Sophie Gets the Last Word in 'Funny Woman's Season 2 Finale

Funny Woman Season 2, we hardly knew ye! I wish we’d gotten at least two more episodes of the life and times of Sophie Straw, but it’s been a fun, brisk quartet of episodes. I both enjoy and admire how the season’s many significant plots and character arcs clicked into place in the end while leaving the door open to a pretty marvelous-sounding third season, should we be so lucky. Everything this season has been about – identity, owning your own stories, pregnancies planned and unexpected, parenthood, divorce, pay equity, and improved work conditions – all of it ultimately fits under the thematic umbrella of personal autonomy, especially (though not exclusively) for women. 

The season finale opens with Sophie learning the big secret from Gloria* and George about her history: her biological father was a married American GI who abandoned a pregnant Gloria without a backward glance. The news puts her in an existential tailspin. If she didn’t inherit George’s eyes, smile, or sense of humor, is she his daughter? 

*I misheard this as Doria all season long – apologies for any confusion that caused. Note to self: have hearing checked this spring.

(From my vantage point in 2025, the answer is obviously yes, but I know that mid-60s attitudes were very different on a whole raft of issues. I recall from my 1980s childhood that even adoption was considered shameful somehow and was something adoptive parents agonized over telling their children about. Pregnancy outside of marriage? Forget about it!) 

Sophie scarcely has time to process this information before she has to return to work and then consults Pandora about Lynda’s nasty little plan to publish her story with or without comment from Sophie. Because she stinks as a human and journalist, she threatens Sophie with using her imagination to fill in narrative and factual blanks not covered by her research and confrontation with Gloria. Pandora – clad in her robes, stockings, and garters and not much more; she’s had a busy afternoon of getting busy with her beloved Charlie – advises Sophie to scoop Lynda by publishing her story on her own terms before Lynda’s goes to press. 

Of course, Sophie turns to Diane for help. I hope that Diane lands another full-time job in journalism if she wants one; it’s very cool that she has the creative impulse and news instincts to work as a documentarian, and I don’t want to take anything away from that! She deserves steady, well-paid work in whatever aspect of reporting she lands on and more screen time in the longed-for next season, please!

The piece has its desired effect: everyone learns Sophie’s family history and her telling of it becomes the story. Lynda can publish her version if she wants, but why bother when the most interesting details of the story are ones only Sophie could provide? Marc is delighted, noting that having an American father automatically confers citizenship and a green card. (I’ll chalk Marc’s confusion here up to giddiness – if Sophie is a U.S. citizen, she won’t need a green card to live and work there.) Ted is horrified and exasperated, while his secretary Eunice thinks Sophie is gutsy and cool for coming forward. 

Sophie may find a limit to how far forward she wants to go, however, when she realizes she’s pregnant. Pregnant! With Dennis’s baby! Dennis, who can’t get divorced for another three years! This situation is a deuce of a mess, softened a tad by Gloria very gingerly offering Sophie the benefit of her past experience and a sincere pledge to stand by her side and support her in any way she can. Sophie has three options: abortion (either illegal or therapeutic), adoption, raising the baby on her own, or as she learns later, marrying Dennis. 

The third couple facing pregnancy and parenthood – with great anxiety and great love – are Tony and June. June has quickly become one of my favorite characters for her no-nonsense kindness and frankness. It seems as if she’s the only person who can get Tony to take a deep breath and talk through his fears, as well as her unbothered candidness about sexuality and the uncertainty of what lies ahead. Please add More June to my wishlist for a potential third season!

June and Tony’s baby arrives mid-episode, with the gang all racing to the hospital in a scene reminiscent of the one at the end of Notting Hill where Hugh Grant’s friends are racing him across town to get him to Julia Roberts in the nick of time. Sophie can’t join them because she’s committed to making a few remarks at the Trafalgar Square march for pay equity Marj has been working towards all season. Unsurprisingly, for someone as brisk and committed as Marj, she’s great at shepherding her troops, bucking up a recently sacked Miss Sykes (at-will employment sure is hot garbage!), and adjusting the chanted slogan to “What do we want? Equal Pay! When do we want it? Yesterday!” 

Once again, Funny Woman makes good use of archival footage to show the scale of the demonstration, and I’d love to know if it’s from a protest about equal pay, and when it was held. We even get a nice little moment where Roger begins to show his mettle, talking down another constable who overinterprets Marj’s obviously jokey comment about using signs to clout counter-protestors. Season 3 early prediction: these two get back together and are almost insufferably happy. Make it so, Sky!

Finally, it’s time to shoot the episode of Flat Birds, and what a rollercoaster of emotion we go on in the last quarter of this series finale! For farce reasons, Sophie doesn’t have time to tell Dennis that she’s pregnant prior to the shoot. Between Greta’s nerves and the sudden arrival of Tony and Bill to share the news that, as Bill puts it, he’s “got a new god-daughter!” Her name is…Bill! Sure! It would be really cute, though, if her name were Billie. June seems to have had the quickest and most straightforward labor experience of all time, and I say good for her. (This isn’t an episode of Call The Midwife, after all.) 

The open, carefree way Matthew Beard plays Bill’s joy and excitement about this baby and his new role in life seems like he is not acting at all. I don’t mean that as a criticism; if anything, he’s joining Cillian Murphy in the fraternity of compelling actors who simply vibe on-screen with babies. Some of his best scenes in Peaky Blinders are those where Tommy Shelby is just having the time of his life hanging out with a baby. 

The Flat Birds shoot itself is one of the high points of the entire season, particularly when Greta’s seemingly deadly line flub makes Dennis, Tony, Bill, and Ted hold their collective breath for a moment, wracked with total dread. Fortunately, Sophie quickly turns it around with some inspired improvised physical comedy about a haunted leg. The selection of dialogue-free moments we see is charming and effervescent, and even Ted is on board with the whole thing by the end of the shoot. Flat Birds is going right to series. 

What a coup for Sophie, Greta, and the lads. They had every reason to be down about their chances of success, and by listening to Sophie and shaping her ideas into stories, they’ve created something special together. 

In the final scene, Dennis and Sophie can catch each other up on the developments in their lives. The relief of Edith agreeing to be divorced for cause quickly segues into stunned happiness at the news of Sophie’s pregnancy, which then nearly careens out of control as Marj, Diane, Greta, Bill, Tony, June, and Baby Bill all tumble into Sophie’s dressing room, along with a now-tipsy Ted. Ted immediately starts planning Dennis and Sophie’s wedding, taking it upon himself to announce their engagement and the pending arrival of their baby and thank goodness Sophie puts a stop to it. Whatever happens with their baby and the legal status of their relationship is for her and Dennis to decide, not TCV’s corporate policy about not ever showing unmarried pregnant women on screen. 

She’s got Bill, Tony, and Dennis there to remind Ted that Flat Birds is entirely Sophie’s concept, and she co-wrote the episode that just bowled him over with its excellence. 

Sophie’s pitch to Ted echoes and elaborates on the one she delivered to the lads when she first met Greta, incorporating the tantalizing possibility of cementing his legacy as a truly groundbreaking, forward-thinking TV executive. What if he had a hand in supporting a show about pregnancy, single motherhood, and all sorts of relationships among people who don’t quite fit the very constrained mold of societal expectations? What if he were part of a show that makes often marginalized viewers feel seen and understood? What if Flat Birds changes people’s lives? 

Ted, feeling a combination of astonishment, avid interest, and stuffed shirt anxiety, asks Sophie if she’s asking him to bend the rules. Bend them? Oh, no, not at all. It’s time to break them and chuck them out the window altogether. Let’s do this!

Bits & Bobs:

• I love the scenes between Edith and Sophie, and then Edith and Dennis. They’ve all matured over the course of the last two seasons, and Edith and Sophie, in particular, see each other with more nuance and depth. I also love that Edith gets to strike out on her own as an arts correspondent for the CBC – she deserves her happy ending, too, well away from her judgmental family and the odious Vernon. 
• The finale’s conclusion does feel a bit rushed, but it also feels like the most dramatically logical way to approach it. The episode as a whole has been picking up narrative speed and momentum as it raced toward the closing credits, and the scene’s arrival on the heels of an inspired, zippy live performance gives it an organic lead-in. 
• One last musical note for the season: there’s a fun callback to the first season finale as Sophie, Greta, Dennis, Bill, and Tony walk to the set in slow motion. Last season, it was set to “Be My Baby”. This time, the needle drop is Wanda Jackson’s gravelly, saucy “Funnel of Love”, used to very similar effect in an episode of Reservation Dogs. Perfect choices all around!

All episodes of Funny Woman Seasons 1 and 2 are available on the PBS app and for members on PBS Passport. Funny Woman Season 3 has yet to be greenlit.