The Final Season of 'Derry Girls' Has Officially Debuted on Netflix

Spoiler Alert: This article contains spoilers for Derry Girls.

Nearly five months after the series finale aired on Channel 4, U.S.-based Netflix subscribers are finally getting to see how it all ends for the five main teens on Derry Girls.

The comedy, which follows four female classmates (Michelle, Clare, Orla, and Erin) and one "wee English fella" (James) as they navigate adolescence against the backdrop of the last years of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, was an instant success when it debuted in 2018.

Though the show became the most-watched program in Northern Ireland, and it holds a 99 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, writer/creator Lisa McGee confirmed in 2021 that the comedy would end with Season 3. The third season debuted on Netflix on Oct. 7, and some viewers may be wondering why the show is ending.

Though Derry Girls was in its prime when the last season was announced, the five protagonists are meant to be teenagers — and high school can't go on forever.

Lisa McGee, whose inspiration for the show comes from her own upbringing in Northern Ireland in the '90s, said that "it was always the plan" to wrap Derry Girls up after Season 3.

"It was always the plan to say goodbye after three series'," Lisa wrote in a Twitter statement in 2021. "Derry Girls is a coming-of-age story; following five ridiculous teenagers as they slowly... very slowly... start to become adults, while around them the place they call home starts to change too and Northern Ireland enters a new more hopeful phrase — which was a small, magical window of time..."

Though the series is a comedy, it also highlighted the tensions between the Protestants and the Catholics in Northern Ireland during the final few years of The Troubles.

The show wraps up in 1998 (the finale takes place after a one-year time jump) with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, which many consider to be the official end of The Troubles. As the characters got ready to move on with their post-high school lives, their town got to move on to a new phase as well.

The characters themselves were at the right age for a natural ending to Derry Girls, and the actors who play them are also busy with other projects. Nicola Coughlan, who plays Clare Devlin, is at the center of the main love story that will be featured on the upcoming third season of Bridgerton, while Saoirse-Monica Jackson wrapped filming on the highly-talked-about 2023 superhero film, The Flash.

Though some fans would have wanted Derry Girls to go on for many more seasons, the timing seemed to be right for the show to wrap.

Stateside viewers are now saying goodbye to the students at Our Lady Immaculate College, but there is always a chance that the beloved characters could return at some point in the future.

"Who knows if Erin, Clare, Orla, Michelle, and James will return in some other guide someday, but for now this is it for us..." Lisa wrote in her statement about the end of Derry Girls.

For now, you can play The Cranberries on repeat, and stream all three seasons of Derry Girls on Netflix.