‘The Girlfriend’ Author Unpacks the Ending, Show vs Book Differences

Are you on Team Laura or Team Cherry in “The Girlfriend”? The taut six-episode Amazon miniseries is the story of two women at war for the heart, and the trust, of one man.

Chances are, you’ve picked a side. But Michelle Frances, author of the 2018 novel that inspired the series, can’t choose.

“There’s a bit of me in Cherry, and there’s a bit of me in Laura. I sympathize with both of them. The greatest tragedy is that they’re both smart, they’re both witty. In any other situation, they would be friends,” Frances, who has worked in TV for 20 years, tells TODAY.com.

In “The Girlfriend,” Laura (played by Robin Wright), meets and immediately becomes suspicious of her son’s new girlfriend, Cherry (Olivia Cooke). Cherry met Daniel (Laurie Davidson) at the real estate agency where she works after they made eyes at each other passing by on the street. Is Cherry, as Laura suspects, only after Daniel for his family’s money? Is Laura, as Cherry believes, an unnecessary obstacle standing between her and her dream relationship (and life)?

Both “The Girlfriend” series and book take alternate perspectives to unspool the story from Laura and Cherry’s viewpoints.

“There’s so many ways here where we can play dual perspectives — and both are right. Who’s the villain? Who’s the psychopath? It could be either. It could be both. It could be neither,” Frances says.

Both arguably tragic, the book ends differently than the series. Below, we speak to Frances in more detail about the series, its inspiration and what could have been.

The Inspiration for ‘The Girlfriend’

Frances, who works in TV production, says her debut novel had two origins: one going back to her own experiences and another from a story she’d heard.

“I had a friend who needed to get a job to pay the bills, and so she went to work in an estate agent in a really nice part of London. Anyway, in comes a young man. They hit it off. Start dating. Year later, she’s walking up the aisle, and her wedding present from her new in-laws is a seven-bedroom house with a swimming pool,” Frances recalls, laughing.

From there, she invented the character of Cherry, who sees, in Daniel, a ladder out of the modest neighborhood she grew up in.

“She’s sort of caught in a circle of poverty that she wants to break out of, but she’s smart and she’s ambitious and she’s romantic,” she says.

Then, Frances thought back to her own life. Like Cherry, she was unable to attend university because of high fees. She watched as other classmates, who hadn’t done as well in school, moved forward.

“I’m sick and tired of being told to stay in my lane,” Frances summarizes of Cherry’s thinking.

Could Laura Ever Have Been a Good Mother-in-Law?

A turning point in “The Girlfriend” comes when Laura makes up a lie to try and get rid of Cherry for good. After Daniel gets into an accident, she tells Cherry he’s died, but he’s actually on the mend.

Was she destined to despise the woman Daniel brought home? Frances, who was raising her young children while she was writing “The Girlfriend,” thinks Laura would “always find fault” with a potential romantic partner.

But “she probably would have been more accepting with some people who played the game a little bit differently,” Frances says. “There’s certainly an essence of snobbery about Laura, not necessarily from where Cherry comes from, that because she lies about where she comes from.”

She thinks Laura’s personality is a result of the loss of her daughter, Rose. “It’s almost as if she’s looking for a Rose replacement” in a daughter-in-law, she says.

Can Daniel Be Blamed for the Ending?

“The Girlfriend” hurtles toward conflict as Laura and Cherry circle each other like adversaries. Meanwhile, Daniel watches on, somewhat clueless.

How much can Daniel and his conflict avoidance be blamed for what comes next?

“I think he is probably subconsciously ignoring a lot of the conflict because he just doesn’t want to deal with it. It isn’t until it’s too late that he sort of wakes up to the fact that, oh s—, this is actually quite serious,” Frances says.

“He genuinely wants them to get on. He probably is very dismissive,” she continues.

How the Book’s Ending Compares to the Show

Warning: Spoilers continue from here.

The toxic triangle of “The Girlfriend” concludes differently depending on whether it’s in book or TV form.

In both, Cherry, Daniel and Laura gather for a showdown at Laura’s house. Laura is trying to convince Daniel that his girlfriend is dangerous and has some compelling evidence. (Her actions in the book are especially gruesome and involve killing a puppy — seriously).

Frances knew, while writing, one of them wasn’t going to make it out alive, but she didn’t know who.

“It was really interesting, because it could have been any one of the three,” she says. “As I wrote it, I did not know. I was just kind of playing out, playing out and seeing what happened on the pages.”

Laura emerges victorious in the book. Cherry charges at her and Laura steps out of the way, but also subtly pushes her out the window.

The ending is far different in the show, and the changes were star, director and executive producer Wright’s idea. After seeing Laura and Cherry wrestling in Laura’s home pool, Daniel jumps in and drowns his own mother. This leaves Cherry alive, and after a one-year time jump, viewers see she’s pregnant with Daniel’s baby at the end of the series.

“I would say maybe she’s won the battle. Maybe not the war,” Frances says of Cherry. “These things tend to come back and bite you on the bum, don’t they, in some form or another?”

Frances says the calculation also had to do with the potential continuation of the story (which, as of the writing of this article, has not been renewed).

“Well, if you have a Series 2, how’s that going to work? If we have a series, you’re thinking, ‘OK, which one of these do you want to keep alive the most?’” she says.

Frances’ Writing Obsession

Frances has followed up “The Girlfriend” with other novels including “The Temp,” about an ambitious woman who fills in for a maternity leave, and “The Boyfriend,” about a woman doubting her new relationship.

She says her books all have a connective tissue — beyond the unexpected twists.

“It’s the wealth divide. That gulf between the very, very rich and those who are struggling just to keep afloat, and how unfair all that is,” she says.

“It bothers me more and more and more as we go on. It’s just heading so far in one direction It’s actually quite terrifying,” she says.