‘Sex Lives of College Girls’ Season 3 Ending Explained: Showrunner Breaks Down Bela’s Big Reveal

Note: The following story contains spoilers from “The Sex Lives of College Girls” Season 3, Episode 10.

“The Sex Lives of College” wrapped up Season 3 with an unexpected reveal: A coming out story for Amrit Kaur’s Bela.

Despite only dating guys throughout her time at Essex, Bela’s romantic interest is piqued by Hailey (Melinda Belle Adams), the host of the storytelling show she joined in last week’s episode. After kissing Hailey at a party, Bela officially comes out as bisexual to her roommates — a twist showrunner Justin Noble said hasn’t been in the works since Season 1, but one that doesn’t surprise him.

“Bela has always been this character who’s down to try anything, do anything,” Noble told TheWrap, adding that many sheltered teens like herself have “massive discovery journeys” in college. “I wanted Bella to be a counterbalance to the story we did with Leighton (Reneé Rapp) — Leighton came into college knowing exactly who she was. But she was closeted, and that’s what made it tough.”

“Bela is not that person,” he continued. “She’s the form of queer representation where she’s discovering it on her own in real time as we watch.”

Though Kaur only found out about Bela’s coming out story before the Season 3 finale’s table read, Noble recalled that Kaur weighed in on how Bela might come out to her mom, given stigmas in certain South Asian families. Tracing back Bela’s fears of disappointing her parents during her first family weekend at Essex, Noble and Kaur wanted to show that coming out might be scary for Bela.

“Coming out stories are usually not for the person who came out at 14 and had an easy time doing it — it’s always like that kid who lives in an area that’s not super accepting whose parents are saying off-putting things as TV show characters are playing in front of them or on the news, and that it could be a little difficult for them to come out,” Noble said. “Our show and other shows can be a little bit of a road map of watching someone do it, watching someone honor that fear that they might have, that struggle that they might have, but then getting through it and giving a happy ending, because God who wants to see a bad one?”

Below, Noble unpacks the rest of the girls’ Season 3 journeys and teases what’s ahead for a potential Season 4, once he and cocreator Mindy Kaling get the official greenlight from Max.

TheWrap: That twist with Arvind caught fans off guard. Did you consider keeping him around longer?

Justin Noble: Arvind was obviously very uncool in the way he handled that, but in the scheme of life and thinking about relationships and even friendships, and what people go through and have fights and come back from, I think we could end up seeing Arvind again. I think there’s a possibility for it. I believe in the power of forgiveness for people. It’s not usually very common in TV watching.

Kimberly (Pauline Chalamet) also has an interesting arc in the last few episodes. How does the protest shift how she might go about her professional goals?

Kimberly came into school so nervous — so much of Kimberly is weirdly inspired by a little bit of me, because I went to a school like this and I didn’t know anyone there, and I was terrified of that aspect and my parents thought they were out of the right class to be there. Her goal is the ultimate example of rule following, so she can’t have anything wrong, and then we see her make a couple mistakes that give her pause, and people are like, “Chill. You don’t need to put this pressure on yourself.” This protest is an interesting fork in the road for her, because she knows what she thinks is right, but it does not align with the rules she has put upon herself given the person that she wants to be professionally. She, of course, makes the decision to be true to what she believes, but that comes at a cost, so we’ll have to see what that means for her.

There definitely seemed to be a spark with her and the protest organizer. Would he ideally be back in Season 4?

I think he could be.

Whitney’s (Alyah Chanelle Scott) storyline spotlights the pressures of being a student athlete. How did that come about?

This is something that we had decided very early on, because we knew Whitney was going to be the soccer player — it felt like a type of person you meet in college, the student athlete who’s in your room, who has to take on other things that other people don’t. They have to wake up early for practices, they have to get their lifts in. They struggle to keep up on their classes because of all the time. We talked to a bunch of female student athletes and some soccer players, and we just felt deeply for how much they had on their plates, compared to some other people who were like, “Oh, I think I might audition for this comedy group” — they didn’t have the luxury of doing things like that. I was so inspired by Naomi Osaka’s story a couple years ago in tennis, and I wanted Whitney to be like a poster child for pushing back against this.

Whitney is not a doormat character — she pushes for what she wants, and I think she sees injustice. She’s had a particularly — intentionally — rough go of it in soccer, dating back to Coach Dalton, and it was time for her to speak up and demand change, and we see her get it.

Kacey (Gracie Lawrence) also went through her first post-Calvin break up. Why did you decide to end this one pretty quickly and how will it be a learning experience for her?

Kacey was the opportunity to tell a story about confidence, which felt so important for all college students, but particularly young, female college students. From the moment we meet Casey, there’s this front of extreme confidence, and then mom comes to visit, and mom cracks that veneer a little bit, and we see that maybe she’s not as strong as she puts out in front. In the gay rodeo episode, we see that it’s much deeper than we thought — when she’s facetuning the photo of herself and changing everything about her face, it just kills me. Just one little throwaway comment, where they’re asking what exes would say about you, totally sets her off on this journey where she has to know from Calvin what it was about. Calvin basically says, I don’t think I could have stayed a virgin for four years, and then adds this one haunting, lingering comment, saying, “I don’t think any guy could.” And she makes a bad decision, in a true way that felt like what our writers in the room talked about. She got a little too attached too quickly. But the friends are there. The show is always about the love story between these girls, and they build her back up, and she has her biggest confident win of the season.

Taylor (Mia Rodgers) seems to be finding the strength in herself to stay sober, but moving off campus means she’s a bit more isolated. Do you think this was a positive decision for her? 

Totally. A lot of Bela’s advice over the course of the season has been correct, and she’s like, “God, this girl doesn’t quite get it.” And then I love in Episode 9 when Bella’s like, “this is bad — you shouldn’t be doing this,” but Ash is a good person, and she’s a good person for Taylor to have around. I just wanted to set up a nice, happy queer story with the two of them, as opposed to another mistake made in relationships. There’s so many queer women in my life who have lived up to the stereotype of U-Haul lesbians, and we’re just going to show a version of it that’s very positive. They move in together, they have different amounts of makeup, and they’re there for each other.

I’m anticipating that some fans might start shipping Bela and Taylor — do you get any romantic vibes from them?

I have been seeing those comments all season — I desperately wanted to be like, “Do you not realize how deeply inappropriate it would be for Bela to put a move on her?” She’s not only a first-year student who Bela has under her care, she’s in a vulnerable, sober journey space, so I truly don’t see them that way. I think they’re a nice friendship, but because queer audiences, for decades, remain so thirsty for love stories between queer characters, as soon as a show has two queer characters, they end up together, because shows at large don’t have a plethora of bonus queer characters. Our show just has a lot of queer characters, so it’s a little different in that there’s just queer friends. That being said, nothing’s off limits in future seasons. Hopefully Taylor wouldn’t be a first year student, but I think they have a cute friendship that I like — I like how much Taylor needles Bela, and they’re a little different. I love what Ruby Cruz brings to Ash, and I love the dynamic between Taylor and Ash, even though we don’t see a tremendous amount of it this season.

What are some storylines you’d like to dig deeper into in a potential Season 4?

Kimberly has the cliffhanger of this season — she thinks that the school is going to sue her for property damage. I’d love to see how that goes down and if Tig Notaro’s character would play into that if she has to come to her aid. We have multiple new love interests that appear in these two episodes at the end of Season 3, we have the closing of some doors and different extracurriculars and school things, so there’s a lot of momentum heading into a Season 4, and lots of ways we can go. So pending a phone call, Mindy and I and the writers will be at the ready to decide which way to go.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

“The Sex Lives of College Girls” Season 1-3 are now streaming on Max.

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