Three matching tattoos, countless stolen (and returned) items, and one grand theft auto later, Trinkets is really over. Season 1 first introduced us to Elodie (Brianna Hildebrand), Tabitha (Quintessa Swindell), and Moe (Kiana Madeira), an unlikely trio of friends who met and bonded in a Shoplifters’ Anonymous group. But it’s in the second and final season, now on Netflix, that the girls start to really grow and heal — and continue to show up for each other.
“Did I want to live with them forever? Yes, of course,” showrunner Sarah Goldfinger tells Refinery29 over the phone. When Netflix first picked up the Awesomeness studio show for a second and final season, she said they initially “pushed back” before learning that the streaming service is trying to make fewer multi-season shows. With that in mind, Goldfinger and creators Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith, Amy Andelson, and Emily Meyer got to work brainstorming the perfect final arcs and satisfying endings for Moe, Tabitha, and Elodie.
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In one of the finale’s last scenes, the Trinkets girls take control of the show’s biggest (and heaviest) conflict. They’ve now spent two seasons at odds with Brady (Brandon Butler), Tabitha’s abusive ex-boyfriend, and although their impulsive decision to steal, destroy, and sink his car in season 1 was satisfying to watch, it didn’t end well. In season 2, Brady blackmails Moe into helping him cheat, continues to harass Tabitha, and hurts his new girlfriend, Tabitha’s ex-friend Kayla (Jessica Lynn Skinner). But Tabitha, who has honed her photography skills over the past two seasons, enlists Moe and Elodie to set up a vigilante art display — one that exposes Brady’s abusive and creepy behavior — in the school cafeteria.
“I think certainly at the end of season 1 and beginning of season 2, they’re sort of living in fear of him,” Goldfinger says. “This season, when he doubles down and blackmails Moe, I think there is this feeling of, Are we going to live under his terror forever? Are we always going to be beholden to this total creep?” What’s so powerful, she adds, is “the courage and bravery that it takes [for Tabitha] to put that art show on in front of all her peers and come forward as a victim, but then also come forward as a survivor or somebody who was sort of triumphed over it.”
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Afterwards, the three girls head to the water to scatter Elodie’s mom’s ashes. “You know the whole Chekhov thing? You put a gun on the stage in act one and then you know it’s gonna go off in act two?” Goldinger asks. For Elodie, her grief — which was so intertwined with her shoplifting addiction and hesitation to acclimate to Portland — was that gun. “Elodie learns how to commit to this as her new home and her new place, right, that it’s not just until I can go back to New Mexico,” she explains. “Portland is now home and these are my friends, and this is where I belong.”
The episode’s last few moments show what’s in store for each character. As Hildebrand’s cover of “We Belong” by Pat Benatar starts to play, we see the girls’ futures in snapshots: Elodie walks hand in hand with Jillian (Chloë Levine), her band crush who’s newly out to her parents. Moe exchanges a smile with Noah (Odiseas Georgiadis) while studying, while wearing an MIT sweatshirt (perhaps another hint at her future). Tabitha stares up at her photograph, hanging in a gallery, but this one isn’t a damning shot of Brady or a casual yearbook photo. It’s an image of her tattooed wrist next to Moe’s and Elodie’s. The final image takes us back to the beach, where all three girls stare off into the ocean.
“There’s something kind of transcendent and hopeful and their friendship is in such a strong place, and they’ve all just co-conspirated to put something together that was really important for all of them,” Goldfinger tells Refinery29. “While the romances in Trinkets are very important and really fun to watch, ultimately, it is a romance and a love story between these three main characters.”
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Sadly, to use Goldfinger’s words, we won’t get to live with these characters for another season. “But in lieu of being able to live with them forever, I think that we were able to give them something beautiful to leave with."
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