'Queenie's powerful ending reminds us that feeling uncomfortable is crucial

In 2019, Candice Carty-Williams' hugely popular debut novel, Queenie, had readers trying to grapple with the complex heroine, the novel's titular protagonist. Some were perplexed, some enamoured, some deeply uncomfortable. Now, with Channel 4 and Hulu's TV adaptation, Queenie Jenkins is reaching new audiences wanting to unpack her, in all her glorious messiness.

Queenie tells the story of a 25-year-old Black British Jamaican woman from south London trying to navigate a quarter-life crisis. Like many women, Queenie (Dionne Brown) finds her twenties challenging. She’s estranged from her mother, working in an unsatisfying journalism job where she’s unable to tell the stories she wants about her community, and has just suffered a miscarriage. To make matters worse, her long-term boyfriend Tom (Jon Pointing) requests a break, so she moves out of their shared home into a less-than-ideal flat share. Here, Queenie searches for solace in alcohol and casual hookups that ultimately leave her feeling disempowered.

Queenie’s story tackles themes of self-worth, domestic abuse, childhood trauma, and misogyny. Both the book and the series encourage empathy towards these experiences, a request for reflection that can become uncomfortable for viewers. But it's the series finale that proves how valuable such representation can be.  

What happens at the end of Queenie?

Towards the end of the show, we see Queenie's unresolved childhood trauma catch up with her — as well as recent events since her breakup. In a short span of time, she discovers that Guy (Joseph Ollman), one of the men she was hooking up with, was also dating her friend, Cassandra (Elisha Applebaum). She's confronted in the street by the wife of Adi (Mim Shaikh), a local man from Brixon who had been vocal about his crush on Queenie and whom she hooked up with in the back of his car. Her co-worker Ted (Tom Forbes), who she hooked up with in the office toilets, also turns out to be married with a child on the way. When Ted's wife suspects his affair (of which there seems to have been a few), he reports Queenie to HR for inappropriate advances, resulting in her suspension. The final blow comes when Queenie has a breakdown, after which she finally decides to tell her ex about her miscarriage — only to find out he has moved on with someone else.

In the final episode, Queenie has transitioned to a new space, physically, professionally, and personally. She's going to therapy, living in a new apartment, and she posted a video online interviewing her grandmother Veronica (Llewella Gideon) about making a home in the UK, beginning a new series exploring underrepresented voices in the Black community. By the finale, Queenie has realised her self-worth to the point that she can forgive Cassandra, acknowledging how "men made [them] both move mad", but not welcome her back into her life. Queenie is able to agree with her boss, Gina (Sally Phillips), that she deserves better than her current job and quits, emphasising how Queenie is exorcising negativity from her life.

Why Queenie's strength lies in its relatability and discomfort

For much of the series, Queenie’s default move is to tell everyone she’s fine. But in British culture, "I'm fine" has many meanings. It can mean I’m OK, I’m not OK, or my life is falling apart but I’m still going to stick to tradition, be stoic, and keep silent until I reach breaking point — which is what it means for Queenie. 

In several ways, Queenie actively undercuts the emotional repression deeply ingrained in British society. British people’s emotional restraint is often attached to the stereotype that England is a strong and brave nation, in which emotions have no place. A 2007 study by the Social Issues Research Centre (SIRC) revealed that fewer than 20 percent of Brits claimed to have “let it all out” in the past 24 hours, even though 72 percent believed that bottling emotions up is bad for your health. The burden of repressed emotion remains ingrained in Britain’s history. This stoicism is reflected in popular phrases like the World War II motivational message “keep calm and carry on” and how we must “muddle through” in times of adversity as echoed by  Queen Elizabeth II during the coronavirus pandemic as she told the nation “that the attributes of self-discipline, of quiet good-humoured resolve and of fellow-feeling still characterise this country,” even in times of grief and difficulties.

If you’re Gen Z or a Millennial, you're often encouraged to address your trauma in therapy. A 2023 survey from the American Enterprise Institute found that 27 percent of Gen Z adults had gone to therapy in their teenage years in comparison to 4 percent of Boomers, 10 percent of Generation X and 20 percent of millennials. However, as Queenie's story illustrates, mental health issues are still considered very taboo not only in British culture but also in Caribbean and African households. This is compounded by the societal expectation for Black women to be "strong Black women" — a stereotype that is often reinforced in the "strong Black friend" trope in pop culture. Emigrants and their descendants also face pressure to be reserved, which we see when Queenie’s family reiterates that therapy is not for them. A 2015 poll by mental health charity Mind found that a quarter of 18 to 34 year olds feel that showing their emotions is a sign of weakness. This highlights a disconnect in society that has created a barrier where individuals can voice their opinions but not feel comfortable enough to admit that they may need professional help.

The show directly addresses the stereotype of Black people avoiding therapy, depicting the older generation learning from the younger. Despite a vow of generational silence being embedded in Queenie’s family, they are ultimately the ones who help her move forward. In the final episode, Queenie's grandmother tells her, “You’re not strong because you’re tough or because you don’t feel pain. You’re strong because you’re not afraid to say that you are delicate.” The message is: vulnerability takes strength. There are clear parallels between Queenie and her mother Sylvie (Ayesha Antoine), as her grandfather Wilfred (Joseph Marcell) reveals that Sylvie also used to claim she was fine despite enduring domestic abuse, illustrating a generational cycle of trauma. It’s what makes Queenie's final conversation with Wilfred in the finale so impactful as she deviates from her usual response to admit, "It’s been hard but good."

Queenie’s strength lies in its lack of positive but relatable representation. During therapy, Queenie experiences a panic attack while telling her therapist, “I can’t not be a strong Black woman, Janet. OK? I can’t walk into any place and not be a Black woman.” We’ve seen on TV and in reality that there always feels the need to tone down Black women’s experiences, whether it’s their mistakes or their ability to feel weakness. However, Queenie shatters that social requirement and rebuilds her life from rock bottom.

In recent years, there has been a rise of Black women being allowed to be a mess on screen, including characters like Zendaya's Rue in Euphoria managing drug addiction and Kerry Washington's Paige Alexander in UnPrisoned, who realises having an absent father through childhood can produce unhealthy behaviours as an adult. But unlike Rue or Paige, Queenie hides no part of herself. 

Queenie unabashedly displays the darkest, most unfiltered sides of her being, which hits so close to home that it forces us to reckon with the problems around us — and for some of us, within ourselves. Queenie's raw sense of vulnerability is realistically portrayed, as unresolved trauma has the ability to affect decision-making, something many of us experience but are hesitant to admit.

Why we earn the ending of Queenie

At the end of the series, Queenie's journey culminates in a cathartic moment when she gives her mother the space to apologise. “I’m sorry if anything I ever did made you feel like you weren’t enough. The world does that already. I should have put you first,” Sylvie says in the finale. Sylvie's reflection on how the world perceives Black women is significant. Many people of colour grow up in predominantly white communities, leading to feelings of insecurity and isolation, as well as a fractious relationship with their identity.

The show doesn’t hide the fact that Queenie's struggle with her identity is rooted in her mother's abandonment and constant instruction to make herself smaller. Sylvie tells Queenie to become invisible to her stepfather, she's instructed to toe the line at work, and her ex, Tom, tells her she’s "too much." It's what makes the show's final scene so powerful, in which we see Queenie and Sylvie expressing love for each other — and Queenie finally being able to say, “I love me too.” These lines in the series emphasise the importance of extracting yourself from spaces that don't value you. It's a defining moment when Queenie finally acknowledges she's worthy of love and that all that's happened to her isn't all on her.

The journey towards the ending also answers a big question about why Queenie dated certain men. We learn that her decision to date white men was never to do with the fact that she didn’t like Black men, but it stemmed from the fact that Black men had historically traumatised her. In Queenie, interracial relationships become somewhat of a cautionary tale that it could be argued some people need to hear. It makes Queenie’s journey towards Frank (Samuel Adewunmi) even more poignant as he sets out to break the cycle for her. Frank openly reassures her: “I need you to know I’m never ever even nearly gonna treat you like the way that guy treated your mum. Just know that.” These scenes are a reminder that women can simultaneously not have all the answers and experience love; we just need time and patience to work on ourselves first.

Queenie is a realistic representation of a young woman just trying to figure things out. She makes viewers question how different from her we really are. Yes, she is a mess and can be annoying, but she’s also smart, funny, and all the things in between, and isn't that something we can all be? Queenie stresses the importance of portraying Black women in their complete complexity, including their messy sides. The series reminds us that we need more characters like her, whom we are forced to look at with nuance and connect on a deeper level — even if that comes with discomfort.

How to watch: Queenie is now streaming on All4 in the UK and Hulu in the U.S.