Abhiroop Das
Created by Sophie Goodhart, Hulu’s ‘Alice and Steve‘ begins with the eponymous best friends enjoying the perfect platonic relationship, despite their individual lives being sort of a mess. Steve is a celebrity hair stylist, while Alice is a fashion design lead, and both seem to be flourishing in life. That changes when Steve comes clean about his insecurities of not having a family, especially when Alice seems well-settled with her husband, Daniel, and children, Izzy and Dom. One night, Steve’s path crosses with that of Izzy, who is fresh out of a breakup and similarly emotionally vulnerable. What this leads to is a relationship that defies conventions, all the while flipping Alice’s understanding of life upside down. At the end of this British comedy-drama series, the two best friends are left with no choice but to address the cracks in their bond in the most exhilarating ways imaginable. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Alice and Steve Plot Recap
‘Alice and Steve’ begins with the eponymous duo mourning the death of their mutual friend, Mike. Later that night, they decide to drown out their sorrows by partying with some drugs, during which Steve laments being 50 and not having a partner or a family. Jokingly, Alice tries to convince him that he just needs to try his luck with younger girls, but that soon turns out to be a no-go. In the meantime, Steve’s pet dog, Crosby, ends up eating some of the cocaine and nearly loses his life, scaring Steve enough that he decides to sleep at Alice’s house. Her daughter, Izzy, is also back home after a nasty breakup, and before long, she begins to bond with Steve, leading up to both of them having sex.
The following morning, a flustered Steve tries to avoid Alice all day, only for Izzy and, later, Alice to come to his house. Before he can cook up a story, Izzy confesses to having feelings for Steve, sending her mother into a state of equal parts denial, anger, and panic. However, it seems that both Steve and Izzy want to continue the relationship, regardless of Alice’s many attempts to corner her best friend into feeling weird about the age gap. When that doesn’t work, she goes as far as leaking to the press some of the celebrity stories that Steve let her in on. Still, things seem to be only moving away from her grasp, as Izzy moves in with Steve, and the two seem to be happier than ever. One night, though, Alice manages to convince Steve to break things off, and while that ends up happening, the leaks hit the media right after, spinning things out of control.
Steve, blacklisted from his job, fires back at Alice by airing her dirty laundry to her husband, Daniel, who decides to take a break from the marriage and spend more time with his co-worker and friend, Marni. At the same time, Izzy has casual sex with her ex-boyfriend Janis, just as Steve comes back to apologize, promising to make amends. Izzy agrees, only to receive news that she is pregnant and that Janis is the biological father. Steve doesn’t seem to be affected by this, however, and instead proposes to her. As a grand wedding is arranged, Alice seems to be at breaking point, having been fired from her job and living with her mother. However, all of these troubles get overshadowed when a fire starts at the wedding manor, quickly engulfing the entire place and trapping Steve. Without thinking twice, Alice leaps into the flames in search of her best friend, and by the time she realizes that there’s no way out, it’s already too late.
Alice and Steve Ending: Do Steve and Alice Survive the Fall? Are They Dead?
‘Alice and Steve’ ends with Steve and Alice leaping off a burning manor to survive, despite all odds working against them. Though their plan is to barely make it to the pond next to the manor, from the looks of it, they seem to have greatly misjudged the distance. Despite a running takeoff, they are not expected to land straight into water, and certainly not the deep sections, which means that the possibilities are limited. In the worst-case scenario, the duo’s Hail Mary ends with their death, and in the best-case scenario, they miraculously make it to the pond by a hair’s breadth, and somehow it has no shallow sections that can result in any life-threatening injury. Between these two extremes, however, lies a much larger question about what their jump represents.
While there is a good chance that Alice and Steve might not make it out of the manor in one piece, what’s important is that they make up right before the end. Their jump, as such, is more of a leap of faith into the next chapter of their relationship, where they are more willing to understand each other’s side and make decisions together. Alice begins this reconciliation by admitting that she has been acting irrationally this entire time, but it also falls on Steve to understand how his best friend would feel if her daughter were his fiancée. At no point in the story does Steve address the obvious question of his power dynamic with Izzy, someone he has presumably known since she was born. However, with both him and Alice willing to reflect and start from scratch, a more productive discussion might be in the cards.
On a grimmer note, the sense of scale indicated by the ending sequence really does snuff out most of the chances of Alice and Steve landing in the pond. Their best shot, as such, is of landing at the soft grass ahead and hoping that the fall isn’t that harsh on their bodies. We also get to know from Daniel that the firefighters are also coming, which means that Alice and Steve might just get the timely medical help that they need. At the same time, ‘Alice and Steve’ seems to be the kind of story that revels in its own humor and eccentricities, which might mean that it’s fully confident in leaving things on an ambiguous note, with no clear answer as to what happens to the duo. The real point of the ending, then, is to show that the two best friends have now fixed their broken relationship, regardless of what happens next.
Who Does Izzy End up With: Steve or Janis?
The abrupt ending of ‘Alice and Steve’ also means that we never get to conclude the love triangle arc, though it seems that Izzy is more into Janis than Steve. To begin with, Janis being the father of Izzy’s child has been at the heart of many plotlines, subtly moving towards chaos. Adding to that is the scene in the finale where she suspiciously moves away from Steve to text someone, most likely Janis. It’s possible that she told him about the wedding and where it is being held, which makes it less of a surprise for him to be there that night. To top it all off, Izzy ends up kissing Janis in a moment of intense passion, and while the scene cuts away, there is a chance that the two have sex that night, until the fire disrupts everything.
While Izzy expresses her love for Steve numerous times in the show, we notably never get a closer look at her breakup scene with Janis. The entire scene is framed from a distance, through Steve’s eyes, which is bound to create a warped perspective on things. Furthermore, Izzy expresses at the start of the show that she never really loved Janis, despite telling him so again and again. This sets up a possibility that she might feel the same way about Steve, and because we have largely been following the events from his point of view, her true thoughts might be impossible to gauge. What we do know, however, is that her feelings for Janis are far from gone, and the fact that she is willing to cheat on Steve the night before their wedding all but confirms that this decision was doomed from the start.
One detail that gets lost in the fire plotline is that Izzy doesn’t even notice that Steve is missing until Alice brings it up. While this might just be a case of her reacting in shock, on a symbolic level, this indicates that she’s already checked out of the relationship. While Steve never exactly feels like a rebound, there is no discernible arc to their relationship, where both he and Izzy grow and mature together. On the contrary, the dynamic more resembles the desperate efforts of two broken individuals to act as each other’s band-aids, without truly understanding the other. The arrival of Janis merely makes these cracks explicit, and in the event that Steve survives, it’s still unlikely that the marriage will go through, at least not in earnest.
Will Daniel and Marni End up Together? What Happens to Dom and Rome?
Much like the other major dynamics of the show, the fate of the background characters also ends with big question marks, though on a less intense note. Both Daniel and Marni make it out of the fire just in time, and this close call with death might just be the push they need to seriously consider a relationship. While Marni’s feelings for her co-worker are already clear and out in the open, things are still a bit muddled from Daniel’s perspective, as he still thinks of Marni as his dearest friend. However, that might slowly be changing over time, as the distance between him and Alice only seems to be widening, all the way to the twist ending. Marni has been pushing Daniel towards a much healthier mindscape from the start, and this might be the leap he needs.
Moreover, Dom and Rome’s relationship, which seems to be going in circles for much of the show’s runtime, turns out to be in better shape than ever by the end of it all. Though they are technically the reason the fire starts in the first place, that doesn’t put much of a dent in their relationship. On the contrary, it appears that the tragedy has only pulled them closer, and they might be seriously considering their relationship from this point on. Rome’s difficulty with maintaining relationships also makes her a close parallel to Steve in this case, but it is precisely the contrasts between Dom and his sister, Izzy, that flesh out this connection. However, the fate of all these interconnected dynamics still depends on the outcome of the fire, and whether Steve and Alice make it out alive, and just as importantly, whether they are ready to change.
Read More: Where is Hulu’s Alice and Steve Filmed?
You must be logged in to post a comment.