Credit: Netflix

Kudos to the makers of My Brilliant Career as they spent six episodes making us wonder which man Sybylla will choose: Harry or Frank… Only to reveal that we have been asking the wrong question. Netflix‘s 2026 adaptation of Miles Franklin’s coming-of-age autobiographical novel presents itself as a period romance with a proper love triangle.

Philippa Northeast plays Sybylla Melvyn, an aspiring writer growing up in rural Australia around the turn of the 20th century. Her family sends her to Caddagat, the estate of her wealthy grandmother, Mrs Bossier, in the hopes that society might smooth her rougher edges and perhaps produce a suitable husband in the bargain.

Sybylla, naturally, has plans of her own. She wants to write, and she wants a life interesting enough to give her something worth writing about. But she is presented with a bigger problem: the problem of choice.

For a while, Sybylla really does seem to be choosing between two men. There is Harry Beecham (Christopher Chung), who becomes the primary romantic connection, and Frank Hawden (Jake Dunn), who gives her another possible future to consider. The series makes Frank a much stronger contender than he is in Miles Franklin’s novel, so the triangle feels like a real part of Sybylla’s dilemma rather than a passing distraction.

And then the finale comes along and, oh, everything gets turned on its head. Harry or Frank? Sybylla has spent far too long with other people trying to sketch out her future for her, and she is done playing along. So now the choice is much tougher: follow the life everyone expects of her, or take a leap and choose one that is actually hers.

Who does Sybylla really choose in My Brilliant Career?

And after all that romantic back-and-forth, the answer lands with a bit of a thud: Sybylla chooses herself. Well, those who read the book might have anticipated it, but that ending was kind of the whole point of the book. Also, the answer was there all along, in the title.

That does not mean Harry meant nothing. Quite the opposite, actually. The ending works because walking away costs her something. If she felt nothing, there would be no ache to it. But Sybylla understands that loving someone is not the same as wanting the life that comes with them.

So Harry and Frank may be the horns of a dilemma, but neither is the real final choice. Sybylla has to decide whether she will belong to somebody else’s idea of happiness or take her chances on her own. She takes the chance.

And really, after all that? How could she choose anyone else? Sybylla, you go, girl!