Warning: Contains spoilers for The End of the F***ing World's season one.
The End of the F***ing World's success on Netflix could lead people to search out the original comic book it's based on – and they might be surprised by what they find.
First published by Charles Forsman as a series of mini-comics, the plot is largely followed by the TV adaptation with one notable difference when it comes to the pivotal event that sees James (Alex Lawther) and Alyssa (Jessica Barden) on the run from the police.
Spoilers follow after the trailer.
In episode three, James and Alyssa take a break from their road trip to find Alyssa's father in a house that they think is unoccupied for a while. Unfortunately, the owner comes back and turns out to be a serial killer who – just as he goes to attack Alyssa – is killed by James.
However, in the comic, this guy is actually a satanist – who also kills young women, naturally – and his wife is a police officer who ends up being the one chasing James and Alyssa for the murder of her husband. Oh, and she's a satanist as well, of course.
In the TV show, there's no direct comparison for the satanist wife, with the police roles taken up by Gemma Whelan and Wunmi Mosaku as DC Eunice Noon and her partner DC Teri Donoghue respectively.
James and Alyssa end up finding her scumbag of a father in both versions and he calls the cops on them. In the comic, this leads to the satanist's wife finding them, and James ties up Alyssa to protect her as he runs away. The wife catches up with him, planning to avenge her husband's death, only for another police officer to get her to stop. James fights back and is hitting the wife despite the officer's pleas, cue gun shot and cut to black.
While the end result in the TV show is basically the same (except James is running across the beach and just has normal police after him), the comic has an alternate ending that takes away the ambiguity of the TV show.
After the fade to black, we catch up with Alyssa's mother as she's on the phone to someone, talking about how she knew James "was trash when I first met him" and that she should have stopped him taking Alyssa away. "I mean, thank God she is home safe and sound," she adds.
We then see Alyssa upset in her room as she takes a nail, runs it through a candle flame and begins to carve "JAMES" into her left arm.
The End.
We can definitely see why the makers of the show decided to leave out this bleak Alyssa coda – and not just because it removes any doubt that James might still be alive after the gunshot, therefore ending any chance of season two.
The End of the F***ing World is already pretty dark (although shot through with a pitch-black sense of humour) and is likely to be watched by a teenage audience, so it would have been irresponsible to include a scene of self-harm, even without considering how it would be a much darker ending.
As for the satanists, it doesn't take anything away from the adaptation for James's victim to be a serial killer, or for it just to be normal police officers chasing the teen outsiders. It would have added a sour taste to the finale when it's meant to be the touching culmination of James realising his feelings for Alyssa, which are subtly developed throughout the entire season.
TV shows don't always get it right when adapting original material, but The End of the F***ing World not only gets it right, it improves on the source.
The End of the F***ing World is available on All 4 in the UK and Netflix worldwide.
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Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
