The Final Twist in Netflix's 'Behind Her Eyes' Is Absolutely Bananas

Literally WTF.

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Netflix
Netflix

So you've finished Behind Her Eyes—the only Netflix show in which a sociopath bamboozles not one but two different women into astral-projecting out of their own bodies and into the doomed one he'd just vacated so that he could commandeer theirs, murder them, and steal the clueless, hunky man they all love—and you have questions. You're not alone.

If you're like me, you've thought of little else but the Behind Her Eyes ending since watching the final scenes and the diabolical, heartbreaking, and absolutely ludicrous twist that will literally haunt your dreams forever. But what exactly happens at the end of the Netflix limited series' wild finale? How could a show that starts off as a simple love-triangle drama suddenly morph into something so brain-bendingly WTF? Let's try to work it all out here, and remember: I will never attempt to switch bodies with you using astral projection or any other means.

Also read: Could Netflix give Behind Her Eyes a second season?

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Rob, as Adele, up to no good | Netflix

Wait, does that really happen?

It sure does! Rob (Robert Aramayo, aka young Ned Stark on Game of Thrones), as Adele (Eve Hewson, aka Bono's daughter), absolutely harnesses his superior astral-projection skills and god-tier deviousness to dupe the tragically foolhardy Louise (Simona Brown) into making a series of stunningly bad choices that leads to her demise.  

Back up. How does Rob know how to use astral projection to body-swap like that?

We don't initially know for sure how that's possible, but a subsequent scene reveals how Rob learned how to switch bodies with someone and steal their identity. After Louise, now inside Adele, is injected with a killer dose of heroin by the entity that's taken over Louise's body, who we assume is Adele but actually turns out to be Rob, a long-awaited flashback scene finally reveals the brain-addling truth: For roughly a decade, Rob had been secretly occupying the body of Adele and creepily peering out at the world from behind her eyes. His consciousness has been in there ever since he tricked the real Adele into taking part in a "fun" body-swapping experiment with him, during which he executed a premeditated plan to murder her via a heroin overdose. After Adele's conscious self watched in horror from behind his eyes as the friend occupying her own body betrayed her, Rob, as Adele, chucked his former body into a stupidly deep well on the Scottish estate he just inherited supernaturally. Rob did all of that out of envy for Adele's "perfect" life, and to make the unwitting David (Tom Bateman) his. Witness the deranged power of homicidal astral-projection!  

OK, so back to the Louise thing. What was her first bad decision?

Some would say that it was hooking up with her married boss in the first place. Others would say it was simultaneously befriending said boss's unsettingly needy wife on the sly. Others still might say it was any of the times she didn't tell her oppressively nosy coworker Sue to mind her own business. I'm going to give Louise five episodes' benefit of the doubt here, though, and say that her first truly poor decision happens when she confronts Adele over the phone about all of the mind games.

In her defense, Louise doesn't know yet that Rob is inside Adele's body or that body-swapping is possible via astral projection, so she wouldn't be able to fathom the depths of his depravity. But Louise's openness on the call is baffling, given that she'd spent that very day learning about Adele's chilling past behavior and had just met with David to inform him that "Adele's a nutter—like, clinical psychopath, sociopath, or whatever." She'd even literally promised David she'd stay away from Adele. Instead, she does the exact opposite.

During the call, she spills the beans about having written to the police to tell them that David may have killed Rob, reveals that David has gone to Scotland to show the police where Rob's body is, and pleads with Adele to tell the truth to save David from taking the fall for the murder. These are not things any sensible person would tell a "nutter." Unsurprisingly to everyone except Louise, the call ends with Adele screaming "Fuck off!" into the phone like a banshee.  

So what was Louise's second mistake?

A few hours after the call, Louise receives a string of vaguely suicidal texts from Adele. While Louise does have unresolved guilt over her mother's death, it's hard to understand how the obviously manipulative messages would lead her to drop everything, hail a cab, and speed over to David and Adele's house to rescue someone she knows is a lying sociopath who had just hurled blood-curdling curses at her. Let's just say: She really should have listened to David.  

Any other mistakes?

I mean, yes, many. But the last one we need to discuss is her very bad, life-ending decision to astral-project herself into David and Adele's house.

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Rob, as Rob, hatching evil plans | Netflix

What exactly happens to Adele and Louise?

As Louise makes her way over to their place in a panic, we see that Adele (who, remember, we still don't know, or aren't supposed to know, is secretly Rob yet) has been busy setting a trap for her. Adele writes a suicide note confessing to being solely responsible for Rob's death, likely exonerating David, and stating that she couldn't live with the guilt any longer. She sets the house on fire, places a heroin needle next to a bed, shoots a dose between her toes, and lies down to wait.

Louise, who for some reason waits until she's almost at the house to call actual rescue professionals, arrives and proceeds to do everything Rob, as Adele, expects her to, and in fact guided her toward in previous scenes through Rob's journals that "Adele" had given her. Desperate to get inside after seeing smoke coming up from the basement, Louise decides that her only recourse is to astral-project her way through the door. On the confrontational call, Adele had pointedly mentioned that astral projection only allows you to access places you've seen first-hand, and we hear those words echo as Louise floats into the house. In a previous episode, Adele had brought Louise upstairs to the bedroom with the forest painted on the wall, and now we know why. Louise's red-colored consciousness heads up there and soon hovers above Adele's lifeless body sprawled on the bed.

This is where the truly freaky stuff begins. Adele's blue-colored consciousness, which we still don't know for certain is really Rob's, is lurking in a corner of the room above and behind Louise's, and it sneaks down the stairs and enters Louise's body. Louise comes to and grins maniacally with excitement. Meanwhile, Louise, seeing that Adele is passed out and fearing that she might be dying, enters Adele's body. But Louise, now occupying Adele, opens her eyes and is immediately overwhelmed and immobilized by the amount of heroin in her system.

Enter Louise, who we are still supposed to think is Adele but who hints that she is, in fact, not Adele. As this eye-popping information begins to sink in, Adele (who is really Rob), inside Louise's body, injects Louise, inside Adele's, with even more heroin, a fatal dose. Louise, through Adele's mouth, utters a final word: Adam—which is funny, considering that she never once thought about what might happen to her nine-year-old son when she made the very bad decision to confront a desperate, cornered sociopath she'd repeatedly been warned to stay away from.

Does Louise die?

Yes. The insidious nature of Rob's body-swapping crime is that he's commited a homicide that can't really be "solved." Louise's body lives on, but with Rob's soul or consciousness inside. There's no way to tell that Louise's soul died inside Adele's body. Not even Louise's own son, Adam, would be able to know for certain what's going on. We really need Fox Mulder to be assigned to the case.

What happens to Adam?

Between the bonkers astral-projection switcheroo murder scene at David and Adele's house, and the origin flashback revealing precisely how Rob robs (ohhhhh, I just got that) Adele of her life, we see Louise (who is actually Rob) drag Adele's dead body outside as the authorities Louise had waited way too long to call arrive. Rob/Louise then returns to Louise's flat, marvels at a pigeon, and practices being Louise. The next morning, Rob/Louise picks up Adam from her ex Ian's house, and Adam immediately sees that there's something off with this person who is indeed not really his mom. Then we see Rob/Louise reuniting and reconciling with an exonerated, wealthy and still hopelessly unaware David. He seems so happy to see Louise. What a chump.

Cue the flashback where Rob murders the real Adele and throws his own carcass into the well, the scene that definitively confirms that, in the present, it's actually Rob occupying Louise's body now. And then cut to... a wedding? Back in the present, David—naturally thinking that Louise is Louise and not that creepy addict Adele met in rehab, and maybe not knowing Louise well enough to notice any behavioral or verbal tics that might lead him to spot something's not quite right about her (they've known each other for, what, like three months?)—marries Rob/Louise. Rob's evil plan has worked again!

But there's one problem: Adam. The finale's last scene, which could have come straight out of a Jordan Peele movie, shows David, Rob/Louise and poor, poor Adam driving somewhere after the wedding ceremony and brainstorming honeymoon options. Rob/Louise suggests a Caribbean cruise. "But you hate boats," says a clearly terrified and suspicious Adam from the backseat. "You've always said you hate boats." Rob/Louise turns to him with a malicious grin and says, "Maybe I've changed." Adam's so screwed.