Back in March, Love Actually fans found themselves divided into two camps: those who lived in England, and were thus able to watch Red Nose Day’s cast reunion immediately, and those who lived across the pond, who would have to wait until May. Luckily, Thursday night brought everyone onto the same page, as NBC finally aired the full reunion—with a special guest appearance by Patrick Dempsey, who was not in the version that aired originally in the U.K.
What was the erstwhile McDreamy doing in Love Actually? Turns out he’s the happy ending for Sarah, played by Laura Linney. In the original film, Linney’s character chooses caring for her mentally ill brother over a relationship with Karl (Rodrigo Santoro), her ultra-sexy work crush. Luckily, it seems the 2010s have been kinder to Sarah than the early aughts. In the reunion, she’s once again working late when she gets a call. She answers, addressing the caller as “my darling,” which might lead viewers to expect to hear her brother, with whom she also used that term of endearment, on the other end of the line. Instead, there Dempsey is. He’s her husband, and by the look of things, they have at least one child and a cat. Good for them!
As for the rest of the gang: as you might have heard in March, Andrew Lincoln’s Mark apparently really did marry Kate Moss, while Juliet and Peter (Keira Knightley and Chiwetel Ejiofor) are still happily married. Daniel (Liam Neeson) and his son (Game of Thrones’s Thomas Brodie-Sangster) reunite to talk about love, actually, as the kid turns up with his old school crush, Joanna (Olivia Olson), so that she can ask for his hand in marriage. (How modern!) Bill Nighy’s Billy Mack is as narcissistic as ever; Rowan Atkinson is still wrapping gifts at the speed of cold molasses—albeit at Walgreens now. And as for Hugh Grant’s prime minister? He’s not the dancer he used to be, as evidenced by the disastrous results from his “Hotline Bling” jam session.
