Popular Irish Comedy 'Derry Girls' to End with Season 3
It's official: The upcoming third season of the popular Irish comedy Derry Girls will be the series' last.
Set in Northern Ireland in the 1990s, Derry Girls follows the misadventures of a squad of ill-mannered teen girls as they navigate typical coming of age adventures against the backdrop of life during The Troubles, the colloquial name for the three-decades-long conflict between nationalists (mainly self-identified as Irish or Roman Catholic) and unionists (mainly self-identified as British or Protestant) that often resulted in bombings and other acts of terrorism.
It stars Saoirse-Monica Jackson, Nicola Coughlan, Jamie-Lee O’Donnell, Louisa Harland, and Dylan Llewellyn. (And, spoiler alert: It's truly incredible, heartfelt and hilarious by turns.)
Lisa McGee, the creator and writer of the series, confirmed the news on Twitter, stating that it was "always the plan" to end the show after three seasons.
“Derry Girls is a coming of age story following five ridiculous teenagers as they slowly… very slowly… start to become adults, while around them the place they call home starts to change too and Northern Ireland enters a new more hopeful phase - which was a small, magical window of time," McGee said in her statement. "Derry Girls is a love letter to the place I come from and the people who shaped me. It has been an honor to write it and I will be forever proud of everything it's achieved."
My Statement about #DerryGirls. What a ride! pic.twitter.com/TvYKDRY697
— Lisa McGee (@LisaMMcGee) September 23, 2021
“Who knows if Erin, Clare, Orla, Michelle, and James will return in some other guise someday, but for now this is it for us and we’re excited to start filming this series with our incredible cast and crew to hopefully take our loyal fans on one last adventure,” wrote McGee.
The announcement of the series' impending end is a real bummer, simply because Derry Girls is so good, but it's not really that surprising. Production on the long-awaited third season has been hampered by repeated coronavirus pandemic-related delays. Season 2 aired back in 2019 and several of the show's cast members have gone on to other projects - most notably Coughlan's breakout role as Penelope Featherington on Netflix's Bridgerton. Even in the most ideal of worlds, it seems unlikely that the show could have feasibly gone on for much longer. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to miss the heck out of it anyway.
Season 3 will officially go into production this month, which means that we will likely see the final episodes at some point in 2022.
How do you feel about the end of Derry Girls? Let's discuss in the comments.
