Conversations With Friends spoilers ahead.
Love is never easy at the best of times, but no one makes it look as difficult as Frances and Nick in Conversations With Friends.
Forming an undeniable bond after being introduced through Bobbi (Frances' ex-girlfriend/current best friend) and Melissa (Nick's very current wife), the pair's illicit affair sparks complications about what it means to be in love with someone and if monogamy can be enough.
Melissa has had affairs in her marriage to Nick before, Bobbi doesn't conform to societal norms and doesn't want to feel owned, Nick until now has remained faithful and Frances has only ever dated Bobbi in the past. Like we said… complicated.
So is it possible to love more than one person? Here's how the rest of the story unfolds as Frances is thrust into adulthood in her final year of university.
Melissa
After Nick comes clean about his affair with Frances, Melissa finds herself in a bind as to what to do next. On one hand, she is still very much in love with Nick, and feels like she's not allowed to say too much due to the fact that she had previously had an affair with Nick's best friend.
In honest chats, Melissa recognises Nick – after a period of severe depression – had been happier since getting with Frances, and she doesn’t want him to lose that.
On the other, Melissa feels rightly betrayed by Frances, whom she'd taken under her wing as a mentor. While she has chemistry with Bobbi, it was Frances that Melissa had elevated with her publisher and had encouraged to pursue writing as a job.
Ultimately, she decides to remain with Nick, despite the affair, and even allows his affair to continue for a period of time. This later paves way for Melissa and Nick to have a more open discussion about the state of their marriage, and eventually they start sleeping together again.
Bobbi
Throughout the course of the series, Bobbi wastes little time mincing her words or hiding when she feels betrayed by Frances, no matter how small those instances may be.
The pair are de facto wives, becoming pillars for each other to lean on as their respective home lives become increasingly difficult.
But the heart-on-her-sleeve Bobbi continues to push against Frances, who prefers to keep herself closed off, and considers any secrets she keeps as a sign of disloyalty to her. Ultimately this proves to be her biggest undoing.
When Frances starts her affair, she hides it from Bobbi over fear of her judgement. This then escalates when she accuses Bobbi of being 'jealous', leading Bobbi to consider that a homophobic comment.
Once Bobbi discovers the affair, it causes a rift in their relationship that's only worsened by Frances' essay about their time together at school, which she feels depicts her in a negative light. Frances doesn’t show Bobbi the essay, Melissa eventually does, and again the secret ultimately causes her to walk away from her longtime friend.
Nick
Nick has ongoing issues with his mental health that his job as an actor only seems to make worse. Constantly spending months away from Melissa, and then later Frances, adds to his feeling of isolation.
Closed off from his feelings, it takes time for him to open up to his young lover before eventually admitting one of the bigger issues in his marriage is his desire to have kids, while Melissa has taken the concept off the table.
He later confesses to having fallen in love with Frances as their bond becomes inseparable.
By the end of the series, Nick finds some reconnection with his wife, and as such it marks the beginning of the end of things with Frances.
When he admits to sleeping with Melissa again, Frances calls time on their relationship.
Frances
Frances finds herself in multiple binds throughout the series. Struggling with money as she's from a background poorer than that of Bobbi, she finds herself swept up into Nick and Melissa's affluent world.
Her sexual tension with Nick is immediate, and when they finally give into it, the pair's relationship soon consumes every moment of her time. But soon jealousy about his continued love of his wife makes her second guess her own feelings and what she should do.
When she is diagnosed with endometriosis, she decides to hide it from Nick, and later on that day he admits to having slept with Melissa. Heartbroken and still adjusting to her diagnosis, along with the possibility it could affect her fertility in the future, she decides to end things with him.
Losing everything after Bobbi cuts her off too, Frances briefly spirals and self-harms, but then decides to try and build bridges, starting with her long-time best friend.
Her message of apology works, and in an open conversation the pair realise that they still love each other, and they rekindle their previous relationship by sleeping together. Promising to have a bit more space, Frances next throws herself into her final years of studies, and gets her life back on track.
Come Christmas, Frances seems a lot happier and sure of herself, but things are derailed when she gets an unexpected call from Nick. He hadn't meant to call her, believing he was ringing Melissa while running errands, but it soon sparks a catch-up conversation between them.
Frances tells Nick about getting back together with Bobbi, and about her endometriosis diagnosis that she'd hidden from him. She admits the fertility issues that comes with it made her feel like she wasn't good enough for him. Nick is seen crying in his car and he said he wishes he'd known.
Nick tells her he hadn't called because she told him he didn’t want to see her any more, not because he didn’t want to.
"I felt like I was not what you wanted. That I was getting it all wrong," he told her, before remembering the first time they kissed. He then admits: "I have this impulse to be available to you all the time."
In the final seconds of the show, Frances makes a decision, and says: "Nick? Come and get me."
Conversations With Friends is available in full now on BBC iPlayer in the UK and Hulu in the US.
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Freelance writer, Digital Spy
Tilly is Gold-Standard NCTJ accredited journalist with eight years of experience in entertainment journalism.
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Previously working with The Sun Online, Yahoo, Metro.co.uk and Independent IE amongst others, she joined the Digital Spy team from 2021-2023 as Deputy TV Editor (Maternity cover).
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