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This article contains discussion of sexual assault.
Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Netflix’s His & Hers.The identity and motives of the killer in Netflix’s His & Hers is explained by showrunner and director William Oldroyd. The miniseries based on Alice Feeney’s novel sees Detective Jack Harper (Jon Bernthal) and reporter Anna Andrews (Tessa Thompson) as an estranged couple who are highly suspicious of each other as they investigate a murder in Dahlonega, Georgia.
While the final episode seemingly confirms that Anna’s reporter rival, Lexy Jones (Rebecca Rittenhouse), is the killer, due to the trauma she experienced when she was a teenager known as Catherine Kelly (Astrid Rotenberry). However, His & Her‘s ending shockingly reveals in the final moments that Anna’s mother, Alice (Crystal Fox), who has been seemingly having memory problems, is actually the one who committed the murders.
In an interview with Variety, Oldroyd explains that Alice’s motives are rooted in an important change made during Anna’s 16th birthday party. The show has things end differently with Catherine running away instead of Anna, who is sexually assaulted. Seeing footage of this years later and discovering what happened to her daughter convinces Alice to frame Catherine/Lexy for abandoning Anna and to kill Rachel Hopkins (Jamie Tisdale), Helen Wang (Poppy Liu), and Zoe Harper (Marin Ireland) who created the situation. Check out Oldroyd’s comments below:
We needed Alice to have a motive for killing these women. It felt stronger that she saw Catherine running away from the scene. The motive for Catherine, if she was to be the killer, was that she was lured there by Anna. She escaped. In running away, an act of cowardice on one hand, I understand why she would run away. She was scared to death. That act of cowardice is enough for Alice to decide to pin all these murders on Catherine.
She’s going to kill Rachel, the ringleader. She’s going to kill Helen, who was second in command. She’s going to kill Zoe, who was equally a part of this rape. Catherine runs. She is a victim too, but she runs away. Alice is going to kill these three women, and then she’s going to pin it on Catherine. That’s her plan. It gets out of control in the final scene, but that felt like a clearer way of providing a motive for Alice.
The revelation that Alice is the killer comes through a letter that Anna reads. The letter contains dialogue matching Anna’s narration earlier in the series, but the narration switches to Alice, and that she has been the mastermind the entire time. Oldroyd clarifies why a letter, which is different from the book, is used for the reveal and how it ties into the miniseries’ overarching themes:
When we were breaking the script down, Bill [Dubuque] was clear that this should conclude by the midpoint of the final episode, and the very last 15 minutes should be the reveal. We find out there is a letter, and the letter has been what we’ve been hearing as a voice-over throughout the series. It’s not Anna’s voice, it’s Alice’s.
The reason she’s done all this is because of the love that she has for her daughter. In order to preserve and clarify that, we needed to strip away as much as we could out of the catastrophe of the showdown that was in the book, and present that as «I did this because I love you.»
It’s important that Anna gets to hear this information as she’s about to become a mother again. Her mother says, “I want you to understand what a mother’s love is.” I like the way in which we are led into each episode with a voiceover, which we believe is the killer’s, which is Anna’s. Then, when we come to the final episode, we hear it all again and start to think, “Oh, my God, Anna did it. She was the killer all along.” Then, we can twist it and show the voice — it’s not her voice. It’s her reading a letter.
As noted in many reviews for His & Hers, while it’s a mystery crime thriller, it’s also an emotional exploration of grief, trauma, and what it means to be a parent. All of these elements culminate with Alice’s actions, who kills out of love for her daughter.
This being the answer to the central mystery could have been surprising and satisfying on its own, but it is further enriched and complicated by Alice sharing the information because Anna is now a mother raising a child with Jack.
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After instantly topping Netflix’s streaming charts, and with a solid 75% score from critics and 77% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, the changes made to the source material, Bernthal and Thompson’s performances, and the final reveal in His & Hers appear to be paying off.
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