One Day Season 1 Ending Explained: What Happened to Emma and Dexter?
Regarding the premiere of One Day Season 1, a British Netflix series based on the 2009 novel of the same name by David Nicholls and the film adaptation of the same name, we tell you the story of the film starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess. Based on the bestseller by David Nicholls, One Day Season 1 is the new Netflix romantic series, in 14 episodes, which tells the story of two boys, Dexter and Emma who know each other at university and who become a cornerstone for each other the other one. Their relationship is one of friendship, esteem, brother, and sister but also much more which is told with great depth in this series in which we are shown just One Day Season 1, the 15th of July, of each year of their lives. But how does Em and Dex’s story end? Do they get together, break up, or will they never speak to each other again in the future? Let’s find out together in this article which delves into the ending of One Day Season 1.
The romantic drama directed by Lone Scherfig and which premiered in 2011 tells the story of Dexter and Emma, two friends who after meeting on their college graduation day, experience key moments in their relationship every July 15. Over two decades, they share their friendship and their fights, their hopes and their lost opportunities, their laughter and their tears. The protagonists of One Day Season 1 meet in 1988, on Saint Suitune’s Day, and although they initially had other plans, they decided to start a friendship that would last a lifetime. Since then, every year on the same date, the idealistic young working-class girl and the rich boy who has ambitious dreams inform each other about the progress of their lives.
One Day Season 1: Summary Recap
One Day Season 1 tells the story of Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew, who speak to each other for the first time on July 15, 1988, the night of their graduation. The following morning they take different paths, but where will they be on this ordinary day next year, the year after, and every year after that? In each episode we find Dex and Em on this particular day, a year older, as they grow and change, they find each other and they separate, they experience joy and disappointments. One Day Season 1 is a love story spanning decades based on the international bestseller by David Nicholls.
One Day Season 1 Ending Explained
In the penultimate episode of One Day Season 1, the biggest twist of the story arrives: Emma dies. Now that she had finally gotten together with Dex, Emma’s life ended. While she was cycling towards the new house that she was supposed to buy with Dex to live their life together as husband and wife ready to have children who, however, were struggling to have, Emma was hit by a car and died. It’s 2002. The last episode of One Day Season 1 instead begins with a flashback that takes us back to 1988 when Emma spent Christmas at Dex’s house, a moment that was hinted at in previous episodes but never shown. Here we see that the girl, then twenty years old, reads to Dex an excerpt from a book that she gave him for Christmas. A book that talks about how in people’s lives there a date of birth is but also a date of death, subtle and invisible.
Emma has been dead for a year now and we see Dex dealing with a very difficult loss that puts him to the test. He goes back to drinking, getting drunk, and getting into fights. A year later, however, things start to get better, and Tilly, Emma’s best friend since university, groups everyone to visit Dex in her new house on the day of Emma’s death, creating a new tradition. Everyone is there, Dex’s father, Silvie, his ex-wife who has now broken up with Calumn, the man with whom she cheated on Dex years before, but also Ian, Emma’s comedian ex-boyfriend who is now married and she has three children and Tilly with her husband and their two children. It’s a bittersweet moment where we see how much Dex is struggling but also how much love he has around him.
After they all leave, Dex will find himself drinking and talking to the image of Emma who will tell him that things will get better with time. And so, it will be because at the end of the episode, we are in 2007, a few years have passed since Emma’s death and Dex decides to return to visit the places where he met Emma for the first time together with his daughter and her dad. So, Dex returns to university and remembers the party where the two saw each other for the first time, their climb up the London hill which he now does together with his daughter Jasmine, the place where he and Emma they are kissed, and he does it with a serenity on his face that shows that his life is moving forward. And so, with the image of Dex and Emma kissing on the stairs as they did 10 years earlier, One Day Season 1 ends and leaves everyone with a bad taste in their mouths and also with a good dose of tears in their eyes.
Do Emma and Dexter start a Romantic Relationship?
Emma and Dexter meet again in 2000, at the wedding of some old friends. At that moment, the presenter accepts the job offer from his colleague Calum and also gets engaged to Sylvie because she is pregnant. Although this hurts Emma, she congratulates him and kisses him. Married life and the father of a family do not suit Dexter at all, especially because the job he accepted was not what he expected. Later, he discovers that Sylvie is cheating on him with Calum, so in 2003, he decides to divorce. Meanwhile, Emma becomes a successful writer and moves to Paris.
When Dexter meets Emma again, he is determined to win her back, but she has a relationship with Jean Pierre, a French pianist. The writer tries to introduce them, but her friend prefers to leave and not intervene in her happiness. However, she catches up to him, confesses that she still loves him, and asks him to promise not to hurt her again. The couple seals their love with a romantic kiss. In 2004, Emma and Dexter got engaged and married. They open a cafe in England and try to have a child. Two years later, they still haven’t succeeded, which causes some problems in their marriage. On July 15, Emma goes for a bike ride and is hit by a truck. Emma’s death turns Dexter into someone self-destructive, but with the help of his ex-wife and daughter, he begins to cope with the grief. In 2011, Dex takes a trip to Scotland with his daughter Jasmine and remembers what he experienced there with Emma in 1988.
