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The last Grand Tour special said goodbye to 22 years of friendship between the three hosts.

On Sept. 13, I felt an aspect of my childhood fall apart.

I’ve begun to notice the subtle differences in my life for years now. It’s not the reality of seeing my neighborhood, once so alive with crowds of kids playing yard games, grow increasingly quiet or the telltale signs that I’m getting older that cause my reminiscent thoughts to turn sad. It’s simply that the show I have cherished for years, The Grand Tour, and the partnership between its hosts has regrettably come to an end.

The three presenters, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May, began their journey on television in the 2002 BBC version of Top Gear, a British-based motoring show featuring pre-recorded challenges the trio has to accomplish in numerous, diverse cars while also showcasing a talk-show/informational segment before a live audience. Though the first couple seasons of The Grand Tour followed a similar format, the later seasons solely displayed the iconic television “special:” a unique, movie-length episode showing the adventures of the hosts in a designated country attempting to accomplish a task in a certain mode of transportation.

In the final episode, One For The Road, they visit Zimbabwe as their forty-second and final country on this show alone. They ignore the text messages from their producer, Andy Wilman, that tell them their route, and, instead, decide simply to cross from the eastern border of the country to the western border, where they will bring the show to a close. As usual, it proved to be more difficult than they expected.

From the very beginning, I loved that they all had more freedom in this episode than usual. Clarkson has mentioned in interviews that every single detail in the show is scripted and pre-planned, so when they chose to make the final installment more personal, it brought a more intimate aspect to the flow of events. 

Their vehicle choice was also what made it notable. Rather than choosing cars that were unusual to their task, each was decided based on the cars they’d always wanted to own: Clarkson enjoyed his modified Lancia Beta Montecarlo, Hammond suited an Mk1 Ford Capri, and May sat relaxed in a fully original Triumph Stag. Along the way, as per tradition, their cars malfunctioned and obstacles in terrain had to be resolved—including maneuvering their cars over the largest man-made lake in boats and transforming them into vehicles able to drive on a railway track.  For the last time, they put the ’70s machines in an unorthodox environment, as they were not manufactured to withstand the washboard, dirt trails or pothole-filled pavement of Africa.

What continues to amaze me about this production is the obvious technological progression since their first performance in the early 2000s. The quality of drone and camera footage continued to showcase the natural beauty of wherever the trio found themselves. In Zimbabwe, the extreme environmental contrasts were not overlooked by the hosts. Its pine forests, The Sound of Music-reminiscent meadows, mountains, and salt flats were all captured in a picture-perfect manner.

Although the show is placed under a “comedic” category, this episode had a very depressing tone to it in some instances. Usually, I’m forced to pause the TV because Clarkson, Hammond, and May make me laugh so hard, and I did find it funny when they sent their first backup vehicle, a Volkswagen Beetle, over the edge of a cliff and Hammond broke down in the first fifteen miles of their journey, but the ending made me cry much harder than I’d like to admit, which this show has never done before. 

Instead of ending the series at the opposite border of Zimbabwe, they traveled another 200 miles to the destination of their first special in 2007: Kubu Island, which sits in the middle of the Makgadikgadi salt flats in Botswana. I began to choke up along with Clarkson and May a couple of minutes before the ending when they discovered the cars from the first special, renovated and abandoned. Both revealed the souvenirs they took as a reminder of where they started—May kept the emblem from the front of his Mercedes-Benz and Clarkson carried a headlight from his Lancia Beta Coupe on every trip since—and they struggled to leave the past behind.

Once they reached the enormous tree where the first special ended, the trio mirrored some flashback scenes and ended their 22-year partnership in a heartfelt, full-circle moment. As Clarkson shook his coworkers’ hands and unplugged his microphone, I honestly struggled to keep my eyes on the television; it was hard for me to grasp that the show I’d watched since I was a kid and grown so fond of was coming to a close.

I’ve heard people say that many viewers started watching for the cars aspect of the show, but after all this time they stayed for the dynamic between the hosts. I’ll be able to get car information anywhere, but I’m going to miss Clarkson’s refusal to do any manual labor, May’s inconvenient rants about boring topics, and Hammond always being on the receiving end of a joke. 

Despite the fact that it’s unlikely I’ll ever see the trio together on television again, The Grand Tour: One For The Road is the most incredible, perfectly emotional conclusion I could’ve asked for.