Finale Girls

This episode contains spoilers for The Summer I Turned Pretty, We Were Liars and a tiny bit for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The Summer I Turned Pretty is a three-season series on Amazon Prime based on the young adult trilogy by Jenny Han, author of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. TSITP follows Belly Conklin as she navigates a love triangle between two brothers she has known her whole life during several summers spent at the brothers' summer home in Cousins beach outside Boston. Nearly a year after the series finale "At Last" aired, Rachel and Mallika are finally emotionally ready to discuss it as well as the upcoming post-series movie. They also get into what Ryan Murphy has been up to (too much!), Zosia Mamet joining the cast of Industry, HBO's Half Man, the Criminal Minds reboot and more.

This episode contains spoilers for Mad Men and a tiny bit for Stranger Things and The Umbrella Academy. Mad Men is an American period drama created by Matthew Weiner for AMC that ran for seven seasons from 2007 to 2015.  Beginning in March of 1960 and ending in November 1970, it follows the men and women who work in Manhattan advertising agency Sterling Cooper. At the center is Don Draper, played by Jon Hamm, the talented and handsome creative director. The show was lauded for its depiction of mid-century America, not as “the good old days” but more accurately showing the racism, the terrifying political uncertainty and just how oppressive and empty the nuclear family was for both men and women. In this episode of Finale Girls, Rachel and Mallika dig into the season one finale, "The Wheel." Love Island (one last time... until the reunion), Chloe Fineman’s leaving SNL, Netflix's Worst Neighbor Ever and more.

This episode contains spoilers for Gossip Girl, Love Island (up to the finale) and a tiny bit for Industry.Gossip Girl aired on The CW for six seasons from 2007 to 2012 and skyrocketed into the zeitgeist amid the rise of blogging and texting culture. From the duo behind The OC, the show followed the scandalous lives up Upper East Siders, and made household games of Blake Lively, Penn Badgley and Leighton Meester. In this episode of Finale Girls, Mallika and Rachel discuss the third season finale, "Last Tango, Then Paris." They also discuss Emmy nominations, Love Island (pre finale), Ashley Tisdale writing a series about toxic moms, the upcoming Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging series and much more.

This episode contains spoilers for The Newsroom, The West Wing, Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Love Island (from weeks ago). The Newsroom premiered in 2012 on HBO and ran for three seasons. It was created by Aaron Sorkin, who the girls were really nice to in the last episode, but now it’s time to get real. In this episode of Finale Girls, Mallika and Rachel dive into the season one finale of The Newsroom, "The Greater Fool."They also discuss Love Island, the upcoming Legally Blonde spin-off series, the next season of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the Knicks and much more.  

This episode contains spoilers for The West Wing. The West Wing premiered in 1999 on NBC and ran until 2005. It was created by Aaron Sorkin, who the girls love to dunk on (but they're nice to him in this ep!). The show followed a Democratic president, Martin Sheen’s Jed Bartlett, and his staff in the West Wing. It was perceived as a smart and witty antidote to the buffoonery of a looming Bush presidency. In this episode of Finale Girls, Mallika and Rachel dive into the season two finale, "Two Cathedrals." They also discuss Love Island , Hacks, the passing of Anthony Stewart Head and more. For more on The West Wing, check out Rachel's essay: https://yeswerestillwatching.substack.com/p/we-reported-the-newsAnd for more on Harlan Coben, check out Mallika's: https://yeswerestillwatching.substack.com/p/the-harlan-coben-formula

This episode contains spoiler alerts for Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (SVU). SVU premiered in 1999 as the first spinoff of the original Law and Order franchise, which aired from 1990 to 2010 and then returned in 2021. SVU originally starred Christopher Meloni as Detective Elliot Stabler and Mariska Hargitay as Detective Benson, who solved especially heinous crimes with the NYPD. In the show’s heyday, basically every actor you could name had been on Law & Order. In this episode of Finale Girls, Mallika and Rachel dive into the season 10 finale “Zebras” and discuss the franchise more broadly. For more on the franchise being copaganda, see this segment of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNy6F7ZwX8IFor more on Elliot Stabler being the ultimate TV husband and why Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is the ultimate comfort show, see these previous issues of our newsletter Yes, We’re Still Watching: https://yeswerestillwatching.substack.com/p/from-white-boys-of-the-month-to-linda?utm_source=publication-searchhttps://yeswerestillwatching.substack.com/p/the-ultimate-comfort-show-needs-to?utm_source=publication-search

This episode contains spoiler alerts for DTF St. Louis, The Better Sister and the 2003 film Mystic River. DTF St. Louis, which premiered in March on HBO, is a dark comedy starring Jason Bateman and David Harbour as friends, co-workers and neighbors Clark Forrest and Floyd Smernitch who are both looking for more in their marriages. What exactly they’re looking for, they don’t seem to fully know. Linda Cardellini plays Floyd’s wife Carol Love-Smernitch.  The story is somewhat a murder mystery with time jumps, with Richard Jenkins playing Detective Donoghue Homer, a county detective who is trying his absolute best to keep up with all the kinks and sexual fantasies explained in this show, and really failing. He teams up with Jodie Plumb (Joy Sunday), a special crimes officer from the Twyla police department. In this episode of Finale Girls, Rachel and Mallika dive into the whole wacky show and especially the finale: "No One's Normal. It Just Looks That Way From Across the Street." For more thoughts on this show, read the accompanying essay on the Substack: https://yeswerestillwatching.substack.com/p/so-we-cure-male-loneliness-then-what.

This episode contains spoiler alerts for Gilmore Girls. Gilmore Girls premiered on the WB in October 2000 and ran for seven seasons, concluding in 2007 on the CW network. The beloved series followed single-mother-and-daughter duo Lorelai (played by Lauren Graham) and Rory (played by Alexis Bledel) who live in the eccentric New England small town Stars Hollow.Genre-wise, the show teetered from family drama to teen soap to full out comedy, especially with its kooky cast of “townies.” Created by Amy-Sherman Palladino, Gilmore Girls was billed as your typical WB family teen drama in line with shows like Everwood and Seventh Heaven, but in reality it was anything but. It later became lauded for its fast paced dialogue, dense with layered references that spanned history, contemporary pop culture, deep cut news items, classic literature, broadway, borscht belt comedy, pre-code cinema and more.In this episode of Finale Girls Rachel and Mallika discuss the pivotal season four finale.

The Pitt aired in January 2025 on HBO, bringing us to a Pittsburgh emergency room where health care professionals are savings lives, doing risky procedures that truly no one should be doing in an emergency room and grappling with their own demons. In this episode, Rachel and Mallika discuss the recent season two finale with a very special guest: Moises Mendez II! Moises has been a staff writer for TIME Magazine and Out Magazine and his work has been featured in The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Business Insider and more. He's an expert on all things online (and he was in the trenches with Rachel and Mallika in journalism school). _30 Sec: Our life this week as a season finale 4 Min: What we’re watching this week (Euphoria, DTF St. Louis)10 Min: Lena Dunham’s new memoir, American Horror Story Coven’s revival15 Min: Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson punch, Aubrey Plaza and Christopher Abbott Baby18 Min: Introducing our guest, Moises Mendez II! 30 Min: Introducing The Pitt 37 Min: One-minute season one and two recap 42 Min: Major plot points of the season finale 48 Min The Pitt season 2 finale 1 Hour 9 Min: The Pitt’s fandom 1 Hour 16 Min: The last scene 1 Hour 21 Min: Favorite and least favorite lines 1 Hour 29 Min: Who is the hot one?1 Hour 38 Min: Our finale rankings

***This episode contains spoilers for Euphoria (seasons one and two) and Love Story: John F Kennedy Jr & Carolyn Bessette.--Euphoria aired on HBO in June 2019. Starring Zendaya as Rue Bennett, a 17-year-old struggling with addiction in the aftermath of her father’s death, the show was one of the first to spotlight Gen Z’s aesthetic and dig into what it means to grow up as digital natives. Since the second season aired four years ago, the cast has become who’s who of young Hollywood: Jacob Elordi, Sydney Sweeney, Hunter Schafer, Maude Apatow and more.  Ahead of the show’s third and likely final season, Mallika and Rachel dig into the second season finale — a.k.a. “Lexi’s play” — plus as many Euphoria controversies as they can fit into an hour and a half, which is not all of them. –30 Sec: Our life this week as a season finale 4 Min: What we’re watching this week (Love Story: John F Kennedy Jr & Carolyn Bessette, The Pitt, The Drama, Love on the Spectrum)18 Min: Summer House drama and Alex Cooper’s new reality show 25 Min: HBO’s Harry Potter trailer, Brian Cox talking about Jeremy Strong (again), Connor Storie to be on Criminal Minds30 Min: Introducing Euphoria 47 Min: One-minute season one and two recap 49 Min: Season two overview 53 Min: The season two finale 1 Hour 30 Min: Favorite and least favorite lines 1 Hour 33 Min: Our finale rankings 

***This episode contains spoilers for Search Party and Love Story: John F Kennedy Jr & Carolyn Bessette, plus a minor spoiler for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. --Search Party is dark comedy series that aired on TBS in 2016 and ran for five seasons, getting picked up by HBO Max. It follows an aimless Brooklyn-resident Dory Sief, played by Arrested Development’s Alia Shakwat, who becomes fixated on a college acquaintance who has recently gone missing. It also stars John Reynolds as her boyfriend and John Early and Meredith Hagner as her two best friends. Mallika and Rachel dig into the fourth season finale, which concludes an absolutely wild journey that involves "the twink," played by Cole Escola, kidnapping Dory and keeping her locked in a basement. Susan Sarandon is there, too! –30 Sec: Our life this week as a season finale 4 Min: What we’re watching this week (The Pitt, Love Story: John F Kennedy Jr & Carolyn Bessette)18 Min: The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and The Bachelorette's cancellation 25 Min: The Buffy reboot cancellation 29 Min: Introducing Search Party  44 Min: One-minute season one-three recap 47 Min: Season four overview 50 Min: The season four finale 1 Hour 1 Min: Dory’s friendships 1 Hour 10 Min: Favorite and least favorite lines  1 Hour 13 Min: Our finale ranking

***This episode contains spoilers for Succession and Traitors (season four).--In 2018, HBO premiered Succession, introducing us to the Roy family who control Waystar Royco, one of the largest and most powerful media companies in the world. The tension starting with that first episode is that Logan — the founder of Royco and the patriarch of the family — is turning 80 and expected to announce his retirement and successor. That question of who will take over the company when he steps down drives the entire four-season series. The show was nominated for 75 Emmys for acting, directing, editing, casting, sound mixing and more, and it ended up winning 19.  Mallika and Rachel unpack the cultural impact of Succession and, specifically, the excellent season three finale. –30 Sec: Our life this week as a season finale 4 Min: What we’re watching this week (Bridgerton, Industry, Wuthering Heights, Love is Blind, Traitors)21 Min: The latest TV news (The Real Housewives’ new home, Leighton Meester’s cancelled show26 Min: Introducing Succession 38 Min: One-minute season one-three recap 39 Min: Season three overview 46 Min: Breaking down season three finale 1 Hour 10 Min: Why this finale works so well 1 Hour 12 Min: What didn’t work for us 1 Hour 13 Min: Favorite and least favorite lines  1 Hour 19 Min: Our finale ranking 

***This episode contains spoilers for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Traitors U.S. (season 4, episode 7). --In 1997, the world was introduced to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a supernatural horror comedy about a teenage girl with a cosmic duty to kill demons. The show received critical and popular acclaim and its original airings often reached four to six million viewers, which was knocking it out of the park for a relatively new and smaller network like the WB. Despite its campy presence, Buffy continues to be talked about as one of the best television series of all time. The show launched Sarah Michelle Gellar into stardom and jumpstarted the career of Joss Whedon, who went on to write and direct for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Mallika and Rachel unpack the cultural impact of Buffy and the finale of season four — a season that was at times a hot mess, and at homes a showcase of the series’ best work. –30 Sec: Our life this week as a season finale 5 Min, 48 Sec: Traitors 11 Min: Tell Me Lies and Emma Roberts 14 Min: The latest TV news (White Lotus cast announcement, DTF St. Louis, new Mandy Patinkin show) 26 Min: Introducing Buffy the Vampire Slayer 42 Min: One-minute seasons one-four recap 44 Min: Season four overview 52 Min: Breaking down the season four finale 1 Hour, 19 Min: Buffy’s approach to race 1 Hour, 30 Min: Favorite and least favorite lines 1 Hour, 33 Min: Our finale ranking — For more on Buffy’s approach to race, check out LaToya Ferguson, Alanna Bennett, & Ira Madison III on Race in the Buffy & Angelversehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxKTAQZIURo

***This episode contains spoilers for The OC and Traitors U.S. (season 4, episode 6). There's also a tiny spoiler for One Tree Hill season 3, episode 22. --In 2003, Fox aired The OC, altering the teen drama genre forever and spawning Laguna Beach, The Hills and the entire Real Housewives franchise. The OC launched Adam Brody and Mischa Barton into stardom and introduced much of the world to Death Cab for Cutie. Despite becoming a cultural phenomenon, The OC burned too bright too quickly. Mallika and Rachel dive into behind-the-scenes drama ending in a third season finale that essentially signed the show's death warrant — and cemented its place in pop culture history. --30 Sec: Our life this week as a season finale and what we're watching this week (The Last Frontier, The Pitt, Traitors) 9 Min: A cultural discovery about the parallels between Sylvia Plath and The Summer I Turned Pretty 13 Min: TV news (A Sofia Coppola show pulled from Apple TV, Matt Damon talking Netflix, Oscar noms, Alex Honnold's Taipei 101 climb)21 Min: The cultural impact of The OC 31 Min: Why this finale, and a 1-min season 1-3 recap 34 Min: How The OC turned into Desperate Housewives 45 Min: What happened in the season 3 finale 53 Min: Marissa Cooper’s death and Mischa Barton’s exit 59 Min: How the finale changed trajectory of the show and secured its place in pop culture history1 Hour 8 Min: Favorite lines/least favorite lines 1 Hour 13 Min : Two minutes of gossip (and then a little more gossip after that...)1 Hour 17 Min: Our finale rankings

***This episode contains spoilers for Stranger Things, Heated Rivalry, Fleabag and The Traitors U.S. (season 4, episode 5)In 2016, Netflix quietly premiered Stranger Things, a show set in Hawkins, Indiana in the 1980s. There were boys on bikes, a girl who liked waffles and blowing things up with her mind, monsters, evil government entities, a dimension nicknamed the Upside Down that is basically Hawkins covered in spiderwebs and endless references to ET. A decade and five seasons later, Netflix dropped the finale to the now millions of fans it has built up — fans who were ready with magnifying glasses to find clues, tear apart their least favorite scenes, defend the show's creators and cast with their lives and all of the above. In their first episode of Finale Girls, Rachel and Mallika dive into the cultural impact of the Netflix phenomenon, how internet discourse has upended the TV-watching experience, how the finale changed the show’s trajectory and more. Theme song by Nickolas CarvalhoCheck out Rachel and Mallika's newsletter "Yes, We're Still Watching": https://yeswerestillwatching.substack.com/---30 Sec: Our Life This Week as a Season Finale 2 Min: What We’re Watching This Week (Heated Rivalry, Traitors, Industry, The Copenhagen Test) 9 Min: The Cultural Impact of Stranger Things 16 Min: 2-Minute Stranger Things Recap18 Min: Stranger Things Season 5 30 Min: Vecna, The Mind Flayer and the “Big Bad” 39 Min: Eleven’s Ending 46 Min: The Last Scene 56 Min: Where’s Joyce? 59 Min: The Netflix Multiverse  1 Hour 8 Min: Conformity Gate and Divorce Gate 1 Hour 13 Min: Prince 1 Hour 15 Min: Favorite and Least Favorite Lines 1 Hour 23 Min: How the Finale Changed the Show for Us 1 Hour 27 Min: Our Finale Rankings 

Welcome to Finale Girls, a new podcast all about TV we love (and hate) from writers Rachel Rippetoe and Mallika Mitra.In every episode, we'll discuss what we're currently watching and the latest TV news. Then we'll zero in on a season finale. A finale is where the possibilities narrow, when the road ends. Did our writers and directors know where they were going all along? Did they take a wrong turn, now off-roading on a muddy path that will be difficult to steer out of? Or did we arrive at our desired destination with the integrity of the show still intact? How does an ending inform everything that led up to it?A season finale is a last gasp, the final word spoken, lingering in the air for months or, in the age of HBO’s Euphoria, years. If creators get it right, that echo can cement the show in the zeitgeist for decades to come. If they get it wrong, its cultural currency can evaporate.