'The Third Day' Season 1 Ending Explained: Was Nathan real, did Helen and her daughters manage to escape Osea?
Spoilers for 'The Third Day' Episode 6 'Last Day - The Dark'
The long-awaited finale for the HBO limited series 'The Third Day' delivered an episode that answered pretty much all lingering questions since day 1. Drawing its 'Winter' chapter to an end was 'Last Day - The Dark', a fitting conclusion that (almost) tied all loose ends of a weird show - leaving the rest to the imagination.
The episode doesn't waste any time and gets right to it. In the previous episode, Helen (Naomie Harris) had finally met Sam (Jude Law) at Osea Island. She had been looking for him all 'Winter', enquiring with the locals under the pretext of Ellie's (Nico Parker) birthday. She even took on a fake name to not arouse the suspicions of the locals. This episode finally gives audiences that long-awaited confrontation.
This confrontation raises a lot of questions, the most important one being about their son Nathan.
Is Nathan real?
At first, Sam had arrived at Osea Island to pay tribute to his dead son Nathan. It was evident early on that he stays back owing to his grief surrounding his death. When the islanders tell him that his son Nathan is indeed alive and is living in the Big House, he stays back.
But when Helen sees him she knows he's not the same son she lost. "Nathan was taken 10 years ago. He'd be 16 now. He's not even the right color," she tries drilling into Sam's grief-stricken, delusional brain. And then we find out: "This isn't about pain and grief. You want to exonerate yourself from what you did. You lost my son. 23 minutes and 17 seconds you were on the phone with one of your flings and you forgot our son existed." Sam tells her he was ending it but that doesn't take away from the fact that he was to blame.
We also find out the real reason why Helen is at Osea Island.
Why did Helen come to Osea?
We had earlier thought that Helen was at Osea looking for her missing husband. When driving on the causeway to the island at the beginning of 'Winter', there is a brief conversation about the money troubles that Helen and her two daughters Ellie (Nico Parker) and Talulah (Charlotte Gairdner-Mihell) find themselves in.
Helen reveals now that she's really here for the money he took and fled. Sam had taken loans against their house that she cannot repay. And the money he fled with is the only way out. As it turns out, the only reason they're still married is that Sam wouldn't sign the divorce papers.
Who killed Nathan?
It is Mrs Martin (Emily Watson) who reveals to Helen shortly after her confrontation with Sam that it was actually the islanders who had taken him away. He wasn't supposed to die, but Nathan started becoming aware of his situation and wanted to flee. That's when the kidnapper killed him.
The body the family ended up burying wasn't even Nathan's, it was the son of a local who they sacrificed and then dumped him in the sea.
Did Helen leave Osea with her daughters alive?
Towards the end of the episode, The Dark takes over Sam and he jumps into action to save his family, allowing them the time and the opportunity to flee before the locals catch up. He decides to stay back on the island, probably an indication of him retiring to the warm embrace of the grief that brought him here.
But Helen can't stay here to die. She reaches the causeway but it is shut and the cars were all burnt by Jess' (Katherine Waterston) faction. So she sits her two daughters in a boat, ties it to her waist, and gets swimming into the dark, cold waters surrounding the island.
Ellie and Lulu both are scared that their mother will die from hypothermia but that doesn't keep Helen from continuing swimming till they reach land. It is here when she looks back and sees a vision of Nathan on the boat. For Helen, Nathan is now on the boat, and reaching a (safe) shore would mean that she could save her child.
In essence, 'The Third Day' is a story about grief and betrayal. Sam and Helen are both parents who are struggling with the crippling pain of losing a child and even a decade later, the lacerations of the wound remain in their hearts.
When they reach a safe house, Ellie and Lulu get to warming their mother with blankets and body heat. But Helen is clutching the last remains of her son, what she thinks is his t-shirt but what really is a polythene bag with the money. And thus, the show ends indicating that while both Sam and Helen are grieving -- and delusional at some point of this journey -- they both choose different ways to deal with it. They both make different choices with their lives and their grief. Sam stays back for his own self, safe in the bubble that the locals had created for him. While Helen flees the island with her daughters -- no hurdle big enough -- for their lives and their futures.
All episodes of 'The Third Day' are currently streaming on HBO Max.