‘Shafted’ Ending Explained – French Comedy Doesn’t Take the Easy Way Out

The ending of Shafted resonates because it doesn’t take the easy way out. It isn’t especially happy, either, though Episode 6, “Heartbreak”, at least ends with the four main characters together, united in their own personal mess-ups and heartaches. Like life, there are ups and downs and no completely clear answers, with many of the subplots being left a little open, not necessarily in the hopes of a second season – though that’s always a possibility – but more to reflect the messy nature of relationships.

An amusing French comedy with a surprising amount on its mind, Shafted juggles multiple concurrent storylines about midlife crises and masculinity, focusing on four friends, Cedric, Tom, Jeremie, and Tonio, and the women in their lives. This leaves the finale with plenty to do, and us with plenty to break down, so here are the basics first: Cedric, envious of his ex-model wife gaining popularity on social media, has started his own club to help men reclaim their masculinity; Tom’s wife wants a divorce and he still isn’t sure if he can accept it; Jeremie has partially reinvented himself in the wake of his wife, Cecile, leaving him for her personal trainer; and Tonio is trying to embrace an open relationship to keep Delphine in his life, even though he isn’t entirely happy with it – or sure about the rules.

Tom and Camille Don’t Seem to End Up Together

Tom’s arc in Shafted is about him learning to accept that his wife, Andrea, no longer wants to be married to him. In many ways, his is the most simplistic storyline, so it’s a classic getting-over-a-breakup deal, with him being pushed into online dating, trying to cherry-pick matches who resemble Andrea, and eventually finding someone else nothing like her who helps him to realize that he perhaps can move on.

But in the finale, Tom is thrown for a loop. Despite having met and at least partially fallen for his building caretaker, Camille, whom all his friends approve of, Tom’s reflexive need to reassure Andrea ends up upsetting Camille. Despite his romantic overtures helping to get things back on track, they still don’t end up together because it turns out Andrea isn’t as sure about the divorce as she thought.

It’s a little unclear what prompts the shift in Andrea – whether it’s Tom starting to take better care of himself and get his life on track, the stirring of old memories, the fact they have a son together, or jealousy over him having found someone else. Either way, the fact she can’t quite let go means Tom can’t either, and he and Camille part ways.

Jeremie and Cecile Get Back on Track

In a classic case of the grass not always being greener, Cecile’s affair with her personal trainer, Jordan, helps her to realize that she isn’t ready to leave her husband, who is thriving in her absence (and with the help of a testosterone protocol to cure his erectile dysfunction.)

It’d be easy to vilify Cecile in this storyline since she cheats, leaves her husband, and then goes back to him when she realizes that her new beau is a stunted manchild with a potentially unhealthy relationship with his dog. But the point is that she was a woman with needs who was entitled to attention and affection that she simply wasn’t getting from her husband. And it wasn’t just her who learned a lesson – Jeremie did too, cleaning up his act considerably, applying for the mounted police, and helping to keep things structured so that Cecile didn’t have to run herself ragged to look after the kids.

This all culminates in a long overdue but deliberately outlandish sex scene, but the character work underpinning it suggests to me that out of everyone, Jeremie and Cecile will probably end up best off.

Tonio Is Exposed as A Hypocrite

When we first met Tonio he was cheating on his girlfriend Delphine with Carine, the girlfriend of his business partner, Bertrand. So, there was always a note of hypocrisy to Tonio’s complaints about Delphine wanting an open relationship. And the key thing to remember here is that Delphine did seem pretty committed to Tonio; her desire for them both to sleep with other people, under a strict set of rules, was framed as her earnestly believing it was the only way to sustain their relationship long-term.

Tonio sleeping with Carine again is a betrayal because it violates the rules of the open relationship – they’re not supposed to have dalliances with people they know – and because it was resuming an old affair that he had already been lying about. Delphine is justified in being annoyed, and despite the finale largely revolving around their farewell party as they plan to leave for Madrid together, they don’t make it out of the episode together.

Lena Leaves Cedric

The ending of Shafted doesn’t go well for Cedric, either, but rightly so if you ask me. Cedric was the most obviously misogynistic of the four men from the very beginning and he simply couldn’t deal with the idea of Lena having her own job and following. He was jealous and possessive, and the men’s group he formed was a venue for his prejudices that allowed him to get much too carried away.

Lena was willing to overlook some of his more questionable viewpoints, but he couldn’t help undermining her at every opportunity. When his club started becoming popular and Cedric appeared on television, he claimed that Lena supported his bigoted views and that he was responsible for her social media success. Understandably, Lena left him.

Without Lena, Cedric clearly realized he had made a mistake, but it’s one he’s going to have to live with. Hopefully, as the men all claim when they lay on the street together at the end of the episode, the fact they’ve all made progress of a kind will lead them to better things. We can only hope – perhaps a Season 2 could let us know.