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The titular Alice & Jack‘s “unfiltered” 15-year love story came to an end this Sunday night, with PBS‘ airing of the six-episode MASTERPIECE drama’s finale.
Or… will Alice and Jack in fact be together forever?
For all the complexity that a typical Alice & Jack episode offered, the series finale felt a bit… thin? The bulk of the episode involved Jack visiting Alice in the hospital where she was receiving treatment for her stage 4 bile duct cancer. He came armed with almond croissants and flowers, flagrantly ignoring her “house rules.” There was some dark humor about how Jack cannot die first and thus “steal” Alice’s “f–king thunder,” and how once Alice is gone, Jack is forbidden from having any contact with other females. Curled up together in Alice’s hospital bed, they shared a soft kiss, then fell asleep in each other’s arms.
The sequence was interrupted by a bright, vibrant visual of Alice in an outdoor setting — a memory we had not seen before — smiling. Jack was jostled awake at the hospital by the sound of Alice’s beeping monitors indicating she was flatlining. He yelled for the staff to come see what’s what, but it was for naught. Though Alice thought she had a meaningful amount of time left, she had suddenly passed, in Jack’s arms.
Jack, bereft, stayed with Alice’s body as long as he could, sitting with it in a downstairs “holding area” for a while — or, at least long enough for him to cue up a six-minute montage of every major moment/exchange of words he and Alice had shared over the years. Said montage included a bit of a memory we had not seen yet, of Alice running up to and hugging Jack at some sort of colorful seaside location. More on that in a moment.
When Jack had to part with Alice’s body, he gave her forehead one last sweet kiss. He then took a walk outside, phoning daughter Celia with the news of Alice’s passing, seeing as the two had become closer years ago during the whole ballet phase. He also suggested that he and Celia have dinner that night, for which he’d be “very grateful.” Jack sat on a bench in a garden area, and entertained more memories. He got visibly agitated/distraught, shirt of breath and clutching his chest — or, was he experiencing medical distress related to his aortic aneurysm?
As Jack closed his eyes, wincing, we cut to the full context of the never-before-seen memory that had been glimpsed earlier in pieces. It was Jack in Cuba, years ago, where he very unexpectedly happened to cross paths with Alice. Each surprised to see the other, Alice ran up to and embraced Jack. They then embarked on a stroll, and spoke of kismet-y things.
But… was this just a memory of a pivotal incident from their off-and-on, decade-and-a-half courtship? Or were Alice and Jack symbolically reuniting somewhere else, on “another plane” that mirrored the memorable locale? Because next we saw Jack on the bench, it was from the back, his body still and his head listed.
Following a few more clips of Alice’s and Jack’s “greatest hits,” Jack’s own passing (from a “broken heart”?) was confirmed, as Celia visited the fresh, side-by-side graves where her father and his one true love now lay. Later, Celia paid a visit to her father’s self-storage unit, to shred some of his medical research files. Along the way, she found a box containing keepsakes from his life with Alice — a flyer for the kite festival, goofy photo booth snaps from Cuba, the “We’ll meet again” note she’d left for him after their financial windfalls…. Celia smiled warmly — she’d found this note once before, remember, under different circumstances — and then put it back in the box and closed up the unit.
What did you think of Alice and Jack’s roller coaster love story?
I adore Domhnall Gleeson, & would watch him read a phone book, but was highly disappointed in this dirge of a show. It was so hard to watch the Jack character, who could do better, put up with Alice’s selfish behavior all those years. He didn’t deserve being treated like that & should have outlived her.
I ugly cried through the whole episode-beautiful
Two awful, narcissistic characters. Alice pushes Jack around, disappearing for years because she feels like it, and Jack likes being bullied by her. Emotional S&M. They’re normal only when they’re dead? Fitting for this series. I watched it because it kept dragging me in. Not proud of that.
Well written, well acted. Slow moving but I felt every moment of happiness and sadness. The characters were realistic and completed. Made me think about how much in life we miss and how sad it is for those left behind when a loved one leaves. As sad as it was the thought that maybe they week be together leaves hope
This was the worst agonizingly slow depressing series I have ever watched on PBS I watch PBS very often and have loved most of the Masterpiece series.
These characters were very unlikeable.
You’re a better person than me. I only managed to get through 2 and a bit episodes before asking myself why I was torturing myself. Like you I love PBS Masterpiece shows.
You’re better than me. I only managed 1 episode.
I managed 5 minutes because Alice ticked me off with her insufferable attitude about his research. No way was I going to waste hours of my life watching her.
So depressing!! I wouldn’t had gotten sucked in if I knew this.
I wish they had shown us more about Alice because it was really hard to see why he would be obsessed with her. She just didn’t come off as that interesting. Neither had much emotional range though.
I hope Tvline brings up Mr. Bates versus the Post Office that is currently airing on PBS. It’s so good and deserves more attention. Great acting and writing.
I was very, very unhappy with the ending 😢
I will accept that Jack died of a broken heart. I was not aware that he had an aorta issue.
I enjoyed Alice and Jack quite a bit until the last episode. The last episode felt self-indulgent and repetitive. The ending could have easily been appended to the penultimate episode and nothing would have been lost.
Great series.
Both Lead actors did a great job .
Congratulations to all who had a part in the production of this series.
Thanks for this great recap (but for calling Celia ‘Alice’ once in your conclusion) of a complex episode.
This series’ ending leaves me wondering if these two spirits-in-love meet up in numerous lifteimes, as in the novel Cloud Atlas, and others. Somehow their dying within the same spacetime was handled touchingly without any schmalzy blemishes at all. I so appreciate the convincing grace of this dramatic restraint. We are left with the certainty of their joy.
Midway through the series, when Jack accepted becoming Man of Honour for A’s wedding, I-the-viewer became furious with her, character, suspecting her of cruel, narcissistic manipulations. (Wondering now if anyone else mistrusted Alice for a bit?) The next episode restored my faith in the sincerity of her bizarrely edgy bond with Jack. Lovely to see the increasingly relaxed joy grow for both of them as bit by bit she became inwardly free to love him fully.
I’ll be rewatching this series in a while; meantime I’m pondering the sets’ significance with so many near-empy corridors with many, many closed doors that feature silently throughout, usually in stark contrast to the gorgeous natural settings in which Alice and Jack tend to interact.
Even in the series’ closing shot of Celia leaving the storage structure, she is walking directly away from us with the box of special treasures, carrying them into the world and leaving everything else of theirs behind one of the many doors there.
Not just Alice and Jack, but all of these characters within their story linger in my mind and heart as pretty damn real,
The writer must have lived a tormented life and so successfully sought revenge on an unsuspecting audience. Just bc real life situations might remain unresolved, writing shouldn’t be – without logical circumstances. There was nothing compelling or interesting or logical about Alice or Jack. She was a commitment phobe sadist and he a masochistic doormat. Jack didn’t die of a broken heart; passively killed him. And boredom killed the script.
I just loved the story of Alice and Jack!! Very unique and enchanting!! So happy I got to experience through their eyes!
Fran
Regarding Alice and Jack….
Real life: Emotional, Disappointing, Hopeful, Desperate. Sad. Joyful. Love. The end.
Great actors who acted beautifully.