‘Derry Girls’ Season 3 Cemented Its Status Among The Sitcom Greats

From Fawlty Towers and The Young Ones to I’m Alan Partridge and The Office, for British sitcoms to achieve classic status the unwritten golden rule appears to be two seasons and out. But Derry Girls’ swansong, which arrived on Netflix back in October, six months after debuting on British television, now suggests three can be a magic number, too.

Unlike its short-but-sweet predecessors, Lisa McGee’s brainchild has come to an end more out of necessity than fears over diminishing returns. The gang of Northern Irish misfits – plus “wee English fella” James (Dylan Llewellyn) – had to graduate from Our Lady Immaculate College at some point after all. Nicola Coughlan, aka the brilliantly neurotic Claire, had already turned 30 when the show began. And the latter’s role in Bridgerton, not to mention Saoirse-Monica Jackson’s casting in The Flash and Llewellyn’s turns in Pistol and Big Boys, demonstrated its talented cast were moving on to bigger, if not necessarily better, things. 

Whatever the reasons behind its farewell, Derry Girls once again proves even a subject matter as incendiary as The Troubles needn’t be a barrier to daft slapstick, pithy popculture references or hilarious teenage strops. “I am so f***ing sick of peace,” barks wild child Michelle (Jamie-Lee O’Donnell) following a brief excerpt from the gang’s pretentious attempt to make an Oscar-baiting documentary short. “It’s all anyone ever bangs about.” The same character also gets the series’ funniest line in a video store misunderstanding about Braveheart (“Jesus, this looks class. This Scottish drag queen takes on the entire English army”). 

Of course, the complex political situation still very much serves as its backdrop. Opener “The Night Before” finds the quintet planning to sneak a peek at their exam results at the same time Mo Mowlam is planning to negotiate a peace deal that will change the course of history. And as foreshadowed by its title, the additional final episode flashes forward a year to the 1998 referendum vote for the Good Friday Agreement: there’s even a surprisingly bitter dispute about paramilitary prisoners which threatens to tear one tight-knit friendship apart. Meanwhile, Erin (Jackson) maintain Derry Girls’ tradition of concluding each season in poignant fashion with a message of quiet optimism for the future interweaved with striking archival footage reflecting on her homeland’s difficult past. 

As always, however, the trials and tribulations of young adulthood are afforded as much weight. Derry Girls recognizes that even in the shadows of a 30-year ethno-nationalist conflict, the small things can still matter, particularly when hormones are racing faster than you can say “Macaulay Culkin isn’t a Protestant, Ma.” 

Sixth episode “Halloween,” for example, is based on a madcap quest to secure tickets for a Fatboy Slim gig, the superstar DJ akin to a “modern-day Beethoven, only good” according to scatterbrained Orla (Louisa Harland) – add “The Rockafeller Skank” to the list of ‘90s gems the perfectly-curated soundtrack throws up. And the kiss between honorary Derry Girl James and one of the actual Derry Girls is given almost as much reverence as anything broadcast on the local news bulletins. Few shows have managed to balance ordinary adolescence with wider historical context so effortlessly. 

However, the third season also takes Derry Girls into places it’s never been before. “The Reunion” ignores the central quintet entirely to focus on a long-standing feud between feisty Ma Mary (Tara Lynne O’Neill) and dim-witted Aunt Sarah (Kathy Kiera Clarke) and a former schoolfriend. Interspersing flashbacks to the 1977 disco where it all started (props to Dearbhaile McKinny for a brilliantly uncanny impression of the younger Sarah) with passive-aggressive catch-ups in the same venue 20 years on (watch out for Tobias Beer’s scene-stealing turn as a mute plus-one), the inspired detour leaves you hoping a spin-off is in the works. Derry Mammies perhaps?

Indeed, far from simply coasting toward its denouement, Derry Girls’ final season is by far its most adventurous. “The Haunting” takes the motley crew into the wild after Sister George Michael (regular MVP Siobhan McSweeney) convinces them to clean a late relative’s creepy woodlands home, offering entertaining nods to Hammer horrors and John Carpenter in the process. “Stranger on a Train,” meanwhile, is staged almost entirely on a railway journey populated by possible IRA suspects and overly-familiar old neighbors who Mary and Sarah hilariously struggle to recognize. This particular episode could also set up a Derry Girls drinking game: dig into your “suitcase full of vodka” every time Coughlan’s period drama commitments blatantly forced her to miss the main action. 

The success of the first two seasons has also persuaded two household names to make brief cameos: avoid Googling who for the full impact. Despite initially taking you out of the insular and hyper-specific world McGee has created, they ultimately make total sense within the context of the narrative. And although the girls’ sense of stability has previously been rocked by events relating to The Troubles – remember how the shocking news of a fatal bomb attack punctured their joyous talent show antics in season one? – the bolt from the blue this time around is of a much more personal nature. 

McGee has recently revealed she’d be open to the prospect of Derry’s finest returning for a big-screen adventure in the future, a la The Inbetweeners, another three-season wonder which perfectly captured the true essence of British teenagedom (albeit in a much less politically-aware, more unashamedly crude way). No one would deny the girls a victory lap, and it would undoubtedly be fun finding out whether Erin ever got to grips with the works of Shakespeare, or whether Michelle is still overcharging kids for sweets at the corner store. Yet there’s a sense here that Derry Girls’ work is done. To paraphrase Erin’s powerful closing monologue, “Things can’t stay the same, and they shouldn’t. No matter how scary it is, we have to move on, and we have to grow up.”

Jon O’Brien (@jonobrien81) is a freelance entertainment and sports writer from the North West of England. His work has appeared in the likes of Vulture, Esquire, Billboard, Paste, i-D and The Guardian.