Inside Reneé Rapp's 'Deeply Emotional' Last Day on “Sex Lives of College Girls ”and Her 'Cathartic' Final Scene (Exclusive)

Stars Alyah Chanelle Scott and Amrit Kaur and showrunner Justin Noble tell PEOPLE what it was like saying goodbye to Rapp and the iconic Leighton Murray

Warning: This post contains spoilers for season 3 of The Sex Lives of College Girls.

Reneé Rapp has taken her final bow as the iconic Leighton Murray.

On the Nov. 27 episode of The Sex Lives of College Girls, Rapp's character made her long-awaited exit as it was revealed she would be transferring to MIT to get a better math education — and to be closer to her girlfriend Alicia (Midori Francis).

The departure comes more than a year after Rapp, 24, announced she would be stepping back from the series in July 2023. She said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that the series "changed my life" as she revealed her exit.

Related: Why Is Reneé Rapp Leaving The Sex Lives of College Girls After Season 3? What She's Said About Her Exit

Ahead of her final episode's premiere, her costars Alyah Chanelle Scott and Amrit Kaur, as well as showrunner Justin Noble, caught up with PEOPLE to reflect on the "very emotional" exit.

"There's a million ways it could have gone and I really appreciate and respect and I'm amazed by how they were able to do it," Scott, 27, says of how Leighton's storyline was handled. "They thought of all of the different sides of it — her love life and friend life and how hard that moment was for her character to deal with, and seeing us say goodbye to her in real-time and how emotional [it was]."

"We got to have that moment that I think fans want us to have. The goodbye scene, but also it gets to end on terms that are positive. It's not a big explosive friendship break up," she continues. "It's like, 'You're doing what's best for you and your life — on the show and outside of the show — and we're proud of you and we're excited for you and we're sending you off into the world.' The way that it was handled was so thoughtful."

Kaur, 31, echoes her costar's reaction to Leighton's storyline. "I liked that she transferred for something that was important to her career," she says. "Life imitates art, and she's [leaving the show] because she wants to pursue her singing career. So I liked that it was an intelligent reason."

She says it was "absolutely" cathartic to get to say goodbye onscreen as Bela, too. "It was sad. We got to put how we felt into the words and say goodbye."

Related: Actors Who Decided to Step Away from Acting — and Whether or Not They Stuck to Their Decisions

Deciding how Leighton would make her exit was up to Noble and Mindy Kaling, who created the series together in 2021. He says that Rapp was always going to be in just two episodes of this season — and he and Kaling, 45, knew they had to do her character justice.

"This is Leighton Murray. And Leighton Murray — she wins," he says.

"We started talking about how she came into the series, and if you think about it, she came in kind of knowing herself the least. She was projecting a different personality than she probably truly felt, and over 22 episodes, we watched her become incredibly confident with who she genuinely is."

They knew that Leighton would "choose what's best for her in the future" when it came to deciding to transfer to MIT or stay at Essex after the "opportunity is dangled" in front of her.

"We believe that she's just going to kill it wherever she goes. It doesn't take much of a stretch to imagine that she's the C-suite boss who's running a company, killing it at life, having no problems — except the ones that she creates for herself."

Related: Amrit Kaur Reveals the Sex Lives of College Girls Scene That Reneé Rapp and Alyah Chanelle Scott 'Couldn't Stop Laughing' At (Exclusive)

Though the cast all went in knowing what was to come, filming the goodbye scene is a "moment on set that I think I'll just never forget, because it was real. It wasn't even fiction after a while," Noble says.

"This cast was really saying goodbye to this member of it, and it was deeply emotional, and I think that comes across on the screen and I'm so happy with the way that that scene turned out, and that we could lend the words to kind of give them — as performers — this memory together. I think it meant a lot."

That scene was a bit "tougher" for Scott, though, as she and Rapp are as thick as thieves in real life. "As sad as I was to say goodbye to her, it never felt like I was actually saying goodbye because we literally live three minutes away from each other," she recalls. "So I was like, 'I'm crying because you're not going to be at work, I guess, but I'll see you at home.'"

Still, "that moment for the friend group is really important," Scott says. "I think it makes us all realize that this time and this space isn't forever... You can't ever get fully comfortable. You just have to appreciate the time that you have with people and then appreciate when it's over. And I think that playing that emotion was very cathartic and bittersweet."

When asked if there's a possibility Leighton might pop in again in the future, Noble confirms that the "chapter is closed" on Rapp's character.

"I'm proud of Leighton by the time she leaves," he says. "I don't know if it's what we saw her go through for the first two seasons, but I kind of like thinking that she's just killing it off-screen."

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New episodes of The Sex Lives of College Girls premiere Thursdays on Max.