'Stateless' Episode 5: What prompts Clare to finally switch sides and out Barton for detaining Sofie?
Spoilers for 'Stateless' Episode 5
In the final moments of 'Stateless', we see the newly appointed general manager of Barton Detention Center, Clare (Asher Keddie) finally change sides and willingly give Sofie Werner's (Yvonne Strahovski) story to the same reporters she was struggling to get rid of for ambushing the facility. The turnover doesn't come easy as Clare goes through the utmost before she can change sides.
Two developments impact Clare's judgment on who's in the right and who's wrong actively. Firstly it is Ameer's (Fayssal Bazzi) plight with seeking a protection visa. Scammed by a people smuggler, Ameer had to steal his own money back to ensure he and his wife and two daughters can sail across to Australia for a better life Down Under. His plan doesn't succeed as he gets attacked by the smuggler's men and is stopped from traveling with his family. Beaten up and left to die, Ameer finally manages to sail to Australia with the stolen money but upon arriving at Barton, he finds out via a family reunion that only his 12-year-old daughter Mina survived sailing over. His wife Najeeba and their younger daughter Sadiqa drowned.
When interrogations for visas come around, Ameer's story doesn't add up. This propels the authorities to dig through his past and a video of him translating the smuggler's English for other people waiting to be sailed convinces Barton authorities that he worked for the smugglers too. Meanwhile, the trauma of watching her mother and sister die gets too much for Mina and she begins self-harming.
When Ameer finds out, he rushes her to medical care and Mina is admitted to suicide watch. This takes an emotional toll on Clare and she finally begins to see things for what they are. At one point Ameer bursts out mid-interrogation and asks why they need to dig dirt on him, why can't they see he is a teacher and a father ensuring the best for his child — and this hits Clare hard enough to send her right into the arms of the very reporter she was trying to hide Barton's functioning from.
When Ameer faces the risk of being either deported if he pleads guilty or indefinitely detained if he pleads not guilty, he chooses to detach Mina from himself. He builds a story about how he had met Najeeba and her two daughters on the way and pretended to become the family's patriarch to protect them. Thus, Mina isn't associated with him and can still get a protection visa for Australia no matter what is Ameer's consequences. Looking at what this father was ready to sacrifice for just to give his daughter a better life convinces Clare further that maybe the people she's working for aren't in the right.
So when she finds out Sofie is actually an Australian citizen they had wrongfully detained thinking she's a foreign spy, Clare contacts the reporter Meaks first, telling him she has a story for him. She manages to transport Sofie to a psychiatric facility first but then gives a statement to the press where Meaks asks her whether rumors about the Australian woman detained at Barton are true. Clare admits to it all and also proudly brags about having situations under control. With a faint smirk, she then walks back inside, having aided both Sofie, Mina and Ameer while also toppling Barton's credibility at the same time with no harm to her career.
'Stateless' is now available for streaming on Netflix.