How Does ‘Fleishman Is in Trouble’ End? Will the TV Series Follow the Book?

Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for Fleishman Is in Trouble.

Anyone who read Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s book Fleishman Is in Trouble, and plenty of folks who didn’t, are dying to know how the FX TV series, streaming on Hulu, will end.

The show, which stars the captivating Claire Danes as Rachel and the super dry, yet very watchable Jesse Eisenberg as Toby, isn’t over yet, but we can’t help but look ahead. Will Rachel and Toby repair their relationship? Is Rachel even okay? Read ahead to find out what we know about the end of Fleishman Is in Trouble, but be warned that we are going to reveal spoilers for anyone who hasn’t read the 2019 best-selling novel.

Rachel, who is a New York City woman obsessed with keeping up with the Joneses, and Toby, a seemingly very pragmatic doctor, are working through a divorce. They share two kids but now live separately.

One day, Rachel leaves the kids with Toby and basically disappears, claiming to be going on a yoga retreat (can we join?). What follows is the unraveling of Toby’s resolve. He struggles to juggle work with dating and taking care of the children. It takes his friend, Libby Epstein (Lizzy Caplan) to make Toby wonder if something bad happened to Rachel. Could it be that she isn’t simply a bad mom?

In the book, after weeks go by, Libby runs into Rachel and learns she has had a mental breakdown. She takes care of her friend’s estranged wife, even though she has not been a big fan of Rachel’s all along. It’s left open-ended if Toby and Rachel get back together once she returns to his apartment.

But will Fleishman Is in Trouble end differently in the eight-part series? There’s a big reason why fans may already know the answer to that question, even if some are fearing the worst for Rachel.

The TV series is getting a lot of attention for very closely following the source material, per Bustle, with Cosmopolitan noting that Libby’s narration is sometimes a word-for-word match with the book.

It’s also important to point out that Taffy is the series creator, and wrote the scripts for almost every episode of Fleishman Is in Trouble. This is why if we had to bet, it would make sense that the show will end like the book, with a bit of ambiguity about Rachel’s ultimate fate. No matter how the show ends, one thing is certain: The material has gotten a lot of people thinking and talking, including the stars of the series.

Jesse told Variety about a lightbulb moment that his wife inspired, as it relates to the show. “I was acting in something that I think she thought was perpetuating the idea that anything that happens to a man is heartbreaking, and anything that happens to a woman in a story is of her own making,” he explained, going on to say that Fleishman Is in Trouble, “shifts perspective.”