Editor's Note: The following contains A League of Their Own spoilers.Amazon Prime Video’s A League of Their Own, a reboot of the 1992 film of the same name, follows the inaugural season of the women’s baseball team, the Rockford Peaches. Set in 1943, this season not only shows the formation of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League and the Rockford Peaches’ underdog story, but it also tells the story of Maxine “Max” Chapman (Chanté Adams), a talented pitcher who dreams of playing professional baseball, but struggles to find a team because of the racism and sexism prevalent in this period.
This season, we’ve seen the Peaches struggle to find their footing as a team. They’ve had to deal with clashing personalities within the team and a coach who doesn’t take them seriously as athletes. But despite all the obstacles in their path, these women find a way to come together and make it to the league championship.
Carson and Max’s Friendship
The season finale “Perfect Game” sees Carson (Abbi Jacobson) and Max’s friendship rekindled. The share beers and celebrate Max’s new job, while also commiserating over how they’ve grown into their queer identities. Carson still shows some hesitancy in embracing this path, especially given how brutally Jo (Melanie Field) was treated by the police when they raided the underground gay bar and how that event pushed Greta (D’Arcy Carden) to go back to hiding who she is. But Carson can also sense how free and happy Max feels getting to live her baseball dreams while also being able to be with a woman she cares for. It’s a future that Carson wishes for, but doesn’t know if it’s possible for her. After this heartfelt moment, they end the night playing one last game of catch.
The Opportunity of a Lifetime
In the previous episode, “Full Count”, Max discovers that not only does the baseball team, Red Wright’s All-Stars, have a black woman as their pitcher, but she’s also the same woman that Max danced with at her Uncle Bertie’s (Lea Robinson) party the night before. At first, Max and Esther (Andia Winslow) have a tense reunion, but during the All-Stars game against the Screws, Esther fakes an injury to give Max a chance to show off her skills. Max wows the crowd, and the All-Stars’ coach, and is offered a job pitching for the team, alongside Esther, later that night. In “Perfect Game” the Screws coach and her factory co-worker finally agrees to let her pitch at their practices, but Max satisfyingly gets to tell him that she had a better offer elsewhere.
Greta also receives a dream job offer from Vivienne Hughes to come work in her New York office during the off-season. Greta takes the job and asks Carson to come with her on their last night, even though neither of them is sure how they could make it work.
The Championship
The Peaches start off the season finale having already lost the first two games of the championship series to the Blue Sox. Carson is spiraling and scared that she can’t be the coach the team needs right now. They’re down a player – Jo was traded to the Blue Sox after she was arrested – and thanks to her husband Charlie’s (Patrick J. Adams) surprise arrival, Carson is struggling to tap into the self-confident energy she’s been building all season. After she tries (and fails) to pep up the team with Charlie’s advice, Greta helps Carson get her mindset back to where it needs to be. Carson asks Charlie to go back home so she can focus on the team and not on him and what he thinks of her new lifestyle. In the locker room the next morning, Carson finds herself again and gives a rousing speech that brings the team together before they go out for their last practice. They all sign their names on a wooden post at the center of the room, so that no matter what happens, everyone will remember who the first Peaches were and what they accomplished. After everyone else heads out for practice, Carson confronts Shirley (Kate Berlant) for the first time since Jo was outed and Shirley discovered her secret. Carson tells her to stop being afraid and start living her life.
The Peaches go on to win games 3 and 4 of the series, forcing a fifth game against the Blue Sox. In their final standoff, the Blue Sox prove to be formidable opponents – the game is tied in the final inning. During the final at bat of the ninth inning, Jo hits a home run and is ready to clench the victory for the Blue Sox. But as Jo begins clearing the bases, she trips over first and exacerbates an injury from when she was unjustly beaten by the police. Greta and Carson run to her aid, but she can’t stand on her own. According to the rules, she has to cross home plate, without the help of her teammates, or they have to forfeit the game. However, since Greta, Carson, and the rest of the Peaches technically aren’t her teammates anymore, they rush to help Jo make her way around the diamond to home. This show of support receives thunderous applause from the stands as Blue Sox and Peaches fans come together to show their love for Jo and the Peaches. In that moment, it doesn’t matter to the Peaches that they lost, all that matters to them is helping their friend.
Saying Goodbye
Before Max leaves with the All-Stars, she tries to help her friends and family prepare for her absence. She helps Clance (Gbemisola Ikumelo) find a roommate to help her pay for the house until her husband, Guy (Aaron Jennings), returns from the war. Max ropes Clance into having dinner with her parents for the first time since Max cut her hair and left her mom’s salon to work at the factory, but also convinces her to submit her comics to their favorite newspaper The Defender. During their dinner, Max’s father, Edgar (Alex Desért), is excited for her and her mother, Toni (Saidah Arrika Ekulona), starts off by complimenting Max’s new haircut. Things seem okay at first, but Max still feels like her mom isn’t happy with her choices. Toni tries to show Max how rough her family had things and to convince her that running the salon is the only way she can find power in the world as a single black woman. Bertie, on the other hand, offers a more supportive goodbye by telling Max where to find queer allies while on the road and to reassure her that following her heart and her dreams isn’t a bad thing. But at the same time, Bertie does what her mother was trying to, in her own way, and warns her not to be too trusting of others with her true self. Max’s final goodbye with Clance is full of tears and “I love you”s – Clance knows that this is only the beginning for Max and that it’s likely she’ll find something bigger and better after the season is over. After Max briefly calls Clance from the road in Rice Lake, Minnesota, we learn that Clance is pregnant and leaning on Toni for support in Max and Guy’s absence.
Before the final championship game, Shirley reconciles with Carson in her own odd an over-the-top way that involves eating from dented cans and kissing Carson to prove she isn’t gay. During the team’s final night together, Beverly (Dale Dickey) returns the money that Jess (Kelly McCormack) paid her for the fines accrued by wearing pants in public, showing a rare glimpse at the softer side to Beverly that hopefully will be explored further if A League of Their Own is picked up for another season. This moment shows that maybe Beverly isn’t just a croney for the league’s management, but that she does care deeply about these women too.
The next morning, Carson tries to find Greta for one last goodbye, but gets stopped briefly by Maybelle (Molly Ephraim) before she can chase Greta out the door. Maybelle applauds Carson for her self-growth and not being the same person she was when the team was first formed. Carson is appreciative, but if anything that validation fuels her need to find Greta. Once outside, Carson pulls Greta around the side of the house and they share one last kiss before Carson tells her that she can’t go with her to New York, but she’s not going back home to Charlie either. Carson thanks Greta for changing her life, and Greta thanks Carson for helping her open up again. After Greta walks away, Carson turns around to see Charlie standing there with flowers. While it’s not clear just how much of their interaction he saw, his look of pure devastation means that he saw or heard some part of Carson and Greta’s goodbye. Carson looks just as surprised though, because Charlie had promised her that he was going back home so she could focus on the championship.
Even though Greta and Carson don’t seem to have the same happy ending as Max and Esther, they end their relationship as friends and with a deep respect and admiration for each other. Carson and Charlie’s relationship on the other hand is on even more fragile ground than it was when the season first started. As nice as Charlie seems, it’s evident that Carson has grown so much in her time away from him and found something that finally makes her feel whole. If we get another season, hopefully Carson still feels empowered enough to do what’s best for her, even though her non-confrontational escape plan probably felt a lot easier to handle than having to confront Charlie in person. Fingers are also crossed that Max gets to live her best baseball-playing woman-loving life given all of the inner turmoil she went through this season.