Warning: this article contains spoilers from the season one finale of The End of the F***ing World.
The End of the F***ing World left us all on quite the cliffhanger with that ending, putting the fates of James and Alyssa very much up in the air.
In the final scene, we see James confess to everything to save Alyssa, before running off on a beach as police pursue him. The screen then cuts to black as a gunshot rings out, his fate unanswered.
While a possible second season may be on the cards, creator Jonathan Entwistle believes whether James lives or dies is not actually that important.
"No, I don't necessarily think it does [change the message of the show]," he told Collider of his fate. "In some ways, the cleanest, most epic, emo teenage ending is what we have. And it's literally like the crystallised version of this heightened world that we have there at the end.
"So, to a certain extent, it's the perfect circle for James. He always thought he was a psychopath, but meeting Alyssa made him deal with the things that... he obviously wasn't a psychopath and he sort of knew that all along.
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"And then he became her protector, if that makes sense, and then he realises that the biggest sacrifice to save everything is to run at the end, essentially; is to leave, to split up from her because by association with him, she's just going to have kind of a bad life.
"She's going to have a bad life anyway, which is the most teenage decision. So it's like he's super chivalrous, and he's like, 'Oh, I'm going to do this.' But actually, it doesn't make any difference either way what he does. They're done for anyway, which is quite a teenage decision-making process."
Entwistle also addressed that James fan theory doing the rounds, which suggests a clue about what happens next lies in the fact that his voiceover is in the past tense up until his very final piece of narration, which is in the present just like Alyssa's.
"All his voiceover is in the past tense in the show until the final line," he explained.
"So a lot of people have lots of conjecture about where the story goes because James is always in the past tense and the series voiceover is in the present tense, and until James delivers the final line of the show. So you can read into that what you will."
The End of the F***ing World is streaming now on Netflix and All4.
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Sam is a freelance reporter and sub-editor who has a particular interest in movies, TV and music. After completing a journalism Masters at City University, London, Sam joined Digital Spy as a reporter, and has also freelanced for publications such as NME and Screen International. Sam, who also has a degree in Film, can wax lyrical about everything from Lord of the Rings to Love Is Blind, and is equally in his element crossing every 't' and dotting every 'i' as a sub-editor.
