The third and final season of Derry Girls premieres tonight.
Jamie-Lee O’Donnell, Saoirse-Monica Jackson, Nicola Coughlan, Siobhán McSweeney and more star in the series, which follows the lives of a group of friends who attend an all-girls school in Derry during the Troubles in the 1990s.
Writer and creator Lisa McGee spoke to RTÉ about what fans can expect from the upcoming season.
She said: “What we’ve tried to do this season is to have a theme and a genre in every episode, like a little movie. Episode one takes its tonal inspiration from Goodfellas. We meet the gang on the eve of them getting their GCSE results, the episode is called The Night Before, and it’s all set over one evening.”
“In episode two, the family hire a hot plumber who everyone starts to believe Ma Mary’s having an affair with.”
“Episode three is called A Stranger on a Train. So the whole episode is set on a train, and there are two different stories that cross over as the kids and adults are sitting in two different carriages.”
Lisa continued: “Episode four is a kind of horror film where the girls end up going to this creepy house in Donegal and lots of weird stuff happens.”
“Episode five is something very different for us. Ma Mary and Sarah are going to their school reunion, the class of 1977. We learn that something happened at that school reunion years ago that was like I Know What You Did Last Summer, but not anything actually that bad!”
“Episode six is Halloween. Halloween in Derry is massive anyway, but the girls are off to see Fatboy Slim.”
Speaking about wrapping up the hit show, Lisa admitted: “It’s emotional, because it’s become a bigger thing than I ever thought it would be. I don’t just mean as a piece of work or whatever, but for my city as well.”
“It’s been this amazing, massive thing in my life for more than six years now. I am so grateful to have been able to do this in the first place, and the fact that I’ve been allowed to finish it the way I wanted to finish it has been incredible.”
“I don’t think many writers can say that, that they’ve been given the chance to really say what they want to say, the way they want to say it. It’s such a privilege and honour, really.”
Lisa also admitted she often thinks about what the Derry Girls would be up to in 10 years time.
She said: It’s so weird because I think of them as real people. I actually got so worried about Orla at one point that my husband was like, ‘She’s not real!’ I think a lot about what they’re all doing. I’d love Ma Mary and Aunt Sarah to solve a crime.”
“I decided that Orla is probably coaching a really s*** sports team, like the Mighty Ducks, and she leads them to glory. Michelle’s a DJ. Erin’s a novelist. Clare’s a top barrister somewhere. And James is a filmmaker.”
The show creator added: “I love those characters. They feel like real people to me, so it’s going to be weird not talking to them for a while because I’ve been talking to them every day since we started. It’s going to be strange.”
Speaking about filming the final scene of the show, Lisa recalled:Â “We were all really tired and emotional. The last thing we did was in the school. It was so crazy to finally be at the end of this incredible journey, which was tough and joyful in equal measure.”
The third and final season of Derry Girls premieres on Channel 4 tonight at 9:15pm.
