If you've just marathoned your way through the The End of the F***ing World's eight-episode second season, you'll be disappointed to learn James and Alyssa's unconventional love story has likely reached its end. Series creator Charlie Covell told the Radio Times in a recent interview that she's satisfied with where the show leaves things, and likely won't bring it back for Season 3.
"I think, for me, that's it now. Yeah, that's done," Covell said when asked if the show would continue. "I think to try and eke more out would be wrong, I like where we've left it."
That the show even had a second season was significant in and of itself. Though the first season was near-universally lauded, many viewers felt its ambiguous cliffhanger ending — in which James (Alex Lawther) was seemingly shot after being cornered by the police — was the perfect place to end things. "The End of the F***ing World is too good to deserve Season 2," read one Digital Spy headline.
The show is also based on Charles Forsman's mini-comics series of the same name, and Season 1 concluded in the same (albeit slightly different) place as its source material. That means Season 2 is an entirely new storyline written by Covell, who apparently thinks she's taken it as far as it can go.
That being said, it's possible an idea will spark and she'll change her mind down the line, like Phoebe Waller-Bridge did with Fleabag. If so, it will still be quite some time until The End of the F***ing World comes back, or until a third season announcement is made one way or the other. The show premiered in October 2017 and wasn't renewed for a second season until almost a year later, in August 2018. It then took another 15 months until it was released. So a potential Season 3 could be as long as two years away, if not more.
For now, it sounds like Covell's mind is made up. "Put it this way, if for some reason we hadn't been allowed to do season two, I would have been really gutted. Which I think shows that it was the right thing to do – for me, anyway," she continued to Radio Times. "I think I like where we end it [in season two], and yeah, it feels right for the story."
Though, as she added, "you never know."
