This article contains major spoilers for the ending of Black Butterflies.
The hook of Black Butterflies is a good one – it’s about a struggling writer, Adrien, agreeing to ghostwrite the memoirs of a dying man named Albert, discovering during the story that he’s really recounting not just a love story but also the unsolved exploits of two serial killers. A lot happens across multiple time periods, so let’s do our best to unpack it all.
Black Butterflies ending explained
Albert begins his story at the time he meets Solange, though he describes his childhood in a post-war French town where he wasn’t necessarily a popular kid, to put things mildly. He met and fell for Solange quickly, and recalls an afternoon spent together at the beach that spiraled into a sexual assault and murder. Solange kills in self-defense, but Albert kills to cover up what she did.
These relatively understandable actions start a ball rolling that begins to gather momentum. In the meantime, the story opens up to incorporate Adrien’s own past, as well as the present-day investigation into the crimes of Albert and Solange, being investigated by two cops named Carrel and Launay.
The connection is Steven Powell, who as we see was a victim of Albert after he tried to force himself on Solange. Adrien doesn’t buy Albert’s first version of this story and debates whether to work on the memoir, but he’s coerced by pressure from his publisher, Julien, and his wife Nora. His efforts to complete the story reveal many more murders committed by Albert, mostly as recompense for sexual advances on Solange.
As things progress the lines between fact and fiction begin to blur and the dynamics between characters complicate. For instance, we learn more about Adrien’s own history of violence, jail time, and the origin of his ghost-writing pseudonym; he also begins to imagine himself as being involved in the murders perpetrated by Albert and Solange.
We also learn how Carrel is connected beyond in a professional capacity. In the past, after at least two abortions, Solange was seen with a baby in her arms, and she and Albert eventually abandoned that baby in a graveyard. The child grew up to be Carrel, who is able to track down Albert’s address and hold him at gunpoint but is knocked out and taken captive by him.
The appearance of Nastya is also revealed to have deep roots in Albert and Solange’s exploits. When Solange attempted to track down her father in 1980, a German soldier with whom her mother frequently corresponded, he refused to meet with her, and, as revenge, Albert killed him and his wife. The couple had a daughter who turns out to be Nastya, Solange’s step-sister.
As we later learn, after that trip to Genoa, Solange found out she was pregnant – with Adrien. She wanted to keep the child, so she burned down her salon and moved to Brussels, reinventing herself. With this connection established, Adrien suffocates Albert to death and publishes his book with the fitting title of Black Butterflies. Carell is left to die and rot in the basement, where he’s eventually found by Mathilde.
But the story doesn’t end there. As Adrien continues to investigate his own personal history, he finds evidence that it was Solange, his mother, who committed all the murders that Albert described, and he cast himself as the killer in order to take the blame. Adrien wants to add a new chapter to his manuscript describing his killing of Albert; some truth among all the lies.
With the police looking for Adrien after his signature, “Mody”, was found at the scene of Carrel’s rotting body, he eventually turns in after finishing his manuscript, when it has been revealed that Solange learned of Adrien writing the book from Nora, who had been reading it behind his back. Meeting with Albert, Solange had pushed him to lie and take the blame for the murders as a sacrifice for his son, and a final show of love between two people who promised to love only each other until the end.
You can stream Black Butterflies exclusively on Netflix. Do you have any thoughts on the ending of Black Butterflies? Let us know in the comments.
