The deleted scene from Baby Reindeer gives the ending a whole new meaning

Richard Gadd's Baby Reindeer has been an overnight success since its release on Netflix earlier this month. The show, which fictionalises Gadd's lived experience with a stalker, shot to the top of the charts on the streaming platform in both the US and the UK and has taken the number one spot in more than 30 countries. The series has been widely praised by critics and viewers alike for its honest, nuanced and delicate approach to issues such as mental health and sexual assault.

Baby Reindeer tells the story of comedian Donny Dunn as he attempts to make a name for himself on the London stand-up circuit. While working at a pub in Camden, he meets a woman named Martha who goes on to stalk and harass him over a period of four years. The show is based on Richard Gadd's real-life experience, with his stalker regularly turning up at his work and home, harassing his family and girlfriend, and sending him a total of 41,071 emails, 744 tweets, 46 Facebook messages, 350 hours’ worth of voicemails, and 106 pages of letters.

Viewers have been quick to decipher hidden codes throughout the seven episodes, but it appears that there's also a deleted Baby Reindeer scene that adds a whole new meaning to Donny's relationship with Teri, played by Nava Mau. The pair meet on a dating app and quickly fall for one another, but things eventually sour between them as a result of Martha's stalking and Donny's reckoning with his buried trauma. At the end of the show, they have parted ways and Donny sees Teri happily walking down the street with her new boyfriend. And while the audience watches as their romance deteriorates, we don't see how the two really left things or if either of them ever got closure.

In an interview with GQ, Nava shared that they did actually film a scene between Teri and Donny which shows they have both healed from their relationship wounds - but it was cut from the final edit. She explained: "There actually was one more piece of Teri and Donny’s relationship in the script, and I performed it. Teri leaves Donny a voicemail five months later. So I think, for me, I got closure because Teri did too."

Although she didn't share exactly what Teri said in her voicemail, she added how important it was that her character went on to thrive in the wake of the break-up, saying: "That's what gave me so much comfort, knowing that they found peace with regards to their relationship. Teri got her happy ending, you know? Teri found a new man, she didn’t lose her friends, she didn’t lose her job, she didn’t lose her smile. She’s good. And I think that is remarkable, because so often we’ve seen stories of trans people that end with them broken."

Baby Reindeer is available to stream on Netflix now.