The Paper Season 2 Finale Leaves Multiple Romances In The Balance — Are You Hoping For A Third Season?

By the time "The Paper" wraps up its second season, it's not the fate of the Toledo Truth Teller that's uncertain; it's the fate of most every romance that has formed inside its offices.

Peacock's "The Office" spin-off returned with Season 2 earlier this week, with all 10 sophomore episodes releasing at once. And though the season begins with Ned (Domhnall Gleeson) and Mare (Chelsea Frei) in a real relationship, it ends with the characters on very different pages about where their romance stands — and it looks like Ned is in for some serious, Jim Halpert-style pining if the yet-to-be-renewed comedy returns for Season 3.

During Episode 10, Ned is hospitalized for what turns out to be exposure to mold — mold that collected on the blueberry muffin that Mare had gifted him after they swept the Ohio Journalism Awards, which he evidently never ate. Oops! Mare, who is still working at the Cincinnati Chronicle, books it to Toledo to visit Ned in the hospital and make sure he's OK, but when it's revealed that the cause of his illness is a weeks-ago gift from Mare that Ned never opened, she's hurt. ("This is the mold of indecision!" she tells Ned, whose commitment to their blossoming relationship has been unclear for much of this season.)

Ned later admits that he didn't actually forget about Mare's gift; he was saving it as his eventual reward for when they published their journalistic crusade against the corrupt local Glass Club. Mare believes him, but she seems exhausted by the constant back-and-forth of their relationship, and she remains tempted to sign a six-month lease that will keep her in Cincinnati a while longer.

Later that day, Ned and Mare briefly set aside their romantic conundrum to jointly put the finishing touches on the Glass Club exposé, which Ned asks Mare to run in the Cincinnati Chronicle once the Truth Teller is barred from publishing any negative articles about the hoity-toity hangout. As expected, the pair gets a bit of a high from working on good journalism together — well, in Ned's case, he's actually a little high from the Benadryl he was given at the hospital — but when they revisit the state of their relationship that evening, Ned once again asks Mare not to put down roots in Cincinnati.

"I'm not looking at you like an ex-girlfriend," Ned says. "I'm looking at you like a great journalist. And it sucks, because you can do that anywhere. You can do it here, you can do it in Chicago, you could do it in Washington. But you will never be more important to anywhere than you can be to your hometown. So I think you should come back."

Mare seeks confirmation that Ned is only asking her to come back to Toledo as a journalist, and not as his girlfriend. "That's all I'm asking," he asserts, and Mare says she'll consider it.

We later learn, though, that Ned wasn't only asking Mare to come back to the Truth Teller for the sake of the newspaper. Rather, in a confessional to the documentary crew at the end of the episode, Ned admits: "I had my own moment of clarity when she walked into my hospital room. I love her. Can't live without her. And if that's not something that I can ever tell her, then that'll have to be OK. It'll be torture, but as long as I can sit at my desk, at our newspaper, and see her face through my office window, I can handle anything." (Romantic? Selfish? You be the judge!)

Two other Truth Teller romances are left in limbo at the end of Season 2, but one is trending upward, and the other... not so much.

Let's start with the positive: Adelola (Gbemisola Ikumelo) and Travis (Eric Rahill) might be a thing! The colleagues finally post-mortem their bizarre tornado-chasing adventure from a few episodes prior, which had kinda-sorta resulted in Travis pantomiming sex while on top of Adelola, due to the storm gusts pulling him up and down.

"You know I was being tossed around by that tornado, right? I couldn't have done that with my body, even if I wanted to," Travis tells Adelola. But then: "And I couldn't have stopped. Even if I wanted to."

Suddenly, Adelola's intrigued.

"Even if you wanted to?" she repeats, and he confirms that's what he intended to say. Their conversation ends there — Adelola only gave Travis the floor for as long as it took her tea to heat up in the microwave — but something certainly shifts (in a good way!) in the wake of their chat.

Conversely, Nicole (Ramona Young) and Detrick (Melvin Gregg) end the season in a very weird place after Nicole realizes that her ex has been spending quality time with HR goofball Lisa (Lisa Gilroy, the scene-stealer of the season). Nicole then shows up to work with her hair dyed blonde and pulled back like Lisa's, and she tails Detrick all the way to Cincinnati when he and Ned go there to pass the Glass Club baton to Mare.

Once in Cincy, Nicole surprises Detrick at the Chronicle offices and hands him... a packet of salted nuts? "I saw that you started hanging out with Lisa. I'm super happy for you," she tells Detrick. He says he appreciates her, and the gesture of bringing him his snack, but the vibe is understandably off — and it's later revealed that on her way out of the Truth Teller parking lot, Nicole intentionally backed her car into Lisa's, then drove off while Lisa yelled at her about the collision. Does Nicole even have a job to return to when she's back in Toledo? Unclear!

"The Paper" fans, what did you think of the Season 2 finale? Did it leave you wanting more in a potential third season? Cast your votes in our polls below, then back up your choices in the comments!