The Girlfriend<\/a><\/p>\nEpisode 6<\/p>\n
\n Season 1<\/p>\n
Episode 6\n <\/p>\n
\n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n
3 stars<\/p>\n
***\n <\/p>\n
\n We all knew it could come to a fatal showdown between Cherry and Laura, and that\u2019s precisely what the finale delivers.
\n Photo: Prime\n <\/p>\n
That there was room for only one possessive psycho in Daniel\u2019s life was clear from The Girlfriend\u2019s first episode; the subsequent five episodes rode on the tension of whether it would be Cherry or Laura who would ultimately persevere. In a way, I admire the show\u2019s straightforwardness: I expected the finale to culminate in a showdown between Cherry and Laura, and that\u2019s precisely what we got. Of all the elements of their final fight teased in the show\u2019s opening sequence, only the pool and the bloodied heel are of consequence. There are no gunshots involved. The projector might have been a reference to the recording Laura captured of Mrs. Cherry confessing to Cherry\u2019s history of violence. The fact that we finally learned Mrs. Cherry\u2019s name \u2014 Tracey! \u2014\u00a0is the second-most-pleasant surprise in the finale.<\/p>\n
The first is that, at the very last moment, The Girlfriend abandoned the two-perspective structure. The finale plays in one continuous act. As a result of Laura\u2019s estrangement from Daniel, Laura and Cherry live in completely separate realities; they barely come into contact until their final confrontation. That explains why the two-perspective structure couldn\u2019t be justified in an episode like this and exposes the weakness of the conceit in the first place. It was never all that revelatory, chiefly because it focused on the least engaging aspects of each of their points of view.<\/p>\n
In the finale, we learn that Cherry\u2019s father didn\u2019t simply fall 20 feet from a building site \u2014 Cherry\u00a0pushed him because he abandoned her and Tracey with a bunch of debt. When Laura confronts Cherry with this information, Cherry states simply that \u201che deserved it.\u201d This revelation is supposed to tell us that Cherry\u2019s psychosis is relentless, but it feels tacked on, too brief to be engaging. As for Laura herself, all of her obsessive issues come back to her late daughter, Rose.<\/p>\n
Maybe if each turn in perspective focused on how these particular torments shaped Laura\u2019s and Cherry\u2019s worldviews and drove them to action, rather than on slightly different interpretations of the same conversation (Laura yelling or not, Cherry staring demonically at Laura or not), they could have pushed their characters further. The Girlfriend\u2019s characters are like well-built models:\u00a0All the parts are there \u2014 Laura\u2019s late daughter, Cherry\u2019s childhood psychosis, Daniel\u2019s resentment at the expectation that he\u2019d fill the void left by Rose, Howard\u2019s bitterness at the way his own grief was dismissed. But like a model, they have no singular perspective to speak of, no true personality; they are not alive.<\/p>\n
That said, let us go over the events that culminate in the final fight. When we pick up on the finale, Cherry and Daniel are blissfully returning from a shopping trip, having picked out an absolutely monstrous rock for an engagement ring. Daniel wants Cherry to wear it right away, but she wants to wait until she has gotten her nails done so she can announce the engagement \u201cthe official way: on Instagram with French tips.\u201d Excuse me just a moment \u2014 on Instagram? And I have had to type the word Connesta this whole time? Daniel doesn\u2019t want the news to go on Instagram or Connesta or anywhere else; he hopes they can enjoy their happiness in private after the absolute shitstorm brought on by their public commitment. But Daniel has no real backbone or strength when it comes to Cherry. One sad look from her and he\u2019s convinced: They should have an engagement party.<\/p>\n
Laura learns the news from Daniel himself. He hasn\u2019t picked up her calls since Cherry came home from a gallery visit with a bloodied head, so Laura waits for him outside the hospital, where he works \u2014 the only time in six episodes we have gotten confirmation that he is actually training to be in the medical field. She tries to convince him that she would never hurt Cherry, that she\u2019s not a violent person \u2014\u00a0a refrain that will become important later \u2014\u00a0but he doesn\u2019t want to hear it. He blurts out that they are engaged and storms out to meet Cherry, who from the car window sees Laura standing helplessly. Neither of them acknowledges her presence.<\/p>\n
To make matters worse, Laura gets home to see Howard there, packing his stuff. He is still convinced that Cherry is a \u201cnice girl\u201d \u2014 so nice, in fact, that she donates money to a nursing home. Laura can intuit the fishiness of that statement, but Howard is angry about much more than just the Cherry problem. He is tired of fixing Laura\u2019s messes; he has spent the past several years begging his friends to buy the ugly art she shows at her gallery so that she could keep her \u201chobby\u201d alive. She never left him any room to grieve in their relationship, and he thinks \u2014 this one he delivers as he\u2019s walking out \u2014 their failed marriage is her choice. The scene is rough to watch, not because of the emotions on display but because the acting and dialogue are so unpolished. There\u2019s nothing to convince me that Laura feels an ounce of anything for Howard, while Howard\u2019s show of frustration is too functional. Howard exists only to oppose Laura\u2019s righteous view of herself \u2014 he exists only to say these things.<\/p>\n
Even then, all Laura takes from the conversation are the words Cherry and nursing home, which remind her of that bill she seized through illegal means after Daniel\u2019s accident. She goes to the nursing home to dig further. She sits with John, Cherry\u2019s father, and makes up a story to fool the nurse on watch that she knew him before his accident. When he hears Cherry\u2019s name, John begins to grunt and tremble \u2014 according to the nurse, the mere mention of Cherry is enough to agitate him. She also tells Laura about the building-site accident, though she doesn\u2019t explicitly suggest that Cherry had anything to do with it.<\/p>\n
The nurse, just a fountain of information, also tells Laura that Tracey works \u201cat a butcher\u2019s,\u201d Laura\u2019s next stop on her tour through Cherry\u2019s past. Even for someone used to covering for her daughter\u2019s wrongdoings, Tracey is remarkably self-possessed as Laura pries mercilessly into her life and accuses Cherry of every crime under the sun. One of the very first things she says to Tracey is that she doesn\u2019t want Daniel to \u201cend up like [Cherry\u2019s] father,\u201d implying that Daniel\u2019s climbing accident \u2014\u00a0which was, as we saw, an actual accident \u2014\u00a0was anything but. She wonders how Tracey can protect Cherry, this coming from a woman who is willing to do anything to make sure that her son doesn\u2019t kiss a girl she doesn\u2019t like. When Tracey counters that she does it because she\u2019s a mother, Laura says she\u2019s a mother, too, and she\u2019ll stop at nothing to protect her son. \u201cIf Cherry finds out what you\u2019re doing,\u201d Tracey says, \u201cGod help you and your son.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is the exchange that Laura secretly recorded, and later we\u2019ll learn that Tracey said a lot more than just that. Laura voice-notes Daniel that she needs to speak with him urgently, but the texts come in while he\u2019s in the shower, so Cherry has the chance to listen to and delete them before Daniel can see them. She pretends to be looking for wedding songs when he catches her with his phone in her hand. Wedding preparations are in full effect: Howard and Cherry have toasted to the happy couple with a glass of bubbly, and Howard has agreed to walk her down the aisle.<\/p>\n
In fact, Howard is the only parent planning to be in attendance at Cherry and Daniel\u2019s engagement party the next day. Tracey is simply up to here with Cherry\u2019s mess. When Cherry learns from her mom that Laura has been asking questions about her father, she goes nuts. She puts on a little bandit outfit\u00a0and goes to the gallery, which she can easily get into because she knows the code is Daniel\u2019s birthday. With her stilettos click-clacking in the night, she burns Lilith\u2019s portrait of Laura in both eyes with a cigarette, then spray-paints \u201cLIAR\u201d across all the other canvases in the show. She leaves Daniel\u2019s creepy \u201cMama Bear\u201d teddy outside Laura\u2019s door to make sure Laura knows whom the message is from. When she gets home, Tracey gives her a disappointed look.<\/p>\n
However unwise Lilith might have been to show her art at the gallery, it\u2019s not fair that her work is collateral damage. She instantly starts crying when she sees what happened to her canvases, but Laura is sort of \u2026 ecstatic? She finally has something tangible to show the police, so for her, the whole thing is a net positive. \u201cThis is perfect,\u201d she tells a shocked Lilith. \u201cWe got her!\u201d This is a woman who hasn\u2019t been part of Laura\u2019s life over the past several years; who is we? Which reminds me: We never got to the bottom of their whole affair. Laura told Cherry a million years ago, in Spain, that Howard \u201cdidn\u2019t even know the half of it.\u201d What was the half of it?<\/p>\n
Lilith\u2019s hurt is not enough to stop Laura, who kicks into full gear. She sneaks up at the engagement party just as Cherry and Daniel are giving a toast. I expected her to jump on the mic and play the recording of Tracey, humiliating Cherry and proving herself right in front of all the people who had doubted her, but she took a milder route. Gently, Isabella grabs Laura by the shoulders and tries to get her to leave. Before she can, though, the police arrive to arrest Cherry \u201con suspicion of criminal damage.\u201d Cherry doesn\u2019t resist, and it occurs to her before questioning that she can blame the vandalism on Harriet. She can hardly suppress a smile when the idea comes to her and, later, when it works. Of course, it works partly because Tracey covered for Cherry once again \u2014 and once again, she\u2019s not happy about it. Tracey has the clearest view of Cherry and Daniel\u2019s relationship: \u201cIt\u2019s not love; it\u2019s ambition.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whatever Laura feels for Daniel is something else altogether. When he comes by the house, she tries to play him the recording, but he throws her phone across the room before she can pull it up. His resentments come gushing out: He\u2019s always had to be her golden son, to be both himself and Rose, to live his life in fear of upsetting her. Realizing that reasoning with her son will not work, Laura tries a different approach. She pretends to give up. She tells Daniel that she will miss him very much and will never stop loving him. It\u2019s almost as if she knows already that she is going to die. Persuading him to stay for \u201cone last drink,\u201d she drugs him with tranquilizers. And to think that if she were slightly nimbler with her phone, she could have avoided all of this \u2026<\/p>\n
I thought Laura would drug Daniel enough to, like, lock him in a room, tie him up, and force him to listen to the recording. Maybe I\u2019m the psychopath? Instead, she plays it for him as he is half-asleep in his drugged state. It seems unlikely that, even if she had been able to play it all the way through, he would\u2019ve had enough clarity to process it. But it hardly matters because Cherry arrives before Tracey has gotten to the \u201cGod help you\u201d part. And she is pissed.<\/p>\n
First things first: Cherry wants to know why Laura hates her. She almost sounds reasonable when she wonders what Laura thinks will happen if she is able to break them up \u2014\u00a0Daniel will never meet another woman, and she\u2019ll control his life forever? But Laura isn\u2019t interested in discussing the ifs and buts. She pulls her phone out to call the police, but because she apparently suffers from a terminal case of butterfingers, Cherry grabs it and also throws it across the room. Then she hears Daniel grunt upstairs. She pushes past Laura and runs upstairs to find him nearly passed out on the floor.<\/p>\n
Laura is able to shove Cherry hard enough to pry Daniel away from her and lock her in the room, but Cherry jumps out of the balcony, sacrificing her ankle, and maneuvers herself back into the house. Laura meets her with a knife by the pool. \u201cThis isn\u2019t you,\u201d Cherry tries, echoing Laura\u2019s own appeal earlier. \u201cYou\u2019re not a violent person.\u201d She\u2019s able to wrestle the knife out of Laura\u2019s hand just as they hear Daniel call out Cherry\u2019s name. Laura pushes Cherry into the pool and they struggle, trying to drown each other. Sobered by the sight of his fianc\u00e9e and his mother fighting to the death, Daniel jumps into the pool and wrestles Laura away from Cherry. Distracted by the purpose of keeping them apart, he holds Laura down for way too long, something that Cherry notices but lets ride. After a long beat, she shouts at him to stop. When Laura bobs back up, she\u2019s dead. The smotherer has been smothered. And hey, now Cherry and Daniel have something to bond over \u2014\u00a0they have both killed a parent!<\/p>\n
One year later, Cherry and Daniel are married and expecting a baby. At the townhouse with Howard, they are the picture of a happy family. Moses, Laura\u2019s cat, who had returned shortly before she died for the explicit purpose of this scene, meows at the side table, under which Laura\u2019s phone had slid when Cherry threw it all that time ago. Daniel picks it up, plugs it in, and looks through it. He finds the recording that could\u2019ve saved his mother\u2019s life and, who knows, potentially his own. Cherry smiles at him as he hears Tracey explain that \u201csooner or later, she\u2019ll want something from you you\u2019re not prepared to give, and she\u2019ll get rid of you.\u201d Sweet fool!<\/p>\n
\u2022 What does everyone think happened to Harriet? Did she go to jail for Cherry\u2019s high-heeled crimes?<\/p>\n
\u2022 Laura managed to call the police on the landline before she drowned, and as that scene closes, we hear approaching sirens. But we\u2019re not shown what Daniel and Cherry told the police to explain the whole thing or how he got away with it. More important, how Cherry got away with it \u2014 she had just been in custody not 12 hours ago, and now here she is at a crime scene \u2026 the officers must be just as gullible as Daniel.<\/p>\n
\u2022 The Girlfriend\u2019s ending reminded me somewhat of the final act of Gone Girl, David Fincher\u2019s masterful adaptation of Gillian Flynn\u2019s 2012 book, which more or less originated this whole genre. One of the most terrifying parts of that movie is when Nick realizes that, however crazy Amy might be, there\u2019s no way he can ever liberate himself from her. She controls him. So too does Cherry control Daniel \u2014\u00a0she has merely stepped in for Laura. I only wish the show were more willing to dig into that horror as perceptively as Gone Girl did.<\/p>\n
VULTURE NEWSLETTER<\/p>\n
Keep up with all the drama of your favorite shows!<\/p>\n
Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms<\/a> and Privacy Notice<\/a> and to receive email correspondence from us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Girlfriend Episode 6 Season 1 Episode 6 Editor\u2019s Rating 3 stars *** We all knew it could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,61226,61223,11523,61224,61225,391,61222,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-129474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-finale","tag-overnights","tag-prime-video","tag-recaps","tag-the-girlfriend","tag-tv","tag-tv-recaps","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/c6b16388fdfcd1d9f131da5b52289e3959-girlfriend-finale.rsquare.w400.png\")
<\/p>\n