Instead of serving as the be-all, end-all answer - “Oh, they’re in love! Happy ending! Yay!” - it invites more questions. How many stories of a young man and a young woman end in a big, sweeping, romantic kiss? In the history of film and television, how often is a prolonged make-out session the must-have magical ending audiences demand? Here, the same closing scene works against those neat-and-tidy endings. The story earns this interpretation by subverting so many assumptions along the way, which makes it an even better ending. The kiss feels like the only way to acknowledge how deeply they feel for each other, and that a parting handshake or hug wouldn’t be enough to commemorate their time together.

Take from the final scene what you will - Guadagnino’s series is nothing if not ambiguous - but Fraser and Caitlin’s tender moment doesn’t have to be romantic. The finale has all the trappings of a Hollywood ending, complete with a last-second sprint, so the guy can tell the girl how he really feels.Īnd then, they break their promise. They confess secrets, they fight, they run from each other (literally and a lot), until that same undeniable bond that united them in the first place sends them back into each other’s arms. Much of the finale is an hourlong reverie built around swooning music and delayed farewells, where Fraser and Caitlin embark on one last shared adventure before their parents pull them apart. Still, Fraser and Caitlin, along with most of the teens in Luca Guadagnino’s beautiful identity drama “We Are Who We Are,” are kids who refuse to be boxed in by anything. ‘We Are Who We Are’ Breakout Jordan Kristine Seamón on Caitlin’s Gender-Bending Arc

Fraser supported Caitlin, Caitlin supported Fraser. Sure, it helped at the time eliminating a prospective romantic component freed them from worrying about whether they were flirting or not, dating or not, attracted to each other or not, and their individual personalities were free to grow. Early in the series, when the two burgeoning friends told each other they would never kiss, little did either know the kind of journey they’d go on together that Caitlin would explore the world as Harper, that Fraser would become their righteous defender, or that they’d find such a powerful connection in each another.īut taken beyond the duo’s growing devotion, their promise was always antithetical to their outlook.

The old saying goes, “a promise made is a promise kept.” But for Fraser (Jack Dylan Grazer) and Caitlin (Jordan Kristine Seamón), two teenagers living in defiance to the status quo, their promise is made stronger by not being kept.

We are who we are episode 1