Abhiroop Das
Created by Sharon Horgan, HBO’s ‘Youth‘ begins as a comedy series centered around the “sandwich generation,” with Alex Shaw becoming our eyes and ears into their dilemmas. At 50, she finds herself at an unusual crossroads in her life, where everything, especially time, seems to be slipping away. Though things seem to briefly look up after she and Pat enter a stable relationship, the ending of episode 7 forces her to question whether they can ever be truly happy together. In the season finale, work takes a front seat for her and Sam alike, as a much-awaited award show unexpectedly becomes the stage for all of their internal and external conflicts to burst forth. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Youth Finale Recap
‘Youth’ episode 8 begins by skipping ahead a bit in terms of Alex and Pat’s messy breakup, to focus instead on the Women’s Literature Award Show. It’s Alex’s big day, considering that at least two of the authors she is representing are set to receive big awards, but her personal ups and downs seem to overshadow all of that. To make things a lot more intense, Liv Arbot, Charlotte’s daughter, reveals that she is actually the ghostwriter of ‘Wagon Burner‘ and is tired of letting her mother take all the credit. Indeed, Charlotte seems to have no interest in expressing even the slightest appreciation for Liv in her speech, and now it’s up to Alex to mediate the situation and avoid disrupting the entire show.
While all of this is going on, Ruari, who is attending the event alongside his mother and Sam, has very different concerns. Ever since their night together, Plum has gone radio silent, and with her not showing up for the event, Ruari fears that she might have decided to cut all ties with him. Meanwhile, Sam has troubles of her own, as we see snippets of her text conversation with Frank. Elsewhere, Alex has to make frequent trips to the washroom due to her IUD causing discomfort, and in an attempt to avoid the line, she ends up using the men’s washroom, only to have an awkward encounter with Malcolm, who later manages to creep out Ruari as well.
As the awards session begins, Alex gets yet another setback when it’s revealed that one of the authors she had been hoping to get on board has secretly made their way to a competitor agency. Then, as if things cannot get any worse, Liv faints and has to be hospitalized right before she can take over her mother’s speech. As the entire crew disperses, Alex finds herself nearly at her wits’ end, and practically ready to burst.
Youth Ending: Did Alex and Malcolm Sleep Together? Will the Book Deal Happen?
‘Youth’ ends with a complete subversion of romantic expectations, as Alex wakes up after a drunken stupor to find herself in Malcolm’s house and on his bed. What started out as a season-long rivalry between the two of them ultimately takes a new direction, and the worst part is that Alex doesn’t even know where this might be headed. While Malcolm doesn’t explicitly confirm that the two of them had sex, all the visual cues certainly point towards it. Malcolm even says it was Alex who initiated this, which doesn’t seem to align with their last on-screen interaction, where Alex brushes off his attempts to charm her. Despite there being a huge gap in the timeline, we can largely make sense of what might have subconsciously driven Alex up to this point.
While the entire episode is set against the backdrop of Alex and Pat’s abrupt breakup, we don’t see much of Alex actually dealing with the psychological after-effects. This is, of course, by design, as her strategy is to suppress those dark thoughts and continue on with her professional duties like nothing is amiss. However, with everything that goes on, it becomes increasingly obvious that Alex needs a break, and in that moment, Malcolm, with all his praise and weak attempts at flirting, becomes the only figure in the room who can help her with self-affirmation. By the next morning, however, Alex clearly regrets whatever happened, especially because of what follows.
After leaving Malcolm’s house and returning to her own, Alex gets a phone call from Sam, who in turn reveals that Malcolm has finally signed up with The Laville Agency for his upcoming sequel to ‘Goblin Seed.’ The timing for this is no coincidence, and Alex naturally cannot help but feel that her one-night stand with him has suddenly gained a transactional character. Though Malcolm clearly wants to spark a relationship with Alex, we know this fundamentally cannot work. Throughout the show, Malcolm never truly respects Alex’s work and insight and sees her only through an objectified lens, as someone he failed to impress. With the two of them having sex, he is fed a false illusion regarding their dynamic, but now that Alex has no choice but to work with him, nothing but chaos awaits.
Will Alex and Pat Get Back Together?
Alex and Malcolm’s new, twisted dynamic further destabilizes the largest question to come out of this season: whether Alex and Pat can get back together. Interestingly enough, the finale leaves things exactly how they were after the breakup, with neither character taking a big step in any direction whatsoever. That said, we now have at least some degree of clarity about where the two of them stand, and what led to the original breaking-off point in the first place. That note comparing Alex’s pros and cons, as it turns out, was something Pat wrote up during a therapy session, not necessarily to demean her, but to reconcile his internal, exceedingly contradictory feelings. Most of these feelings trace back to Pat’s complicated history with love and commitment, both of which he feels strongly toward Alex.
While, on the one hand, Pat is quite sure that what he feels for Alex is love and nothing else, a part of him fears he might run away from this relationship as well. With no way to predict the future, he likely decided to jot down all the reasons why something like that wouldn’t happen. In his mind, having a family of his own stands as one such reason, but that is where his disagreements with Alex begin. The fact that he leaves the note on the countertop might have more to do with carelessness than outright malice, as in the same scene we also see his boxers in the kitchen sink, which underscores how forgetful he can be about the small things that have a big impact.
Alex’s strong reaction to the note can be better understood once we see factor in the scene right before it, where her ex-husband, Lorcan, reveals that he is trying to become a father again. By confronting him with his absence during Ruari’s formative years, Alex establishes how seriously she values parenthood. For Pat to simply write down her decision not to become a mother again as a “flaw” is understandably disrespectful, which is why she still doesn’t budge away from the decision to break up. On a deeper level, though, her leaving Pat also has to do with a fear of them inevitably breaking up at a later point, which would leave her much more vulnerable than she is right now. In a way, both characters are wrestling with a fear of what lies beyond rather than cherishing their present, and while there is still a chance for them to get back together, they would have to resolve this conundrum first.
Do Ruari and Plum End Up Together? Is Frank Leaving Sam?
Despite Alex’s arc ending on a relatively sour note, there is still some joy to be found in the season finale. Perhaps most notably, Ruari and Plum end up getting together, skipping the award show altogether to go back to her place instead. Up until this point, we are led to believe that the pair has not recovered from their last, hilarious attempt at having sex, explaining Plum’s absence from the award show. In reality, however, this turns out to just be a coincidence, with a series of unrelated events causing her to miss out on most of the event. That said, her willingness to leave the show just to be with Ruari speaks to how much she cares about their budding relationship.
While things might be looking up for Ruari, what truly makes his role in the narrative pop is what he does after he comes home. Seeing that his mother is clearly in distress, he gets her to join him in scrolling through social media, the first time he’s ever done this. Early in the show, Ruari maintained a constant, invisible barrier with his mother, and much of that stemmed from his own insecurities about which parts he should show the world. That, as it turns out, isn’t something he is uniquely troubled with either, and by the end, both he and Alex come to support each other.
Even if everything in her world goes wrong, Alex still has her son, and that’s the one thing that still keeps her energized. Sam’s side of the story, however, seems to have gone from bad to worse, as Frank ends up leaving her, with no intention of coming back. The fact that this entire sequence mostly takes place off-screen is by design, as it highlights how Sam has tried to shut off this part of her life all along, accidentally letting things slip out of control in the process. There are no easy endings in ‘Youth,’ but ultimately, it is up to the characters to determine whether they want to repress their fears or confront them.
Read More: Youth: Are Wagon Burner and Goblin Seed Based on Real Books?
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