This article will contain spoilers for the Netflix mini series: One Day.
One Day is a Netflix original series that came out on February 8th, 2024. The fourteen-episode series follows the story between two people, Emma and Dexter, over the course of twenty years as they navigate through their twenties and early thirties. The episodes take place on the 15th of July with each episode taking place one year after the previous one. I found this to be quite unique because in TV shows, timelines are often kept to one year for a season.
The series starts with Emma and Dexter bumping into each other on their last day of undergrad at university. Emma Morley is a bold girl who has a dream of changing the world with her words. As an aspiring writer, she wants to write a book series for both children and young adults. Dexter Mayhew is the most popular guy at the University and he doesn’t have a clue of what he wants to do with his life post-undergrad. All he sees in his future is traveling the world with his friends and family. These protagonists really remind me of Connell and Marianne from Normal People (2020) which I really enjoyed, so I had high hopes for this series.
There are many ups and downs for both of these characters that definitely helps create an interesting dynamic. Emma writes a play while working in a disgusting restaurant to try and pay the bills. When the play doesn’t pick up like she had hoped, she decides she isn’t good enough to become a writer and becomes a theater teacher. Dexter’s mother becomes terminally ill five episodes in and dies. We learn that she was truly Dexter’s source of comfort. He ends up as a television personality and he is recognized by many people, but there are many negative comments in the papers. It doesn’t help that he constantly abuses alcohol and is intoxicated on Live Television. Emma tries to help Dexter by being there for him in this difficult time, but he keeps pushing her away. When Dexter is at his lowest, Emma is at her highest.
One of my favorite scenes in the series is at the end of Episode 8 when Emma decides to pursue her dream again of making the world a better place. This is shown by her opening her laptop and typing away while the song “Dreams” by The Cranberries plays in the background. This lets us know that Emma truly never lost that spark in her and didn’t want to give up on her dream.
In the second to the last episode, when Emma is struck and killed by a driver in the pouring rain. The camera zooms in on Emma’s face as she takes her last breath. I was left shattered. The last episode follows Dexter in 2003, 2004, and 2007 as he tries to navigate through life without Emma. The shots of Dexter imagining Emma physically present with him done so beautifully. From the cinematography, to the blue color scheme. Actor Leo Woodall did a phenomenal job of conveying grief.
Emma truly lets us as the audience know that one day, we will no longer be on this earth and we should live each day like it’s our last. We pass the day of our death each year without even knowing it, and she was trying to convey to Dexter that she had loved him for a long time. This series is truly an emotional roller coaster, and I wasn’t expecting so many heartbreaking events to take place. I went into this series blind, which I think is the best way to watch it because you truly get to experience the story from scratch. This is definitely a show that I wish I could rewatch again for the first time because once you know the ending, it’s impossible to rewatch it without knowing what is coming.