In One Day, Emma and Dexter reunite on-screen one day for every year following 1988, but there are plenty of important moments in their timeline that occur off-screen. One Day is Netflix’s newest romantic drama that follows the story of Emma and Dexter, two individuals who are connected through an annual reunion. Much like the 2011 film adaptation of the novel Netflix’s One Day is based on, the series couldn’t include every detail of Emma and Dex’s time together.
Some of the important issues Emma and Dexter deal with when they are not with one another include dating other people, finding fulfilling jobs, and dealing with familial concerns. One Day does an excellent job of informing audiences about what’s happening in between each year. However, there’s no selected portion of each episode to do a recap, so it can be easy to lose track of key moments since the last time Emma and Dex saw one another.
Is One Day Based On A True Story? The Show’s Inspiration Explained
Dexter and Emma’s story in One Day is heartwarming and tragic, raising questions about the inspiration behind it and if it’s based on a true story.
Warning: This article contains spoilers for Netflix’s One Day.
1988-1989
Emma and Dex are starting life after college.
A few months after exchanging phone numbers with one another in July, Emma spends Christmas with Dexter and his family. In the second episode of One Day, audiences learn that Emma was bold with Dex’s family, getting drunk and lecturing them about the founding of the welfare state. Before seeing one another in 1989, Dex is having fun and spending his time abroad in Italy, while Emma is touring with a theater group she’s working with. The two keep in touch, maintaining their friendship by sending each other postcards.
1989-1990
Dex and Emma are living opposite lives.
Emma has moved to London at this point, to start writing plays. However, until she can make a living through her writing, she works at a restaurant where she’s miserable. On the flip side, Dexter is living a life of slight fame as he’s working a gig to host a popular television show. This is the first time their opposing lifestyles are apparent to one another. Their differences are hinted at in the first episode when they discuss their plans for the future, and it’s a theme that will continue to be brought up throughout the remainder of the series.
1990-1992
Things are looking up for Emma and worse for Dexter.
In 1991, Dex and Emma travel to Greece with one another, but there isn’t much to be said about the year before that. In 1992, Emma quit her restaurant job and is making hopeful progress towards her career as a writer. However, Emma and Dexter’s reunion isn’t shown on screen, but Dex does reach out to Emma over the phone, which reveals he’s not been doing well recently.
Just as she heads out for the night on a date, Dex calls her in an emotional state about his mother. Dex has begun to party more over the year, and it’s the first time it’s apparent that he is using alcohol and drugs as a way to cope with the emotional stress of his mother’s illness. His dependence on alcohol and his playboy-esque lifestyle continue to become detrimental to him further on in the series.
1992-1994
Emma feels out of place in Dex’s life.
During this time, Dexter struggles with the loss of his mother, continuing his unhealthy habits of drinking. When Emma and Dexter meet up to eat in 1994, he flaunts his recent interest in a fancy lifestyle and makes Emma feel poorly about where she’s at in life in comparison. This is the moment the two realize they plan to live their lives differently and Emma questions her importance to Dexter. Therefore, Dexter’s blunt comments about her life choices lead to an argument between the two, and they spend the following years apart.
One Day: 10 Best Quotes From Netflix’s TV Show
Netflix’s One Day has an assortment of quotes that perfectly capture the relatable themes of the series, such as romance, adulthood, and grief.
1994-1997
Dexter and Emma spend a few years apart.
Emma and Dexter are reunited in 1997 at their friend’s wedding. However, they had much-needed time apart from one another in prior years. After their argument in 1994, Dex and Emma moved on in their individual lives, falling in and out of love with their respective partners. Emma has ended her relationship with Ian, and Dex is engaged to his fiancée, Sylvie, with a child on the way. The time Dexter and Emma spent apart was crucial to their relationship, as they were able to grow and better themselves as individuals before making their way into one another’s life again.
1998-1999
Dex and Emma’s friendship gets complicated.
Dexter and Emma are back with one another in Paris in 1999. Emma has moved to Paris to find inspiration for her next novel and as they are catching up, it’s revealed that Dexter and Sylvie are getting divorced after she cheated on him. Back at Emma’s apartment, they discuss a night they slept together after Dexter was experiencing trouble in his relationship. This night acts as a brief snag in their friendship as Dex wants a relationship with Emma, and she doesn’t want to risk being used.
Though Emma has felt lost in the world multiple times throughout the series, a consistent part of her character has been her ability to stand her ground. Whenever Dex has attempted to sleep with her or start a relationship, Emma refuses to be used purely as an emotional crux whenever Dex isn’t doing his best. Even at the end of their on-screen reunion in Paris, Emma makes sure Dexter promises to take their relationship seriously.
1999-2002
Emma and Dexter begin to settle down.
Emma and Dexter get engaged and married off-screen, but the process of them settling down is shown in the penultimate episode. Emma is working on her novel and Dexter has opened up a café that slowly grows in business over the years. Emma and Dexter also struggle to have a child, and it puts a slight strain on their relationship. At this point in their journey, everything seems to have fallen into place, and they are hopeful about their future. However, this doesn’t last long, as Emma dies after being hit by a car.
2002-2007
Dexter manages his grief.
In the years following Emma’s passing, Dexter experiences intense grief. The themes of grief in the series are devastatingly shown by Dexter in two separate instances, once with the inevitability of his mother’s passing and then again after he loses Emma and what he thought would be the rest of his life. To cope with Emma’s death, Dexter starts up old patterns of excessive drinking, worrying those around him. However, he is helped along the way by the loved ones of the couple and Emma herself when Dexter imagines her comforting him.
With encouragement from his imagined conversation with Emma, Dexter moves on and reflects fondly on their time together. Throughout the entirety of One Day, the two remained a constant figure in each other’s lives and were often the most important person to one another, despite any conflict that challenged their relationship. Emma continues to impact Dexter’s life when he takes his daughter to visit significant locations in One Day, as these places are where he and Emma spent time getting to know one another in 1988, beginning their decades-long love story.
One Day
Based on the novel by David Nicholls, One Day is a 2024 romantic drama series created by Nicole Taylor. Despite their lives drifting apart after high school, Dex and Emma reunite one day every year as their lives run parallel. Love, heartbreak, and the experience of growing apart together lie at the center of this decade-spanning love story.
- Release Date
- February 8, 2024
- Cast
- Leo Woodall , Ambika Mod , Amber Grappy , Tim McInnerny , Jonny Weldon
