Sara Wallis: Catastrophe finale left me all at sea

Does anyone out there have Rob Delaney or Sharon Horgan’s phone ­number please?

Give them a quick ring and ask them to explain the ending of their whip-smart C4 comedy Catastrophe before I lose ­another night’s sleep.

Or perhaps we could start a petition or stalk them on Twitter? But ­something must be done.

Endings are a notoriously difficult beast. How on Earth do you conclude a well-loved series that will satisfy everyone, both tying up loose ends but somehow leaving an air of mystery?

Well, they pulled it off. The last-ever episode had the nation applauding and debating, throwing out endless theories.

It all got a bit deep to be honest, with viewers heading into philosophical discussions about the metaphors of swimming against the current in a relationship.

Here’s what happened.

After what had been the usual Catastrophe run of vicious rows, family tensions and laugh-out-loud one-liners, the couple went to sit on a beach after Sharon announced she was pregnant.

She agreed to relocate to America but Rob happy to be together wherever.

“If I met you right now I’d still want to get you pregnant and marry you and mess it all up from there,” he grinned.

Then Sharon decided to strip off and run into the sea for a swim, and here’s when everything shifted to the dark side.

Rob didn’t want to go in. He kept ­looking back towards the car where the kids were sleeping, and he clocked the sign that warned of dangerous rip tides.

But he waded in after her and the couple bobbed around in the water, getting ­further and further from the shore until they became two dots in the distance.

The camera panned out until we could no longer see them and the credits rolled.

I felt sick to my stomach. The unsettling scene yanked our emotions about like a squeeze toy.

Did they die? Would the kids be okay? Or did they swim back to shore and get on with their lives? Why are they ­messing with our heads like this?

Viewers thought it was brutal and beautiful, scary but sweet.

“Life pulled them under, but they have each other to stay afloat,” declared a trailer.

This isn’t the first time the sitcom has swung into the serious, sometimes tragic side.

Away from the crude jokes, sex talk and comedy plots, it’s dealt with alcoholism, mental health, marriage and parenthood, not to mention the death of parents, including Rob’s mum Mia, played by Carrie Fisher.

This grief-stricken funeral episode with gags about Minions and Mike Pence was a case in point.

Catastrophe has been a genre-busting triumph of a show, and I can’t remember the last time a finale was this baffling and brilliant.

Sharon and Rob are somewhere cackling to themselves about how no one really knows what happened.

Damn their evil genius.

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