Many fans were left wondering at the end of Afterlife’s Season 3 finale whether Tony Johnson (Gervais) had actually ended his life or not. This was due to a mysterious ending involving Gervais walking off into the distance, holding the hand of his deceased Wife’s ghost, and then fading away himself.
Was Afterlife Season 3’s Tony Johnson a ghost the whole time?
What intrigued me was the fact that his best mate Lenny (Tony Way) takes a picture of Gervais moments before and seems surprised when looking at the photo afterwards. To me, the look on Tony Way’s face screamed out that maybe nobody was in the picture at all? Leading me to believe that Gervais’ character was actually a ghost helping everybody in the town before he can “move on”.
Afterlife Season 3 ending explained by Ricky Gervais
Turns out the ending wasn’t quite as dark as I first assumed though as Ricky Gervais explains.
According to Gervais when talking with Digital Spy, the whole point of the ending was to symbolize that “life goes on”. Gervais fading away during the finale was to show everyone that “the Tambury Fair is still going, that tree is still there, and it’s basically said that we all die, but not today…”
“You don’t exist for 13 and a half billion years, then you have 80-90 years if you’re lucky, and then you die, never to exist again. So all you’ve got is experience and then you’re dead and buried and forgotten.” – Ricky Gervais, Digital Spy
So there you have it, can’t argue with the writer of Afterlife himself. You can watch all three seasons of Afterlife on Netflix now.
