‘Lady in the Lake’ Finale Reveals the Titular Role and Sets Its Characters Free

Editor’s Note: The following post contains spoilers for Apple’s “Lady in the Lake.”

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Like some of the best murder mysteries, Alma Har’el’s “ Lady in the Lake ” is not so much a whodunnit as a howdunnit — with a few good twists along the way. The Apple TV+ drama based on Laura Lippman’s 2019 novel aired its seventh and final episode on August 23, revealing the final pieces in the puzzle of Maddie Morganstern (Natalie Portman), Cleo Johnson (Moses Ingram), and Tessie Durst (Bianca Belle).

Throughout the seven-episode series — which started with Tessie’s disappearance and then death — Cleo’s narration has hinted at the connection between herself and Maddie, and the eventual consequences of what binds them. After weeks of alluding to a sinister and even fatal ending, the finale gives both women the kind of freedom they didn’t have in their old lives.

What really happened to Cleo?

Episode 4 ended with Reggie dumping a body into the fountain at the same time that police found Stephen running into the lake. The body is later confirmed to be Cleo, but was notably unidentifiable from water damage, so the ID likely came from clothing or documents.

Episode 7 opens with Cleo and Dora years before, when they were two bright young women who wanted to perform and ended up caught in Shell’s racket to make those dreams come true. But in the present — at least shortly before Cleo went missing, Dora is dead, and Cleo and Reggie hatch a plan to solve both their problems with her death. The cold open implies it and and smartly saves time depicting it; they dressed Dora up to look like Cleo and then dumped her body in the fountain so it would be mistaken for Cleo’s. Cleo herself went underground until she surfaced at the end of Episode 6, the final jolt to reality after Maddie’s many bizarre hospital dreams.

Ms. Morganstern, Mrs. Schwartz, Mrs. Durst

Since the very first episode, “Lady in the Lake” has prioritized Maddie’s journey of self actualization, as a reporter but also as an individual. Like so many women of the time period, she was never allowed to have a sense of self independent of the men in her life, and by series’ end she can no longer return to a lifestyle she found suffocating. After being assaulted by a boyfriend, groomed by his father, and taken for granted by her husband, even the kindness of a man like Ferdie (portrayed wonderfully by Y’lan Noel) won’t change her mind.

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By now viewers can surmise that Allan Durst (David Corenswet) is biological father to Maddie’s son Seth (Noah Jupe), a detail which doesn’t really amount to much other than further intertwining all the characters, especially since Allan and Maddie never reconnect on-screen in the present. This serves their arc as former lovers and is in line with Allan’s outrage at her after his daughter’s death, but again — the fact that they share a son together complicates the situation without contributing to any resolution (I also imagine Allan does not know this).

“When you’re dead…” “You’re free.”

At the top of the finale, Cleo shares her whole story with Maddie, telling her “When you’re missing people are still looking for you, but when you’re dead —” “You’re free,” Maddie offers.

Cleo pushes back, but that idea hovers over her character arc. As the flashback reveals, she’s been under the control of Shell Gordon (Wood Harris), and his grip on her life grew stronger until he decided to take her out of the picture. She’s not free as long as he’s in power, and its that shared lack of agency that inspires a kindred feeling in Maddie. She does believe that in another world, the two of them could have been friends — but as Cleo points out, that world is far out of reach.

The details of Shell’s business and downfall are less interesting than Maddie and Cleo’s connection, which is why it forms the backbone of “Lady in the Lake.” Years later, Maddie publishes the story — their story, not just hers, after seven episodes of the singularly repeated refrain of “my story” to anyone who would listen (and some who wouldn’t). And Cleo, a world away, finally finds a version of that freedom that eluded her in Baltimore. It’s a satisfying if straightforward conclusion in a series whose back half was stronger than the front — but with all seven episodes out, new viewers can tune in to the remarkable story of the lady in the lake.

“Lady in the Lake” is now streaming on Apple TV+.