It was, I think, pretty inevitable that The Asset wasn’t going to have a happy ending. It’s just that kind of show. Like I’ve said already, undercover work in film and TV never goes well. Episode 6, “What Was Your Name Again?”, lives up to that. It builds to a miserable climax and then delivers an even more depressing coda for good measure. Nobody comes out better off than they started, with the possible exception of the one person for whom being worse off would have constituted a victory. How’s that for irony?
There are lingering questions left unaddressed, certainly, but I don’t know if that constitutes a tease for Season 2 or a reminder that there are never any winners in this kind of thing. We’ll have to wait and see in that regard. In the meantime, though, let’s break down what happened in the finale and how the various impossible predicaments achieved something resembling a resolution.
Ashley’s Decision
Ashley still isn’t thrilled about the revelation that Tea has been working undercover for the PET, but given the impossibility of her predicament, she has no choice but to do what Folke wants. That means sitting down with the man himself and laying out everything she knows about Miran’s illicit affairs, which turns out to be pretty much everything. She helped him move and hide things plenty of times, usually cash, but any details about shipments and such were kept from her. But she does reveal that the other night, Miran came home with a lot of blood on his clothes. She has to. Folke makes it clear that as long as Miran remains free, Sofia won’t be going home.
The bloody clothing might be enough to make charges against Miran stick, but they need concrete evidence. Where are the clothes? Whose blood was on them? This is the information that Ashley needs to compel Miran to reveal, and of course, it’s Tea who has to talk her into doing it. Given how physical we have seen Miran be with her in the past, her “coming down hard” on him isn’t exactly good advice.
But Ashley does it anyway, under the guise of being concerned about Sofia’s well-being, which, to be fair, is true. She gets him to admit that he did something to the guy who killed Bambi, though he doesn’t name any names or give any more details. It hardly seems like enough. But it does, crucially, seem genuine, like he’s totally sincere about getting out of the business and not losing anyone else he loves. And Ashley buys that enough to tell Tea that she can’t do it, that he’s a good man and not a killer. Problematically for her, Miran is listening outside the room.
Miran’s Confession
Miran angrily demands to see Ashley’s phone and finds a video on it that Ashley took during her visit with Sofia earlier — the visit she was only allowed because she played ball with Folke. He puts her phone in the fridge so that the PET can’t hear, and then forces Ashley to admit that she has sold him out to the police. His devastation over the betrayal feels genuine. But it’s all for nought anyway, since Folke gets authorization to raid the house and arrest them both. All the promises Tea made to Ashley were never going to be honored.
Realising this, Tea tries to tip Ashley off, but when the SWAT team arrives, she’s sitting at the dining room table, and Miran is gone. He has attended the meeting with Tea that she tried to summon Ashley to. All he seems to be concerned about is what’s going to happen to Ashley and Sofia. Sure, he does suffocate Tea half to death with a plastic bag, but what she says seems to resonate with him. He’s going down either way. The only chance Sofia has of returning to one of her parents is if he confesses and exonerates Ashley as his accomplice. So, he calls Folke to make a deal and surrenders himself.
Miran sings like a canary. He claims that he strong-armed Ashley into working for him and controlled her through fear; anything Ashley said to incriminate herself was only because she was under duress. He tells Folke where he dumped Erik’s body, but not where the drugs are. It’s enough.
One Month Later
The Asset ends a month later. Sofia is reunited with Ashley. Folke offers Tea a job at the PET, which she turns down; not only does she not feel like she fits in, but she also doesn’t want to, which is pretty understandable. The cost is too high. She tries to apologise to Ashley, who’s now living in a pokey apartment, but she doesn’t know what to do with the apology, which is also pretty understandable. Their relationship was predicated on lies and deception.
If The Asset ended here, it would have been a dour conclusion, but Episode 6 contrives an even more painful climax for good measure. Ashley is visited by Miran’s father, who offers to “look after” her and Sofia, which is pretty indistinguishable from a threat. In the box of Sofia’s toys, Ashley finds a red teddy bear, and hidden inside it, a key to a storage locker.
While she investigates that, Yasin tries to talk Tea into accepting Folke’s job offer. When they pull up at a junction, men on motorcycles open fire on the vehicle, grievously wounding Tea. When she wakes up in the hospital, Folke is there, looking earnestly concerned for the first time. He promises that they’ll find who was responsible — one of Miran’s business partners, his father, someone else? — but doesn’t seem especially sure. Elsewhere, Ashley opens the storage locker and finds all the drugs that Miran hid from the police. Looks like she’s taking over the family business.
