‘Sex Lives of College Girls’ Recap: Season 2 Finale — [Spoiler] Kiss

Warning: The following contains spoilers for The Sex Lives of College Girls’ Season 2 finale. Proceed at your own risk!

The Sex Lives of College Girls roomies are facing the first real test of their friendship.

In the Season 2 finale, Kimberly and Whitney decided to be roommates again next year, but that plan was thrown a curveball when Whitney witnessed Kimberly kissing her ex-boyfriend Canaan. After Kimberly lied to her face about it, Whitney instead requested the room at the Kappa house that Leighton had given up after realizing the sorority wasn’t right for her anymore. (Leighton also decided Tatum wasn’t right for her and got back together with Alicia.)

Meanwhile, Bela got cancelled and kicked out of her own comedy magazine after she hijacked a profile about The Foxy and was cruel to one of the mag’s aspiring writers. Having alienated everyone around her, Bela went to the administration to declare that she wanted to transfer schools.

Below, showrunner Justin Noble breaks down the finale’s twists and romantic developments, and teases what to expect in a potential third season.

TVLINE | This season, the girls really bonded, and they were closer than ever. But at the same time, I was waiting for that first big fight/disagreement because that is also a rite of passage for college roommates and friends. Is this Canaan/Kimberly thing going to be that for the girls?
It does seem that way, doesn’t it? I’m so glad the way you’re putting it. You’re totally getting what we’re doing. We wanted the show to be a show that isn’t full of girl-on-girl warfare and drama and cattiness and people being at each other’s throats. I don’t have a lot of interest in putting more of that out into the world. It also doesn’t ever feel true to me when I see it. So we want our girls to get along and have fun journeys together and lean on each other, and that’s the backbone of this show. In the start of Season 1, there’s that, like, silly little story about the fridge smell that feels like the first roommate conflict, just [a] very superficial thing, and then they just get through that and we don’t have any drama between the girls for the most part.

Then we get to the Season 2 finale, and we start with Kimberly and Whitney, the two most sure people that they want to live together out of this entire bunch… And then by the end of the finale, with one swift move, that is immediately blown up. So what Kimberly has done behind Whitney’s back a little bit is interesting. I think people will be on one of two sides of it, for sure. And I think that those sides will be determined based on how people in the audience have lived their lives. Were they the Kimberly in the situation? Or were they the Whitney? But the fact that she feels the need to lie to Whitney about it the next morning shows that Kimberly knows that this was a bit of a move, and perhaps there’s some drama between them on the horizon.

TVLINE | The Kimberly/Canaan thing took me by surprise. How long has that been something you’ve been talking about doing in the writers’ room?
Two full years. We introduced Canaan and Kimberly at Sips, and from that moment, we were like, “These two have a lot in common.” From the first day [on] set, we could see incredible chemistry between the two of them. That like cringe, cringe scene where she’s asking about what it’s like to be Black at Essex because she’s never had a Black friend before, the way that he handles that scene, both Chris [Meyer] as a performer and Canaan as a character, shows that there’s a little spark between these two, that they’re not the same, but in some ways, they are quite similar. So it has always been on the horizon. In fact, there was a world where we wouldn’t have done it in Season 1, and [co-creator] Mindy [Kaling] and I talked to all the writers, and we decided to put that back in our pocket and wait. But we always knew it would be at the end of Season 2 at that point, because we want to see what they’re like together. And Whitney having gone through [her] journey, and we see what Whitney was like with Canaan, she’s learned a lesson through him. Having seen Kimberly date a couple other guys, learn some lessons through them, I think that’ll better inform what it’s like to see Kimberly/Canaan together. We’ve seen them get through some relationships that didn’t quite work out for different reasons. So what lessons will they bring into something together, should something arise?

TVLINE | You’ve set up a couple of big moves with Bela wanting to transfer and Whitney wanting to go live at the sorority instead. How different might a possible Season 3 look like for the girls?
It might be different. And it also might be the same. As we talked about, Kimberly and Whitney are in an area that two girls on our show have never been in before. That’s new territory, and we’re going to have to decide, tonally, how we address that [in a way] that feels right to these characters.

And then Bela, I mean, man, where do you even start with her? Season 2 is really, to me, an examination of her entire psyche, which is that she is so ambitious and so determined, and she knows exactly what she wants, and she’ll do anything to get it. And most of the time on our little comedy, that manifests in Bela’s got a quirky little plan, and she’s going to get something done, and it’s light-hearted. Then through Season 2, we start to see that that can, kind of on a spectrum, lead to some not perfectly self-aware moments of other people’s emotions. We see them kind of pile up, and then halfway through the season, we notice that she is made aware of it. We give the character this opportunity to say, “Hey, this is a thing you’re doing. Are you going to keep doing it? Or are you going to fix it?” And then in the finale, we see that she does it again for the smallest, most meaningless thing of giving a younger writer a moment of time and feedback. She just can’t help herself. She’s so ambitious. She thinks the world is brutal towards her and that she has to fight to get what she wants, and I think she’s unconsciously become part of that. So that’s the moment when she’s most aware of who she is as a person, and she is, for the first time, clear-sighted about that. And that’s why the perfectionist in her thinks, “I have to cut and run. I have to get out of here. I don’t want to work my way back with a dinged record here. I want to start fresh somewhere else where I can thrive and always be perfect,” and I don’t think that’s a healthy thought. So we’re going to have to visit that at the top of a potential third season and see what she decides to do.

TVLINE | I really enjoyed her relationship with Eric this season. We haven’t seen him since the breakup. Is there still hope for the two of them?
I think there is. They have an undeniable chemistry between the two of them. Mekki [Leeper] is such an amazing performer, just like Amrit [Kaur], and I love what they bring out in each other. But just like Eric says at the end of Episode 7, he really got hurt by her and he needs a little time. And also, Bela needs to learn the lesson of giving someone some time. For me, it feels like a very true thing at that age, where you really hurt someone for the first time and then you immediately make it about yourself and how apologetic you are, and at times, you just need to let someone decompress and go on their own journey. But have we seen the last of Eric? I don’t think so.

TVLINE | It’s also been a really big season for Leighton, especially in terms of her personal journey coming out. Why did you want to end the season with her and Alicia getting back together?
I’ll say, selfishly, I adore Reneé [Rapp] and Midori [Francis] together. There was this, like, just explosion between the two of them on screen in Season 1 that I absolutely loved writing and creating towards. But Leighton wasn’t ready. Leighton had a very real reason why she couldn’t continue to be with Alicia, and Alicia had a really real reason why she couldn’t be with Leighton. There was a roadblock between them. And then through Season 2, all of a sudden we start to realize that that roadblock is gone. Leighton is out, she’s with all these other people. And then we aren’t thinking about Alicia because we’re distracted by this new love interest [Tatum] that hopefully takes us by surprise. We introduce Tatum as what feels like a comedic, episodic love interest character who’s exactly like Leighton, and then we find this surprising depth, where we’re like, “Wait, do they work well together?” A huge part of that is how wonderful Gracie [Dzienny] is as Tatum. And Leighton’s dad seeing them together and saying to Leighton in no blunt terms, “I like this girl for you,” I think that means a lot to Leighton at that point. But that roadblock with Alicia was gone. Leighton’s out, and it was time to reintroduce [Alicia] and see what happens.

TVLINE | Are you hopeful that you’ll be able to get Midori back for several episodes next season?
I am hopeful. I’m actually confident I could, because I was hearing that Midori was testing for a series-regular role on Grey’s Anatomy, and I was like, “Oh boy, oh boy. We’re going to lose her,” and then Midori told me point blank, she was like, “I love this show, and I’ve already told them I want to be able to return for multiple episodes.” She told them before she even closed her deal on Grey’s. So it’s really lovely how much she’s determined to keep telling Alicia’s story and Leighton’s story as Alicia is part of it. So I think we’ll be seeing a little more of her, for sure.

TVLINE | The idea of Whitney living in the Kappa house amuses me greatly. I imagine that will give you a lot of potential for comedy in Season 3.
Totally, I agree. The way that Alyah [Chanelle Scott] plays those scenes at Kappa is so funny to me, and it really brings out a lot of comedy both from her and from these, like, Kappa straw characters who are really so funny to be around. So I like the idea of her being there. But at the same time, it’s so fun knowing that she went there as, like, such a knee-jerk reaction to get away from Kimberly. How desperate can Whitney Chase be to decide to live in Kappa? It’s probably not the best fit for her, but that feels like a good recipe for some fun.

What did you think of the Sex Lives of College Girls season ender? Grade it below, then hit the comments!