Fool Me Once ending explained: What did all the final twists actually mean?

If someone had explained to me the ending of Fool Me Once on Netflix as I sat down to watch episode one I’d have told them they were being ridiculous. The final couple of episodes saw all the little plots tied up, and the answers we needed presented in a huge twist. I’m still taking it all in, to be honest.

There were shocking deaths, big reveals and it all centred around money and a family who had thrown as much of it at their problems to keep them away. 

Here’s the ending of Fool Me Once on Netflix explained, because I know we all need it.

So, here is the ending of Fool Me Once on Netflix fully explained

Basically, the entire ending of Fool Me Once explained to us that everything has happened because the Burkett family is extremely corrupt. The family owns a pharmaceuticals company, and has been running tests and falsifying results, giving patients dangerous drugs with awful side effects. Anyone who gets close to finding out the truth about this, has wound up dead.

The final parts of Fool Me Once saw what really happened to Joe, Maya shot by Joe’s brother Neil, before flash-forward scenes of her daughter Lily and investigator Sami Kierce. So how did we get here and what did we learn? 

Let’s go back to the very, very start. The opening scene was of some creepy ritual looking situation in 1996, showing some young boys. We now know that it was Joe, his brother Andrew and their friends at their fancy private school. They were “hazing” – which is basically like an initiation where one person is humiliated in any way possible. 

This humiliation saw a boy called Theo have vodka funnelled down his throat until he had a seizure and died. A week later, the boys were on a yacht and Andrew Burkett told the others he wanted to turn himself in over what happened. As Joe had been the one leading what killed Theo, he didn’t want this to happen, so pushed his brother overboard, and his family covered this up. 

The captain of the boat, Tommy Dark, had been receiving hush money from the Burketts ever since this happened. But clearly that wasn’t enough to keep him quiet, as it’s revealed Joe killed him, too. 

Then we move onto the more present day mess the family caused. The mysteries we needed explaining were: Is Joe actually dead and who did it? How did Maya’s sister end up dead and were the two deaths related? 

Yes, Joe is dead. The video on the nanny cam had been deep faked, as the nanny and groundsman had been paid to do so by Judith Burkett. This was in order to make Maya feel as though she was going insane, as Judith had suspicions that Maya had been the one who killed Joe, and wanted her to crack. 

Maya had killed Joe, when she found out he had been the one who killed her sister, Claire. Claire had tracked down Corey the Whistle and in exchange for him not leaking more about Maya’s unlawful behaviour in the army, had said she’d help him look into the Burkett business. 

Together, they got close to the truth about the corruption, so Joe killed Claire to stop the family secret from getting out. When Maya realised the gun used to kill her sister had been the one in their family home, she confronted Joe, and when he pulled a gun on her, she was one step ahead and killed him. 

When Maya then confronted all of the Burkett family about what she had found out about their corruption, and the death of Joe, Neil shot her. But, little did the family know Corey and Sami had set up a live stream, innocently hoping to just share with the world the family secrets, but ended up live streaming Maya’s murder.

I bet you never predicted all that coming, did you?!

Fool Me Once is available on Netflix now. For all the latest Netflix news, drops, quizzes and memes like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook. 

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