The Burning Girls Ending Explained: Who Killed Reverend Fletcher? Are Merrie and Joy Dead or Alive?
The Burning Girls, based on CJ Tudor’s novel that draws inspiration from true events, takes us to the Sussex village of Chapelcroft, where a new Reverend arrives following the mysterious death of her predecessor. Jack Brooks was not what anyone would imagine a reverend to be. She was progressive and not blinded by her faith. Brooks always felt that she was called by a higher force to fulfill a specific purpose, and slowly, we realized that she was right. So let’s find out what was going on in Chapelcroft and what role our protagonist, Jack Brooks, has to play in it.
The show, divided into six episodes and available on Paramount+, revolves around the figure of Jack Brooks, a woman with a dark past behind her as well as the new spiritual guide of the English village of Chapel Croft after the suicide of her reverend, who moved to the village to start a new life. Soon, however, our protagonist will realize that Chapel Croft is not the peaceful place it might seem. As we will see in our review of The Burning Girls, the miniseries created by Hans Rosenfeldt certainly does not shine for originality, recalling all the classic tropes of the genre; despite this, it still manages to create a disturbing atmosphere full of mystery, while exploring the real theme around which the show revolves, that is, being a woman within a retrograde and traditionalist context.
The Burning Girls: The Story Plot
After the suicide of Reverend Fletcher, it is up to Jack Brooks (Samantha Morton) to take his place as the spiritual guide of Chapel Croft, a small village in the English countryside of Sussex, where he moves with his teenage daughter Flo (Ruby Stokes). The faithful of the town do not know, however, that the new reverend brings with her a heavy baggage: the death of her husband and an accident that occurred in her previous parish pushed the woman to accept the new job far from Nottingham, hoping to be able to start over in a quiet place. But Chapel Croft also has a dark history behind it: thirty years earlier two rebellious students disappeared into thin air without leaving a trace while, in the local church, it seems that the ghosts of two little girls engulfed in flames, burned, often appear. burned at the stake as witches in 1556. Jack Brooks will therefore have to navigate his difficult past, the rather suspicious welcome of the locals, and the sinister apparitions that haunt the town.
The Burning Girls Ending Explained: Why Was Jack Sent to Chapelcroft?
At the beginning of The Burning Girls, Jack Brooks had no idea that she was being sent to Chapelcroft because the reverend before her had committed suicide. Reverend Fletcher hanged himself inside the chapel, and people believed that it was because of evil spirits that he met such a fate. The town had a tragic history in which, in 1556, two girls named Abigail and Maggie Carfer were burned alive. Thirty years ago, something similar happened in the same city. Two 15-year-old girls, Joy Harris and Merrie Joanne Lane, disappeared without a trace. People said they had fled together, but there was no solid evidence to corroborate this theory conveniently accepted by the city’s residents. Fletcher was one of the skeptics who believed that the townspeople were hiding something, and he became so obsessed with finding out the truth that he began his investigation and made many discoveries.
In addition to Reverend Fletcher’s suicide, something had happened to Jack in Nottingham that forced her to move and go to a new place where no one knew her. A girl named Ruby was murdered in her church, and the media and society blamed Jack for not informing the authorities that she was in danger. Ruby used to live with her aunt, and whenever she went to church, Jack noticed that she had bruises on her body. Jack realized that the little girl was being abused by her aunt and informed social services about it.
The aunt always made excuses, and the social services staff also didn’t investigate the matter further. Jack wanted to confront Ruby’s aunt, but she threatened her, saying that she would report in the media that the reverend was a religious homophobe and was defaming her just because she was homosexual. Jack knew that the church’s image was very bad when it came to such matters, so he left it alone, and that was probably the biggest mistake he made. When the media and people blamed Jack for Ruby’s death, she didn’t defend herself, as she also felt that she was to blame, and if she hadn’t been scared of her image, the little girl would still be alive.
What Was Simon Harper Hiding?
The Harper family was one of the most influential in the city, and Jack got off on the wrong foot with them, unintentionally. Poppy Harper, Simon Harper’s daughter, arrived at the chapel just as Jack had just arrived with his daughter, Flo. Poppy was covered in blood, and Flo was scared to see her. Simon arrived on the scene and asked Jack to step aside. He told her that Poppy had accidentally entered the slaughterhouse, which is why she was covered in blood. Simon was extremely rude in the way he acted, and Jack didn’t like his arrogance. Jack was immediately told by Reverend Rushton not to mess with the Harper family, as they were one of the church’s main benefactors and did a lot for the parish. Furthermore, Simon Harper’s ancestors, James Oswald Harper, Andrew John Harper, and Lucinda Harper, were those who were martyred in 1556 along with the two girls, Abigail and Maggie, which gave Simon and his family almost royal status.
We find out early in The Burning Girls that Simon Harper was hiding something and that he wasn’t as noble and generous as he seemed. Simon was very domineering and always had everything his way. He mentally and physically abused his wife, Fiona, and ignored what his daughter, Rosie, was doing. Flo and Jack suffered horrible hallucinations in which they saw the two girls who were burned to death in the past. One day, Flo saw such an apparition and entered the chapel to find out what it was. Flo saw the girl burning before her eyes, and her leg got stuck in the floor, which gave way, revealing a secret room hidden below. Jack entered it because he had a very strong intuition that the girl’s appearance was trying to tell him something.
Jack’s intuition was right, and she found the graves of Simon’s ancestors hidden in that room. Jack realized that Simon’s ancestors were never martyrs and took money from the authorities and betrayed Abigail and Maggie, because of which they were caught. James Oswald Harper purchased the land Simon currently lived on using the same money. Simon threatened Jack that he would destroy her life if she told anyone, but he knew he couldn’t stop Jack, and in front of the entire congregation, he said he had no idea that his ancestors were traitors before Jack could even say anything against it. he. Simon thought he could do better than everyone, but he was wrong, as many things were out of his control, and it was only a matter of time before he found himself in trouble.
Who Killed Reverend Fletcher?
Flo had become close to a boy named Lucas Wrigley, who suffered from a neurological condition that resembled Tourette’s syndrome, in which his neck would repeatedly shake. Jack was always suspicious of Lucas and felt that whenever he was around, something bad happened to Flo. Once her leg got stuck in the chapel floor, and the next time she was bullied and harassed by Rosie and her cousin. In episode 5 of The Burning Girls, we discovered that Lucas and Rosie were lovers and were purposely targeting the Brooks family because they didn’t want Jack to meddle in Simon’s affairs. Simon had previously murdered his aunt, Saffron Winter, who was a famous writer, and later, together with Rosie, he had also killed Reverend Fletcher.
Reverend Fletcher was obsessed with the mystery of the missing girls and began seeing Saffron frequently since she had written a non-fiction novel called The Cursed Village, for which she had done a lot of research into the town’s history. Lucas probably didn’t like Reverend Fletcher coming between him and his aunt, and besides, the man also discovered that Simon’s ancestors weren’t martyrs. Rosie and Lucas made it look like a suicide and then killed the reverend. They wanted to have Jack suffer a similar fate once she found out that Saffron had been murdered and that it was Wrigley who was behind it. Rosie and Wrigley brought Jack and Flo to the chapel, but Jack managed to do better than them. She stabbed Wrigley, and then with the help of the tramp (who we later found out was her brother), she escaped from there, and Wrigley was burned to death inside the church.
Simon would have given his daughter an alibi again, but this time his wife, Fiona, made a statement that made it difficult for the authorities to let her leave. Fiona knew that Rosie suffered from some mental illness and that she had intentionally killed Mike’s daughter. Authorities reopened Mike’s daughter’s case as they concluded that it was not an accident. Mike was also relieved as he got closure and felt like his daughter could now rest in peace. Simon was still defending his daughter, but we hope that eventually, he realizes that he wasn’t helping her cause and that she needed psychiatric help before things got out of hand.
What Did Benjamin Grady Do?
The city had a history of demonizing women whenever they felt they were nonconforming. It was the easiest way to make them fit in and tell them that in a patriarchal society, they did not have the freedom to express their concerns or opinions. They were mere puppets who had to act according to the whims of their male counterparts. But Merrie Joanne Lane was one of those girls who did not allow herself to be subjugated by society’s prejudices. She was a nightmare for conservatives, and even her mother believed she was possessed by evil spirits. Merrie was very close to a girl named Joy, and together, they planned that one day they would escape this God-cursed city. But things changed when Joy fell in love with a curate named Benjamin Grady. Benjamin had a sexual relationship with Joy and told her that one day they would live together. But Benjamin was scared when he learned that Joy was pregnant and threatened her to never tell anyone, or he would ruin her life.
Joy went to Merrie and told her everything. Merrie reassured her that they would figure out a way to abort the pregnancy. The girls had planned to meet up the next night and leave town. Around this time in The Burning Girls, Merrie’s mother had asked Benjamin Grady to come to her house and perform an exorcism on Merrie, as she believed there were evil spirits inside her. Benjamin Grady was a pervert of the highest order, and he used to rape and harm Merrie in every session. When Joy was waiting for her friend outside her house, Merrie was lying in her room facing all the torments. That day, Merrie’s brother Jacob simply could no longer bear the pain of seeing his sister in such a state. He stabbed Benjamin Grady, and then Merrie made sure he died.
Merrie went to get Joy, but she was nowhere to be found. She returned to her home and saw that Reverend Marsh, Guardian Aaron’s father, who was the official head of the chapel at that time, had come to her house to dispose of Benjamin Grady’s body. The body was kept in the same crypt where Simon had hidden his ancestors’ coffins. Earlier, in The Burning Girls, when Jack found the secret crypt, she realized that Grady’s body was also there, but was unable to establish how it got there. So, no one knew what happened to Joy and Merrie after that fateful day – whether they were alive or dead. But one thing that had been established was that the church tried to hide the sins of its clergy from the world.
Are Merrie and Joy Dead or Alive?
By the 5th episode, although we had an idea of how Joy and Merrie had been abused by Grady, we still had no idea where they were or what had happened to them. But Jack knew what he was doing and, after getting the bones of an elderly woman from the well near Merrie’s house where Lucas had fallen, she was able to connect the dots. The biggest reveal in The Burning Girls is when we discover that Jack is Merrie Joanne Lane, who somehow managed to escape the town and became a pastor. That young man we saw being released from prison and killing the reverend in Nottingham was Merrie’s brother, Jacob. It seemed at first he wanted to hurt Jack, but we realized he just wanted to protect her. Merrie, also known as Jack, was unable to take Jacob with her and always had this regret because she knew he would go through torture at the hands of his mother. Jacob had killed his mother and then killed Jack’s husband because he abused her. Now, he had returned to his hometown and saved his sister’s life once again.
But killing someone at such a young age hurt little Jacob’s subconscious mind, and after that fateful night, he was never the same. It was the damage Benjamin Grady caused, and Jack hoped he would never find peace and grieve even after he died. Jack realized that Reverend Marsh didn’t know how to drive, and that day when he was carrying Grady’s body out of his house, it was someone else who had driven him to the chapel. She went to him and asked if the person who had helped him was who she thought he was, and she cursed him to rot in hell. Reverend Rushton’s wife, Clara, was obsessed with Benjamin Grady, as were many other girls at that time. She didn’t like that Joy spent time with him and that he treated her badly.
So, the last straw in the series of misfortunes was when Clara killed Joy while she was waiting for Merrie to come get her to take her to town for an abortion. At the end of The Burning Girls, Jack finally confronts Clara and tells her how wrong she was to think Benjamin Grady was the man of her life. She told him how he used to molest her, and even after hearing this, Clara couldn’t believe it. Joy’s mother, who had waited all these years for her daughter to return, was told that she had died 30 years ago. Clara also attended the funeral, and although she seemed fine, we don’t know how anyone can absolve themselves of the guilt of taking an innocent person’s life. Jack decided to retire as she felt she had enough, and now, whatever time she had left, she wanted to spend it with her daughter. They left for Australia together, away from all the madness, probably to settle down there. We hope they have a happy life and can overcome the trauma of their past lives.
Is The Burning Girl Based on a True Story?
The backdrop of The Burning Girls is inspired by a real incident that occurred in East Sussex in 1556 when a group of 17 Protestants was burned alive. Each year, their deaths were commemorated, and they were given martyr status. In the series, we see that Abigail and Maggie were martyred similarly, and the society used to hold annual commemoration ceremonies where they would come and burn effigies to honor the dead. The series is based on these historical events and weaves a fictional narrative around them, in which the main agenda is to show how easy it is to demonize women, question their character, and subject them to cruelty under the guise of religion.
In The Burning Girls, as well as in our society, it is a practice that has been used for centuries to restrict women’s freedom. It was easy for society to label Merrie as a corrupt element, but no one saw what Benjamin Grady was doing to the girls. Even after her crimes came to light, the church did everything possible to save her image and hid the fact from the general public for almost three decades. We are not saying anywhere that faith in the institution is wrong, but turning a blind eye to atrocities and hypocrisy is not justified.
