Episode 11 of Normal People begins with Connell and Marianne in a better place mentally than they were in the previous two episodes. But problems still remain. Con’s self-confidence is low – as he sends a short story of his to a friend, he self-effacingly describes it as “the least crap” one he’s written – while Marianne continues to be verbally abused by her brother Alan.
One of the things that has improved, however, is Con and Marianne’s openness with one another and with themselves. Rather than deal with her brother’s cruel comments alone, Marianne tells Con of them. Instantly, a sense of relief washes over her, and she playfully remarks on how often Con has returned to Carricklea since she has.
It’s clear that they are as close as they ever were. A conversation in Con’s bedroom drifts towards the romantic feelings they still share. Marianne tells Con that she’s never lonely when she’s with him. He reveals that he doesn’t think he was ever genuinely happy until they dated.
Despite this confession, Con suggests that their relationship might be better if it remained platonic. Marianne attempts to go, and Con tells her that “I think it’s pretty obvious I don’t want you to leave”.
Their fourth year of college seems to pass them peacefully by. Marianne marvels to her best friend Joanna how content she is right now
Marianne understandably replies: “I don’t find it obvious what you want.”
A kiss leads to sex, but misunderstandings once again confuse the situation. Marianne asks: “Will you tell me I belong to you?” Con doesn’t understand what she means. “Will you hit me?”, she asks.
A shaken Con says that he doesn’t want to make things “weird”, which Marianne misinterprets as a comment about herself. Visibly upset, she leaves.
At home, Marianne’s drunk brother confronts her. He demands that she stays away from Con. She tells him that she doesn’t care what people think of her. An enraged Alan throws a beer bottle at her. Marianne flees to her bedroom but as she shuts the door behind her, Alan forcefully pushes it open, busting her nose in the process.
After Marianne’s brother Alan breaks her nose, Connell tells him he’ll kill him if he ever touches Marianne again.
A distraught and confused Marianne calls Con who rushes over to her house. Once there, upon seeing her nose, he asks if Alan did this to her. She nods. Con pushes Alan against the wall and warns him that he’ll kill him if he ever touches Marianne, or says anything cruel to her, again. There is no doubt that he means it.
While driving to his house, Con comforts Marianne: “Everything’s gonna be alright, trust me. Because I love you and I’m not going to let anything like that happen to you again.”
Episode 12 begins by lending credibility to Con’s words. Everything is better than alright: it seems close to perfect. Romantically involved once again, both Con and Marianne seem happier than ever. Their fourth year of college seems to pass them peacefully by. Marianne marvels to her best friend Joanna how content she is right now.
An email Con receives soon complicates their newfound joy. It contains an offer to do a master’s programme in creative writing in a university in New York. In the book, Con receives this email in the concluding five pages or so. In the series, it comes near the start of the last episode.
Con tells Marianne that he won’t take it, but the way the scene lingers suggests that he will. A bittersweet quality pervades all that follows. The episode, and their relationship, become marked by a sense of finality.
As midnight comes, Con and Marianne kiss. This moment is intercut with memories of their first kiss. It reminds us, and them, of all they’ve been through
Marianne spends Christmas with Con, Lorraine and their extended family. That night, Marianne is slightly emotional as a result of the day’s seeming perfection. Her and Con spend New Year’s Eve in Brennan’s pub with Con’s old school friends. Their bliss together continues. Rather than pass cruel remarks, her old classmates compliment her, while Con is now proud to be seen in public with her. He even puts his arm around her – a display of physical affection that he didn’t show the first time they dated in Trinity.
As midnight comes, Con and Marianne kiss. This moment is intercut with memories of their first kiss. It reminds us, and them, of all that they’ve been through.
This moment precludes the final scene of the series. We watch as Marianne and Con move her stuff out of her Dublin flat. As they sit on the floor together, Marianne encourages Con to accept the offer to study in New York.
On New Year’s Eve, a kiss between Connell and Marianne reminds us, and them, how far they’ve come.
Con admits that he’s been thinking about it. He suggests that she accompany him, but Marianne tells him she’s happy in Dublin. Con, realising her true meaning, is upset, but he clearly wants to go to New York. He notes optimistically that it’s only a year. “Don’t promise that”, Marianne warns. “You don’t know where either of us will be, or what will happen.”
Marianne’s words throughout the scene echo some of the lines from the George Eliot epigraph that prefaces Sally Rooney’s novel: “To many among us neither heaven nor earth has any revelation till some personality touches theirs with a peculiar influence.”
Normal People, in both versions, ends with Marianne and Con accepting their importance to one another and the influence that they’ve had on each other. Tears fill both their eyes. Con tells Marianne: “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.”
“You’d be a different person,” Marianne acknowledges, “and me too. But we have done so much good for one another”. Con will move to New York, and Marianne will stay in Dublin.
The final shot sees Con and Marianne silently comforting one another. Normal People’s final scene is, in its own way, as subtle, profound and powerful as any other scene is in the show. The ending may upset us, but it also reminds us of what was so great about it: its ability to move and enlighten us, and to do so in a realistic and unsentimental way.
