[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Alice & Jack series finale.]
Alice & Jack’s six-episode run on Masterpiece on PBS ended with a definitive conclusion to the pair’s love story. After years of missed connections, Alice (Andrea Riseborough) and Jack (Domhnall Gleeson) were finally able to be together. Unfortunately, their happy ending was short-lived.
Alice was diagnosed with cancer during a 10-week pregnancy scan. Despite an exhaustive effort to save her on Jack’s part, Alice passed away. She died in Jack’s arms before he had the opportunity to say goodbye on his terms.
Shortly after Alice’s death, Jack went to rest on a bench. During his moment of respite, Jack slumped over and quietly died. As Jack’s daughter, Celia (Millie Ashford), sorted through her father’s belongings, she found photographs of Alice and a note from her saying “we’ll meet again.”
Below, Alice & Jack’s creator, writer, and executive producer Victor Levin spoke with TV Insider about the powerful ending and the importance of telling “messy” love stories.
What was the inspiration behind the show for you?
Victor Levin: Love is a messy business, and it’s not the way it’s handed to us in fairy tales. And frankly, in a lot of the popular culture materials — books, movies, etc. — it’s difficult and people are flawed and they make mistakes. But love for one another—romantic love, parental love, and love in all its forms—is still the best thing we have right and is still worth fighting for, even if we are imperfect creatures. So I wanted to tell a story about how strong love is and can be, and is it strong enough to withstand the forces that would tear us apart?
In the finale, both Alice and Jack die within a short period of one another. Did you consider alternative endings for the show?
I’m sure I did, but this was the only one that felt right. In a sense, it felt right because it represented love’s ultimate victory over those forces I mentioned a moment ago in as much as this couple and their bonds proved stronger than death, if you choose to read the ending that way. And that, of course, is up to the viewer. They had a lot of difficulties in this life, but the story contends that they will find each other in another life or in an afterlife or in another dimension or in another state of being and that they will be in that next iteration less fraught with trouble.
Did you think about a scenario where Jack lived on after Alice?
I did. I’m sure I did consider it, but not for very long. It was very important to me that he dies of a broken heart [caused by his Ehlers-Danlos syndrome diagnosis], which is very real and medically justified by his condition. Of course, I looked down every avenue I could think of, that’s what one does, but this was the one that felt politically correct to me.
One of the show’s most poignant scenes is when Celia has to bury them both, and then the show ends with Celia going through her father’s things. Why did you want to conclude the series with Celia?
You may recall that in an earlier episode, Alice says to Jack, “Make sure you find me a nice spot in a nice cemetery next to interesting people.” Jack passes that conversation along to Celia later on, so it falls to Celia to make sure that they have each other for eternity and that they’re in proximity to each other. That’s why she’s at the graveside, the dual gravesite. As to why I wanted to end on Celia, she goes to the storage facility and finds the letter, which she has read before. When she reads it again, and we read it again, “we’ll meet again” says we understand and she understands that that has greater meeting than simply, we’ll meet again in Cuba in this life, right? She can take some comfort in that.
While it is a very a very sad ending on one level, I hope that it is also a happy ending in as much as if they come together in another state of being, then you can be happy about that. But also, because Celia believes it. Celia knows the trouble that they’ve had, and we know it. They’ve spoken about it. “Do you think she’ll have less trouble than we will?” Jack says in Episode 5. It was very important that the sadness of their deaths be tempered by hope for the future and hope for the next generation. Alice also speaks about the next generation in Episode 5. She says something like, when you give yourself over to the next generation, it’s like you can finally breathe or something. And this is us breathing. Because Celia can go on with her life with a full heart believing that on some level, things ended happily for these two people who are so dear to her.
Have you thought about what happens to Celia after that final frame?
I think Celia lives a very happy and emotionally evolved life and is wiser than most of the people she meets.
Are you working on something new? Could it be another love story?
I am working on something new. It is also a series for television, but not necessarily a limited series. It’s about a young person’s loss of idealism, and there is a love story at its core. But it’s more than a love story as well.