The Final Season of ‘Physical’ Is Blood, Sweat, and Cheers

When we last left Sheila Rubin—the sharp-witted but self-loathing San Diego housewife-turned-fitness guru at the center of Apple TV+’s Physical—she had just been to hell and back. Not literally, of course, unless your picture of hell is hitting a mental rock bottom and severe relapse. In that case, Sheila got about as close to the fire as possible.

At the end of its second season, Physical saw Sheila (played by a note-perfect Rose Byrne) coming to terms with her lifelong patterns of disordered eating. But alongside seeking recovery, Sheila also sought revenge. The combination of bingeing, purging, and obsessive-compulsive behavior ruined her marriage, alienated her mentors in the fitness world, and made her a pariah to everyone but her best friend and business partner Greta (Dierdre Friel). But that isolation only drove her taste for annihilation and control, and Season 2 closed with Sheila setting her sights on another competitor, finally becoming the ruthless ’80s aerobics industry kingpin that the show promised from its start.

In its final season, which premieres August 2, Physical at last finds the right marriage between the people in Sheila’s orbit and the ultra-compelling character at its center. Yet the series doesn’t make the mistake of scrapping her expertly crafted pathos, just so Sheila can exist as a cutthroat girlboss caricature, either. Across Season 3’s 10 episodes, Physical confidently step-touches its way to an ending fit for the realistic complexity of recovery; there are occasional backslides, but they only make the monumental leaps forward all the more special.

With the continued prosperity of Sheila’s growing fitness business taking center stage, Physical is unencumbered by the things that used to hold it back. Sheila’s boneheaded husband Danny (Rory Scovel) simply serves to move her story forward, when he once piloted the entire show. Tertiary characters that were too prevalent in the past two seasons—like the handsome Mormon land developer John Breem (Paul Sparks)—have also taken a backseat for the most part. But what’s most noticeable is the absence of the undying critical voice in Sheila’s head.

Through the disordered eating support group she found in Season 2, Sheila has quieted her self-destructive inner monologue. That silence allows her to be both a better mother and a more forceful business owner, able to focus on the actual expansion of her empire rather than the imaginary expansion of her own body every time she ate a morsel of food. Byrne’s delivery of Sheila’s stomach-churning mental soliloquies was previously the must-see reason for tuning in to Physical, as dark as that may be. But without those lectures filling the silence, it’s easier for viewers to track the marked differences in Sheila’s behavior, learned through her recovery.

But with recovery often comes relapse. And Sheila’s desperate need for control requires some kind of psychological adversary. Enter Kelly Kilmartin (Zooey Deschanel), the prim, proper, and blonde Southern belle who turned her television stardom into a rapid ascent in the fitness industry. It doesn’t take long for Sheila to target Kelly as the sole competitor nipping at her legwarmers, and even less time for Sheila to make Kelly the new voice echoing inside her head.

Deschanel’s return to the small screen after seven seasons on New Girl affords the actress some bite that her time in network television didn’t always afford her. Kelly is deliciously devious, a worthy opponent to go up against the perennially plotting Sheila. Deschanel brings a breathy, Marilyn Monroe-esque coo to the character, dipping in and out of a Southern drawl with the cadence of someone who might just be faking it. Instead of remaining only an echo in Sheila’s head, Sheila visually manifests Kelly in moments of anxiety. In Sheila’s mind, her new rival lurks in the corners of impending brand deal meetings and workout classes, flaunting her cleavage and lack of crippling self-hate in Sheila’s face.

As Sheila’s success multiplies, so do her visions of Kelly, and that’s what causes Sheila to worry. Physical has always explored how humans are capable of pushing themselves further by finding fault in our own actions, and the depths of despair to which those thoughts can lead us. Sheila struggles to balance the steps of her recovery with the temptation of relapse, and watching her legitimately weigh the benefits of self-hatred—as if there are any at all—is a harsh and all too relatable sight.

Early in Season 3, Sheila wonders if the voice inside her head is what built everything around her. It’s a simple but blisteringly effective thought, one that may trigger a good bit of self-assessment in viewers. It’s easy to mistake the fear of failure and relentless loathing for ambition, and the deceptively clever writing in Physical’s final season explores the differences between those two drivers powerfully, without becoming too maudlin.

That can largely be credited to Byrne, who is three for three on marvelous performances here. Once again, Byrne accomplishes a difficult balancing act with seemingly effortless ease. Her Sheila must be all of the things a woman in 1983 was expected to be—maternal, but self-sufficient; driven, but not successful at the expense of men in her field—all while battling visceral mental compulsions. But Byrne visibly expresses Sheila’s growth in the way she approaches difficult matters, and it’s a marvel to watch her elevate material that’s already carefully written time and time again.

Paul Sarkis/Apple TV+

Byrne’s performance—and the show itself—culminates in Episode 4, a series standout that finds Sheila and Greta working a fat-free cookie booth at a national health and fitness expo. All of Physical’s best attributes are showcased here, and the episode is a stunner from front to back. The series’ period-appropriate set design has never been more on point, and the careful construction of a retro convention center set is the perfect complement to Byrne’s searing work, navigating Sheila around a building full of triggers.

Because Sheila’s life in 1983 revolves around diet and exercise, she’s also a victim of her time, subject to the diet culture and falsified food science that cloud her already precarious mental state. Kelly’s prime spot at the expo doesn’t help on that front either, and when the two finally meet, a darkly comical and wicked series of events is set into motion, making for the series’ most memorable episode.

For a show so brazenly honest about the realities of recovery and the insidious nature of our penchant for self-destruction, Physical’s final season is the most fun the show has ever been. Though it might swap some of the old, tiresome characters for a few shiny new ones who eventually lose their own steam before the show wraps up, Season 3’s pacing feels much less languid than prior installments. By the series finale, Physical transforms from a cautionary tale into an inspiring character study.

Seeing Sheila seek strength in community, while grasping at an ending perfectly fit for everything this show was always leading to, is gratifying beyond measure—especially when I spent the first two seasons wondering if that satisfaction would ever come. Physical finally reaches the enlightened place that it always hinted it might, but in a different and more meaningful way than initially promised. It turns out that when Sheila is working her program, this program works better than ever.