Dexter\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>
Leo Woodall as Dexter and Ambika Mod as Emma in One Day.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Episode 13 sees Emma take that fateful bike ride that fans of the book and the 2011 film adaptation know all too well. Mid-turn in the road, Emma is hit by a car and dies moments later.<\/p>\n

If there was any doubt about the series\u2019s emphasis on the wildly contrasting turns different lives can take, the camera then cuts to Dexter, stood on the doorstep of the property they\u2019d arranged to view together, in a typically heart-warming romantic tableau as he listens to Emma declare her love for him in a final voice message. Smiling to himself, drunk with love, the screen then cuts back to his partner taking her final breaths, alone, on the tarmac.<\/p>\n

But as with real life, One Day doesn\u2019t end at the point of tragedy. It looks beyond their love story, depicting Dexter\u2019s life after Emma\u2019s death to show that life does indeed go on after someone you love has died.<\/p>

One year later, half-bruised and beaten after a drunken night out, Dexter is taken back to his dad\u2019s house. Aimless and bereft, the worn thirty-something is a shadow of his former self, having lost all of the lightness and joy he found with Emma \u2013 and in a moment of rare honestly between the two men, Dexter admits to his dad Stephen (Tim McInnerny) that he doesn\u2019t know how to live without her.<\/p>\n

Though his awkward father shrugs off a \u201cheart to heart\u201d, he does offer him one piece of advice, as someone who has also lost the love of his life: to \u201clive as if she was still here\u201d. Unable to meet Stephen\u2019s gaze, a hopeless Dexter says that he can\u2019t, until his widowed father tells him that that is how he\u2019s managed to keep going for the past decade.<\/p>\n

As their eyes lock, it\u2019s clear this final episode is a tribute to the universal immeasurable pain we all experience when faced with the challenge of learning to live again when someone you love has died.<\/p>\n

\"Dexter\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>
Leo Woodall as Dexter and Ambika Mod as Emma in One Day.<\/span><\/figcaption> Netflix<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

In those early years without Emma, Dexter has to figure out how to exist again. But rather than entertain the idea of \u201cgetting over a loss\u201d, One Day instead explores how a person can live with the stark and unimaginable pain of losing a loved one for the rest of your life.<\/p>\n

This powerful message about human resilience is echoed in the final tear-jerking scene on the second anniversary of Emma\u2019s death, when Dexter climbs Arthur\u2019s Seat<\/a> with his daughter Jasmine, a walk he took with Emma, all those years before.<\/p>\n

Both memories are slotted beside one another as he feels the impact of Emma\u2019s love in his present life, also. She could never be a \u201cfootnote\u201d to him, as she first fears not long after they\u2019ve met, because she\u2019s embedded firmly in his memory and in the cobbles of the Edinburgh streets where he walks once more.<\/p>\n

As the scene flits between then and now, we see Dexter physically co-exist with the pain and pleasure of these two memories. He has discovered how to hold onto his connection and love to Emma in a way that isn\u2019t self-destructive while also creating new memories.<\/p>\n

\"Dexter\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>
Leo Woodall as Dexter and Ambika Mod as Emma in One Day.<\/span><\/figcaption> Netflix<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

It\u2019s agonising to watch, but it\u2019s a source of comfort, too. Former loves don\u2019t have to be denied or forgotten for us to move forward, nor does grief have to be about leaving someone in the past.<\/p>\n

For Dexter, his relationship with Emma doesn\u2019t cease to exist after she\u2019s gone due to the profound impact her life had on him, and continues to have on him. The mark she made on his life and the love he felt for her doesn\u2019t stop when she dies. Instead, he learns to embrace the heartache that comes with that.<\/p>\n

So, when you put it like that, perhaps One Day\u2019s ending is more romantic than it\u2019s often given credit for. In spite of the tragedy that unfolds, it shows that true love can last a lifetime, even if a person doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n