“There’s a part of me that doesn’t really want to grow up… but things can’t stay the same, and they shouldn’t”, notes Saoirse-Monica Jackson’s Erin Quinn towards the end of this one-off, hour-long send off for Channel 4’s Derry Girls.
Lisa McGee’s sitcom is bowing out at the top of its game after three seasons, rather than keeping its teenage characters (and its 20 and 30-something stars) frozen in a state of perpetual adolescence. This extended last hurrah, set one year on from the heartbreaking volta of S3’s closing episode (which saw Nicola Coughlan’s Clare come hurtling down from the euphoria of her first kiss after learning that her dad had suffered a fatal aneurysm) feels like a fitting farewell to a show that has expertly woven the personal with the political in surprising, hilarious ways from the moment Aunt Sarah (Kathy Kiera Clarke) fretted that a bomb threat on the other side of town would wreak havoc on her tanning appointment back in the very first episode.
