Warning: Major spoilers to come for Master Of None season 2.
Hey, cuties! By now, the true Clash Of The Cupcakes fans have already binge-watched all of Master Of None season 2, so it's time to talk about that mysterious ending. The newest edition of the Aziz Ansari comedy followed our titular Master Of None, Dev (Ansari), though his will they or won’t they romance with his gorgeous and engaged friend Francesca (Alessandra Mastronardi). The season 2 finale episode "Buona Notte" ends with Francesca seemingly leaving her human roadblock of a fiancé Pino (Riccardo Scamarcio) to be with Dev in New York. The last we see of Francesca, she's sharing a bed with Dev, but the vibe is distinctly unromantic and nonsexual.
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Before the episode fades to black, Francesca turns her head to look at Dev, who opens his eyes and stares back. All of their prior chemistry seems zapped away now that all the fun and games are over and they have to be an actual couple in reality. This is why I’m praying this pair doesn’t actually wind up together.
By the end of Master season 2, it’s obvious Francesca isn’t the unrealistic Perfect Girl she’s been portrayed as. That bait and switch arrives in episode 9, "Amarsi Un Poco," when the small town Italian woman moves to NYC for a month as Pino obsesses over black galaxy tile. Francesca is clearly trapped in a relationship that doesn’t make her happy, but has simply become her version of "normal." She’s able to enjoy an emotional tryst with Dev, who plays the more than obliging role of pseudo boyfriend, without actually cheating on the life she believes she’s meant to live. I don’t think Francesca purposefully emotionally manipulated Dev, but that’s exactly what she did. If a guy — say Pino — pulled all the stunts she did — from taking shots at his girlfriend via text messages to another woman in front of said girlfriend ,to going on countless little romantic excursions — I would be writing "Why Pino Is The Worst Person On Master Of None" right now.
Yet, I can’t really fault Francesca for her bad behaviour. As she admits in her not-at-all-flirty discussion in bed with Dev, the only man she’s ever dated in her adult life is Pino. Even during the relationship break the fiancés took at one point, she didn’t explore any other romantic options — however, it’s all but certain Pino did. Of course Francesca would want to experience the ups of a relationship as she’s in the depths of "a relationship that’s dying," as Dev puts it. This is why Francesca should be alone when the drama of this season closes.
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Not only does Francesca admit she’s never been single for a moment as an adult, but she doesn’t seem okay about it, at all. "I’m still trying to figure out what I think, what I want, and a month ago I knew everything about me and I knew that I was going to marry Pino," she explains, detailing the future she imagined. "And then I came here and everything changed. I just don’t know what I want anymore." After an emotional revelation like that, Dev, who claims to love Francesca, should be trying help her figure out such a gigantic life change. Instead, he literally tells her to stop talking and "don’t even bother," because she’s not saying exactly what he wants to hear. Because she’s acting like a real person and not a Manic Pasta Dream Girl.
Although Francesca seemingly chooses Dev by refusing to return to Italy with Pino, instead jumping ship for Dev’s apartment, that doesn’t mean she has to stay with the (probably former) Food TV star. After all of this upheaval, the Modena native needs time on her own to figure out if a longterm relationship with Dev is what she actually wants, or if the idea was simply her life preserver out of a marriage no one really wanted. Plus, Dev's "Notte" tantrum hints he's not exactly mature enough for a real relationship just yet.
Star and creator Ansari recently told Vanity Fair a prospective season 3 could be a long ways away, explaining, "I don’t have anything else to say about being a young guy being single in New York eating food around town all the time." Alora, if he would like to write about a young woman in New York eating food around town all the time and finally using her art history degree, I have one hopefully very single Italian pasta master I would like to volunteer as tribute.