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The final scene of Adolescence offers viewers one last heartbreaking moment before fading to black. To close out Episode 4, devastated father Eddie Miller (played by series co-creator and co-writer Stephen Graham) kisses his son Jamie’s teddy bear, apologizing to the stuffed animal as though it was his own boy. Eddie is still clearly reeling from the news Jamie (Owen Cooper) — who is accused of murdering his classmate Katie (Emilia Holliday) — shared minutes earlier: He’ll be changing his plea to guilty and accepting his fate for killing Katie. 

Director Philip Barantini reveals the affecting moment almost didn’t happen. In the script, Eddie was simply meant to get inside Jamie’s bed and pull the covers over his body, like he was an avatar for his imprisoned son. “We rehearsed it, and it was great. But I just felt like there’s something about him tucking in Jamie’s teddy,” Barantini tells Tudum. “This is the only thing that Eddie’s got that he can touch — that’s malleable, that Jamie’s cuddled, and Jamie’s been with. And then Stephen made it his own.” 

The moment marks the end of the episode Barantini calls the “heart” of Adolescence. The chapter follows the Millers as they attempt to celebrate Eddie’s 50th birthday, 13 months after Jamie was arrested. A variety of factors — from the Millers’ vandalized car to an unexpected run-in with an incel — conspire to ruin the day. Jamie’s phone call about his guilty plea is the final straw that shatters the family. But it also might just put them back together in the long term. 

“To be with the family again is the emotional draw of the series,” Barantini says. “Each individual member of the Millers is trying to hold the other one up. And in turn, they’re actually breaking each other down. It’s really heart-wrenching to watch this family falling apart.” 

So how did the Millers end up here? And what does Jamie’s decision mean for the whole family? Keep reading as Graham, co-creator and co-writer Jack Thorne, Barantini, and Cooper answer your biggest Adolescence questions. 

Did Jamie really kill Katie? 

Yes, Jamie did kill Katie. However, Graham admits that at the start of the Adolescence premiere, the audience is purposefully made to believe a 13-year-old boy like Jamie could never be capable of such a crime. “That was down to the casting. We wanted the audience to be on Jamie’s side and think, ‘Oh my God, this arrest is terrible. There’s no way he’s done this,’ ” the actor and executive producer tells Tudum. That’s why Thorne’s script has Jamie wet himself when police point a gun at him in the cold open, emphasizing that this murderer is still very much a child. 

But the truth behind Katie’s murder is confirmed in the final 10 minutes of Episode 1. After detectives have Jamie confirm his whereabouts and outfit the night prior, they reveal CCTV footage of him stabbing the girl seven times in a parking lot. The video is gruesome and undeniable. “We wanted the audience to feel the same feelings that Eddie feels when he looks at it and realizes what Jamie did,” Graham says.

The Adolescence creative team always planned that viewers would know who committed Katie’s murder by the end of the first episode, Thorne says. “We wanted to give the audience certainty and then go, ‘Now where do we go and how will this work?’ That was really exciting.” The writer was inspired by Cries Unheard: Why Children Kill by Gitta Sereny, which examines the life (and murders) of Mary Bell, an 11-year-old British girl who was convicted of two child killings in 1968. When reading, Thorne was fascinated by the lengthy book, despite already knowing Bell was the culprit. 

 “Telling a drama that’s a why-done-it, rather than a whodunit, hopefully engages people in different questions,” he says. “Questions like, ‘What’s going on within our teenage boys?’ Phil, Stephen, and I are looking at masculinity — thinking about ourselves as men, the kinds of fathers, partners, and friends we are, and questioning with some intensity who we are as people.” 

Adolescence could only figure out the answers to those questions if it wasn’t preoccupied by solving Katie’s murder. Episodes 2 and 3 work to solve the “why” of Jamie’s actions. We learn that a combination of factors contributed to Jamie’s actions, including his lack of self-esteem, perceived bullying at school, and access to online incel propaganda. When Katie publicly accuses Jamie of being an incel on Instagram, he becomes embarrassed and enraged. The stabbing occurs soon after.

Why does Jamie want Eddie to believe he’s innocent? 

As the police case starts to come together in Episode 1, Jamie repeatedly asks his father if he believes he’s innocent. In Episode 3, Jamie even violently begs clinical psychologist Briony Ariston (The Crown’s Erin Doherty) to tell his dad he’s “OK.” Thorne explains that Jamie’s focus on his father’s perception of his crime comes from the boy’s “disbelief” in his new reality. After falling prey to incel propaganda — that told Jamie his supposed “ugliness” would keep him from ever obtaining romantic or sexual affection — he has done something he can never take back. 

“Jamie knows what he’s done, he’s terrified, and he hasn’t computed how final it was,” Thorne says. “He’s looking for his dad to tell him, ‘You’re safe and I love you.’ And his dad can never give him that ever again.” 

Why does Jamie change his plea to guilty?

Although Jamie refuses to take accountability for his actions in the first three episodes of Adolescence, his mindset changes by Episode 4. In the second half of the finale, Jamie calls his dad and tells him he is going to plead guilty to the murder charge. Thorne explains this is Jamie’s first moment of “certainty” since we met him in the premiere. The writer says Jamie’s evolution began in Episode 3, during his complicated conversation with Briony. 

“In Episode 4, he’s much further along on his journey than before,” Thorne says. “Jamie now knows what he’s done and what his future might be. That allows him to put his feelings in a box and close the lid on himself in some way.” 

Director Barantini had candid conversations with Graham and Christine Tremarco, who plays Jamie’s mom, Manda, about the scene. “I told them, ‘Imagine that someone you love has been on a life support machine. You’ve been hoping and praying that they stay alive. Then, in this moment, the doctor finally tells you, ‘There’s nothing else we can do, and we’re going to switch the machine off,’ ” he explains. “That’s what Jamie pleading guilty is for the Millers.”

Due to production constraints, Cooper actually filmed the phone call from the Millers’ house, as the rest of his on-screen family was driving in their van. The young actor says it’s the first time Jamie actually opens up over the course of Adolescence. 

“Jamie is always trying to impress his dad and make sure his dad is proud of him. But I don’t think he finds that,” Cooper says. “He’s obviously bothered about the plea, but he’s more bothered about his dad. Although he doesn’t want to let down his whole family, his dad’s at the core of his heart. Jamie doesn’t want to let Eddie down.” 

Why is the finale about Jamie’s family? 

The Adolescence team remained intentional about the story until the very end. Graham and Thorne always hoped to close the series with an in-depth look at the Millers. Not only did Graham want to explore the “ripple effect of this heinous act,” but he and Thorne also wanted to disprove any negative assumptions viewers may have had about the family. 

“I wanted to eliminate the possibility of thinking Eddie is a violent man,” Graham says. The Miller patriarch might not be “overly tender and doesn’t tell his boy he loves him constantly.” But, Eddie is “a hardworking father who goes to work early in the morning, comes back late at night, and puts food on the table. Eddie brings in as much love as he can. He does to the best of his ability.” 

The writers always aimed to show that Jamie’s mother and sister are equally upstanding individuals. “I wanted Jamie’s mum not to be an alcoholic in any way, shape, or form. She’s just a hardworking woman,” Graham continues. “His sister is most likely to succeed within her class.” Despite all these positive influences at home, Jamie still massively lost his way. 

Thorne sees the finale as the final piece in the puzzle of comprehending Jamie. While none of his family members are to “blame” for his actions, Thorne says, Manda and Eddie tearfully take accountability for their parenting choices. 

“You’re understanding the final part of Jamie,” he says. “You’re getting a new perspective on Eddie — the complicated vision of Eddie. You need to understand how he allowed his son to become absent, what Eddie taught his son, and what he didn’t teach his son. You need to understand that for the whole family.” 

How does Adolescence end? 

Adolescence ends exactly where it started: in Jamie’s bedroom. Only this time, the teen isn’t attempting to hide from his crime in plain sight. Jamie has now decided to plead guilty to killing Katie and all his father can do is weep in his son’s bedroom, racked with grief and guilt. 

“We knew that we wanted to end it in that room. We wanted the journey to finish where it began,” Graham says. As Eddie apologizes to Jamie’s teddy bear — an emotional stand-in for the boy himself — we’re reminded that this is the room where Jamie learned all the online propaganda that led him to kill Katie. “This is where the person who Jamie became was created,” the actor says. 

Graham still gets emotional thinking about filming the finale scene, particularly thanks to the curveball director Barantini tossed at him during production. Barantini had the Adolescence art department print out happy photos of Stephen, his wife Hannah Walters (who is also an executive producer of the series), and their children. The team then placed the images in Jamie’s wardrobe for the very last take of production, along with a note that read “We love you. We’re so proud of you.” Barantini knew the camera wouldn’t see the photos, but Graham certainly would. 

“If you watch the scene closely, he looks over to the right-hand side, and he spots the pictures and the notes. It broke him open,” Barantini says. “The other takes before that were very different. They were all still incredibly emotional. But that last take, which we used, was real, raw, and unexpected from him as well.” 

Graham can’t help but smile proudly, thinking about the performance. “They got me to the core,” he admits. “So the taps just opened up.” 

What’s the song at the end of Adolescence? 

Adolescence bows out with an emotional rendition of Aurora’s “Through the Eyes of a Child,” which describes the loss of (and subsequent longing for) a “childlike soul.” Barantini initially heard the song around the time Thorne sent him the premiere script, and the director immediately knew it needed to be part of the series. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” he says. “It’s just absolutely incredible.” 

Although the track is already stirring on the surface, its depths hide a deeper meaning for Adolescence. “The voice in the score is Katie’s voice,” Barantini reveals. Once the team learned that Holliday, who portrays Katie, could sing, they decided to have her perform the lead vocals for the final moments of the series. 

“Katie is a part of the whole series,” the director says. “Her presence is always there.”  

To hear Holliday’s performance for yourself, (re)watch Adolescence, now streaming on Netflix. For even more news on the series, keep coming back to Tudum. 

Watch Adolescence Inside Episode 4