Wait, So What Actually Happened At The End Of Master Of None?

Season 2 of Master of None is a truly wonderful watch, as smartly written, and as sweet and funny as the first. (Spoilers ahead!) The second season of Aziz Ansari and Alan Yang's delightful Netflix series delves into many subjects and characters with experimental episodes styled like short films. The main ongoing storyline, though, is the ebb and flow of the relationship between Dev (Ansari) and new best friend Francesca (Alessandra Mastronardi). Francesca is the granddaughter of the woman that Dev learned to make pasta from while living in Italy for a couple months. She's charming, beautiful, and has amazing chemistry with Dev — as well as a longtime boyfriend named Pino. So of course, the big question is: Do they end up together? Oh, how I wish I could tell you for sure. I thought I knew the answer at the end of the finale, but after hearing Mastronardi's interpretation of the ending, I think I might've been wrong.

Francesca visits New York with Pino and spends a lot of time with Dev while Pino travels for work. The more hours they spend together, enjoying the city and each other, the more it seems obvious that they should be together. Long story short, by the last episode their feelings for each other are laid out on the table. They have several difficult conversations — she's unsure of uprooting her whole life; he feels used — that leave them both depressed and confused, longing for the easy times.

Now, about that ambiguous ending: In the final few minutes, Francesca is packing to leaving New York to go back to Italy with Pino. He asks if she's ready to go — and then the screen cuts to an image of Francesca laying next to Dev in his bed. He's sleeping, and she has a look of uncertainty on her face. A second later, it cuts to black. It seemed like a flashback to an earlier episode in which Francesca spent the night (nothing happened), or Francesca's brief imagining of what it would be like if she stayed in New York with Dev. It was silent and fleeting and didn't feel like something that actually happened.

But in an interview with Vanity Fair, Mastronardi explains it differently. "At the beginning she was going back with Pino, because we thought that’s what, in real life, happens," she said. "This end is kind of an emotional, dreaming end. You actually don’t know what’s gonna happen. She goes with him, she leaves Pino — but the faces at the end, they’re kind of, loneliness. This is my favourite choice, because I don’t really like when a director gives you the definite end of a story."

So, what we're seeing is that Francesca actually decided to stay in New York with Dev? That's happy. What's not happy is the suggestion that she might be questioning her decision. "As a woman, I think that when you leave a person that’s been with you for so many years, it’s not always a happy decision, you know?" Mastronardi said. "There is always something that is boiling inside you, if you made the right choice or not. So it’s not necessarily happy." Well, shit, now I'm all kinds of confused and conflicted.

The worst part? Ansari has suggested he's not going to make a third season, which means we might NEVER find out what happens with the maybe-couple. Come on, Aziz. Do it for the fans, and also true love. Dev and Francesca deserve a proper ending, eventually.