Summary
Just when it seemed like we had all the answers, His & Hers delivers a final major twist in a brilliantly ambiguous ending.
A lot of shows have twists and turns. Some are completely contrived and difficult to predict because they don’t make any sense. But some shows have twists. The italicised version is the best kind, the kind that makes you immediately want to rewatch everything to pick up on all the clues you missed the first time. His & Hers is like that. Its finale drops a bombshell that nobody saw coming, giving the ending a final note of shock and haunting ambiguity that fits pretty perfectly with the overall tone and the earliest depictions of the characters. Episode 6 is the kind of thing that completely elevates all five outings that came before.
We’ll get to it. But there’s loads of other stuff to unpack, including the long-awaited truth about what really happened on Anna’s 16th birthday. And who Lexy is. And a few more bits besides. So, let’s get on with all that so we can promptly get to the juicy stuff.
Catherine Is Lexy After All
As the penultimate episode very strongly implied, Catherine did indeed grow up to become Lexy Jones. Anna managed to intuit this from the photos, but an opening flashback gives us a bit more murderous context. Catherine’s sister, Andrea, who was all slim and sexy – she looks very much like Lexy does now, as it happens – was as cruel to Catherine as her so-called “friends” were. So, Catherine took her opportunity. When they went out on a family boating trip, Catherine pumped her inhaler until it emptied, so that when Andrea had an asthma attack, she suffocated before she could get back to shore.
With this established, we know Anna is in pretty serious peril. In the present day, Jack calls Anna about finding Zoe dead in the bathtub, and she’s able to very briefly tell him what’s going on before she’s forced into fighting Richard and Lexy. There’s something a little slaptick-y about this scene, but it’s fun enough to see Anna and Lexy fight to a stalemate while destroying the lake house.
Let’s be clear here: The theory is that Catherine, already predisposed to murder, was raped on the night of Anna’s 16th birthday. She then went into isolation and reinvented herself, and set about taking her revenge on everyone who was complicit. Remember all this.
Priya Saves the Day
While this is going on, Jack is trying to race to the lake house to save his wife, but he’s confronted by Priya on the way out of his house. Unfortunately for him, he’s still covered in Zoe’s blood. By this point, Priya fully suspects Jack as the killer, which is understandable given all the evidence he left behind in his efforts to cover up his involvement with Rachel. She holds him at gunpoint, but Jack doesn’t have the time to explain, so he disarms her, punches her, and heads for the lake house.
Priya isn’t far behind. On the way, the sheriff calls to tell her that Duffie has revealed that Rachel and Helen were trying to blackmail Lexy about the death of her sister. The “C” they were referring to was “Catherine”. This is also why Richard slapped Rachel at the 11 Luxe apartments. She was pressuring Lexy.
Jack arrives at the lake house in the nick of time, tackling Anna out of the way of Lexy trying to shoot her. Priya also arrives and shoots Lexy in the head through the window. Anna finally tells Jack what happened on the night of her 16th, and that everyone except her, including Zoe, was complicit. The sheriff and Priya find Rachel’s nails in an empty Tic-Tac box, and the knife that was used to kill Rachel, Helen, and presumably Zoe. Though, how did Lexy get back in time? Well…
One Year Later
An epilogue contains the real bombshell. This is set a year later, with Anna back on the air and her career flourishing. She’s pregnant with Jack, and they’re both raising Meg together as a married couple. Even Alice has some home help. Jack, Anna, and Meg visit her, and she seems much happier.
And that’s when Anna opens the letter addressed to her. Throughout this montage, Anna’s snippets of narration, which have kick-started most of the episode, are played in one unbroken sequence. The narration is the letter, being read aloud. And it’s a letter from Alice, confessing that she’s the killer, and explaining both how and why she did it.
The Real Killer Is Revealed
In short, Alice blamed herself for the death of Anna and Jack’s daughter. It was cot death, totally random, but Anna sequestered herself away, and in her isolation, Alice was left to dwell. The only way she could connect with Anna was by watching her old videotapes, the ones she recorded as a teenager of her practicing being a news anchor. She would also visit Charlotte’s grave and sit there, in the hope that Anna might return.
While she was at the grave, which we know overlooked Jack and Rachel’s late-night meeting spot, she saw their liaisons. At home, she kept working her way through the tapes. Eventually, there was only one left – the footage from the night of Anna’s birthday. But the tape reveals new information. Anna intervened in Catherine’s attack, at which point the men turned on her. Catherine, believing she was complicit in the original scheme, abandoned her. Rachel, Helen, and Zoe watched while she was assaulted, singing “Happy Birthday”.
Incensed, Alice concocted her plan. She killed Rachel, then stripped off her clothes and walked home, faking her dementia. Appearances can be deceiving. After a lifetime of working for rich families like Rachel’s, she knew she would never be noticed. She’d always be overlooked. That’s how she knew to jimmy the doors of St. Hilary’s, where she killed Helen. She made everyone believe her mind was failing so she’d never be suspected, but in reality, her mind was as sharp as the knife she was using to kill her daughter’s tormentors.
Alice planted Rachel’s fingernails in Lexy’s lake house. Since she wasn’t a part of the original plan, prison seemed enough of a punishment. It was Alice who cancelled the hotel reservations, sending Anna there, knowing Jack would protect her from any harm. The letter concludes thusly:
“Killing Rachel brought you home. Killing Helen kept you here. And killing Zoe gave you the family you lost,” referring to the fact that Anna and Jack are now back together, raising Meg. When Alice sees Anna reading the letter, they make eye contact, and Anna smiles at her.
