Adolescence ending explained: Stephen Graham shares meaning behind heartbreaking scene

14 March 2025, 14:27 | Updated: 14 March 2025, 15:09

By Alice Dear

Netflix series Adolescence ends with a very emotional and profound scene which sees Stephen Graham's character, Eddie Miller, break down in his son's bedroom and tuck his teddy into the sheets - but what is the meaning behind this heartbreaking ending?

Adolescence is a Netflix series by Stephen Graham which follows the family of 13-year-old Jamie Miller as he is arrested for the murder of a fellow student, Katie, with the show shining a light on 'incel' culture, children's social media access and toxic masculinity.

As well as following Jamie (played by Owen Cooper) as he is arrested and deals with the consequences of his horrific actions, the series also focuses on how the Miller family (including Stephen Graham as dad Eddie Miller, Christine Tremarco as mum Manda Miller and Amélie Pease as sister Lisa Miller) deal with the guilt of what their son and brother has done, ultimately questioning if they could have done anything to stop the murder from happening.

Ashley Walters, best known for Top Boy, plays DI Luke Bascombe who begins to look at his own relationship with his son amid the discovery of Jamie's heinous crime and the 'incel' culture being promoted online.

• Read more: Is Adolescence a true story? Stephen Graham reveals real life inspiration for Netflix series

While Adolescence is packed-full of heartbreaking and emotional scenes, one that has stood out to viewers is the ending moments where Eddie enters his son's room and breaks down as the reality of what has happened crashes over him.

What happens at the end of Adolescence?

The final episode of Netflix's Adolescence follows the Miller family as they attempt to celebrate Eddie's birthday, despite the horrors they have been through and the missing presence of Jamie, who is now being held in a prison facility.

While Eddie, Manda and Lisa attempt to celebrate the day as normally as they can, it quickly unravels as events send Eddie to tipping point. In the morning, he receives a birthday card from Jamie before heading outside to discover his car has been vandalised with a defamatory word.

When they travel to their local hardware store to get paint to cover-up the word, Eddie is confronted by an employee who offers his support to the family and Jamie, denying that the young boy committed the murder.

As the family leave the store, Eddie sees a group of boys who he believes vandalised his van, and runs after them before attacking one. When he returns to the car, in a fit of anger, he throws the blue paint over his car to cover-up the word left there by the boy he confronted.

Following another argument with the store's security guard, the family get in the car to go home, where they receive a call from Jamie in prison. He wishes his dad a happy birthday before going on to tell him he will be changing his plea from 'Not Guilty' to 'Guilty'.

As they return home, Eddie and Manda meet in their bedroom where they have a heart-wrenching conversation about Jamie, asking whether it was their fault that he ended up murdering Katie. They discuss how Jamie would spend hours in his room with his door closed, and whether they could have done more to protect him.

Eddie admits that because his father used to beat him as a child, he made a vow to never be violent towards his children, but goes on to question whether he is as bad as his own dad.

Together, the couple agree that it could be helpful for them to accept that they could have done more for Jamie before their daughter, Lisa, enters the room. The three of them discuss the option of moving away from the area, but Lisa insists that, even if they did move, what happened would follow them.

After deciding on their plans for Eddie's birthday, he turns to his wife and asks: "How did we make her [Lisa]?", to which she responds: "The same way we made him."

Eddie then enters Jamie's bedroom where he takes some time to take in the surroundings before falling onto his bed and breaking down in hysterical tears. He then finds Jamie's teddy which he tucks into the bed, before saying: "I'm sorry, son. I should've done better."

Adolescence ending explained

Following this gut wrenching final scene, viewers of Netflix's Adolescence have been left questioning the meaning behind the moment and what Jamie's teddy represents.

In the moments where Eddie looks around Jamie's bedroom, we can see many features which display a very "normal" 13-year-old boy's room; space wallpaper, pens, pencils and his teddy bear. Overall, this shines a light on just how young Jamie was when he committed the murder of Katie, leading to more questions of how this could possibly have happened.

There is also a significance to Eddie entering the room where his son spent so much time on the internet, where he presumably found the online content which altered his attitude towards women and girls, also referred to as 'incel' culture.

As Eddie breaks down, his immense sobbing appears to show a moment in which the father allows all the emotions of what has happened - confusion, guilt, grief - to engulf him. When he finds the teddy bear, he appears to pretend that it is in fact his son, as he tucks it into the bed (as he would do with Jamie) and apologises, ultimately showing his acceptance that he "could have done better".

Previously, we saw Eddie ask his wife: "How did we make her?", referring to their daughter Lisa. Manda replies: "The same way we made him." This powerful lines appears to imply that it was not Jamie's parents who made him capable of murder, as they also created a kind and intelligent daughter.

Stephen Graham explains Adolescence's ending

Stephen Graham, who created Netflix's Adolescence and starred as Jamie's father Eddie, explained to the Radio Times the meaning behind those final moments in the four-part drama.

Speaking to the publication, he explained that the team behind the series all agreed that the final scene should see Eddie entering Jamie's bedroom: "That was an idea we had at the beginning," he said: "Me, [director] Phil [Barantini] and Jack had this idea that we'd end it in the room, because of where it all began."

He went on: "And also that thing of 'you never know what's going on behind his door', so to be immersed in that room, where this wonderful boy was born, and to see his pictures on the wall, and his pens and his pencils and all of those things in that room, but also the room where the mindset was created for him to commit such a horrendous thing."

Stephen also shared how he improvised the moment with Jamie's teddy bear, explaining: "Phil just said to me, 'I'm going to leave a teddy bear on the bed, and I was like, 'Okay, all right.' And just instinctively, I kind of took the teddy bear as the last little remnant of my boy."

The actor went on to open up about the importance of making this series, and how we all need to do better in order to protect our children, taking accountability for how young boys are raised and what they are exposed to.

"We think he's safe in his room... that home is the microcosm, and that's where you should be safe," he said: "That's where he's raised and that's where your security is. But through the telephone, through the internet, there's a whole macrocosm out there of stuff that we have no control over as parents."

Stephen went on: "And we were never saying one particular person is to blame, or one thing is to blame. It's surely, as a society, we should look at this, and we should all be accountable.

"The children are our future. We are all accountable for raising this next generation – parents, schools, government, community, society as a whole. We all should be accountable... because there was a few incidents, there were a good few incidents why this idea came to my head. And it hurt my heart that young boys, they're not men, they're young boys, are killing young girls.

"So it's just creating conversation in the homes, because I think it’s imperative for the future of our nest generation."