The World Won't Be the Same Without 'Derry Girls' But Season 3 Is a Perfect Ending

As someone wise once said, all good things must come to an end. But it's hard not to wish that a conclusion had not come quite so swiftly for Derry Girls, a rare television series that's as successful as a hilarious comedy as it is as a heartwarming and nostalgic coming-of-age tale.

Set in Northern Ireland in the 1990s, the series primarily takes place against the backdrop of The Troubles, the colloquial name for the three-decades-long conflict between nationalists (mainly self-identified as Irish or Roman Catholic) and unionists (mainly self-identified as British or Protestant) that regularly resulted in bombings and other acts of terrorism. But the magic of this show lies in its very ordinariness, in the ways that the familiar beats of life can be seen in every moment, even as soldiers wander the streets, barricades line the sidewalks, and bloody newsreels fill television screens each night.

A raucous, big-hearted, frequently laugh-out-loud funny story about a squad of misfit girls and their extremely 1990s adventures, creator Lisa McGee is unafraid to make her series both deeply serious and wildly ridiculous by turns, treating the everyday concerns like exams and the hunt for Fatboy Slim tickets with the same gravitas as a visit from the bomb squad or an anxious trip through a soldier-manned checkpoint.