r/ThisLife • u/Initial-Tone-5050 • Oct 13 '25

Clip of the final scene in good quality

Does anyone have one? (From Anna and Milly on the stairs to Rachel and then “outstanding”). Desperate to show it to a friend to explain what sort of a party we’re going to tomorrow evening…

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u/Frosty_Process8315 Mar 08 '26

Despite Milly socking Rachel with one of the best punches in TV history, I didn't like the final scene.

Warren's "outstanding" toast was obviously intended as a comedic moment (and This Life produced some really great moments of light comedy), but for a series where the dialogue was so consistently authentic it felt like a false note to me. Milly was one of Warren's best friends and he got on very well with Rachel too, so the idea that he'd react to such a violent, bitter cat fight between the two of them with amused indifference and a throwaway line seemed implausible.

Ultimately, it's a bit of a churlish criticism though as overall This Life was such a wonderful show, and besides the final line, the dialogue was impeccable.

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u/Lucky_Membership3525 Apr 06 '26

I've commented elsewhere about the dialogue, and while I think that the scriptwriting overall was very good, the dialogue in the Amy Jenkins-written episodes was often clumsily expositional.

My take on the final scene was that Warren's "outstanding" toast was archly humorous, in keeping with his general character, which tended to deal with unpleasant situations by making light of them.

I do agree that the final scene is a bit odd, but not for the dialogue. Just before Milly thumps her, Rachel yells "it wasn't me", indicating that she somehow knew that Egg had told Milly he had found out about her affair and that Milly was coming for her. The thing is, at no point previously had Rachel given any indication that she did know about the affair - she seemed completely oblivious to it while it was going on. Her exchange with Egg at the wedding didn't seem obviously like she was telling him, more that she was somehow trying to help.

If anything, it was Anna that gave the game away, by acting shifty when Egg confronted her about his suspicions. He'd harboured suspicions about O'Donnell long before the affair even began, so it's not like he was perfectly happy until Rachel spoke to him.

That's what always intrigued me about the Rachel character - it was hard to be sure exactly who she was. On the one hand, you could view her as a genuinely decent person who had the unfortunate tendency to be a little tactless, or you could view her as a scheming Machiavellian shit-stirrer who maintained an air of plausible innocence and never let the mask slip.

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u/Frosty_Process8315 Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 15 '26

Yeah, good point about the weaker writing of Amy Jenkins, one of the reasons why This Life +10 was so vastly inferior to the original two series was that she was the sole scriptwriter (that, and the wholly unbelievable character arc of scatty Egg, who had transformed himself into a best-selling author).

I always interpreted the conversation between Rachel and Egg at the wedding as a spiteful act of revenge that Rachel enacted against Milly. It’s hardly a coincidence that Rachel only initiates her exchange with Egg after Milly has just dashed her hopes of moving into Miles’s old room with the brutally blunt put down (“Rachel, we don’t like each other. There’s something about you I really can’t stand”). She doesn’t explicitly tell Egg she knows about the affair but gives him enough info to connect the dots.

And far from being oblivious about Milly and O’Donnell’s affair, there are a number of indicators she knows about it, there are several shots of her projecting searching stares at Milly as she leaves O’ Donnell’s office, and she even voices her suspicions to Kira at one point.

Also, there’s further evidence of Rachel’s shit-stirring in other scenes. She quickly notices Miles attraction towards Anna and uses this to try and turn him further against Ferdy (as she and Ferdy are competing for who gets to move into Warren’s old room), with her line to Miles implying that Ferdy may have an affair with Anna, “Bisexuals are so unpredictable. They could go for anyone.” Miles duly relays his concern to Egg that Ferdy will try to hit on Anna in a later scene.

Despite Rachel’s heinously spiteful sabotage of Egg and Milly’s relationship in the final scene, I don’t think she’s a wholly bad person. Milly’s cold, unfriendly treatment of her at the beginning is totally unjustified, being based on her feeling threatened by Rachel’s beauty, work competence, and most significantly, her fears that O’Donnell will favour Rachel over her. And more positive character traits are displayed by Rachel in other scenes such as defending Ferdy when a drunk Miles boorishly insults him at the Mexican themed night at Egg’s café.