The writer and star also weighs in on if we will ever see Ashley, Gordon, and Colin again.

Colin From Accounts co-creator Harriet Dyer breaks down that series finale ending

The writer and star also weighs in on if we will ever see Ashley, Gordon, and Colin again.

By Dalton Ross

Dalton Ross is a writer and editor with over 25 years experience covering TV and the entertainment industry. *Survivor* is kind of his thing.

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September 14, 2026 11:15 a.m. ET

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Patrick Brammall as Gordon and Harriet Dyer as Ashley on ‘Colin From Accounts’. Credit:

John Platt/Paramount+

- *Colin From Accounts *co-creator Harriet Dyer takes EW inside the series finale and why the Australian rom-com ended the way it did.

- Dyer also reveals the big plot point that came directly from their real lives.

- Is the show truly over? Might we see these characters again at some point? The door is not completely shut.

**Warning: This article contains spoilers about the *Colin From Accounts* series finale, “Rum ‘n’ Raisin.”**

In the end, it wasn’t fate that brought them together. It was a dog, both then and now.

The series finale of *Colin From Accounts* (now streaming on Paramount+) started with the off-and-on again Ashley (Harriet Dyer) and Gordon (Patrick Brammall) in definite off territory after Ashley saw Gordon and coworker Chiara (Genevieve Hegney) drunkenly kissing… in Elvis costumes, no less.

Gordon tried his best to make amends, even subjecting himself to an unnecessary summer flu shot to get face time with the love of his life, but Ashley wasn’t having it… until an old family photo started giving her second thoughts.

After finding a childhood photo of her visiting Santa that appeared to show a teenage Gordon as one of Kris Kringle’s Elves, Ashley wondered if it was indeed fate that they should be together. Just one problem — it wasn’t actually Gordon in the photo. However, another medical emergency with their shared dog Colin (who got into a box of raisins) eventually sealed the deal and brought the lovebirds back together, but not before a series-ending sliding door moment.

The finale ended with an alternate reality scene of the couple’s initial meet-cute, when Ashley impulsively flashed her nipple while crossing the street, leading a distracted Gordon to hit the dog (soon to be named Colin From Accounts) that brought them together.

The new alternate reality in which Ashley did *not* flash Gordon, and Colin was never hit, and the couple never met was, in fact, a dream playing out in the head of a sleeping Gordon, who awoke alone in bed… only for Ashley to return to the bedroom and comfort him in a hug while Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ “Into My Arms” played through the final credits.

Why that particular song? What was the inspiration for circling all the way back to that initial meeting? And is this really the end of TV’s greatest rom-com, or might we see more of Ashley, Gordon, and Colin one day? We spoke to Dyer (who not only plays Ashley but is the co-creator along with her real-life husband, Brammall) to get answers on all that and more.

Patrick Brammall as Gordon and Harriet Dyer as Ashley on ‘Colin From Accounts’.

Sarah Wilson/Paramount+

**: I have to say, this was a somewhat bittersweet moment watching the series finale because I was excited to watch it, but I also knew it was the last time I would be able to do so, so I kind of also *didn’t* want to watch it, if that makes any sense.**

**HARRIET DYER**: I felt similar, even though I know how it finishes and I was in the edit for ages. I’ve seen it so many times. I’ve done the mixes. And I put it on for my parents maybe a week ago, and it was the first time I’d seen it in probably six weeks since we mastered it. And I was like, “Oh my God, are we sure we’re gonna watch it?”

And then I felt really weird a couple of nights ago when I knew the finale was coming out in Australia. I felt like a mom letting her little kid go to school or college or something. Like, Colin’s leaving home now. I felt a bit wistful. There’s been so many moments where I’ve grieved the end of it, but I wasn’t really expecting that one where everyone else just sees the end of it type situation.

Harriet Dyer as Ashley on ‘Colin From Accounts’.

John Platt/Paramount+

**Before we get into the finale, tell me about how you all crafted the new boyfriend and girlfriend characters for Ashley and Gordon this season in David and Chelsea. Because often in shows and movies, the people in the way of a couple getting together are the bad guys, but you made them both genuinely good people, which I really liked and found refreshing.**

I really appreciate that because I don’t read all reviews, but I read a couple, and one from Australia said, “I don’t care if I see these people ever again.” Which I thought was really mean, because I think Chelsea and David are excellent. I mean, of course I wrote them, but we wanted them to not feel… I mean, the stinking of fish thing, that’s pretty unforgivable, to be honest. But other than that, we didn’t want Chelsea especially to be too dead on arrival. We didn’t want her to be an evil hag or something. We wanted her to be a sassy, smart, interesting, and appropriate person for Gordon.

Similarly, David, apart from the odor, he is kind. He loves her. He puts her first. He’s interested in her. These people are actually totally valid selects for these two. And had they not bumped into each other that day, they probably would’ve become couples forever. That’s how we wanted it to seem anyway. We spent a lot of time casting those roles because we wanted to get them right. And I think Nikki Shiels and Tom Cocquerel [who play the characters] were just extraordinary.

Matthew Moore as Andre, Harriet Dyer as Ashley, and Patrick Brammall as Gordon on ‘Colin From Accounts’.

**How did you all come about this theme of fate in the finale, and whether fate is an actual thing?**

It’s probably from our real brains a little bit in the sense that Patty doesn’t believe in anything, and I believe in a little bit of something. He thinks life is random and that when you die, there is nothing. And I believe that there’s a little bit of magic. And so I think we wanted to play with that and the idea that maybe Gordon might come around. In that moment where he woke up in the bed and thought she was gone, he might have come around to the idea that they were always supposed to be together or something. But that’s not verbalized. Fate is one of those ones that divides people, doesn’t it?

Patrick Brammall as Gordon on ‘Colin From Accounts’.

Lisa Tomasetti/Paramount+

**Well, tell me about ending on this sort of alternate reality dream where Gordon dreams about your first fateful meeting and what could have been had Ashley not flashed her nipple?**

I can’t remember whose idea that was. I think it was Patty’s. The big challenge of that was finding those exact costumes and the car and everything matching. And my hair’s a lot shorter, so they had to build this wig in. To shoot those few shots and slide them into footage from 2021 was our f---ing Super Bowl. I felt like my jeans were a little tight, but that’s between me and my wardrobe.  We just had to pull it off.

We don’t shoot this show with a huge budget. There was no kind of contingency schedule. And I remember seeing the schedule and saying to the first AD, “Hey, if it’s raining on the day we need to pick up this scene, what are we gonna do?” And he just looked at me and went, “I don’t know.” [Laughs] I was like, “Oh, no.”

But we got to the day, and it was a perfect day. Everything was a perfect match. We just wanted to play with that sliding doors idea and how one small, insignificant, silly, impulsive moment like a nipple flash caused everything. And without it, they never would’ve met.

And I just think about that with everything. You know, if I hadn’t done a job, I wouldn’t have met Patty. If someone else had gotten that role, we wouldn’t be here. Even with our daughters, if something had happened, we wouldn’t have been able to adopt these kids. And I really, truly believe that. I don’t think it’s pre-planned, but I find it really amazing that every small moment builds your life.

Patrick Brammall as Gordon and Harriet Dyer as Ashley on ‘Colin From Accounts’.

John Platt/Paramount+

**Picking your final song that you end your show on is a very important decision. How did you all decide on Nick Cave’s “Into My Arms”?**

I guess it spoke to that fate thing. The first lyric is like, “I don’t believe in an interventionist god.” It was Patty’s episode, and so he effectively chose it, but when we got to the edit, we did try others because we always think it’s crazy to not try. Like, for example, the end of episode seven 7 where I’m in the rain with Al Green, we did not have a song ready for that. And we normally write all our songs into the script.

It’s also a way of making sure there’s a budget for them. Because if you suddenly go, “Oh, we want Nick Cave,” and he’s expensive and we’re in week 11 of the edit and all the money’s gone then…. Whereas if we put it in early, they can budget for it. But Patty and I are big music nerds as well, and we really listen to the songs while we’re writing it, and that one just fit with the idea we just did wanna end on an embrace, and it’s very literal like that, isn’t it?

**It certainly fits.**

I’ll tell you what. One thing we did play with is when he opened his eyes and woke up, we stopped the song and had a suspended silence. But we felt that we were just waiting for Ash to walk back in and the song to start. And it felt like a more obvious version of how to do it. We had it like that for so long, and then on the very last day of the mix, we’ve locked the whole thing, Patty went, “No, let’s run it through.” And we all watched it. We went, “Yeah, let’s run it through.” It doesn’t feel as obvious, and possibly less satisfying, but it felt more real or something. Like we weren’t playing a trick. It felt expected to stop it and then restart it like, “Oh, and they’re fine.” But to play it through, it’s like, “F---, is she coming back?”

Harriet Dyer as Ashley and Patrick Brammall as Gordon on ‘Colin From Accounts’.

Lisa Tomasetti/Paramount+

**With a rom-com you generally assume the couple is going to get together by the end, but the fate of Colin was less sure. What were your discussions like in terms of figuring out what to do with him at the end?**

We knew we couldn’t kill the dog. We knew we wouldn’t do that to people. Because so many people have told us that *Colin From Accounts* is their comfort food. And we did not even set out to make that. We like uncomfortable food. We like shows that aren’t comforting, but most of the world doesn’t. So we’re like, “Well, we better be nice.”

But our own dog ate some raisins, and it was terrible. It’s because our daughter dropped a whole box of them, and he just scarfed them up. Patty suddenly got on this vet poisons hotline, and he had to pay $800 on the phone before they gave him advice, which was terrific. And then they said, “Basically, get bleach and put it down his mouth with a syringe and try to make him vomit.”

**Wait, what?**

I had to leave. I could not watch this. I ran away to the corner of our block, and I just put my fingers in my ears. And Patty, I’ve never seen him so broken. He was like, “That was horrible.” And I looked at Wally our dog, he was kind of breathing weird because he just swallowed f---ing bleach. And then Patty called back, and he said, “Nope, he didn’t vomit. He’s not vomited.” And they said, “Well, double down. Give him more.” And I said, “You know what? I don’t like this.”

And so then we took him to an emergency vet in Santa Monica, and they were so lovely. But they said, “If his markers go down, we’re gonna have to have another conversation.” And I never forgot those words. And they kept him in, and he was f---ing fine.

Very few dogs do die of that kind of toxicity poisoning, but it’s a problem. It’s like chocolate. It’s brutal. So [putting it in the show] is a bit of a PSA: Don’t let your dogs eat raisins. People don’t know that.

But we knew we had to put him in a bit of jeopardy to really ratchet up the finale. We had to give them both a shared problem again, because in the pilot, that’s what they had. They hit this dog, and the welfare of this animal was their shared problem. And now his welfare was up for discussion again, so they had to forget about the Chiara kiss and all their issues and go to the vet together, which is also super satisfying.

Colin on ‘Colin From Accounts’.

**I know the show is over, but I cannot tell you how many times a show that people love has gone away and then come back a few years later — maybe for another season, or in the U.K. they love their Christmas specials. What are your thoughts about more *Colin* down the line at some point?**

We think not, and that’s why we threw Christmas in there. We wanted to do a Christmas anyway because we loved that most of the world’s never seen a summer Christmas. Not that we showed kangaroos and swimming pools or something, but we wanted to put a bit of Christmas in there. But that also means that we can’t do a Christmas special, which is cheeky and probably helpful to us to close that book.

Obviously, nobody’s dead. That’s what my mom said. She goes, “Oh, well, you guys could come back. Gordon’s fine. Ashley’s fine. I mean, I don’t know what happens with the dog, but you guys could come back.”

**Your mom’s not wrong.**

Look, never say never, but I think we realized that just for a married couple with two little ones, *Colin*‘s the biggest undertaking you can have. We don’t have a writer’s room. We showrun it. We’re so in it. And our kids become these little TV orphans, and it’s not tenable, at least while they’re this little. We’ve managed three seasons in our 4-year-old’s life, and that needs to stop.

I also just didn’t want people waiting, because I hate the feeling. I’m a people pleaser. I don’t like the feeling that people are waiting for us to deliver something. So, for that reason, I would say it’s done. But, you know, we could wake up in a few years and be like, “God, I miss them.” And I’m sure there would be an appetite for it, which is really cool.

But for this moment, she’s done. She’s cooked. The book is closed. I mean, a real tell is that we have nothing in our Notes app for the next season. Our little *Colin* file has always been kind of regenerating itself. We’ve been adding to it. But the Notes app doesn’t lie, and it is empty.

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