Do James and Erin End Up Together in ‘Derry Girls’?

Warning: This article contains major Derry Girls: Season 3 spoilers.

Ever since it premiered on the UK’s Channel 4 in January 2018 and then internationally on Netflix in December of that same year, Derry Girls has captured the hearts of viewers from all over the world. For three seasons, we’ve followed the antics of Erin Quinn (‎Saoirse-Monica Jackson) and her crew consisting of Orla McCool (Louisa Harland), Clare Devlin (Nicola Coughlan), Michelle Mallon (Jamie-Lee O’Donnell), and James Maguire (‎Dylan Llewellyn) as they stumble into adulthood during the end of the Troubles conflict in 1990s Derry, Northern Ireland.

While the coming-of-age sitcom is less known for romance than it is for laugh-out-loud hilarity and heartwarming, touching family moments, Derry Girls‘ third and final season revealed that love between two of its lead characters may be in the air. The series begins with a 16-year-old Erin whose passionate and ambitious nature are often belied by her propensity for vanity and self-centeredness. Her only attempts at romance over the first two seasons were with David Donnelly (Anthony Boyle) and John Paul O’Reilly (Calam Lynch), though it both cases any chance at courtship are over before they can even begin due to detention and vomit, respectively. But it’s John Paul’s getting sick on and then subsequent standing up of Erin that opens the door for Mr. Right… Michelle’s English cousin and honorary Derry Girl, James.

Erin’s determination to prevent James from hooking up with Ukrainian exchange student Katya (Diona Doherty) in Derry Girls: Season 1 may have sowed the initial seeds of Erin and James potentially feeling something more for one another someday, but it’s that moment in Season 2’s seventh episode “The Prom” that really shows sparks beginning to fly. Because if skipping a highly-anticipated Doctor Who convention to step in at the last minute to be a jilted girl’s prom date isn’t love (or the foundation for it to grow), then I don’t know what is.

Season 3 of Derry Girls takes their budding connection to brand new heights as James confesses his feelings for Erin in the fourth episode, “The Haunting,” after a near-death experience (he was just knocked out, but you know these Derry Girls love being dramatic) makes him realize how fleeting life is, and that he doesn’t want to live with regrets. The two end up kissing until Michelle walks in and shuts the whole thing down before it can even begin, citing that when they break up she’ll be forced to pick a side, and she doesn’t want to have to choose between her family and best friend. Out of respect for her, James and Erin decide not to pursue a relationship with one another.

But don’t lose hope, friends, because James tells her that he can wait (okay, swoon). By the end of the seventh and final episode, while James and Erin aren’t yet officially a couple, there’s certainly still something there, as it’s hard not to feel the subtle yearning and tension on both sides. So while the two finish the series not officially a couple, the show’s creator, Lisa McGee, has gone on record saying that she can indeed see James and Erin ending up together years down the line, but that ultimately, Derry Girls is a show about friendship and she didn’t want a love story to overshadow that core message.