What is the price of freedom? It’s a hefty toll for most, and a fortune for some. The ending of Lady in the Lake finds both Maddie and Cleo pursuing their versions of freedom; her career and name as a writer, in the case of the former, and a safe life with her children for the latter. Episode 7, “My Story”, closes the book on these two intertwining tales of personal emancipation, but it wouldn’t quite be accurate to say that the outcome is a happy one.
Cleo and Dora’s Lives Are Intertwined
“My Story” begins with an extended flashback following younger versions of Cleo and Dora sneaking into Shell’s club. The sequence is notable for a couple of reasons — it’s the first time Cleo meets Slappy, and the moment she got roped into doing Shell’s books — but one most of it all. It highlights how tightly entwined Cleo and Dora’s lives are.
Back then, they were a musical double-act called the Jaybirds. They snuck into Shell’s club to compete in the talent show but were only allowed to enter if Cleo followed in her father’s footsteps and handled Shell’s financials. When it came time to take the stage, Cleo backed out, leaving Dora to steal the show alone. As we see, this is not the last time that Dora takes a hit for Cleo’s protection.
When we cut back to the present day, Dora is dead. The drugs finally got her. Cleo, in her tell-tale baby-blue coat, and Reggie, who was instructed to assassinate Cleo back in Episode 4, are at a loss. It’s not quite clear whose idea it is to dress Dora up as Cleo and fake the latter’s death so she can escape with her winnings from the numbers game. Either way, though, both agree.
Cleo Is Alive
Picking up from the end of Lady in the Lake Episode 6, Cleo explains her miraculous survival to a still bedbound Maggie. She tells her what happened to Dora, and cautions her that continuing to investigate her death will ultimately be what kills her.
Even in her compromised state, you can see Maddie’s eyes light up at the prospect of a story this big. So does Cleo, who is banking on her ambition. If Maddie agrees to stop reporting on Cleo’s death, Cleo will give her definitive proof that Shell Gordon ordered the assassination of Myrtle Summer. She can make front-page news and be the reporter she always dreamed of being.
The fact Maddie would even consider risking the life of an innocent woman for the sake of a byline doesn’t speak highly of her. But it isn’t like the rest of the show has painted Maddie in a particularly favorable light either.
Times Are Changing
While Maddie was in hospital, the Black community fought back against the National States’ Rights Party protestors, leaving the neighborhood in disarray but proving something of a point. There’s a glimmer of resistance in the historically ostracised communities that have been systemically tormented by white supremacist organizations like the NSRP.
Ferdie is somewhat emboldened by this. He once again confesses his feelings for Maddie, citing a couple in Virginia’s Supreme Court success — he’s talking about Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving, whose union led to interracial marriage being made legal in the U.S. — as evidence that they can be together. But Maddie once again errs on the side of Maddie. After all, how can she think about her romantic future when she has such a big story to write?
True to form, Maddie strongarms her way to a new desk at the paper and insists on two front pages with her own byline — one about Tessie Durst’s murder, and the other about Cleo Johnson. She immediately goes to see Slappy and tells him that Cleo is alive in an effort to have him speak on the record, but Slappy, knowing Cleo as well as he does, knows that if she faked her death it was for the good of their boys. So, he refuses to talk, and Maddie is visibly agog that someone would be selfless enough to rot in prison for a crime that never happened out of devotion to someone they love.
Lady in the Lake | Image via Apple TV+
The Heist
Cleo’s plan is contingent on making sure it can be proved that Shell paid someone to make an attempt on the life of Myrtle Summers. So, she and Reggie devise a plan. Using Teddy to run interference, Cleo dresses as a man to sneak into the Gordian Hotel and doctor one of Shell’s ledgers, adding a tidy sum for services rendered on the appropriate date. She pays off Vernon to keep quiet, and burns the rest of the accounts, taking half of the hotel with them.
Reggie, though, stays behind and keeps Shell held at gunpoint so the police have time to arrest Cleo Johnson’s killer and Myrtle Summers’s would-be assassin in one swoop. Dora’s death eroded whatever loyalty Reggie might have had to Shell. When the police pick him up, he talks. He’s willing to take the blame for Cleo’s death to atone for all the sins he committed in Shell Gordon’s name.
Maddie And Cleo Get What They Want — But Both Pay A Price
Maddie meets with Cleo by the lake. She gets the evidence that’ll take down Shell and preserve the illusion of Cleo’s death. She gets her story. She gets a new apartment, outside of the ropey neighborhood that Seth said earlier she didn’t belong in, and she gets to choose herself.
But this isn’t an uplifting conclusion to her arc. She leaves behind Judith and Cedric, who had both been kind to her for nothing substantive in return, and she leaves behind Ferdie, not even comprehending the insult of suggesting he occasionally pop over to her new place as a booty call after he lost his entire career for her.
Cleo leaves Baltimore on a boat with her children. Shell is arrested and the state takes over the numbers game. Slappy is released from prison and sits down in a Parisian cabaret club to watch “Dora Carter” take to the stage.
Maddie turns Cleo’s story into a bestseller. It’s called Lady in the Lake.
