Who Is Alice? Every Year After’s Biggest Cliffhanger, And Who Could Play Her in Season 2

Given a Season 2 hasn’t even been confirmed for Every Year After yet, the show was pretty bold with its ending. So, if you want to avoid spoilers, you might want to stop reading here.

Season 1 of Every Year After ended with a huge cliffhanger. After Charlie Florek’s secret liaison with his brother Sam’s ex-girlfriend ten years prior was exposed, things blew up spectacularly. Charlie was left alone, and threw himself into his high-powered finance job.

However, he was left stricken when he went into his boss’ office and found a photo of himself, Sam, and Sam’s ex-girlfriend Persephone ‘Percy’ Fraser as teenagers on the boat. Seemingly, the heartbreak of what he’d lost was too much for Charlie, and his heart literally did break, with Season 1 appearing to suggest he's had what looked like a heart attack.

But while Charlie’s health crisis obviously took centre stage, fans of the book series rejoiced, because, for them, the introduction of that photograph could only mean one thing…

Who Is Alice Everly?

At this point, it's worth noting that the photograph was taken by Alice Everly — a character who is very important if Every Year After ends up getting a Season 2. Presumably, Every Year After will be adapting the sequel book to Every Summer After, One Golden Summer. In this novel, Alice ends up being the love interest of Charlie.

Unbeknownst to the rest of the Barry’s Bay gang, Alice also visited the Canadian lake town once as a teenager. It was then that she snapped the photo of Charlie, Sam, and Percy, admiring them from a distance, but being too shy to approach them. Ironically, this photo was the one that really kicked-started her photography career. Ten years later, the introverted Alice returns to Barry’s Bay to see her grandmother, Nan. And as fate would have it, Charlie is the caretaker of the cottage they share.

This is because Charlie, following his heart attack, has been diagnosed with the same heart condition that killed his father, leading to him taking a sabbatical from work.

Initially, Charlie and Alice don’t exactly get along, but Nan likes him a lot. Eventually, Alice and Charlie bond, and when Alice writes a summer bucket list to help herself become more confident, Charlie is on hand to help her complete it.

Who Will Play Alice Everly?

At the time of writing, the role of Alice hasn’t been cast. However, there are a few fancasts that have been doing the rounds. Interestingly, before Every Year After came onto our screens, one fancast was Abigail Cowen. Obviously, now she’s been cast and established as Delilah, this particular fancast won’t happen — that is, unless Every Year After wants to take a multiversal, MCU-esque route with its show, which honestly I doubt.

A defining characteristic of Alice is her red hair — which makes Sadie Sink a pretty obvious choice for the role, especially given her age and impressive acting CV. However, in an interview with Swooon, One Golden Summer author Carley Fortune admitted she wasn’t a total stickler for hair colour accuracy.

“Alice Everly is a redhead, and she has red, curly hair. However, Sadie [Soverall] has dark red hair, Abby [Cowen] has red hair. So, we’ve got two redheads already. Are we going to have a trio of redheads in the show? I don’t know. But you know, that’s not really what’s important,” she said.

“I think what’s important is that Alice is someone who is really at a crossroads in her life. She has said yes to everything and everyone and found herself with nothing, and she needs to be someone who’s very soft. She’s a caregiver. She puts everyone before her, and she is someone who prefers to be in the background. She’s very different from the women on Every Year After, and I think you need somebody who can show that softness, but still is someone who is very steely inside. She is actually very, very strong. I also really want to see her with her grandma, Nan.”

With those characteristics in mind, other compelling casting choices I’ve seen on Instagram include Zoey Deutch, who has just come off the high of leading hit Netflix romance movie Voicemails for Isabelle, and Kaitlyn Dever, who is best known for Booksmart and video game adaptation The Last Of Us.

Ultimately, whoever ends up playing Alice, they will have a lot of loyal book fans to convince — but I’m sure whoever they cast will be more than up to the task. So, for now, let’s keep our fingers crossed that Season 2 actually happens!