‘Single Drunk Female’ Stars Break Down Brit & James’ Big Decisions, Futures With Sam

The Cast of Single Drunk Female - Ally Sheedy, Garrick Bernard, Sofia Black-D’elia, Lily Mae Harrington, Rebecca Henderson, Sasha Compere
Spoiler Alert
Freeform/Koury Angelo

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Single Drunk Female Season 1 finale “A Wedding.”]

Single Drunk Female ends its first season (we need more ASAP!) with a wedding planned… but can the bride go through with it?

Yes, Brit (Sasha Compère) does marry Joel (Charlie Hall), despite a conversation with her former best friend (and his ex-girlfriend) Sam (Sofia Black-D’Elia) that suggests that might not be the best decision. Meanwhile, Sam stays sober but realizes James (Garrick Bernard) is very much not at the wedding, and she makes the right decision to not join in on the fun and instead leave their relationship very much up in the air. (He says “I love you”! But… he’s drunk.) The finale ends with Brit showing up at Sam’s, and, surprise! She went through with the wedding, which is why she’s really upset.

Read on as Compère and Bernard break down the big moments for their characters and share their hopes for a second season.

Runaway Bride?

When Sam finds Brit on the other side of her door, she assumes she didn’t go through with the wedding. “It’s worse now because I went through with it,” Brit cries. “I’m married.”

So why did she go through with it? “I was questioning that myself. When we read Episode 9, I was like, ‘OK, she’s not gonna go through with it, right?'” Compère admits to TV Insider. “When I thought about it, I was like, of course she would. She’s had a lot of pressure her whole life from her family and being a doctor and being the friend that’s always there. And I think having the perfect husband is a part of that.” There’s also the possibility she wanted to keep their friend group together. “Also, when you paid for that wedding, you gotta go through it,” she laughs.

But once Sam’s advice hits and she’s realized “I did the thing everyone told me to do and I’m still not happy,” that leads to Brit’s breakdown, the star continues.  So what will happen next? Will she stay married? “It could go either way,” she suggests. “He could be a guy that she’s always wanted and sort of never knew he was this diamond in the rough, or it could be that it was a decision made out of societal norms and she needs to find her way.”

Sasha Compere as Brit, Sofia Black-D'Elia as Sam in Single Drunk Female

Freeform/Eliza Morse

Whatever happens, if there’s a second season, things could get complicated for Joel with Sam and Brit friends again. “It could break his heart and that’s the part that really breaks my heart,” Compère says. “At the birthday party, in Episode 3, he seems so torn and not wanting to get in the middle and if we are friends again, that’s putting him right in the middle. But Brit’s ready to try her hand and try to really speak for herself and not just do what everyone’s told her to do. So he’s gotta deal with it.”

Mending Fences for the Other Love Story

It says a lot that Brit turns to Sam at the end, considering the friends had been estranged since before the beginning of the series. “This whole season we’ve seen kind of a side love story through Sam and Brit, a fun love story,” Compère says. “I think that they’ve always been strong and something that people might not know is that we’ve known each other since we were probably about five. So that’s a lifetime of friendship and growing up and going through different phases. Going to her at the end is Brit finally coming home.”

The end of the season also introduced a very fun friendship between Sam’s two friends, Brit and Felicia (Lily Mae Harrington), and as much as you might have loved that, Compère did even more, calling her costar “one of my favorite actresses” and noting they have the same birthday. “As soon as we met, we were like, ‘oh, we’re gonna come together at some point,'” she shares. “Our characters could not be more different and I’m so happy [Episode 9, in which Brit turns to Felicia for drugs] came together because you’re seeing two parts of Sam’s life come together and sort of work through the ish together, the mess, and have a good time. It’s fun. I want more of Brit and Felicia. I think we’ll have a lot of Felicia showing Brit new things.”

Sasha Compere as Brit, Lily Mae Harrington as Felicia in Single Drunk Female

Freeform/Tom Griscom

More Than a Slip for James

Once Sam realizes James has been drinking at the wedding, he claims, “I’m not as strong as you. I took a bite out of that apple. It happens. … It’s just a slip, don’t worry about it.” But the audience knows it’s not the first time he had a drink this season.

It’s his “faux confidence coming through,” Bernard says of that moment. “‘I haven’t taken a drink in two years. I can have one, I’ve earned one or two,’ but that’s not the case when you’re an alcoholic. One drink turns into five immediately.” And while James says he’ll go to a meeting the next day, the actor doubts he would have. “It is just a way to push things off and say, ‘I don’t have a problem,’ when you do,” he explains.

Is There Hope for Sam & James?

James not only tries to get Sam to join him in making a night out of it, not seeming to particularly care if she slips, too, but that’s also when he lets out the aforementioned “I love you.”

Sofia Black-D'Elia as Sam, Garrick Bernard as James in Single Drunk Female

Freeform/Fernando Decillis

Bernard explains, “when people are drunk, they will say anything to get you to stay.” James’ behavior in his and Sam’s last scene of the season together is part of his “selfish play to try to get his drinking buddy back. Because it’s like I’ve slipped. So that means you can be s**tty with me. It’s not the best behavior to have and not the best mindset to have with another alcoholic. He gets extremely selfish.”

What does that mean for their future? “This is somebody that he wants to be with, but for whatever reason and it might be how they met, every time he’s around her, he wants to drink. And there is a bit of a fear of success with him where, when things are going well, he starts to maybe get a little overconfident or maybe say, ‘well, the other shoe is gonna drop at some point I might as well drink now,'” according to Bernard. “It needs to be a while for both of them before they can see things again and reimagine what things could look like.”

Season 2 Wishes

If there is a second season, Compère is hoping to see what Brit and Sam’s friendship looks like going forward and to see what it was like “before the alcoholism and before the estranged friendship and the boyfriend stealing,” she shares.

And, as she notes, there’s plenty to explore with Brit, including “her family and culture and a bit more of the pressure that she experiences behind the scenes.” Plus, there’s seeing what she’s like as a doctor, “being able to have other people’s lives in her hands, but she can’t quite get a grip on her own.”

For Bernard, he hopes to see the fallout of James’ drinking. “I want to see how he’s feeling,” he says. “I definitely want to see if there are any consequences outside of ruining his relationship with Sam.”

For now, we can only wait to see if that happens.