A Nearly Normal Family Ending Explained: What Happened to Stella and Who Murdered Chris
Based on the bestseller of the same name by Mattias Edvarsson, A Nearly Normal Family (original title: – En Helt Vanlig Familj) is a Swedish Netflix series that follows the Sandell, a normal family formed by the priest Adam (Björn Bengtsson), the lawyer Ulrika (Lo Kauppi) and their 19-year-old daughter Stella (Alexandra Karlsson Tyrefors). Although they have a seemingly perfect life in an elegant residential suburb on the outskirts of Lund, everything changes when Stella is arrested, and accused of the murder of Christoffer Olsen (Christian Fandango Sundgren). Her parents are willing to help her at any cost, but what is the truth? To enrich the already vast Netflix catalog, which has always given great space to thriller genre products, A Nearly Normal Family has just arrived, based on the bestseller of the same name by Mattias Edvardsson (who is also the author of the series!). A Nearly Normal Family is a well-developed and immediately extremely engaging TV series: as we explained to you in our review.
Edvardsson does not aim to shock the viewer, the final twist is rather predictable, but it drags him into the story of a family forced to face the worst of nightmares, an emotional, tragic, and, unfortunately, extremely current story. The central theme of this work is violence against women and more specifically how certain traumas can influence the existence of a person and those close to them. At the center of A Nearly Normal Family, we find the Sandell family: the life of young Stella (the splendid newcomer Alexandra Karlsson Tyrefors) is irreparably turned upside down by a sexual assault she suffered when she was only fifteen. Four years later neither she nor her parents have managed to face or overcome the trauma they suffered, the existential trajectories of the three have instead radically deviated: Stella has abandoned her studies, her mother Ulrika (Lo Kauppi) has turned to alcohol (and you have betrayals) while the father, Adam (Björn Bengtsson), has thrown himself body and soul into the Church.
A pastor of the Church of Sweden, he and a lawyer dealt with the violence suffered by their daughter in different ways, but they decided not to report the assailant, convinced that Stella would have suffered the further trauma of a trial, and he would have been acquitted in the end anyway. It is from this lack of action that the crisis in the relationship between the three depends on who when the series opens are more distant than ever. Things, however, are further turned upside down with the death of Chris (Christian Fandango Sundgren), Stella’s boyfriend. All the evidence would lead to the guilt of the girl, who was seen by a neighbor at the crime scene: this time, however, Ulrika and Adam are not willing to sit idle, they are willing to lie, cover-up, and manipulate the evidence because Stella is exonerated. But did she kill Chris? What happened that night? In this explanation of the ending of A Nearly Normal Family we will retrace the final moments of the series, extrapolating the meaning and the most interesting details.
A Nearly Normal Family Series: Story Recap
Stella’s (Alexandra Karlsson Tyrefors) story opens when she is only fifteen years old: during a school trip a coach, she has a crush on rapes her. The man is discovered, and her parents are notified, the two – Ulrika (Lo Kauppi) and Adam (Björn Bengtsson), she a lawyer and he a pastor of the Church of Sweden – despite understanding the gravity of the situation decide not to report him: as he states Ulrika, going to trial for rape would ruin their little girl’s life and he would most likely be acquitted. We can already predict the questions that would be asked to her: why didn’t she refuse with more conviction? Was she the one who kissed him first? Couldn’t she have shouted any louder?
A traumatic event of this type, however, will irreparably overturn the lives of the three, changing their course: the relationship between Adam and Ulrika will slowly deteriorate and Stella will distance herself further and further from them. The girl, now nineteen, decides not to continue her studies like her best friend Amina, saving as much as possible to travel. Her plans are upset by the arrival of Chris, a charming boy much older than her, to whom she is extremely attracted and reciprocated. It is Chris himself, a few weeks later, who is found dead in the park near his home. The evidence all points against Stella, who at the presumed time of the murder is seen by a neighbor right at the crime scene. The girl is arrested and taken to prison to await trial, but her parents, this time, are not willing to remain idle: to see her free, they will lie, delete evidence, and manipulate her situation to favor her. But what happened that night? Did Stella kill Chris?
A Nearly Normal Family Ending Explained: What Happened to Stella and Who Murdered Chris
Stella is in prison awaiting trial for the murder of Chris, while Urlika and Adam have done everything to protect her: her mother hid and then destroyed the bloody clothes that the girl was wearing on the night of the events, her cell phone and above all the dirty knife he had found; her father lied about the time she came home. The evidence against Stella, however, seems overwhelming: a print of her tennis shoes was found in the park where Chris died, where the girl claims not to have passed; her DNA was in Chris’ house and a neighbor of hers saw her at the crime scene, around the time Chris was killed. Even though in Stella’s story she claims to have gone to Chris’ house that evening, which would justify why she was seen, the prosecution is convinced of her guilt and is ready to frame her.
However, Amina’s testimony turns the situation around: the girl, who had initially kept herself silent to protect her friend, was present that evening and she knows everything that happened. Cleverly, however, she tells everything first to Ulrika who, being an expert lawyer, can predict how the situation will evolve with Amina’s testimony. Her advice, which turns out to be the right one, is not to go to the police but to wait for the trial to reveal everything. So, what does Amina say during the trial? On the evening of the murder, she was supposed to meet Stella, but before her friend could arrive, she was joined by Chris. The boy – annoyed by the fact that Stella gave priority to Amina rather than him – decides to spike his drink (from what his ex-girlfriend declared and from the medicines found by Stella in his house we know that it was a terrible habit of his) and to take her in those conditions to his home.
There he rapes her and threatens her with a knife. What she doesn’t expect is that Stella, very worried about her friend, has broken into her house: the girl hits him on the head and sprays pepper spray in her eyes. The two thus manage to escape, leaving behind a decidedly angry but undoubtedly alive Chris. This testimony from Amina completely changes the outcome of the trial, mixes up the facts, and confirms that the evidence against Stella does not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the girl committed the murder. The young woman is exonerated, and she can finally return home amid general emotion.
Who Killed Chris?
Not finding her friend at the bar and receiving a strange message, Stella desperately searches for Amina. The clues lead her to Chris’s apartment where she sees how her boyfriend abuses her friend. Remembering the trauma of her past, Stella uses pepper spray to subdue the attacker. When he chases them, she uses a knife to stab him. At the end of A Nearly Normal Family, Adam leaves the church and decides to rescue his marriage with Ulrika, while Stella fulfills her dream of traveling.
Why Did Stella Kill Chris?
But is this really what happened that fateful night? In the last minutes of the series, when we see the protagonists finally rebuild their lives (Stella is finally realizing her dream of traveling the world), through yet another flashback we discover the reality of the facts. Amina and Stella ran away from Chris’ house, this is true, but he then chased them down the street and into the nearby park, still armed with a knife. There is the boy, when he was about to reach them, tripped and the weapon fell from her hand. At that moment, blinded by anger and fear, Amina grabbed the knife and violently stabbed him several times, killing him.
Why does Stella, who would have managed to escape with Amina anyway, decide to go back and kill him? This is Stella’s way of coming to terms with her past, of taking revenge for what she had suffered from her rapist when she was only fifteen. If before she hadn’t been able to do anything, now instead she takes matters into her own hands and responds with violence, avenging her past self (for whom no one had done anything) and at the same time her best friend Amina (who also suffered a terrible abuse). It is probable, then, that Stella also decided to kill Chris because, remembering what her parents had told her immediately after his rape, that he would be acquitted, that Amina would have to suffer the trauma of a useless trial, of the scrutiny of media and the accusation of public opinion.
Is Stella Convicted?
After speaking with Amina, Ulrika vows to do whatever it takes to protect her. First, she gets rid of the evidence against her daughter, then she tries to fix things with Adam and coordinates with Mikael Blomberg to defend Stella. During the trial, the prosecution presents evidence against the young woman: a witness claims that he saw Stella that night before hearing screams in the park later on, the coroner confirms that the footprint found at the scene belonged to Stella’s shoe and a of Amina’s friends indicates that she saw Stella out of control. Amina Besic is the last witness and confesses that she saw Chris that night. She planned to meet Stella at a bar, but Chris arrived before her, drugged her, took her to her apartment, and abused her. Due to that statement and the fact that the murder weapon has not been found, the judge dismisses the case against Stella and sets her free.
