The Girlfriend ending explained: How obsession and revenge shattered a family’s fragile bonds

The Girlfriend debuted on Amazon Prime Video on September 10, 2025, with one season consisting of six episodes. The series, directed by Robin Wright and Andrea Harkin together, features Olivia Cooke, Waleed Zuaiter, and Laurie Davidson playing the roles of Cherry, Howard, and Daniel, respectively. Wright plays the role of Daniel’s mother, Laura.

The story revolves around the life of a well-to-do art gallery owner of London, Laura, whose life of privilege comes to an end when her son Daniel falls in love with Cherry, a young lady with a humble background. What starts as romance soon develops into a psychological battle as Laura’s obsession with protecting her son comes against the efforts of Cherry taking a seat in his world.

Loyalties fracture, lies are multiplied, and the well-polished life of the family cracks under the pressure of class conflict, manipulation, and the darker side of maternal love.

The finale of the series has become a subject of heated debate, with its daring final twists and the crushing fall of the mother-son-girlfriend triangle. Decades of deceit and ambition explode into a climactic confrontation that permanently changes the futures of the characters, compelling the audience to re-examine where their loyalties need to go.

The Girlfriend ending explained

Robin Wright’s Laura is depicted as a powerful woman who has everything around her: money, power, and beauty. She is haunted by the death of her daughter, and is desperately holding on to her son Daniel.

And into this fragile world comes Cherry, the new girlfriend of Daniel, with her working-class origins and unpolished appearance. She becomes an instant victim of Laura’s suspicion. To Laura, Cherry is not Daniel’s romantic partner but rather an intruder who not only poses a threat to her son but also to the reputation that she has worked decades to achieve.

The conflict between the two brings the series to a head in terms of its searing examination of class differences and maternal obsession, with Laura being so hateful that she cannot distinguish between genuine care and veiled prejudice.

As the plot intensifies, The Girlfriend becomes a triangular manipulation between Laura, Cherry, and Daniel. Laura plans to expose Cherry as an opportunist and believes that her intentions are transactional, not genuine.

Cherry, who is equally determined, learns to play with the rules set by Laura. She uses tricks to win Daniel and outsmart his mother. Between the two ladies, Daniel stumbles as he struggles between the loyalty to a mother who has constantly dictated his life and the chance for a love that offers freedom.

His ignorance of things going on around him only contributes to the stifling atmosphere.

The conflict in The Girlfriend peaks when Daniel is in a near-death situation, which leaves him in a coma. This turning point causes Laura to reach an unforgivable limit. In a cold-blooded act, she informs Cherry that Daniel is dead. Laura goes even further to hold a fake funeral for her son, only to break off the relationship permanently.

The lie destroys Cherry, alienating her in sorrow and humiliation and fueling a need to avenge. This cruel act turns out to be the moral threshold of the series that solidifies Laura as a victim of her obsessions and, single-handedly, the cause of her own downfall.

When Daniel comes out of the coma, he finds out about the big lie his mother made and observes the struggle of Cherry to get back to his side. The moment of his awakening changes the course of power and also reveals the shattering of the world that Laura created.

At the end of The Girlfriend, Laura is left empty-handed: she has lost Daniel and Howard, her once-sterling career, and has become devoured by the very manipulations she engineered. In this state, too, she is imploring Daniel to perceive Cherry as dangerous, but her track record of lying has destroyed all trust.

The stage is now ready for a final confrontation between Laura and Cherry, the two women battling each other in terms of dominance. At her most cruel, Cherry even thinks of eliminating Laura.

But the finale of The Girlfriend is not ready to name a winner. Rather, it stays in the gray, posing not the question of who won, but what was lost in the process. Both women are shown to be imperfect, desperate, and destructive, with their decisions posing unsettling questions about obsession, power, and the wrongness of love as possession.

Finally, the lack of resolution in the end is its sharpest weapon. Denying any closure, The Girlfriend makes the audience confront the major question of the series: to what extent can one go to hold onto what they love, what price must they pay when that line is crossed?

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Also: The Girlfriend cast and character guide: Who plays whom in the Prime Video thriller series?

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