His & Hers Season 1 Ending Explained: Who is the Real Murderer and What Happened to Anna?
His & Hers Season 1 Ending Explained: BEWARE, SPOILER ALERT. Based on the novel of the same name by Alice Feeney, “His & Hers” is a Netflix series that is set in a quiet town in northern Georgia and tells the story of reporter Anna Andrews (Tessa Thompson), who, after a year away from the cameras due to a family tragedy, she decides to recover her career as a news anchor. A macabre murder allows him to prepare the ground for his return. However, covering the case leads her to confront her husband, Detective Jack Harper (Jon Bernthal), with whom she is separated and with whom she has suspicions. Who is the real murderer? Early police reports indicate that Rachel (Jamie Tisdale) was brutally stabbed and that the killer left a colorful bracelet in her mouth. What is not revealed is that before she was murdered, Rachel slept with Jack, and that Anna witnessed the scene. Did the reporter murder her out of revenge? Anna’s behavior is suspicious, but Jack does the same by manipulating the evidence so that his affair with the victim does not come to light.
For Jack, the main suspect is Rachel’s husband, who is very interested in the police not finding the victim’s phone number and contacts Helen (Poppy Liu), the new director of St. Hilary’s girls’ institute, to hide blackmail and more information that could harm them. However, his actions to conceal his own secret lead his partner, Priya (Sunita Mani), to become suspicious of him. The story follows Anna, a journalist marked by a family tragedy, who returns to her hometown to cover a series of murders that awaken old wounds. As the investigation progresses, the story uncovers a web of abuse, silence, and lies, until it reveals that the most uncomfortable truth is not in the obvious suspects, but within their own family. The series stars Tessa Thompson (Thor: Love and Thunder) and Jon Bernthal (The Bear) and is based on Alice Feeny’s novel of the same name, where we follow Anna and Jack, a journalist and a detective who used to be married, until they separated after a family tragedy. The story of the two intersects again when a murder happens in a small town.
His & Hers Season 1 Ending Explained: Who is the Real Murderer and What Happened to Anna?
The protagonists of “His & Hers” had a happy marriage until their baby passed away. The pain of losing a daughter separated him. Jack tried to be by his wife’s side, but Anna needed time to process her loss and walked away from it all. The detective tried to locate her, but was unsuccessful. He later moved in with his sister Zoe (Marin Ireland) and niece Meg (Ellie Rose Sawyer). Discovering that Anna was near the crime scene (because she visits her daughter Charlotte’s grave), Jack becomes suspicious of his wife, who also has doubts about her husband’s involvement in the crime. After some arguments and confrontations, the couple manages to clarify their doubts and even talk about their feelings. So who is behind the murders?
Before they can call her to testify, Helen is also brutally murdered, and the police find another bracelet at the crime scene. When they investigate the clue, they discover that it was an accessory that symbolized the friendship of Rachel, Helen, Zoe, and Anna, students at St. Hilary’s. Although Anna did not come from a wealthy family like Rachel and Helen, she studied at that prestigious institution thanks to a scholarship. The friendship ended after an incident on Anna’s 16th birthday, which was also attended by Catherine Kelly, a freshman whom Rachel enjoyed bothering. What happened that terrible night? How does he relate to Lexy Jones (Rebecca Rittenhouse), the host who replaces Anna?
What is the Secret That Lexy Jones Hides?
In the first episodes of “His & Hers”, Lexy Jones is just a competitive news anchor who doesn’t want Anna to get her successful career back. When the Dahlonega, Georgia, killer case starts to become more relevant, he travels to cover the news live and get Anna out of the way. But his rivalry with the protagonist is not only professional, but they also have unfinished business. Lexy is actually Catherine Kelly, who apparently seeks revenge on the girls who bullied her at school. The police theory is confirmed when her husband, cameraman Richard Jones (Pablo Schreiber), takes Anna to Catherine’s old house so she can “bury the past”. Apparently, at Anna’s birthday party, Rachel brought men who abused Catherine, who has another secret: she caused the death of her older sister.
Realizing the situation, Anna asks Jack for help and confronts Richard and Lexy. After discovering his sister Zoe’s body and pinning Priya down, the detective runs to his wife’s aid. After calling reinforcements, Priya also arrives at Catherine’s house and stops the deranged woman from murdering the protagonists of “His & Hers”. In the end, Anna regains her career, reconciles with Jack, together they take care of Megan, and you wait for her second baby. But that’s not the whole truth.
Who is the Killer in His & Hers?
The end of the suspense series His & Hers features the same murderer who appears in the book, as she is the character least expected to be behind the murders, for having no apparent motive (although she really does). But Lexy is not the murderer, but Alice, Anna’s mother, who confesses in a letter that she has been murdering Anna’s former schoolmates, starting with Rachel, with whom Jack had a secret relationship while he was still married to Anna, and continuing with Helen and Zoe. Alice also tried to plant evidence to frame Lexy, knowing who she really was, Catherine Kelly, who was an unpopular classmate at Anna’s school, who could have revenge as a reason to eliminate all the victims (Catherine was constantly harassed by Rachel and her friends, and by her own sister, Andrea).
Lexy was not the murderer, but she also had a secret, since, after suffering constant attacks from her sister, she decided to sabotage her inhaler, which caused her death after having a respiratory crisis. This traumatic experience led her to change both her life and her appearance, to get away from that misfit teenager she was in high school. Alice is the only one who manages to recognize who she really is, at least at first. For Alice, the murders are a form of justice, since, after losing contact with her daughter (since Anna and Jack’s baby, Charlotte, died while she was caring for her), she comes to discover that Anna was sexually abused in her 16th birthday (Anna filmed everything at that time), and her own “friends” (Zoe, who was Jack’s sister, Rachel and Helen) were the masterminds of the crime, and Catherine witnessed it, but fled rather than help (although she had good reason to flee, as she was also attacked). Anna learns the truth because Alice explains everything to her in a letter, where she explains that she knew no one would suspect her (especially since she made sure to behave like a fragile person in public) and that she took advantage of that to attack. And carry out his revenge. Despite everything, Anna and Jack have a happy ending where they are together again and adopt the daughter of one of Anna’s friends (who was Alice’s victim), and Anna even has a kind of reconciliation with Alice, after understanding that she did all this for her.
Alice’s Confession: A Carefully Constructed Revenge?
Alice explains her actions through a series of letters addressed to Anna, in which she makes it clear that her motivation is not born from gratuitous hatred, but from a guilt that she has carried for years. Although Charlotte’s death was caused by sudden infant death syndrome, Alice never stopped feeling responsible. That guilt intensified when she discovered, through Anna’s recordings, that her daughter had been raped as a teenager during a party hosted by Helen, Zoe, and Rachel. For Alice, the crime was not just the abuse itself, but the subsequent silence. Seeing how these women continued with their lives, protected by their status and by a community that looked the other way, was what ended up breaking it. From there, she decided to act alone, convinced that justice would never come through legal channels.
How Alice Managed to Fool Everyone?
The key to Alice’s success was understanding perfectly how others saw her. Older black woman, domestic worker for years, with apparent symptoms of dementia: no one considered her a threat. Alice exploited all these prejudices in her favor, exaggerating her fragility and sowing doubts about her memory to move without raising suspicions. Furthermore, her past work allowed her to access places and people without being questioned. While the investigation focused on more “logical” figures like Lexy or Richard, Alice remained invisible. The series thus underlines an uncomfortable idea: the truth is not always well hidden; sometimes we simply do not want to see it.
Were the Murders Justified?
The series does not offer a closed answer, but it does make it clear that Alice acts from an understandable, although morally ambiguous, emotional logic. She does not consider herself a murderer, but rather someone who corrected an injustice that had been entrenched for decades. He seeks no pleasure or recognition; he seeks reparation. However, the story also leaves uncomfortable questions in the air. Alice directs her revenge against the women who facilitated and covered up the abuse, but not against the men who perpetrated it. That choice opens a debate about guilt, responsibility, and the extent to which anger can cloud the sense of justice.
Anna’s Decision: Truth or Survival?
After reading the confession, Anna is devastated. He finally understands many of the cracks in his past, but he also understands the price he would pay if he brought the truth to light. Her career, her family, her pregnancy, and the stability she has finally recovered would collapse if it were known that her mother is responsible for the crimes that she herself investigated as a journalist. Anna decides to shut up. Not because he approves of violence, but because he feels that his life has already been defined for too long by trauma. Keeping the secret is, for her, a way to break the cycle and protect the little she has managed to rebuild.
The Meaning of the Ending?
His & Hers close with a bitter but coherent conclusion: justice does not always coincide with the law, and truth does not always liberate. Alice obtains an intimate, non-public redemption, while Anna agrees to live on a buried truth so she can move forward. The ending does not celebrate revenge, but neither does it openly condemn it. What it raises is an uncomfortable reflection on who really pays the consequences of silence, and who decides when a wound may or may not reopen. Ultimately, His & Hers is not just about a crime, but about how maternal love, guilt, and trauma can turn an invisible person into someone capable of changing everything… even at the cost of crossing a boundary from which there is no return.
