SPOILERS are ahead for Love on the Spectrum U.S. Season 1, now streaming with a Netflix subscription.
Now that you’ve watched all six episodes of the U.S. version of Love on the Spectrum, let’s talk about that bittersweet ending. The Netflix show takes you into the lives of six people on the road to find a romantic connection in a dating world that doesn’t make it easy for the autistic community to interact. Through the encouragement of family and friends, Jennifer Cook’s expert mentorship, and the series’ matchmaking, each of them go on dates and gain experience in dating, but where the show leaves each person is completely different.
Abbey and Subodh each seem to have found lasting love by the end of Love on the Spectrum, who are apparently still together and looking forward to “traveling the world” together along with Abbey, who is still with her boyfriend David in the relationship that we saw blossom on the series. On the other hand, Dani, James, Kaelynn, and Steve will apparently continue their journeys in finding love beyond the show.
When CinemaBlend spoke to Love on the Spectrum’s creator and showrunner Cian O’Clery about the season, he spoke to its ending. In his words:
It's just nice to leave the audience with a little update on where everyone's at. Depending on where they're at, that's the story we tell. We just wanted to be honest about where everyone was at at that point when we were sort of finishing the edit. So it's quite a way down the track from when we were filming. And it's just a really nice way to give everyone a final update on where everyone in their various relationships and lives moving forward.
Love on the Spectrum is a documentary series about the experiences of autistic people with dating. The series takes a grounded approach to what it’s like for them without infusing any of the typical dating drama from other series about dating you might check out on Netflix. O’Clery creates an atmosphere about finding love connections without the “element of nastiness” that we often see on other shows.
The creator and showrunner told us that he made the series for people to understand autism more deeply. The series started in Australia for two seasons before coming to the United States for this recent series. Along with the series being a more wholesome look on dating, it also contributes to challenging stereotypes on the autism community.
While less than half of the people on the show walked away with a relationship, each of them came away with a beneficial experience they will take with them when dating in the future. For example, Steve started his dating profile for the first time and was starting to go on dates at 63, after not previously putting himself out there. James found a friend in Emma, even though she was not interested in pursuing him romantically. It was refreshing to see a grounded approach on what dating is really like.
If Love on the Spectrum continues, could we see the single people we were introduced in this season continue to look for love? Here’s what O’Clery thinks:
If people watch it and people like it and if there's an opportunity to do another series, I think absolutely we would follow some of our people from this series and possibly some new people too.
Given that Love On The Spectrum has remained among Netflix’s trending shows since it was released last week, there’s likely to be a good chance that the people on the series could come back to continue their journeys on the docuseries. We’ll keep you posted on if the series does continue; in the meantime, check out what other Netflix TV show premiere dates are up next.
