'Behind Her Eyes' Ending Explained: What did Adele's suicide letter contain and did David marry Louise or Rob?
Spoilers for 'Behind Her Eyes' Episode 1 to 6
'Behind Her Eyes' has always been all about the ending. In fact, when the novel of the same name by Sarah Pinborough was first published, a #WTFthatending hashtag began trending on Twitter. Netflix also took up where the book publicity left off, creating a buzz around "that ending". But after watching all six episodes of the psychological thriller, we suspect that hashtag is going to have a negative connotation rather than a positive one.
We all love a good plot twist, but the twists in 'Behind Her Eyes' sometimes border on plain ridiculous. But before we go further with our episode breakdown, here's what 'Behind Her Eyes' is all about.
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Based on the novel written by Sarah Pinborough, it begins with single mum Louise. The Netflix synopsis of the show reads, "Louise Barnsley is a young, single mum whose otherwise uneventful life is plagued by night terrors. But things take a turn when she becomes romantically involved with her handsome and mysterious boss, psychiatrist David Ferguson. To make matters more complicated, David also happens to be married to the beautiful, seemingly-perfect Adele."
From night terrors to lucid dreams, there's plenty to keep you up at night after watching 'Behind Her Eyes'. So let's delve deeper into the complicated plot.
Episode 1
Louise Barnsley, a single mum living in London shares a kiss with the mysterious and handsome psychiatrist David Ferguson on a night out. However, things get complicated the very next day when she discovers that David is also her new boss and to top it all is married to the beautiful Adele. In the first episode, we learn of Louise's night terrors and the fact that she sleepwalks on a regular basis.
David and Louise, however, decide that the sensible thing to do is to forget that their kiss happened now that they're working together. Louise bumps into Adele while walking her son to school. Louise immediately recognizes her and is taken aback when Adele invites her for coffee, but she reluctantly accepts.
Episode 2
A friendship blossoms between Louise and Adele after their chance encounter. Meanwhile, there has been a change in David's temperament and he is rather rude to Louise. This treatment leads to Louise spending more time with Adele, during which she gets to learn about Adele's tragic life story.
She learns about the house fire that claimed the lives of both Adele's parents and how David was the one who saved Adele by dragging her out of the fire in time. Adele also gives Louise an old notebook that once belonged to her friend Rob, to help her control the night terrors that plague her and will also help to control her dreams. Episode 2 also sees the introduction of a new character — David's problematic and obsessive new patient Anthony Hawkins.
Episode 3
In Episode 3, we see Adele having more flashbacks to her younger self and get more insight into her relationship with Rob. Both Adele and David continue to try to get closer to Louise but overwhelmed with guilt, she tries to push them both away.
Adele urges Louise to continue reading Rob’s old dream notebook, which once really helped her. This episode then sees Anthony Hawkins, David's aggressive new patient shows up unexpectedly at the practice after-hours, demanding to see David. In the meantime, Adele gets a black eye while trying to buy drugs. She tries to cover up being punched in the face by saying she opened a cupboard in her face.
Episode 4
Episode 4 follows the suspicions that erupt over Adele's black eye. David's new patient Anthony Hawkins appears on Adele’s doorstep, and after noticing her black eye, he asks if David hit her.
Adele laughs it off as a clumsy mistake. However, doubts are raised when Louise reads Rob’s notebook and learns that Rob was suspicious of David surrounding the fire that killed Adele’s parents. David, in the meantime, tells Louise that he's falling in love with her and even though this declaration of love is made in private, Adele somehow manages to witness it, through lucid dreaming.
Here, ladies and gentlemen, is where the whole plot starts to go rather awry. If the series had stuck to the interesting backstories of the characters we suspect we would have had much more satisfying viewing fare. But we've got you this far so let's continue onto what takes place in Episode 4. Louise encourages Adele to leave David, but Adele says she can’t. David has a file on her in his office that makes her look crazy which he will use against her if she tries to leave.
Episode 5
Louise, who has lost her job, breaks into the office to steal Adele's file that contains information about her erratic behavior. Adele says that the file is David's insurance policy to make her look mentally unstable because she believes that David killed Rob.
Adele tells Louise that Rob came to visit her and David 10 years ago at Fairdale estate after which she has never seen him again. When she gets back to her flat, Louise continues to read Rob's journal and ends up having a controlled dream. Adele flashes back to Rob visiting her at Fairdale a decade ago when she taught him to control his dreams and astral project for the first time.
Louise writes and posts an anonymous letter to the police, telling them she believes David killed Rob, and his body might still be on the Fairdale Estate. Louise gets to realize that Adele can also dream walk and therefore has been spying on her and David all this time.
Episode 6
Louise is now desperate for answers that lead her to Marianne who, according to Adele, had an affair with David. However, Marianne dashes Louise's suspicions saying that Adele broke into Marianne's home and threatened her.
Louise now reaches out to David to warn him that she believes that Adele is a sociopath who claimed that David had killed Rob. She also tells David about the letter she sent to the police accusing David of killing Rob. David then confirms that Rob is dead but that he didn’t kill him. David says when he arrived at Fairdale all those years ago Adele told him Rob had overdosed and she had moved his body to the well in a state of panic.
David tells Louise he’s going to do the right thing and hand himself over to the police. Louise confronts Adele for spying on her and David and tells Adele that David is handing himself over to the police. Louise receives a stream of texts from Adele that seem to suggest Adele is in a suicidal frame of mind. Louise panics and goes to Adele’s house. Louise dream-walks out of her body and into Adele’s house. But she walks straight into a trap because Louise is sucked into Adele’s body.
Adele now takes over Louise’s body and explains that she was never going to lose David to her. It's revealed that Adele has actually been Rob all these years. The real Adele was killed while they dream walked together at Fairdale. Rob had convinced her to body-swap and lured her into a deadly trap.
In a final twist, it’s clear that Rob is now in Louise's body in a scheme to be with David, who he's loved for years. Now inhabited by Rob, “Louise” marries David, who is unaware of the body-swap. But her son Adam can sense that his "mother" isn't quite the same.
All six episodes of 'Behind Her Eyes' will drop on Netflix on February 17 at 3/2c am. Catch the trailer of 'Behind Her Eyes' below.