'Black Narcissus' Ending Explained: Was Mopu palace haunted? Here's how the nuns were affected differently
Spoilers for 'Black Narcissus' Episode 3
The tale of ‘Black Narcissus’ is a story of one’s inner demons. The FX limited series, based on Rumer Godden’s best-selling 1939 novel of the same name, sees an order of nuns reach a palace called Mopu to set up a school for local children. Over there, things begin to get weird for them. Sister Ruth (Aisling Franciosi), a young nun, sees the specter of a princess called Shrimati who had committed suicide in the same palace several years ago. But she isn’t the only one who experiences these bizarre happenings. Is the palace haunted?
The show leaves that ambiguous. If one is to reject the haunted hypothesis, the other explanation would be that the nuns began experiencing the effects of isolation, thin air and the cold. And these conditions manifested in different ways for each of them. So, let’s take a look at how each nun’s tale ended.
Let’s start with Sister Ruth. The poor woman began experiencing ill health ever since she got there. She would get headaches. She also started experiencing insomnia. But things escalated badly after that. Sister Ruth began hurtling towards insanity as the days passed. She got agitated with everyone. She was infatuated with Mr. Dean (Alessandro Nivola). And she was jealous of Sister Clodagh (Gemma Arterton), who she thought was also attracted to Mr. Dean. She began to think everyone hated her. Ultimately, she left the order, shed her habit, donned clothes belonging to a concubine from when the palace was a harem and went after Mr. Dean to confess her love for him.
When Mr Dean rejected her advances, she returned to the palace, but only to murder Sister Clodagh. After some struggle, she decides to end things for herself and jumps off the cliff to her death.
With Sister Philippa (Karen Bryson), things were subtler. The nun who was in charge of gardening and growing vegetables at the palace soon lost herself to the beauty of the mountain terrain. She began to dissociate. And at one point, she even replaced the vegetables with flower seeds because she was so taken by the cold, harsh, but astonishingly beautiful landscape. Before she could spiral too much, she had a brief moment of clarity, and she left to return to Darjeeling, from where they all came.
Sister Blanche (Patsy Ferran), the very young and empathetic nun who loved children got sucked into her empathy more and more with each passing day. Her love for children overwhelmed her. And when she was approached by the mother of a local woman who wanted her to cure her baby (who wasn’t eating), she gave her some sea cod oil to rub on his belly so that he would feel more comfortable. Unfortunately, whatever disease had afflicted him proved fatal. And this caused not just the villagers to reject the mission, but also for her to have a breakdown. And finally Sister Clodagh. She, it was revealed, was not a nun because she felt the divine calling. She became a nun to overcome heartbreak. And ever since she arrived at Mopu, she was constantly visited by memories of her past actions, her past desires -- all the things that led her to this place. To this life. The death of Sister Ruth and the child ultimately made her realize that they could no longer stay there.
So, the nuns left. Sister Clodagh’s final act of desire was to tell Mr Dean her real name, the one she had before she had become a woman of the cloth. She was called Catherine.
‘Black Narcissus’ premiered all three episodes on FX Monday, November 23, beginning at 8 PM ET/PT. The full series will also be available on FX on Hulu on Tuesday, 3 AM ET.