After Life season three ending explained: Did *that* really happen and what does it mean?

Warning: Spoilers ahead in the explained ending of After Life season three

You don’t need to like Ricky Gervais to appreciate the beauty that is After Life. The series will make you ugly cry from either laughter or complete and utter emotional distress. We’ve been watching Tony battle his depression and grief since 2019 and now, after a long wait, Netflix finally dropped season three of After Life and if you’ve already watched it then you’ll know the ending is pretty confusing and could do with being explained.

By the end of season three, Tony seems to have become less cynical and starts to appreciate those around him. The last episode shows him diving into hospice work and promising to visit a sick child cancer patient everyday until they get better. Then at the very end we see him walk off, his dog in one hand and his wife in another, they all gradually fade away – it’s all very ambiguous.

So, here’s the mysterious ending of After Life season three explained

via Netflix

As Tony is seen to vanish into thin air, fans are speculating this is symbolic of his death because throughout the entire show, Tony has contemplated his life.

However, Ricky Gervais said the ending is actually meant to be quite wholesome and doesn’t allude to the death of Tony at all. He explained the ending of After Life season three shows how life just goes on and when we’re all dead and buried, everything else continues as it normally would.

He says: “You don’t exist for 13 and a half billion years, then you have 80-90 years if you’re lucky, and then you die, never to exist again. So all you’ve got is experience and then you’re dead and buried and forgotten.”

Will there be a fourth season of After Life?

When chatting to the Radio Times, Ricky said: “I never really planned the third until it happened. I said to Netflix, ‘I’ll do a third if the second goes down a storm’, because you don’ want to do it for the sake of it. You want it to be demanded. I think it’s the right decision artistically. It’s a finite story, and that’s its strength. At the moment, I’m 99 per cent sure this should be it. I don’t think I can top that ending. And it’s not the end. It’s there forever. It’ll always be around.”

After Life is available on Netflix now. For all the latest Netflix news, drops, quizzes and memes like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook.