Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for Seasons 1-2 of the HBO Max series Starstruck.Season 2 of the HBO Max rom-com series Starstruck dropped on March 24, and left fans with yet another tantalizing cliffhanger ending. The series, imported from the UK, follows Jessie (Rose Matafeo, also the show's creator and writer), a 28-year-old navigating adulthood and two part-time jobs she actually kind of hates in London. In Season 1, she had a one-night stand with a cute guy, Tom (Nikesh Patel),whom she met at a bar on New Year's Eve. When she woke up at his place the next morning, she discovered he was actually a famous movie star. An on-again, off-again relationship ensued, exploring both Jessie's and Tom's insecurities as they tried to make it work while he's on movie sets and attending premieres, and she's working at the local cinema and as a nanny, though she loses the nanny job in Season 1.
Season 1 left us with Jessie deciding to move back to her native New Zealand, and Tom heading to Ireland for a few months to film a new movie. Tom opted to ride the bus with her to the airport, but when Jessie's stop came up, she stayed on the bus with Tom. And that's exactly where Season 2 picks up.
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At first giddy about her decision to stay, Jessie soon has a minor freakout about not going back home, since her mother changed the sheets in the guest room and everything. And that's what makes this show so great and relatable. Even though Tom is a well-known actor, you can empathize with what he's going through and what Jessie's going through as she tries to build a relationship with him. It's the little things, like guests at Tom's birthday party assuming she's a waiter and Jessie feeling guilt about missing Christmas with her family because her mom made the effort to change the guest room sheets. Oh, and she booked a flight to the other side of the world, and then purposely missed that flight, which is a lot of money for us non-celebrity types.
Jessie and Tom face their first major hurdle when Tom, for reasons known only to Tom, purchases a ticket to New Zealand for Jessie "just in case" and "as a joke." After this ripple, which Jessie quickly forgives him for, the two settle in for a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship that has its ups and downs, such as Tom's family and colleagues saying Jessie "must have a great personality" because they're used to him dating fellow actors and models. But the ultimate test comes when Jessie sees her ex-boyfriend, Ben (Edward Easton), at his nan's funeral. The two rekindle something, which Jessie seems to think is friendship and Ben knows all along is his master plan of winning her back.
Before long, Ben's plan succeeds, and he tears Tom and Jessie apart. They break up, and no amount of screaming "nooooo!" at the TV screen will stop them from doing so. By the time we get to Episode 6, the season finale, Jessie and Tom have been broken up for three months, and she and Ben are seeing each other again.
In the meantime, Jessie's friends, Steve (Nic Sampson) and Sarah (Lola-Rose Maxwell), have become engaged, and the season finale focuses almost entirely on their joint hen/stag party. Steve has planned an all-day affair, and upon arriving to the first stop, a miniature golf game, Jessie finds that he's invited Tom to join in the festivities. Ben is also there, as he's Steve's best man.
Awkwardness, and Jessie's realization that she made a mistake by breaking up with Tom, ensues. Throughout the day, through laser tag and karaoke and finally, a boat trip across a pond, Tom and Jessie manage to have a couple of conversations, and it's clear that neither of them really wanted to break up with the other. They maintain that they'd like to be friends, but we all know they want more than that, right?
The laser tag incident proves that right away, as after Tom "shoots" Jessie as part of the game, they share a brief, but powerful, kiss. And then she finally realizes that she shouldn't be with Ben, either. Although Tom apologizes for the kiss, because he's just that kind of sweet, adorable guy, Jessie still thankfully ends things with Ben.
For the final event of the day, as the gang separates into boats by gender, Jessie's girlfriends question her about Tom, and why they broke up in the first place. Through this conversation, with Joe (Joe Barnes) included as well, because there were more guys than girls, the friends tell Jessie the tough-love truth: she wasn't ready to be in a relationship. She was a commitment-phobe, and sabotaged her relationship with Tom, just as Ben had done with her, when they were together before.
"Oh my God, I've Ben-ed Tom!" Jessie exclaims. It's at this moment, she realizes what she's done, and she jumps from the boat, wading across the pond to Tom's boat, even as her friends keep yelling that she can't swim. It's all very chaotic as both boats erupt into yells and excited chatter, but they quiet down when Jessie reaches Tom's boat. It's there that she declares her love for him, and of course, he jumps out of his own boat to meet her, and tells her he loves her, too.
Zoom out, fountain erupts as they kiss, happy ending. But, Tom has committed to film a movie for eight months in Atlanta, and said earlier in the episode that he would be leaving the next week. And he'll be gone for nearly a year. Jessie has no plans to leave London anytime soon, so was this actually a happy ending after all?
There has been no word on a Season 3, but it's easy to see how it could play out. Fans would probably be thrilled to find out how Jessie and Tom navigate a long-distance relationship — or if they even try to. Perhaps they're okay with saying the "L" word and then continuing on living separate lives. That's harder to imagine, however.
Other successful British comedies like Fleabag have had two seasons and been done, and in an interview with Radio Times, Matafeo did say, "I always thought two and out; it’s the British way." But she does seem open to the possibility of a third season.
Though there's something to be said for ambiguous endings, Starstruck is the kind of series we need to know a definite ending. Jessie and Tom have been through so much already, and have broken up so many times, we almost need a permanent commitment from them both, so we know they'll be okay. Either that, or they finally realize that their relationship will never work in the end, because of all their differences.
That's not the ending any rom-com fan wants, though, is it?
