‘Conversations with Friends’ Open-Ended Ending, Explained

After 12 episodes of hand-wringing and mumbled asides, the love triangle (square? circle? it’s complicated) in Conversations with Friends has finally come to an end. And if you’ve been left wondering, “What happens next?” that’s sort of the point.

For her debut novel it was important for author Sally Rooney to keep things open-ended. So how does Conversations with Friends end? What does that mean for the future of these characters? And what was the reasoning for this series’ ambiguous ending? You have questions, and we have answers.

How Does Conversations with Friends on Hulu End?

Get ready for Frances (Alison Oliver) to get everything she wanted. After ending things with Nick (Joe Alwyn) and getting into a fight with Bobbi (Sasha Lane), Frances turned her frustration to the only other person left in this saga: Melissa (Jemima Kirke). If you remember, Frances and Bobbi had a falling out after Bobbi learned that the story Frances was publishing was basically a less-than-flattering portrait of her. During a dinner party Melissa asked Bobbi about the story, which is how she learned about all the mean things her “best friend” wrote about her.

Frances called Melissa in a rage and demanded to know why she told Bobbi about the story. That’s when Melissa dressed her the hell down. She said that she genuinely thought Bobbi knew about the piece because any decent person would have told her before publishing anything. “Your actions have impact. Your writing has impact. The way you have behaved has consequences,” Melissa told Frances. “You made my depressed husband happy for a while. But then you gave up when things got complicated and you weren’t the center of the fucking everything.”

Frances, realizing how deeply she hurt this woman’s marriage, gave a half-hearted apology and hung up. As brutal as Melissa’s takedown was, it was just the kick Frances needed to see how horrible she’s been. In an email, she apologized and explained to Bobbi why her story wasn’t just about her. She also admitted that she wanted to sleep with Bobbi again.

Shockingly, brutal honesty worked. Bobbi and Frances had sex and agreed to get back together. But this time around, their relationship was going to be different. They agreed to no longer be sexually jealous of each other in the way they viewed married couples but still vowed to stay committed to each other. It’s a little difficult to decipher what exactly Frances and Bobbi’s new status is, but it feels the most similar to an open relationship.

That girlfriend with benefits caveat is important for what happened next. While at a bookstore, Nick accidentally called Frances. The more they talked, the more honest they were about why their relationship didn’t work. Frances admitted that she lied to Nick by not telling him that she was diagnosed with endometriosis. In turn, Nick admitted that he always felt an impulse to be available to her.

Conversations with Friends ended with Frances subtly smiling to herself while telling Nick, “Come and get me.” Long story short? She has made the truly rookie mistake of reuniting with her high school sweetheart. And even though Melissa literally begged her to stay out of her marriage, Frances once again flirted with Nick. That’s zero for two on the good decision-making front, but hey. We were all dumb in college.

How Does the Conversations with Friends Book End?

The Hulu show ends the same way as Sally Rooney’s original novel. Frances fights with Melissa, reunites with Bobbi, and flirts with Nick. According to Rooney, having the book end in an open-ended way was important to her.

“I had written several other endings for the book, which were much longer, because I seemed to believe at some unconscious level that it was my task to ‘tie up’ every ambiguity I had introduced,” Rooney told PBS News Hour. “Once I identified that impulse, and reasoned myself out of it, I wrote the final scene as it is now — and I felt the novel was finished.”