Derry Girls’ final ever episode ended with an unexpected cameo.
The Channel 4 comedy came to an end on Tuesday (17 May), with an extended episode set one year after the penultimate instalment.
*Spoilers for the Derry Girls finale below*
The episodes takes place in the days leading up to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement referendum in Northern Ireland, which takes place in the same week as Erin (Saoirse-Monica Jackson) and Orla’s (Louisa Clare Harland) 18th birthday party.
The episode concludes at the polling station, before fast forwarding to present-day New York. A blonde woman opens the door to a postman delivering a letter from over 20 years ago, when it is revealed that the woman is Chelsea Clinton.
The letter, which has been lost in the post for two decades, invites her to hang out with the girls when she next comes to Derry and signed off with the words: “We think your hair is absolutely cracker”.
The teenagers wrote the letter to Chelsea in the series two finale “The President”, set around Bill Clinton’s visit to Derry.
Derry Girls Episode 7 is based around the 1998 Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement referendum
(Channel 4)
The show’s creator and executive producer Lisa McGee wrote a similar letter to Chelsea when she was a teenager asking her to come to the cinema with her.
Speaking at a Channel 4 preview, McGee said that she originally wrote the cameo into the script to amuse herself.
“The more we talked about it – me and Mike [Lennox], the director – I was like, ‘F*** it, let’s try,” she said.”
“It was a manager in America who used to work for the Clintons. And she acted as this middle woman for us. Then she rang me one night and was just like, ‘Chelsea is in’. And I was like, ‘Oh my god!’”
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Sign upMcGee also said that there were lots of cameo ideas, including Jamie Dornan, that hadn’t worked due to scheduling.
The final series of the show has included surprise appearances Liam Neeson, who played a police officer in the first episode and re-appeared in the finale, and Fatboy Slim, who played at Derry’s Halloween festival in episode six.
Liam Neeson made an appearance in Episode 1 Season 3, playing Chief Constable Byers, and reappeared at the end of the bonus episode as Byers votes in the referendum.
Derry Girls is available to stream on All4.
