What Happened In Secret Life Of The American Teenager Finale?

Question

That final episode wrapped up a ton of teen drama plotlines; can someone break down the major couple resolutions and character endings for me?

Tyrone Willis · Answer

The last episode jumped forward a few years and we got to see how each of the main characters ended up. There was Ricky with Amy as his wife and children, Ben as a successful doctor, and even loathe-able Adrian had found her motherhood niche. Though it was nice to see how everyone ended up, it wasn’t perfect. It seemed a bit too easy and neat for all of them. Dirty Little Secret follows a girl as she struggles through her teenage years. The story isn’t wrapped up with a pretty bow, rather it follows her through the hard times as she tries to come to terms with her family’s hidden secrets and their consequences that still affect her today in complex ways.

Mia · Answer

The finale was a wildly typical ‘Secret Life’ of the Weinberg’s event. The center of attention was supposed to be the wedding of Amy and Ricky but first they had to find a way to get Adrian to the hospital because she went into labor in the middle of the ceremony. A typical “Secret Life” event but also a fitting end to the series of the Weinbergs. In the subplot of Ben and Adrian there was even room for growth in this underdeveloped story line. How Ben supports Adrian and the laughter in his eyes as he looks at her in this scene is beautiful and a highlight of the series.

I also appreciated that the series recognized its own flaws and did the best it could to earn the change in Ricky, and to show Amy to be strong and resilient. The pacing was as usual rushed, but after a series of this length there were bound to be some wild twists (who could forget the plane crashing on the island for example?). I found the ending in the end to be sweet and just a fitting tribute to this off-the-wall yet lovable show and characters.

Bella · Answer

Well, that was the ‘Secret Life’ series finale: tears, chaos and a wedding. Amy and Ricky got married in a ceremony that was pretty predictable but sweet. Adrian’s baby had a dramatic delivery interruption, and Ben had some pretty quiet closure with Adrian too. The show had always stacked up crises after crises but in the end it was worth it because of the characters growth. A cheesy group hug from all the main characters brought an end to the series that lived for big emotions.

Ulysses · Answer

Secret Life of the American Teenager came to a close last night with an extremely emotional finale. After years of waiting for Amy and Ricky to get their act together, they finally did and got married. Ben also found happiness with Adrian in the end. And, of course, no Secret Life episode would be complete without some last minute drama and this one delivered. During the group’s wedding celebration, Adrian went into labor.

What resonated with me most was how they wrapped up the series to portray teenage parenthood and relationships. I don’t think they ended it perfectly but it was real to the characters. It was really satisfying to see Ricky’s growth from a care-free teenage boyfriend to a father and husband. The finale felt like the show: messy, heartfelt and very dramatic. I still get chills thinking about that last group hug and how it embodied all of the messy love of the series.

Mila · Answer

The finale of Sabrina the Teenage Witch was like saying good bye to old friends. The wedding of Amy and Ricky was sweet, even if it was a bit too short for my taste. Adrian had her story line wrapped up too with her having the baby. (I had to laugh because she had the baby at the worst time.) As always the writers jammed in as many drama tropes as they could but by that time I was hooked and didn’t care.

It was nice to have a little closure with George’s return. The other writer did a good job writing Ben for this finale. He seemed like a mature young man, which is probably where The Bachelor Ben would be today. I think they tried to give everyone some kind of closure even though it was very abrupt for some of them. The TV wasn’t groundbreaking in any way but it was comfortable. I especially loved the last shot of all of the family members. Nice fan service.

Mercedes Morales · Answer

I think the writers wrote themselves into a corner with Ricky. After the story had laid out his redemption so clearly, the only place left to go was to throw him into some sort of extreme conflict in order to drive the plot of the final episode. Thus, his sudden religious awakening. The writers were attempting to add some sort of depth to Ricky’s character but ended up writing a story that didn’t feel true to who he was. He could have been struggling to keep up with his coursework as a scholarship student, anxious that he wouldn’t be able to provide for his family. Anything that grew organically from his current life would have been more believable and more compelling than this sudden, extreme turn of character that felt like a Hail Mary pass for last-minute depth. It’s a writers’ trap of prioritizing plot surprise over truth to character.

Raja Pur · Answer

This show lived and died by the drama that played out each and every week, and yet the final episode felt like extremely low stakes were at play. All the conflicts of the series were settled one way or another in the prior episodes, and this show existed solely to say goodbye to our favorite characters and see out their fates. A dramatic turn by Ricky with the introduction of his pastor was the only real 'event' of the night. We find out that Amy is with Jack, Ben is with Adrian, and Grace is off in some part of the world or another. It was a very checklist like way to close out the lives of our favorite characters, and there was nothing really surprising for the audience to hang their hopes on for any kind of dramatic twist, i.e. last minute pregnancy or accident, etc. It was a very, very emotional and sentimental good-bye in the end, but it made for a fairly forgettable finale in the end. In many ways it was a relief from the crazy, chaotic life that we spent so much time with, but that relief was not enough to really make an impact in the end, and the biggest drama of the night was probably everyone's shock at how terribly Ricky lived his life.

erakooi · Answer

Instead of properly wrapping up the storylines of all of the characters, the finale felt like a long list of updates to status of each main character. The way the finale treated Ricky, Adrian, Amy, Ben, and Grace was to have each of them tell someone one last time of their future plans, and then that is explained in a tweet like: 'Ricky: pastor now. Adrian: engaged. Amy: mom life. Ben: law school? Grace: moved. #TheEnd.' We are never shown any scene where Ricky feels doubt or fear about the decision to become a pastor, or how Ben proposes to Tricia. We are only told of the character's futures, which feels like a long list of narrative bullet points. Perhaps this type of wrapping up of a series would work better for a show with fewer main characters, but for a series like this, with so many characters and their storylines, it did not provide enough emotional closure to each of the main characters after five long years.

Johanna Alvarado · Answer

As far as ending television, the discourse around this one is almost more interesting than the actual episode itself. People are still arguing and analyzing it years after the fact. They’re even still mocking it. And something that is truly forgettable gets ignored. But this ending is talked about, begrudgingly, because it’s so bad. In an age of streaming, it’s become one of those events that people can say “you have to see this to believe it”. And the fact that its badness has stayed with it for so long is, in a weird way, praiseworthy. A conversation starter is better than a shrug, no matter how “wrong” the reasons for said conversation. Perhaps the writers did accomplish something after all.

Maricel Neneng Bunda · Answer

I’ll try to explain why the title of this finale makes sense. For me, ‘secret life’ refers to Amy’s secret pregnancy in the early part of the series. By the end of the episode all secrets are out in the open and discussed and it seems like every character’s life is going to be on a clear and transparent path. It’s a very literal interpretation of the idea of growing up – from being struggling with secret lives to being an open-faced adult. It’s not the most subtle finale, but it does tie in with a lot of the rest of the series. It’s just that life – and good drama – is full of secrets that adults keep. The finale seemed to think that once you’re an adult all complexity ceases to exist.

Amanda Martinez · Answer

The most realistic part of this finale was that the story followed the natural progression of life after high school and that the characters’ lives went in different directions. Although his transformation to the leader was not done well, Ricky’s journey to find a new purpose in life after trauma was realistic. Amy and Jack could be co-parenting and be tied together forever because of the circumstances of their teenage pregnancy. It was believable that Ben and Adrian, who had a very complicated history in high school, would try to make it work as adults. The ideas behind this scenario were sound but the show executed them in its usual, over-the-top and forced way.

Agnatius Tshepiso Ditshego · Answer

On the surface, the episode explored different themes of cycles ending and new beginnings, of various characters moving on to different stages of adulthood. But it was all done very slowly and lacked subtlety. The big message about each of the characters was clearly there to be seen, with graduation signifying the end of the teens and the start of adulthood. Ricky finds his way by having faith, Amy and Jack form a family, and Ben moves on from ‘cycles’ of heartbreak by settling down with Adrian. But, it did all feel a bit lecturing. We used to be able to get engrossed in the characters’ messiness, but now it all seems so simplistic. I did find the final scenes at S.H.O.W. very effective though in bringing back lots of memories for long-term viewers, with all the characters sitting around reminiscing. But as I said, for anyone looking at any of the characters’ storylines over the course of the series though, it was clear that so much had been rushed.

Kelita Saint Lot · Answer

As a written episode, the series finale lacked central conflict. The central question of the episode for the majority of the audience was what was going to happen with the characters after graduation. This question was fairly internal and didn’t pose too much conflict to the characters. To address this, they created a plot with Ricky but it was introduced with no prior setup and as a result, it wasn’t connected to anything else in the episode. The result was that there was no narrative engine driving the episode. Instead, the episode was presented as a series of announcements regarding the futures of each of the main characters. The episode felt very static and very talky. It wasn’t a final story, it was a farewell tour.

What Happened In Secret Life Of The American Teenager Finale?

13 Answers

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