Lisa Edelstein on the Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce Series Finale: "I Think That All Shows Should Have an End"

Get ready to break out the tissues, Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce fans. The beloved series comes to an end Thursday night after five seasons. 

But as sad as it will be to say goodbye to Abby McCarthy and her girlfriends, Lisa Edelstein said it's what's best for the series. "I think that all shows should have an end. Great shows should definitely know when they're ending," she told The Daily Dish earlier this season. "So when you know you have an end, when you know you're building towards something, you can really write to it. I think it improves the writing, it improves the performances. Everybody knows that they only have a limited amount of time playing these roles. It changes everything." 

Though Edelstein teased that she thinks fans will find the series finale to "be really satisfying," that doesn't mean the girlfriends' stories will be all wrapped up in a neat, little bow, either. "I don't know that it's a tidy ending. I wouldn't call it tidy. I think it's an ending that makes everybody feel like they can land with their character, know where they are, and then maybe hope for a movie [laughs]," Edelstein explained. "I think that in Season 5 we just start touching on the problems that come with other people's children, like when you're actually having to raise somebody else's kids. For Abby, it's extra-complicated because she has kids of her own. Those stories, we only touch it. We only take a little toe and dip into it, but there's a gold mine down there to dig."

In this age of TV revivals and movies, Edelstein said she would "absolutely" want to reprise her role as Abby at some point down the road, if given the opportunity — there's just one problem, according to her. "It's just that I'm so much older than Beau [Garrett] that by the time we get around to doing that, I'll be telling a very different story then," she said. "She'll still be telling this story, and I'll be telling a very different one." 

But no one was thinking of the future during the final poignant moments on set while filming the GG2D series finale, according to Edelstein, but rather, the here and now. "[It was] really sweet, sweetly emotional," she said. "Because we knew we were coming to an end, everybody was really in the moment and tried to experience it and eek out every bit of specialness that it had to offer us."

With so many unforgettable memories behind the GG2D cast and an exciting future ahead of them, the end of the series couldn't help but feel like the last day of school to Alanna Ubach, who plays Jo. "We had this phenomenal cast party to send us off in Vancouver. It was tough. It was bittersweet. All of us were now scrambling and wondering what we were gonna work on next, and what's gonna happen, and oh my gosh, maybe we should all think of doing something together," she told The Daily Dish during a separate interview. "High school graduation is finally here. All of us were wearing our caps and gowns and thinking, 'Wow, now it's college.' It was four years we were together, so it's wild starting as a freshman and leaving as a senior."

— Additional reporting by Alesandra Dubin

How will it all end? Tune in to GG2D Thursday at 10/9c to find out. Until then, check out a sneak peek of the series finale, below.

Barbara Has Some Big News for Abby...