Confirmed: What really happened to Charlie after *that* Every Year After cliffhanger ending

*Warning: Spoilers ahead for Every Year After*

Every Year After ends on a dark note, leaving Charlie’s (Michael Bradway) fate hanging in the balance. If you were left screaming at your screen, don’t fret, as the showrunner has revealed what really went down. 

Much like Off Campus, the new Prime Video series is based on a popular BookTok novel – in this case, it’s adapting Carley Fortune’s Every Summer After. 

The story follows Percy Fraser (Sadie Soverall) as she returns to Barry’s Bay for the funeral of Sue Fletcher, the mother of brothers Sam (Matt Cornett) and Charlie, who were once the centre of her world. 

As the show unfolds across dual timelines, we gradually learn what drove Percy away from the Fletcher family a decade earlier and the dark secret that shattered their close-knit friendship.

The truth is that Charlie and Percy had a one night stand years prior during a vulnerable moment for the pair, leaving Sam devastated. By the finale, Percy and Sam aren’t back together but they appear to be moving towards a reconciliation.

Charlie, however, finds himself in a very different position. A year after unsuccessfully trying to make amends to his younger brother, he’s seen keeping busy at work. 

In his boss’s office, he comes across a photograph of himself, Sam, and Percy from their happier days in Barry’s Bay. The emotional weight of everything he’s lost appears to catch up with him, and he struggles to catch a breath. 

As his physical state deteriorates, Charlie collapses, but before we can find out what happened to him, the episode ends. Was it a panic attack, heart attack, or something else entirely?

Since Charlie doesn’t have a crisis like this in the book, we can’t turn to the pages for answers, but thankfully actor Michael Bradway has confirmed what really went down. 

Every Year After actor and showrunner confirm what happened to Charlie

Speaking to Deadline, Bradway revealed that Charlie had a heart attack. “We’re gonna let Percy have the panic attacks,” he said. “Charlie gets the heart attack.”

The actor went on to highlight the fact that the Fletcher brothers’ father died from a sudden heart attack, which is a big reason Sam wanted to be a cardiologist to help people. 

“And then it just so happens that Charlie also has heart problems, and unexpectedly, he’s looking at the famous photo and he’s reminiscing, and unfortunately it hurts too much, and he has a heart attack,” he added. 

Showrunner Amy B. Harris elaborated on where Charlie’s at by the end of the Prime Video series, a year after Sue’s funeral. 

“I loved the idea [that] Charlie has buried himself in work. He has a broken heart. It’s now physically breaking down, but he’s also lost everything that matters to him,” she said. 

“He lost his brother, he lost that community in Barry’s Bay. There’s this sadness and a heartbrokenness to where he is, and it felt so perfect that Alice’s photo would be the thing that reminded him of the world he loved and has lost.”

Harris also spoke about where Sam and Percy are by the end, with Sam giving an olive branch in the form of handing The Tavern keys over to Percy. “We knew from day one we were going to be ending [with] Sam and Percy not together,” she said.  

“I very intentionally kept them standing apart, so we know, for the audience they’re getting a version of a happy ending, but for us in our journey as storytellers, this is just the beginning for them. We have lots more story to tell.”

The photograph that kickstarts Charlie’s health crisis is also significant, particularly for readers of the books. It shows the trio sitting in the Fletcher family’s yellow speedboat – aka the Banana Boat – and was taken by Alice Everly, a character who doesn’t appear in Every Year After.

Alice is the protagonist of Fortune’s follow-up novel One Golden Summer, which focuses on her romance with Charlie after she returns to Barry’s Bay years later. 

As explained by Harris, the pic was chosen as a subtle way of introducing Alice without actually casting the character.

“We talked a lot about ways to introduce Alice to our audience,” she explained. “We finally realised we had the most perfect way to bring her in without having to bring her in, which is that photograph.”

In other words, Charlie’s cliffhanger may not just be setting up his recovery – it could also be laying the groundwork for a future adaptation of One Golden Summer.

Will there be a season 2?

Prime Video is yet to confirm if Every Year After will get another season, but the good news is the cast and crew are ready to go, with the betrayal set to hang over the story if it does get the greenlight. 

Speaking about Sam and Percy, Harris said, “If we’re lucky enough to have a season two, they’re not settled, right? [Sam] still has feelings about what happened between them, and I think that is going to make their relationship complicated in the best way, and her guilt still should.

“They still have a lot of emotions and issues to work through, and I think that’s what I don’t see as much on TV that I am really interested in exploring. 

“After you get your happy ending, it’s really just the beginning of a relationship, and relationships are not static, they’re constantly changing, and good things can happen to you, or bad things can happen to you, that are exterior from your relationship, and I really want to explore the challenges of being in a couple.”

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Featured images credit: Prime Video